07/10/20 07/10/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, ththis is democracy now! the president is not about the law. the supreme court has rejected trump's claim of absolute immunity under law. we will speak with pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter david cay johnston. then on the far end of the trail of tears was a promise. that is the opening line of the supreme court decision that delivers a major victory for indigenous sovereignty by ruling

half of oklahoma remains native american land. it was written by trump appointee justice neil gorsuch. we will get response from attorney sarah deer, a citizen of the muscogee creek nation of oklahoma. author of "the beginning and and of race: confronting sexual violence in native america." but first from after months of downplaying the severity of covid-19, brazil's far-right president jair bolsonaro, a trump ally, tests positive. >> here i am takingng that their doses of hydroxychloroquine. i feel very well. amy: bolsonaro took off his mask when he announced the news. now several reporters are in quarantine and are suing the president.t. we'll go to brazil, the world's second hardest hit couountry afr the united states, to speak with

leading brazilian epidemiologist cesar victora. all that and more, coming upup. welcomome to democracy nowow!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report.. i'm amy goodman.n. in a pair of 7-2-2 rulings, the suprememe court has rejecteded presidident trump's claim of absolute immunity under the law. the court ruled a manhattan grand jury could have access to the president's tax returns, but it remains unlikely any of trump's tax records will be seen before the election. chief johnes, roberts, brett kavanaugh, and neil gorsuch sided with the liberal justices. roberts wrote -- "in our system, the public has a right to every man's evidence since the founding of the republic, every man has included the president of the united states." in a separate decision, the court affirmed that congress can subpoena records from a president but ordered a lower court to reconsider the

significant separation of powers concerns before such subpoenas are approved. trump lashed out at the cocour's rulings. a certainp: so from point i'm satisfied. from another point, i'm not satisfied. frankly, this isis a pololitical witchhunt come the likes of which no one has seen before. it is a pure witchhunt, a hoax. amy:y: in a major victorory for indigenous sovereignty, thee susupreme cocourt ruled thursday that about half of oklahoma remains native american land, recognizing a 19th century u.s. treaty with the muscogee nation. conservative justice neil gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. the muscogee creek nation welcomed the ruling, issuing a statement saying -- "the supreme court today kept the united states' sacred promise to the muscogee nation of a protected reservation. today's decision will allow the nation to honor our ancestors by maintaining our established sovereignty and territorial boundaries."

we will have more e on the r rug later in the program. the unitited stetes recordeded r 65,000 new coronavirus cases on thursday, the highest daily figure since the pandemic began. at least six states set single-day case records -- alama, idaho, missouri, momontan orerego and t tas. hospitalizationsrere surng acss m mucof theheountry. floridaintensivcare units are repoeded to at capaty in over h hospils. in missiippi, thstate's s five largest hospititals ve a allun out of icu bs.s. in corpus riristi,exasas, officialhahave aed f femfor aa portab m morgudue e to surgege in covid dthths. and new outbreaks are being reporteded across the country. in missoururi, a popular summer camp was shut down after 82 campers and staff tested positive for the virus. in kentucky, governor andy beshear has ordered all residents to begin wearing masks

in public citing a "explosion" of cases. on thursday, the top u.s. infectious disease scientist, dr. anthony fauci, said states with major outbreaks should seriously look at shutting down again. new statistics show covid cases in florida have increased more than tenfold since the state reopened in early may. in arizona, cases have soared by over 800% after reopening. meanwhile, president trump continues to downplay the severity of the crisis by saying the spike in confirmed cases is because "our testing is much bigger and better" than other countries. on thursday, german chancellor angela merkel appeared to indirectly criticize trump's handling of the pandemic. during a speech at the european parliament, merkel said -- "the limits of populism and denial of basic truth are being laid bare." in other international news,

india, south africa, and mexico all reported setting new daily infection records on thursday. india is approaching 800,000 confirmed cases, the world's third highest total behind the united states and brazil. in latin america, several top bolivian officials have tested popositive, including the interm president jeanine anez and bolivia's health minister. in venezuela, the second most powerful figure in the country, socialist party leader diosdado cabello, has tested positive. meanwhile, in syria, a doctor in idlib has contracted the virus , raising f fears the pandemic could spread to refugee camps in northwest syria. in ecoconomic news, another 1.3 million people have filed for unemployment aid, brging t t tototal 48 8 miion overhe past6 weeks. this com as repuican wmakers e refusi to extend a program that has given unemployed workers an extra $600 in weekly jobless benefits. the prprogram ends laterer this

month, and housing advocates fear it could lead to a surge in evictions. the covid-19 eviction defense project has estimated 20 million renters are at risk of eviction by the end of september. in a major campaign speech , democratic presidential candidate and former vice president joe biden laid out a $700 billion economic recovery plan focused on increasing federal spending on u.s.-made products and technology. he dubbed the plan "buy american." the proposal has been compared to senator elizabeth warren's campaign call to invest $1.5 trillion in federal spending on u.s.-made clean energy products biden spoke in penennsylvania. >> donald trump may believe pitting americans against americans will benefit him. i don't. we hava health crisis, an economic crisis, a racial ststice isisis, climatat crisis we need come togher to

solve the crises, dissolve them as amemericans. this is ouoment to imagine and to build a new american economy for our families and for our communities. amy: meanwhile, a task force made up of allies of joe biden and former presidential candidate bernie sanders have released policy recommendations that will be used to draft the democratic party's new platform. the task force endorsed free pre-k, tuition-free public college for most families, student loan forgiveness, carbon-free power by 2035, the end of private prisons, and the end of cash bail. the report did not endorse two key planks ofof sandeders' caman -- medicare-for-all l and a gren nenew deal. in missouri, policice have brokn up a protestst encampment on the steps of st. louis city hall. protesters had been camping out

since wednesday, demanding the resignation of the city's mayor who has faced criticism for publicly reading out loud the names and addresses of protesters called for the police to be defunded during a recent liveve video b briefing.g. in washington state, a veto-proof majority of the seattle city council has backed a proposal to slash the seattle polilice department's budget by 50%. seattle's mayor and police chief have opposed the move e to defud the e police. utah has declared a state of emergency following a night of protests in salt lake cityty. on thuhursday, thehe salt lake county district attorney announced no officers would be charged in the killing of bernardo palacios carbajal, a 22-year-old man who was shot at more than 30 times as he fled police in may. on thursday, protesters splashed red paint on the da's office and splattered red paint on the street outside. the man's family now plans to sue the city. ththe intercept is repeporting a controversial artificial intelligencece startupup with ts

to twitter hasas been helping police agencies digitally monitor ththe recent black lives matter protests. the company dataminr, which has received funding from the cia, reportedly surveilled dozens of protests by tracking social media posts and then converting the information into police intelligence p packages. here in new york, ththcity has painted the words "black lives matter" in large, bright yellow letters just outside trurump tor on fifth avenue. mayor bill de blasio took part in the painting. anthony beckford of black lives matter brooklyn supported the city's move. >> when people look at this, -- we arebelieve letting them understand we will be at the doorstep of hate and get rid of the ideology of white supremacy and racacism.

amy: newly released data from the small businessss association show at least eight hate groupu, including anti-immmmigrant and antiti-lgbt organizations, have received loaoans under the paycheck prorotection n program. one recipient was the center for immigration studies. the southern poverty law center has labeled the center a hate group in part because it has circulated the writings of white nationalists and anti-semitic writers on at least 2000 occasions in recent years. the center for immigration studies received up to a million dollars under the ppp program. this comes as many small black and latinx business owners say they were shut out of the loan prograram. the chair of the joint chiefs of staff general mamark milley broe with president trump thursday and signaled support for changing the names of u.s. military bases named after confederate generals. milley told the house armed services committee that there is no place in the armed forces for "symbols of racism." >> we have to take a hard look at the symbols, things like

confederate flags in statues and bases and all that kind of stuff. the confederacy, the american civil war was fought and he was an act of rebellion, an act of treason at the time against the union, against the stars & stripes, against the u.s. constitution. those officers turn their back on their oath. amy: at least 10 u.s. bases are named after confederate generals, including fort benning, fort bragg, and fort hood. at the same hearing, general milley said the pentagon has not corroborated reports that russia has paid bounties to the taliban to kill u.s. troops in afghanistan or that any u.s. service members have died due to the alleged russia program. >> i went to get to specifically the bounties, specifically to the bounties. that is a unique, discrete e pie of information that is not corroborateded. amamy:he mayor of seoul, south korea, has been found dead in an apparent suicide just days after

a sexual harassment complaint was filed against him by a member of his staff. mayor park won-soon was one of the most powerful politicians in south korea and was considered a possible future presidential candidate. in immigration news, i immigratn and customs enforcement reportedly plalans to launch a six-week so-called citizens academy class in chicago, where the agency plans to teach attendanants defensive tactics d firearms familiarization to arrest undocumented people. immigrant rights advocates are sounding the alarm on the initiative, which ice hopes to pand natatnwide. executive director of the detention watch network said -- "ice is recruiting an army of 'citizens' to fuel its propaganda machine and forge hatred in our communities. the outcome of this program will be more terror unleashed uponn immigrant cocommunities anand pe of color." reports the trump has told a f federal j judge immigrt

families should not be released from the custody of immigration and customs enforcement, prompting fears that immigrant children could potentially be separated from their parents once again. the court filing comes over a week after a federal judge ordered ice to free children in their custody by mid-j-july dueo concerns over rising coronavirus infections. that ruling stems from a march lawsuit demanding ice release all families held at three detention centers in texas and pennsylvania. immigrant t rights advocates fea the move by the trump administration could force immigrant parents to choose between separating from their children or exposing them to covid-19. and the los angeles county sheriff's department has ruled that suicide was t the cause of death for a 24-year-r-old black man fofound hanging frfrom a trn the city upon dow, california. robert fuller's body was found on june 10. the fbi had launched a probe into fuller's death after his family questioned the initial ruling that he had killed himself. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy nonow!,

democracacynow.orgrg, the quarae report. i'm amy goodman. we begin today's show in brazil, where coronavirus are soaring. more than 1.7 million people have tested positive, and nearly 70,000 have died. brazil is the second-hardest-hit nation in the world after the united states. on tuesday, far-right president, jair bolsonaro, announced he had tested positive for covid-19 after months of downplaying the severity of the pandemic. he recently developed a high fever and a cough, and said he is taking hydroxychloroquine, even though it has been proven ineffective against covid-19. and in some cases, deadly. >> here i am taking the third doses of hydroxychloroquine. i feel very well. there are other things that can help a coronavirus. it is working for me.

amy: as president bolsonaro announced he had tested positive, he took off his mask. some of the reporters who were present have now been put in quarantine, and the brazilian press association has filed a criminal complaint to the brazilian supreme court. they allege bolsonaro committed putting two crimes by someone's life or health at imminent risk and failing to prevent the spread of an infectious disease. all of this comes as brazil has gone 55 days with no health minister. the last two were fired or resigned within 30 days of each other for e endorsing science. the grandmother of brazil's first lady michelle bolsonaro is also suffering from covid-19. she was recently transferred to an icu unit and is reportedly intubated. for more, we go to brazil, where we are joined by cesar victora, a brazilian epidemiologist who led the first study to assess ththe prevalence of cororonavirn brazil. he coordinates the internationol center for equity in health at

the federaral universi o of pelotatas in brazil, where he es emeritus professor off epidemiology. he also o has honorary appointments at oxford, harvard, and johns hopkins universities. professor, thank you so much for joining us. can you talk about your presidident testing positive ase has downplayed the pandemic, calling it a "little flu" taking off his mask at a press briefing, exposing journalist, and then the bigger story of what is happening in brazil, direrectly cononnect, i believe, to his attitude? >> good morning, amy. thank you for the invitation. it is a easure to be here today. leadership iscal a major risk factor for the spread of the pandemic, not only in b brazil,l, but also in yourn country. bolsonaro has repeatedly denied the i importance of the pandemi.

as you j just mentioned, he dismissed twtwo health ministe's who were against the use of hydroxychloroquiuine and werin favor of social distancingng. he has repeatedly joined crowds in front of his presidential palace, usually on sunday mornings where he hugs people and people take selfies with them. very few times he h has worn a mask. even now as he gave the news that he was infected, then he took a couple of steps back and he removoved his mask and frontf a whole team of analyst -- journalists. the press association now suing him. the federal government is saying this is a small flu, as bolsonaro o said early on. anand that it will only affect a few people.

and thatat means that social distancing not important. hehe has been in shaharp contrat with many city governors and mayors who have been acting in a much more responsible way. advice thatdictory the population is getting g froa president whoo says this is nota big problem and you should not worry about it, let''s reopen te economy right awaway, and the gd ivice prorovided by scientists, many statate governors andnd ciy mayors. it is a very complicated issue. amy: i want to ask about his approach to those in rain forest area, indigenous people throughout brazil as he veto legislation to help them. also, talk about the possibility of sending the military in to bring them hydroxychloroquine. of course, this is thehe drug tt president trump touted that turns out t a number r of studies, not only to be ineffective, but could possibly be deadly with coronary

implications. >> absololely. let me tellll you what is happening to the rain forest now. everybybody is concerned about e pandemic. deforestation is s now at a a rd pace b because -- the fitt thing bolsonaro did well b before thte pandemicic, he andnd his mininif environment, a veryy controversrsial person, they hae tooked all the system that account of deforestation, including g the satellite phphos and someonone. he f fired thehe top -- one of e top brazilian scientist who was in charge of that surveillance system, which shohowed recorord levevels of deforestatioion. athe samame time, -- for 28 years he has beeeen a member of parliamentnt in the house in brazil. he was always saying indigenous

people should not be protected, they have to be brought t into civilization. he would rededuce the size of indigenous reservations and someone. you can't blame him for doioing whatat he said he e would d do. those pepeople who voted for him knew whoho he was.s. he was -- it w was amazing thate actually gotot about 55% of thee votete in brazil. many of those peoeople haveve rerepented and now are regreretg having ever voted for him. i just want to give you a little bit of data on the indigenous population. we have completed now three rounds of surveys, each one in the largest 133 cities throughout the country. 33,000 is our sample size in each round. the most hardly affected groups are indigenous people. there are five times as likely to have antibodies against covid , which means they have been - -- a fivevefolds

diererence between indigenou populationon.. the governmenent is playing down these numbe. trying to avoid disseminatingng these e results because they thk it will look bad for brazil, which it does. and alsoso because they don't really care aboutt the indigenos population. a a famous,rviewed world-famous brazilian photojournalist who chargeses bolslsonaro with genocide againt the indigenous people with how he is dealing with the virus, particularly in relation to the indigenonous population. >> absolutelely. this i issue, theroposall of distributiting clarkrk when thrh the indigenous population to the army is cocomplete nonsense. ignored thepletely scientific community, the medical association, specialist

groups, what may well happppen,e is taking hydroxychloroquine for is cocovid. wewe know covid has a pretty low fatality rate. most people survive. the next step, if he survives, which is likely to do, is he will take credit for it and say that is because i took hydroxychloroquine. he does not respect clinicalal trialsls. his argumement is sisince ther's nothing else to do, why not take clark when -- chloroquine. as you said, it has serious cardi vascular side effect that could kill people ratatr than being killed by covid. you led cesar victora, the first study that assess the prevalence of cocoronavirus in brazil and you said d in fact there are several epepidemics. exexplain. >> exactly.

very unexpectedly, the firirst wave of the epidemic cameme to e amazoniver, whicich was not where we expected. we thought it would be arriving in rio and sao paulo a and the touristy citities in t northeast werere lots of -- people come fr holidadays. actually, our hypothesis right now is there is -- there are several chinese industries in city in, the largest the amazon. hubs a tax-free industrtrl wherere foreign cocompanies s ct on their own factories and shelter brazil without payingg importatation tax. strange between the city, diversity in thehe amazon whehere covid was detectd as early as february, and f from manaus people traveleled in boas

to the rest of the amazon region. these boats s are always overcrowded. the boat trips take severalal hours and even for some cities it takes two or three days by boat. being inin a crowded boat with sosomeone who has covidid may wl explain why the amazon was hit so hard. now, the epidemic in the amazon is already going down. in some cities, we tested 2525%f the population had antibibodies, which is a verery, very high level. now it is going downwn in the northeheast -- in the north, and moving to the northeast, as whihich i is also aoooor area. where we live, relatively we have low prevalence in the south, but increasasing rapidlyn the e last couple e of weeks. there are several epidemics. the striking thing is it did start with the white, educateded rich peoeople who o traveleded d and came from italy, for

example, or spain. but now it is disseminated through the population and the isrest 20% of the population twice more likely to have antibodies than the richest 20%. the blacks are more likely to have antibodies than whites. indigenous are at particular high risk, too. amy: let's talk about why this is, dr. cesar victora. the extreme inequality in brazil, class and racial, brazil's sixth richest man in the country hold the same amount of wealth as the poorestst halff ththe populati. explain n why there are these disparities. >> this is part t of our histstorical pattern for colonization, which is the b brazil,se, may colonize usually came in,n, they gave lae pieceses of land -- and i meaea, millions off acrcres to people,

portuguese people to settle. most of the e settlemement of bl was done by people, unlike the united states, they were not moving to a new country to make that their homeland. escaping from conditions of poverty or reliligious persecution in euro. they were just people who came here to make money a and go bac. so the land ststructure in brazl is very unfair. it led to this issue that we now have, a small prorortion of f rh people -- not onlyly farmemers, induststry and everything, but t led to this s segregated soetet. also, brazil had t the largegest numbmber of african slaves brout relative to any other country in america -- in the americas. the black populationon, the african brazilians have always

en kept in very poor conditions of living and so on. and what explains the higher rate of covid antibodies is that they usually live in favelas or crib situauations, l lots of pee in t the same homome. veryry hard to practice social isolation. they earned their money to buy their food on a daily basis through informal work, which means they have to go out or they won't haveve food to eat. it is a combmbination of several conditions. one more thing is that theyy often do not have proper water and sanitation facilities, therefore, things like washing hands is not -- they hahave to brining water from other places. amy: you have bolsonaro, who ,aid when talking about masks he said he taunted staffers

wearing face masks to protect against covid by claiming they were "for fairies. here you have what many call the tropical trump, very close to president trump, actually visited with trump and a and already t there there were confections of this press secretary and questions of this, president and his team had been infected. can you talk about president trump's affect and his same approach as were president bolsonaro and basically downplaying this pandemic, president trumump singh 99% of e covivid-19 cases are harmless? >> yes, w well, trurump appeaeao --bolsonaro pasta pss idle bolsonaro's idol. whatever trump does, such as leaving the who, which is unbelievable. i have worked with the who for 40 years, places of the world

and i still cannot believe that trump as actually pulled out of the who. bolsonaro is that he's going to do the same thing. trump is in favor of hydric of hydroxy for gwen. bolsonaro is. -- hydroxychloroquine, so bolsonaro's. it is a bad, nation of leaders. amy: and number one and number two, president trump proudly often talking about the u.s. being number one, but number one and number two in covid infections. i want to thank you so much, dr. brazilianora, epidemiologist who led the first study to a assess the prprevalee of coronavirus in n brazil, ande coordinatetes the international center for equity in health at the federal university of pepelotas in brazil, where he is emeritus p professor o of

epidemiology. next, the president is not above the law. so sayays the suprpreme court, 's twoing president trumpmp appointees. we will speak with david cay johnston. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the court ruled a manhattan jury can have access to the president's tax returns, but it remains unlikely any of trump's tax returns will be seen before the election. in both cases, chief justice john r roberts, brett kavanaugu, annual gorsuch sided with the liberal justices. roberts wrote --

chief justice roberts cited rulings requiring nixon into release tapes from his oval and bill clinton to provide evidence in a sexual harassment lawsuit. he relied on i an 1807 trial in which aaron burr subpoenaed thomas jefferson, a move chief justice john marshall deemed legal. roberts wrote -- "200 years ago, a great jurist of our court established that no citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding. we reaffirm that principle today and hold that the president is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need." in a separate decision, the

court affirmed congress can subpoena records from a president but order to lower court to reconsider the significant separation of powers before such h subpoenas are approved. donald trump lashed out at the rulings. pres. trump: the rulings are basically starting all over again, sending every thing back down to the lower courts and start over again. from a certain point, i'm satisfied. from another point, not satisfied because, frankly, this is a political witchhunt, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before. it is a pure witchhunt, a hoax, just like the mueller investigation was a hoax that i won. this is purely political. i win at the federal level and won dececisively so they y send it intnto new york. you know what isis going o on iw york. everyone is living. hell hole. david cay johnston, pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter previously with "the new york times," now founder and editor of dcreport.org.

his recent piece is headlined "the supreme court hands trump an election boost." he teaches at syracuse university college of law. --r latest headline presesident trump calls this whe thing a hoax. your response? close it is not ththe least bit surprirising thahat alninine justiceses, including the two dissenters, agree that t the president of thehe united states is not above the law and must comply witith subpoenas. what is s troubling abouout the decision is that the cocourt did not s say, and subpoena mayay be enforced forthwith. instead, they send it back to the u.s. district court in manhattan where they will be further wrangling over this. now, donald trurump chosese to e his complaints about the manhattan grand jury subpoena to federal court, removed it from

state courts in soso doing. the supreme court, therefore, could have said you chose your forum to seek your remedies. you u have lost. and the subpoena is a proffered. by taking this back to a lower furthert has encouraged litigation, which may be very brief or may go on for months. that benefits trump politically. legally, trump had a big loss -- i'm sorry, legally he had a big loss, but politically he got a win out of this court. this decision i think reinforces a very disturbing trend in the roberts court, which seems to be that i if you are wealthy and cn afford more due process, the court will encourage you to get all the due process you want. that sends a signal to prosecutors and regulators not to mess with people who are going to fight back because they will tie u up yourur limited

resources. so just look the other way or don't pick up cases like this. amy: in terms of the election, this was a big political whihimr donald trump, though he did not exactly take it ththat way. though his attorney who argued before the supreme court took it as a big win. a talk about the difference between the congressional case and the new york case. in the new york case, you're talking about a prosecution. what could happen, even after trump p steps d down if h he ago come as president ofof the unitd states?? i donalald trump can come and suspect likely will, pardon himself, assuming he is s votedd out t offficice. and that is no certainty at all. but that only covers federal crimes. the new york case is a state case brought by the district attorney in manhattan.n. presidential pardons do not apply. the manhattan district attorney already has the information on

donald trump's federal tax returns becacause the irs and al the states share information with one another. what thehey don't have an what they're seeking with the subpoena are the business records and that accounting records. because if those don't line up, donald trump's tax returns deviate from the business and accounting records, than that is right. the other case, which was also 7-2, involved congress's duty, powers, and rights of oversight. congress, after all, makes the laws and the president come the executive, basically as assigned to do and fulfill the obligations and responsibilities that congress assigns to him. however, in this case, the three very broadissuedd subpoenas. they wanted stuff down to credit card records. the court was skeptical of the , and perhaps claim

rightly so. i think the proper groundwork was laid bare. on the other hand, adam schiff, one of the key members of the house, says they will go back and lay the groundwork for this so they can obtain the records their seeking of the president. keep in mind, donald trump has worked hard to hide his business rerecords and we know why. i revealed four years ago that he had two income tax fraud trials over his 1984 tax returns. they were civil, not criminal fraud. "the new york times, and it work they said was inspired by my work, wrote this remarkable, absolutely perfectly executed whichin october 2018, in they said flat out donald trump in his sibling areerial tax cheats. we now the principal source of records they use from this came from mary trump, donald trump's

knees who just published a book about him. amy: let's talk about that. let's talk about donald trump's knees, mary trump, a clinical psychologist, and d her nenew bk "too much and never enough: how my family created the world's most dangerous man." airy terms father was fred trump, junior, donald trump's older brother. fred junior died of a heart attack in 1981 after a struggle with alcohol and addiction. mary trump wrote that after donald trump's inauguration -- "the smallest thing -- seeing donald's face or hearing my own name, both of which happened dozens of times a day -- took me back to the time when my father had withered and died beneath the cruelty and contempt of my grandfather. i had lost him when he was only 42 and i was 16. the horror of donald's cruelty was being magnified by the fact that his acts were now official u.s. policy, affecting millions of people." donald trump's younger brother, robert, is seeking to block the

sale of the book, saying it violates a confidentially agreement. however the publisher simon & scschuster told d a court ththuy that 600,000 copies of the book have already been distributed, ahead of its july 14 publishing date. a court ruling is expected by -- any day now. though the book is out, mary trump has been enjoineded from speaking. since you have written two books on donald trump and written about some of what she writes about inin the book,k, the significance of this book? >> well, we e have broadly known that the housese donald d trumpw up in was a house of absolute horrors. his father was a mononster. he was a veryy competent businessman, but he was corrupt, his business partner was a front for r a crime family. bubut what mary brings to this book is ann insider's knowlelede

combined w with her phd in clinical psychohology. soso she's able to tell l anecds we have e never heard before.e. there's lots of new information like that. she's s able to connect the nate of this house and what went on. on the night her father had his heart attack and was taken from the trump father, fred trump and 's mention to the hospital, the parents sat in the living room and did nothing. donald and his sister elizabeth went to the movies. what kind of people do that? this is not a house of love. this is a house of l luker where the onlyly thing that matters in the only measurement was how mumuch money did you b bring in totoday? who did you cheat today? it did not matter if you lied, cheat, and still so long as you got the money. that made you a winner. donald trump, recognizing that his older brother was not built

to deal with dad, withered under his father, try to escape him, was a pilot for twa airlines for a period of time, so opportunity. he then shaved himself to be what his fatheher wanted, to be them meta-rotation of his father. many of donald trump's stunts, written about in the past, actually began with freded trump most of hehe just was not as widely known oututside of t the outer boroughs of new w york. verynk this is a very, impoportant book.. it is not terribly long. it is crisply written. i encourage everybody to read this book. i think it will open people's eyes to how this sociopath get to the white house. amy: that is certainly what the psychologigist on his knees, called him, sociopath. mary trump alleges that president trump, donanald trump, paid friends to take his sats. close welcome at the time that you and i would have taken our

sats, it was easy to hirire someone to cheat for you. today, they havave phototo ids d proctors and they check these things. d during t theheard of 60''s for ririch boyoys to hire- for maybe rich h rls, to hihire other peoplele to take theirir s . we have collegeges all over the place that were acceptingng stududents w who we e not qualid in helping them evade ththe dra, which meant that pooror boys, often black and brown poor r bo, would have to die in v vietnam while donald trump is famously said he wawas dodging venereal disease in manhattan with all the women he was chasing, and that was his vietnam. amy: david cay johnston, thank you very much for being with us stuff we will continue to cover these stories, pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter previously with "the

new yorkrk times,"," now with dcreport.org. he has written two books on donald trump. when we come back, we look at another suprememe court decisio, delivering a major victory f for indigegenous sovereignty in oklahoma. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy:y:his is dememocracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in a m major victory for indigenous sovereignty, , the supreme court ruled thursday that about half of oklahoma remains native american land, recognizing a 19th century u.s. treaty with the muscogee creek nation in a narrow 5-4 ruling. justice neil gorsuch, who joined the court's liberal wing, wrote the majority opinion. it began -- "on the far end of the trail of tears was a promise. forced to leave their ancestral lands in georgia and alabama, the creek nation received assurances that their new lands in the west would be secure forever. because congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word." the landmark decision is based on the case of jimcy mcgirt, a native man who the state of oklahoma convicted in 1997 for sex crimes against a four-year-old child on muscogee creek lane. mcgirt argued that because the crime took place on the tribe's territory, the state had no

jurisdiction to try his case, a claim the supreme court affirmed in its decision. cherokee writer and advocate rebecca nagle tweeted -- "the big news at the supreme court today will be trump's taxes. but for indians in oklahoma, we'll be talking about today for decades. after a century of oklahoma not following our treaty rights, the supreme court said no more. eastern oklahoma is indian country." well, for more on this historic ruling, we go to lawrence, kansas, where we're joined by sarah deer, citizen of the muscogee creek nation, lawyer and professor at the university of kansas, author of "the beginning and end of rape: confronting sexual violence in native america." welcome to democracy now! can yoyou talk about the significance of the supreme court ruruling, pepenned other by none other than you gorsuch? >> it is really interesting, the politics on the court don't

necessarily when it comes to indian country fall into a division.onservative indian law is kind of unique in that way. in fact, justice ginsburg, a woman attorney i havave utmost respect for, is not always sided with tribal interests. a gorsuch was an interesesting selection. although hisociaial justicice issues on other matatters are problelematic, he acactually haa pretetty good track record in te 10th circuit of recognizing and acknowledging tribal rights. when he was nominated, in fact, the national congress of american indians, supported his nomination because they saw in his writings in the lower court that he really did understand tribal sovereignty and was willing to look at the history in order to resolve dispute. amy: again, this ruling says that half of oklahoma is native american land. what doeoes this m mean? not have e to say that is

entitirely accurate. it does not mean the land is all intertribal control now. what this does is it reasserts the boundaries of the reservation so we know to the extent which the tribe would have certain kinds of criminal authority. in fact, for most people who haveve private land, who own privatate businenesses within te confines of the e reservation, will not be affected b by this decision. it primamarily affectsts the aby of the tribal goverernment to asassert itstself in n rtnership with t t federal government. but it does not change the status of, say, privivately ownd land. amy: so let's talk about what ruth bader ginsburg and others raised, the issue of the thousands of convictions that have taken place there, put people in jail. what does this mean now? o ofthink there is a lot overstatements o of this potentl problem of releasing t thousands of cririminalsnto o the street.

there's been no indication there is a trend goioing in that direction. even though there haveve been to victorories in t 1 10th circuit, on b behalf of native people, we don't see a flood of native people using these cases to try to get released. in facact, whatt will happen in most of the serious cases -- so the cases involving things like murder and rape and child sexual abuse -- is those convictions may be o overturned inin the see thatat oklahoma was the wrwrong government to be prosecuting them, but there is no doubt thee federal government will take some of thosose folks into custy and ensure the community is a post of amy: jimcy mcgirt, the man who brought this case, who one, it t doesn't mean he gogoes free. it m means yes to be tried in a federal court now rather than a state court. is that right? >> exactly. he could be tried t tribal court as well. the tribe alsoo shares that jurisdiction. the tribe has limited power to

impose incarceration or find the federal government is the only one that can provide the kind of safety the community might be looking for in these types of cases. amy: the ruling was based on the muscogee creek nation's historic claims, but could also affect four other tribes. cherokee, chickasaw, choctaw, and seminole tribes. cacan you talk about the w wider implications of this? >> is a landmark case and probably the most important indian law case in the last half a century to come down from the court. it is that powerful. certainly, the other four tribes that were on the trail of tears hahave very y similarr treatatit ththe creek nation has. so while thehere mighte e some nuance a and difference in teres of exactctly h how the treaty ps out for ththese otheher tribes,

essentially, the question about what these treaties mean has been answered by the court. so it will be unlikely that the state would be a able to litigae successfullygaininst thosese tribeses to try to sortt of retn ththeir control overr the reservation boundaries.. anand beyond that, just the language of the decisision itsef gogoes far beyonond oklahoma bee they're reiterarating what gorsh is doing is reiterating some foundational principles of tribal sovereignty. so his analysis will have implications for all kinds of indian law cases yet to come. amy: you have neil gorsuch referencing the trail of tears. describe for us that history. what happened? what were so many native americans -- forced so many native americans in oklahoma? >> there were just many, many

wealthy people who wanted access to the land, the plantation land that was so valuable to white landowners in that time period. we were in what is now alabama anand g georgia. the plantation econonomies weret their strongest. way. . indianss in the did not want to move. despite the fact that the cocout in that time p period saidd the president t did not haveve the t to r remove the trtribes, andrew jajackson did just that and defd the supreme court, marched all oint toibes at bononet pin what is not oklahoma, against our will. when we got therere, we were prpromised w we would have the d there forever. amy: talk about help president andrew jackson visited the story. president trump saying it was his favorite president and now, for example come the jackson city council in mississippi voting to tatake down thee state

to a andrew jackson. >> andrew jackson was aa brutal man. particularly aroround my tribal history, the creek nation, engaged in warfare, dehumanized as, called us names, had no interest in compassion toto be exerteted towardrd our people, d really just marcheded us to a a death march west tow, and many tribal members died along ththe way because the circumstances were so dire. so we associate -- the five tribes in oklahoma that we have been talking about, do not have any affinity or affection for andrew jackson. he has been the cause of much of our troubles over the last two centuries. amy: sarah deer, or citizen of the muscogee creek nation. your author of the book "the beginning and end of rape: confronting sexual violence in native america." this case that the supreme court

the store decision was babased on, jimcy mcgirt wasas accused f sexual he attacking a four-year-old girl. you have looked at the violence against women and girls for years. for us. in context >> is certainly seems odd for me to advocate on b behalf ofof a x ofoffender givenen my work, butn this case, i see a larger issue about safety for native women and girls andnd peoe who are victims of violence. because what this is doing is --le this mcgirt case conviction is overturned, what i would like to see happen going forward now that we have this case is actually the tribe can pick up some of these cases because now our territorial reach is larger, so we can engage in crime control and a larger area on the reservation. and d ielieve triribal sovereigy is going to be key to o protecng peopople from m violence.

thetate doesnsn't have a v vestd interest in necessarily the safety o othe reservrvation. the fedederal govevernment is fr awayay t taking down enron and large-scale drug trafficking rings. i would like to see the tribal nations, who do have criminal it hasction now that expandnded territorially, to pik up these cases and try to resolve them in a way that will make the community safe but not necessarily replicate the lawn order model of the state and fedederal governntnt. amy: can you talk about how the media has covered this historic supreme court decision on the lalast day of the supreme e co's term, coming down the same day as the ruling on president trump tax rereturns? >> sure. we have been waiting for this decicision foror well ovover a r and a half. i think the headlines that i am seeing fromm eveven in a more sympathetic media, sort o of overstatating the e case. i i think creating a lot of fear

and anxiety for people in oklahoma. it does not give land bacack, pr se. there's nothing that the tribe will be a able to do toto move people author privately owned land. very little change on the ground for non-indians. when i see headlines like "the tribe has been given back land," itit overstates s it quitete a . whilitit is still an important case, it is not giving the tribe power over most pepeople that te on the reserervation who are non-native. amy: putting this in the context of all the protests in this country right now around racial injustice, around the whole black lives matter movement, around people of color being so violated over the years yet not recognized, changing the narrative, can you talk about how you see this decision changing the narrarative and fitting into this uprisingg

around the country? >> sure. i think the way gorsuch -- gorsuch is a beautiful writer. there's no doubt in my mind he used logic and legal reasoning. but his writing conveys something more that we typically don't see from the court, and that is the sense of empathy and compassion. i'm not suggesting that was the basis of his decision, but to offer that in the rhetoricic of hihis prose ges me great hope. i do t tnk this isis coming at a very interesting time. while this casee proceeds the rising upp of contememporary b k lives matter movement, i think it is part of that same -- ththe sameme effort to raise awareness about oppression. i think that native people owe a debt of gratitude to the leadership of black lives matter because in raising those issueus of race injustice, we have

also been able to raise the awareness of native racial injustice. coincidences not a that this case comes out at that time. amy: sarah deer, citizen of

[e[engines roaring] [musicic playing] sami: sometimes a culture is so diverse and spreads so far and wide that trying to capture it is like shaking hands with an old octopus. in a nutshell, that's the point of disembarkation for this "sound tracker" exploration. a land filled with unique and unbelievable music in every conceivable form.