[captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> you have beetelling us for ov three deces of the dangers of allowing e planet toarm. theorld listened but did not hear. world listened but didot act stngly enough. and as a rest, climate change is aroblem that is here now. it is getting worse faster.

amy: a code red for humanity. the intergovernmental panel on climate change has issued a dire warning to the world, saying the climate crisis is inevitable and irreversible, but there is still time to prevent runway global -- runaway global warming if drastic action is taken immediately. we will speak to two of the lead authors of the ipcc report, which was just publied thi morning. we ha known for decades that the world is warming. recent changes in the climate are widespread and rapid. they are unprecedented and indisputably linked to human action. amy: then, we talked to a tenant organizer in the kansas city about how the biden new eviction moratorium for much of the country does not go far enough. >> this latest action by the

administration is just a band-aid over a bullet wound. this is a very small step, the bare minimum, and it does not offer the protections that are needed to keep them in their homes. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the u.n.'s intergovernmental panel on climate change has issued its gravest warning yet, saying major irreversible climate catastrophe is unavoidable, that the world has a narrowing window to make drastic changes to prevent even greater devastation. that is according to the ipcc's first climate assessment in eight years, which shows the world is on track to surpass an average temperature rise of 1.5 degrees celsius above preindustrial levels, failing to meet the goals of the paris climate agreement. evenf the goal is met, the world will still have to contend with fast-melting arctic ice,

sea level rise, the warming and acidification of oceans, all of which contribute to more extreme weather events, including droughts, floods, wildfire, and deadly heatwaves. the ipcc does not offer recommendations to governments, but thu.n. says countries need to immediately move away from fossil fuels and stop adding carbon to the atmosphere by 2050 in order to slow or halt the most catastrophic outcomes. we will talk to two of the ipcc reports' lead authors after headlines. in northern california, the dixie fire exploded in size over the weekend to become the largest single fire in california history, with a half-million acres burned. on saturday, california governor gavin newsom toured greenville, a gold rush-era town north of sacramento whose downtown was

almost completely destroyed by the dixie fire. >> the extreme weather conditions, extreme droughts, leading to extreme conditions and wildfire challenges like we have never seen in our history. as a consequence, we need to acknowledge, just straight up, these are climate-induced wildfires. amy: there are 11 major wildfires now raging across california and over 100 fires across 15 states, with over 2 million acres burned. on saturday, denver, colorado, experienced the poorest air quality of any big city in the world as smoke from western fires filled the sky with a thick, yellow-brown haze. meanwhile, fires continue to rage across southern europe, which is in a protracted heat wave. in greece, thousands of people fled their homes on the island of evia, some of them escaping aboard coast guard ships, as a massive wildfire turned the night sky red.

>> i am very angry. most people here are very angry. it is huge. our villages are destroyed. there is nothing left from our homes, our properties, nothing, nothing. amy: the taliban has seized control of five afghan cities since friday in afghanistan as they continue their relentless offensive. kunduz, sar-i-pul, and taluqan were the latest provincial capitals to fall to the taliban sunday, as the militant group also makes advances in the major cities of kandahar and lashkar gah. the biden administration reportedly has no plans to change its deadline of august 31 to complete the u.s. withdrawal, though it previously did not rule out continuing airstrikes beyond that date. on friday, taliban fighters assassinated the government's top media and information official in kabul. meanwhile, the u.n. special envoy for afghanistan said over

1,000 civilians were killed over the past month and the war has now entered a "deadlier and more destructive phase." >> this is now a different kind of war, reminiscent of syria recently or sarajevo in the not so distant past. to attack urban areas is to knowingly bring enormous harm and to cause massive civilian casualties. amy: at least 244,000 people in afghanistan have also been internally displaced since the taliban offensive started in may. as the u.s. is once again averaging over 100,000 new daily covid-19 cases due to the delta variant driven surge, top white house advisor dr. anthony fauci warned of future variants that could emerge unless more people get vaccinated. dr. fauci: if you give the virus

a chance to continue to change, you are leading to a vulnerability that we might get a worse variant, and then that will impact not only the unvaccinated, that will impact the vaccinated, because that variant pervades the protection of the vaccine. amy: although vaccine demand has increased in areas hit hard by surges, health systems in some states say they are already overwhelmed. in austin, texas, officials activated the emergency text alert stem to warn residents the situation is dire and health-care sources limited. this comes as governor greg abbott is fighting statewide mitigation efforts. in florida, which accounts for nearly a quarter of cases nationwide, conservative radio host and anti-vaccine propagandist dick farrel has died of covid-19 last week. before his death, he urged his friends to get vaccinated.

he texted them from the hospital. republican governor ron desantis has banned mask mandates and has threatened to withhold funds from florida school districts that defy the n. in a reversal, randi weingarten, president of the american federation of teachers, said she report -- supports requiring vaccines for teachers. the aft is meeting this week to consider issuing the mandate. dr. fauci recently said he expects a flood of vaccine mandates at businesses and schools as soon the shots receive full fda approval. the biden administration extended the pandemic-related freeze on federal student loan repayments through january 2022. it was set to exre athe end ofeptember. some democrats asked him to use exec of authority to cancel $50,000 of individual student debt. on capitol hill, senators voted

sunday evening to end debate over a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, clearing the way for a final vote early this week. the bipartisan bill would see the largest-ever federal investments in public transit, clean water, and green energy. but critics say it's far short of what's needed to tackle the climate crisis. the package is barely half of what president biden proposed and far short of the $10 trillion thrive act favored by progressives. senate democrats are expected to turn to a $3.5 trillion budget resolution that could pass without republican support, covering additional infrastructure needs. democrats in the texas house of representatives refused to return to the state capitol in austin saturday, denying a quorum to republicans who hoped to pass draconian voter suppression bills in a special legislative session. it was called by governor abbott. it was the third time democrats

have blocked the republican governor's attempts to pass new election laws, following their flight to washington, d.c., last month. in other news from texas, cbs news reports at least three dozen holding facilities for unaccompanied migrant children may lose their state licenses next month but will likely continue to operate without being subjected to inspections or state oversight. replug -- republican governor greg abbott ordered state officials in may to stop issuing licenses to facilities for migrant children. and the biden -- in more immigration news, the biden administration has started flying asylum-seekers to mexico, instead of their home countries . spanish humanitarian aid workers are reported at least 42 refugees, including eight children, or feared dead after their boat capsized off the coast of western sahara last

week. only 10 people survived. so far this year, over 1100 refugees have perished crossing through dangerous sea routes as they attempted to reach europe. in related news, a ship carrying at least 257 refugees has docked in the italian port of trapani, a week after the german humanitarian organizatiosea watch rescued the refugees off the coast of tunisia. in argentina, tens of thousands of people held demonstrations in buenos aires and throughout the country this weekend, as anger mounts over skyrocketing unemployment and a worsening economic crisis triggered by the pandemic. this is a protester in buenos aires. >> my brother is unemployed. many of my neighbors are without a job. you see a lot of people are suffering around the country due to a lack of work. politicians should get their act together. people are tired of lies.

amy: in thailand, hundreds of protesters took to the streets of bangkok saturday, demanding the resignation of prime minister prayuth chan-ocha and denouncing the government's mishandling of the pandemic and economic crisis. police assaulted protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets. it was the latest in a series of anti-government and anti-monarchy demonstrations demanding democratic reforms. this comes as thailand reported a record nearly 22,000 new covid-19 cases saturday, and at least 212 deaths, its highest -- both new records. former acting attorney general jeffrey rosen has testified that one of his deputies tried to help donald trump subvert the results of the 2020 election in the waning days of trump's presidency. that's according to the "new york times," which reports rosen testified to justice department and senate investigators over the weekend that his deputy, jeffrey clark, pressured justice department officials to publicly assert false claims about election fraud in order to cast doubt on the electoral college results.

clark's promotion of conspiracy theories was reportedly welcomed by trump, who considered replacing rosen with clark as acting attorney general. a woman who last week filed a criminal complaint against new york governor andrew cuomo for sexual misconduct has come forward to share her story. brittany commisso, who appeared as "executive assistant 1" in the new york aorney general's report on cuomo, said the governor groped her, kissed her against her will, and verbally harassed her. she spoke to cbs news' jericka duncan. >> why did you file that criminal complaint with the sheriffs office? >> the governor needs to be held accountable. >> being held accountable for you means singing the governor charged with a crime? >> what he did to me was a crime . he broke the law.

amy: the new york state judiciary committee is meeting this morning to discuss potential impeachment proceedings. meanwhile, cuomo's top aide and fierce defender, melissa derosa, resigned sunday amid the mounting scandal. and today marks 76 years since the u.s. dropped an atomic bomb on the japanese city of nagasaki, killing at least 74,000 people, just three days after the world's first atomic bomb killed some 140,000 people in hiroshima. the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons came into force earlier this year but neither japan nor the united states have signed it. and those are some of the adlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in its first major report in nearly a decade, the intergovernmental panel on climate change has warned the earth could face runaway global warming unless drastic efforts are made to eliminate greenhouse gases.

the ipcc said humans are "unequivocally to blame for the climate crisis," which is already caused widespread and rapid changes. scientists concluded average global temperatures will likely rise to 1.5 degrees celsius, or 2.7 degrees fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels by 2040 based on carbon emissions already in the atmosphere. the report also warns temperatures will continue t rapidly warm after 2040 unless drastic action is taken now. u.n. secretary-general antonio guterres called the report "a code red for humanity." he said, "if we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe. but as today's report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses." the ipcc held a press conference this morning to release the

3,000-page report, which was worked on by over 200 scientists. inger andersen, executive director of the united nations environment programme, addressed the scientists involved in the project. >> you have been telling us for over three decades of th dangs of allowinthe planet to warm the worllistened but did not hear. the world listened butid not ct strongly enough. and aa result, climate chge is a problem that is here now. nobody is safe, and it is getting worse ster. we understand that clite change exacerbates already grave risks t habitats. ecosystem degradation damages nature's ability to reduce the force oflimate chae here at and as the ipcc working group report reminds us, reducing greenhouse gases will not only soe climate ange but will improve air quality.

it is all connected. amy: greenpeace u.k. executive director john sauven said the effects of the climate crisis can already be seen across the globe. >> you can just read the headlines. you know, the wildfires out of control in greece and turkey, the heat dumps in california and british columbia in canada, wildfires out of control in siberia, floods in germany and china. you just look anywhere around the world, and you see climate catastrophe unfolding. all this report is doing really is putting the science behind this, saying we are now certain this is human induced. amy: we are joined now by two of the lead authors of the ipcc rert. bob kopp is professor and director of the rutgers institute of earth, ocean, and atmospheric sciences at rutgers university. and kim cobb is professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at georgia tech.

professor cobb, you are one of the lead authors of this report. can you talk about the scope and significance of what you found? >> it is obviously an unprecedented new foundation for our science and our world at this critical moment. it is something that involves hundreds of authors over the last three years and really assessed the relevant scientific literature across 14,000 different articles in published peer-reviewed piece of literature to make assessments as to where we are with human caused climate change and where we're going, what lies ahead in this crisis. really as stunning historic pillar in our field and a reminder of the futures we have to choose in the next decades. amy: the u.n. secretary general has called the ipcc report code

red for humanity. what surprised you most about the findings? hundreds of scientists around the world assessing so many of the studies that have taken ace over the last years. >> well, i think one of e things to remember is how far the science has come. we're going from virtually certain human caused climate change in the last report to unequivocal, the wording in this report in terms of human influence on climate, and thinking about piling up on the absolutely factual column, more and more aspects of the impacts of climate change. and this report makes a very strong emphasis on the rising climate and weather extremes that have been more uncertain in previous reports. this year, the science has

returned to the point of a lot of strong wording in this report around the link between human caused climate change and in a number of different climate changes. amy: professor robert cobb, talk about the major findings of the report. -- professor robert kopp, talk about the major findings of the report. rex it is in some cases an exclamation mark on what previous reports have said, we have known that the world is warming, and we know the changes now are widespread and rapid, intensifying, unprecedented in thousands of years. carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have been in at least 2 million years, temperatures higher than 100,000 euros, and sea levels rising faster than at least 3000 years. it is indisputable that these changes are linked to human activity. and these changes are affecting

every iabited region of the earth. some are already locked in. but even for the ones that are going to respond most slowly through reductions in the greenhouse gases, like changes in the sea levels, we still have the opportunity to slow the rate and ultimate extent of warming. and other changes, like the rise in temperature, can be stopped pretty quickly if we bring the greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. in order to hit the impish's target laid out in the paris agreement, we're going to need immediate rapid and large-scale reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions. but the other point i want to make sure is said, because you hear this a lot, as we should not be thinking about this as though there is a magic line of one and a half degrees or any level below with we're safe. we're already experiencing more

extremes, already experiencing enhanced hazards as a result of climate change. and every bit of warming, whether it is above or below 1.5 degrees c, increases the risk. anything we can to limit the amount of warming will reduce the hazards we are creating for ourselves. amy: you are an oceans expert, robert kopp, so if you can talk about the greatest sources of sea level rise expected in the next entry and what has happened so far, the major causes of sea level rise? >> sure, sea level is rising at a faster rate it has in at least 3000 years, and it is rising at an accelerated rate. two main factors. the first is the loss of ice on land, from glaciers and polar ice sheets, and then the second is the warming of the ocean as the planet heats up.

there has been a continuing acceleration since about 1970 with ice sheet in agreement and an arctic, racing -- rising over the last 20 years. we can clearly try the expansion of the ocean and the melting of the glaciers and the melting of the ice sheet, that can be connected to humans. this is having effects around the world. since the 1960's, we have seen nearly a doubling in many coastal sites in frequency of high water level. amy: we're going to break and then come back to our discussion with professors bob kopp and kim cobb, two of the lead reporters in the new ipcc report just released this morning. we will also go to bangladesh and speak to a leading bangladeshi scientist. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "trust" by the weather station. they say the new album is inspired by climate grief. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we turn now to grated timbered -- greta thunberg, who just responded to the new ipcc report >> we have not once been treating this like an actual crisis. media is reporting now about extreme weather events and the consequence of oceanic crisis, but then again, we have to remember that these are all just symptoms of the climaterisis. we are not talking abouthe root cause itself, the things that can actually heal these events. we're not holding people in power accountable, not talking about the science what it says, and how the situation looklike now. we are especially not talking about the cap -- gap between what politicians are saying and what they're actually doing.

thiseport does not tell us what to do, does not provide us with such solutions or tell us you need to do this. we are the ones who need to take the decisions, and we're the ones whoeed to do right. and we need to ask the difficult questions to ourselves, like what we value and are we ready to take action tensure future and present living conditions? so i hope that this can be a wake-up call and that it really gives perspecve and that it once again can be a reminder about the crisis not going away, only escalating, and it will only grow more intense by the hour. amy: that is greta thunberg responding to the new ipcc report, responding from stockholm, sweden. this is democracy now! as we talk about the report, the 3000-page report almost a decade in the making, we're joined by two leading ipcc scientists.

and we go to bangladesh to speak, as well, with saleemul huq, climate scientist, director of the international center for climate change and development in bangladesh. he has been a longtime ipcc lead author. he is now joining us from dhaka. your response to this report? >> thank you very much, amy. my response is that this report has actually assured iwhat i call the new era of loss and damagerom human-induced climate change in an absolutely, scieifically verifiable and attributable manner. there is no question at all that what we are saying on our tv screens across the world in terms of the wildfires, the heat dome effect in north america, china, and india are now -- the severity of all of these have been increased bause of human-induced climate change,

enhancing the global temperature 1.2 degrees above preindustrial. and the path to keeping it below 1.5 degrees is diminishing by the hour, as greta thunberg said. amy: did anything surprisi in this report? describe specifically what is happening in bangladesh. >> so this is not a surprising report. it is an assessment of, as you heard, the scientific papers that already exist and that we have known about. it brings it all together and makes the case for urgency, i think, very, very strong. the new aspect of it, i would say, as has already been alluded to by one of the lead authors, is that the science on attribution of extreme events has become a lot better. it used to be the case that these extreme weather events that we have could not be tied to human-induced climate change,

as they are now able to be done. the heat dome effect in north amera, for example, cannot have happened without the human-duced clime change taking place. the severity of the wildfires in southern europe when not be so severe without human induced climate change. and so on and so forth. these events are not caused by climate change, but they are becoming much, much more severe because of human it is climate change having already raised the global mean temperature by 1.2 degrees above preindustrial. so in bangladesh, where i live, we have known this for over a decade. this is old news. none of this is new news. it happens all the time. we are a country of 170 million people living on less than 150,000 square, terse, on the delta -- square kilometers on the delta of two of the world's biggest rivers. also susceptible to major cyclon coming in and hitting

our country. so we have seen, just a year ago,ear and bit ago, super cyclone, may of 2020. it became a super cyclone while it was in the bay of bengal because the sea surface temperature was two degrees above normal. in the past decades, super cyclone's of that magnitude have actually killed hundreds of thousands of people. the good news is they do not anymore. bangladesh is probably the best cyclone running an evacuation system in the whole world. 3 million people were evacuated and took shelter, and the death rates were in the few dozens of people, most of whom were fishermen that were out to sea and did not get back to land at time. 3 million people on land took shelter and survived. but nevertheless, the cyclone did a lot of damage. people lost their homes, their crops, their livelihood,

infrastructure. even though the death rate has dropped, the destruction was not able to be prevented. and there will be more of that in the future. amy: saleemul huq, the biggest greenhouse gas emitters are china and the united states. what do these two countries have to do? >> these two countries are the key. the united states is still, even though china is the biggest ring has gas emitter now, the united states is still cumulatively the biggest contributor to the fact that we now have a global temperature above 1.2 degrees centigrade. both countries will have to step up their game. they are key. they can do it, everybody else will follow. they have done some, we must give credit for that, but they have not done enough. hopefully this report will spur them on to take even faster, more drastic action to wean themselves off fossil fuels,

coal, petroleum quickly and segue into a cleaner energy world of renewable energy like solar, wind, together with storage, which is a y factor in utilizing these intermient energy sources like wind and so lar. with these three technologies, we should be able to wean ourselves very quickly and go into a new world based on renewable energies. the faster we do that, the better off everybody, including americans and chinese, will be. america and china are also quite vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, as we have seen in the last few weeks. so they are not going to be able todapt as quickly either. so the sooner they can release their -- reduce their emissions, the better. and the rest of the world will follow. they are the two key players. amy: let me put this question to robert kopp, you have these massive issues of extreme weather. you have the western wildfires,

california, oregon, washington, and denver, colorado experiences the worst air quality in the world of any major city this weekend because of those fires in the west. you had the fires in greece, the flooding in bangladesh, where saleemul huq is. is this the best we can hope for in the future? is there any way to even mitigate against these kinds of extreme weathers? is this as good as it gets? >> you know, what we are basically facing is a world with about 1.1 degrees celsius of warming. so even if we are looking forward, talking about 1.5 or two degrees c, what we can say several increment of warming is going to make these sorts of impacts more severe. so in the order to stop things from getting worse, we need to get, as my colleague was saying,

we need to get global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, which requires a global effort. and these sorts of changes are basically what we see with the level of warming that we have, and we're not coming back. so these are indeed going to get worse. but i think it is important for us to bear in mind that we have very real control over how much worse they get. amy: professor cobb, you are a specialist and have done a lot of work around preserving coral reefs around the world. can you talk about the effects of climate change on these coral reefs and why this is so significant, and indicator of what is happening all over the world, even outside the coral reefs? >> yes, the report flags as an incredibly vulnerable ecosystem to current warming levels, as well as future warming levels. corals live in a relatively narrow temperature tolerance where if that is exceeded, they

bleach first, and that has been in the headlines in recent years, and those conditions persist for even a matter of weeks, the corals will die. in 2016, we had a global scale marine heatwave associated with one of the largest el niño events on record, which is a natural climate cycle that is superimposed on current warming levels of just over one degrees and was enough to bring to our records this historic coral bleaching and mortality event that swept every tropical ocean basically in the world. so many of us who study coral reefs were taken aback by just how quickly these extreme temperatures are at our doorstep and the absolutely devastating losses that reefs incurred in that year, a real wake-up call with respect to the ongoing risks on reef systems.

it is really important to remember that these reef systems are critical to the economy for so many island nations, tropical nations around the world, providing a vast source of protein for seagulls. amy: professor saleemul huq, i wanted to ask about these massive incidents of extreme weather, the floods in europe and south asia, wildfires in greece, the u.s., and siberia. can you talk about how so often in the past, we saw this in poorer countries, but now we are seeing it in the industrialized world repeatedly, relentlessly. can you talk about the change in media coverage because of that? >> absolutely. as i said earlier, in bangladesh and indeed the rest the global south, this is not news at all. we havknown this for the last decade we have been suffering

would we have been dealinwith it the best we can. and the rest of media not taking much interest, maybe a few seconds to report on a flood or drought or hurricane. now that it is happening in the rich world, in europe and in the united states, it is getting a lot more wall to wall television coverage. i have been watching tv all day here about the greek wildfires in the grease. i am sure the greeks never saw wall to wall coverage about what happened in bangladesh when we had cyclones. everybody is now realizing we are in the same boat and facing the same storm, even if we are not all in the same kind of boat. one of the interesting issues here is what the rich countries can actually learn from the poorer countries, like bangladesh. i mentioned that bangladesh has brought down the death rate of these events in the very significant fashion, by

providing early warning and evacuation for people. the number of deaths we saw in germany, in one of the richest countries in the world, nearly 200 germans actually died from flash floodswould never have happened in bangladesh. we would have evacuated, and we do evacuated everyone in the path of a flood or cyclone. in germany, they were not able to do that, so germany could learn a lot from bangladesh, and so could the united states come on how to deal with these impacts they have not been used to bute are used to. amy: as we wrap up, saleemul huq , if you could talk about the significance of the climate summit taking place in glasgow. in fact, it happened -- whether it happens in half an or virtual because of covid, the significance of this summit. >> i think the glasgow summit, the cop26, will be perhaps the most sigficant wn we have had. a reminder that this was supposed to have been held last

year, in december 2020, and it got postponed because of the covid-19 pandemic, for valid reasons, the covid-19 pandemic to not allow it to be held, so it was postponed by 12 months. so that is a very critical 12 months, because climate change did not take 12 months off. it is actually taking place, and i would say it actually crossed a threshold, which we have seen with the assessment report, tt we are now living in a climate change world. we are now in the era of having to deal with loss andamage from human-induced climate change, and that is going to be one of the topics that the vulnerable countries will bring up. they have already brought it up. for taking it seriously, which has not been done so far. we have been talking about it for long time bunot getting anywhere with it. now it is for the rich countries to recognize it is a reality and do what they are supposed to do,

which is implement what they agreed to imement in paris keep the global temperature below 1.5 degrees and provide $100 million year for the developing countries to tackle climate change. amy: we thank you for being with us. saleemul huq, director of the international center for climate change and development in bangladesh. bob kopp professor and director , of the rutgers institute of earth, ocean, and atmospheric sciences at rutgers university, and kim cobb is professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at georgia tech. when we come back, we go to a tenant organizer in kansas city and talk about how president biden's new eviction moratorium for much of the country does not go far enough. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "try a little tenderness" by otis redding. this is democracy now! i am amy orden -- i am amy goodman. landlords in georgia and alabama have asked a federal judge to block the biden administration's new two-month moratorium on evictions. the new cdc moratorium covers areas of the united states where there is "substantial" or "high" spread of the coronavirus. that is about 90% of the country. nationwide, more -- evictions -- failed to pass a bill to protect

the millions of renters who could be forced from their homes. a group of lawmakers, led by representative cori bush of missouri, began camping on the steps of the u.s. capitol to pressure the biden administration to take action. first, we turn to a tenant in kansas city who is on the verge of losing his home. his name is aqui greadington. he spoke to democracy now! last week. >> my landlor, essentially just one month behind on rent, i came home one evening to a three-date eviction notice on my door, which i later found out was not really the pross for h evictions go. my landlord was trying to intimidate me or harass me. not only was there the three-day eviction notice on my door, but

there was also notice of nonrenewal. so my lease ends september 30, so whether i get the funds are not, i sll have to be out of here. i ended up behind, not only with rent but utilities -- i mean rely just because of life in general, justhrough mental health surrounding the pandemic. i struggle with depression and anxiety, as it is. that, on top of a lot of the racial trauma we have been enduring, as well as a lot of the misinformation and just the way people are treating each other just kind of compounds and enhances this. for me, i just became extremely overwhelmed, and my lease was

unpaid, so i g into a position where i fell behind. i tried to make a payment plan andnformed them from the very first day when i started working that i just need time. none of those things really made a difference, and it was very frustrating for myself to be someone that, aside from my leave, i am someone that works full-time, someone that pays my rent on time every month, and the first time i have any sort of an issue, at a time when the world dealing with something unprecedented, just made zero see to me, like very un-empathetic that you are only concerned about money at this time, definitely a high anxiety moment. because i do nohave a mom and dad that i can call to go ay with or ask for money or

anything like that. you know, i actually have my dad's aes, and one of my biggest concerns is if i get kicked on on the street, like, what am i going to do with my dad's ashes? and i think those are things landlords do not think about when they make these decisions from boardrooms, the real effect it has on people. amy: that was aqui greadington speaking to democracy now! from kansas city about his fight to stay in his home. he says he does not have a father or mother to just go live in their house. in fact, he has his father's ashes with him. we're joined now by tara raghuveer, director of kc tenets , a grassroots tenant led organization in the kansas city, missouri, also the homes guaranteed campaign director at people's action. thank you so much for being with us. let's continue with aqui, to use

him as aexample to understand what is happening right now. we just reported that the biden administration, under enormous pressure led by cori bush, johan omar, and ayanna pressley slipping out on the capitol steps to protest the lack of the extension of the rental moratorium. so they got that extension ultimately, but it is not for the entire country. what does it mean in aqui's place? how is this playing out on the ground for millions of people, tara? >> amy, thank you so much for having me back. you are absolutely right to give kudos to representative cori bush and representative will hunt omar. i think what they demonstrated through their actions on friday and through the weekend is that more often than not, when

someone in power tells you that something ismpossible, they are lying to you. these congresswomen, empowered and driven by their own direct experience, which is not dissimilar from aqui's, took action they needed to take to fight for millions of renters across the country. so kudos is owed to them. an this latestd -- and this latest action by the administration is just a band-aid over a bullet wound, a very small step, the bare minimum, and for many tenants, including aqui, this will not offer the protections needed to keep them in their home. aqui tells us he is at risk of eviction, but currently his landlord just threatened him with legal action. that means he is putting notices on his door and harassing aqui for him to get out, not even using the formal eviction process. we see this so often, tenants going outside of the court's

purview. and aqui also says his lease will not be renewed, so his landlord will be able to get around this eviction moratorium and instead of evicting him for back-owed rent, which is what is protected at the federal level, a vict him in this way, which is not banned, so he is one of millions of tenants that will be evicted because the landlord will exploit this loophole. amy: what happened to the billions of dollars under covid relief allocated to deal with these crises? >> to put it bluntly, rental assistance has been a disaster, and the tenant movement knew that it would be. last march, march 2020, we were calling for rent and mortgage cancellation, and we work closely with representative omar and her team to introduce that legislation to congress. that would have been automatic

and universal. rent and mortgage cancellation would have canceled the payments and they would have made the back-owed rent uncollectible and undefeatable. and landlords could get the relief they needed that would be conditioned with tenant protections. now instead, we have a bureaucratic, non-automatic, means tested program and rental assistance, and the money is not getting to the tenants who need it. not only is it a major bailout for the industry, a lot of governors, like ours i missouri, are just sitting on money. our governor, mike parsonis sitting on $250 million that are not getting to tenants who need it across his state. our city, kansas city, has closed down the rental assistance applications, eve though they are sitting on the second round of the emergency rental assistance money from the federal government. and at this point, a lot of tenants are facing eviction before they have ever had a

chance to access that funding to stay in their home. amy: but why can't you get that freedom? how can they not be giving it out? >> i wish i had the answers for you, amy. we have been asking everyone that will talk to us, but unfortunely, when policy is made in this way, when the federal government is handing money down to states and localities, that money becomes political really quickly. we saw that money get held up at the state level, at the county level, and at the city level as people played political games with other people's lives. , unfortunately, now it is too little, too late, for a lot of the tenants most at risk, most urgency at risk. they will be displaced or have already been displaced before they can access those funds. amy: so let's be clear that the moratorium on evicting renters actually began under trump and then biden re-extended it, and now, only because of a enormous

pressure, has come up with a kind of new one. so given that it was established under the former president who was a developer, who is a developer, what do you see -- who does it actually protect? and how many people are going to lose their homes, do you predict, tara? >> the timing of the trump moratorium is notable. trump, the developer and chief, right before his reelection, which was ultimately unsuccessful, issued this federal moratorium. it was september 2020. it was crumbs he was throwing at poor and working-class people to try to win some votes, political move. the policy was never well written. from the beginning, it was extremely flawed, not written in a way that would actlly keep the majority of poor and working-class tenants in their

home. it only protects against evictions on the basis of rent, meaning that landlords, from the beginning, have been able to exploit those loopholes and start using other reasons, lease violations, for the possession of property, just not renting leases in the way of gettin people out. and the policy was never automatic. it did not just ban evictions, is that here is a form to fill out to apply for protections, but that requires the tenant to know this protection exists. so tenant organizations like ours works overtime to make sure the information on the moratorium got out to people, and still come a lot of people never got that information. fundamentally, the trump order left so much discretion up to local judges that many courts just kept the eviction dockets open and continued evicting people. and it is important for people to note that the biden order issued on tuesday was actually, in many ways, more restrictive

than the trump order was to begin with. amy: meaning, wh does it leave out? who does it leave out? >> it is not automatic. it does not apply to every eviction. and now it is limited to geographies that are distinctly impacted by the delta variant and by spiking cases. but if case numbers go down in a given geography for a 14-day period, the protections then expire for that geography. amy: tara, you are the director of kc tenants, a grassroots tenant led organization in the kansas city. you engage in lot of eviction defense. what does that mean, and what are you doing now? >> forhe better part of the last year, we have had to take matters into our own hands and disrupt evictions by any means necessary, and this is only after months, months of advocacy at the local level, the state

level to try to get our courts to close down, to try to get the state to cancel rent. ultimately, we were unsuccessful, and the people in power were not listening to the people. so july of last year, i think, was the first disruption we attempted in the downtown courthouse in kansas city. we had people go into the courthouse and verbally address it, and we had people on the phone lines because evictions were also happening by conference call. we reiterated on those tactics over several months, ultimately culminating in january, the dead of winter. it was cold in covid numbers work spiking, and we decided we were going to try to shut down every eviction in the kansas city for the month of january. ultimately, we were successful, interrupting over 90% of the court's attempts to evict people that month. amy: so you have kansas city now, a metropolitan area,

reporting 1115 new covid-19 cases on wednesday, the highest daily number since january. so you would be included in this eviction moratorium, which ends in two months. what do you expect will happen then? >> we are included in this moratorium that ends in two months, but evictions have been happening the entirety ofhe past year in kansas city. evictions happening in downtown kansas city today. there are 150 eviction cases on the docket today in downtown kansas city, including at least a few kc tenantembers, including one named sabrina davis, who has already been displaced from her home. so it is important that we start there. if actions are happening, have been happening, and will continue to occur, even under this federal moratorium. and to your point, we will be in

the same placehat we were on saturday, october we are just kicking the can on the road. we in the tenant movement have always known that an eviction moratorium was not going to save us. we actually need, and the biden administration and congress, need to confront the system that commodified one of our basic needs, which is our homes, tells us that our homes are just someone else's investment with every eviction we allow, whether it is during a pandemic or not. what we're doing is prioritizing one person's process over another person's life, and that is not ok. amy: we just interviewed cori bush in the midst of her protest that has led to the biden administration doing something temporary here. she introduced the un-housed bill of rights. you are proposing a national tenants bill of rights. what was that look like? >> absolutely.

in the homes guarantee, but we envision is a country in which we can guarantee that everyone has a safe, accessible, and truly affordable home. this sounds simple, but of course, it is premised and complicated by what we like to call the conspiracy of the prosecutors that have convinced us that the only way to deliver housing is through the prite market. now more than ever, now when the federal government is moving hundreds of billions of dollars in a bailout to the rental industry, what we need is a correction, a power imbalance between landlords and tenants. tenants need more power and control over their homes come over where they live, how long they get to live there, over their choices in the renta markets before we fully transition away from the market model, which is ultimately the goal. so we in the homes guarantee campaign have envisioned a national tenants bill of rights. but more portly, to talk to anyone in d.c., even our closest

champions, what we know we need to do is build the power in the field to win a national tenants bill of rights. we actually cannot exist in the realm of message bills anymore. it is not going to cut it. we learned someard lessons in the fight to cancel rent and found out what we did not have to win what we need yet. so we're in the largest operation they tenant movement has ever seen, attempting to engage over one million tenants in the process of writing their rights into existence, and through that process, we're hoping to build the power we will ultimately need to not only introduce a national tenants bill of rights that is written by us but also win that national tenants bill of rights to address that balance of power. amy: tara raghuveer, director of kc tenants based in kansas city. she is also with people section. to see our interviews last week

with congress members ilhan omar and cori bush, who slept outside on the capitol steps to demand the administration reimpose the rent moratorium, go to democracynow.org. i am amy goodman.

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