06/15/22 06/15/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> jobs are back. prices are still too high. unemployment is down but gas prices are up. our work is not done. amy: president biden blends republicans in a major address deliberates at the afl-cio convention in philadelphia. we will get in update with

longtime labor journalist steven greenhouse at the convention. in the white house has announced biden will visit saudi arabia in a dramatic reversal from biden's promises on the campaign trail. >> i will make it very clear we are not going to sell more weapons to them. we were going to make them pay the price and make them the pariah that they are. amy: but first, we will speak with journalist garrett graff, author of "watergate: a new history." >> i will be talking today about a historical parallel by richard nixon's scandal which mks the 50th annersary ts week o the wargate burary on june , 1972. d thenvestigation by th u.s. house into the events of january 6 and the differences

politically then and now. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. voters went to the polls tuesday in five states. maine, nevada, north dakota, and south carolina all held primaries. a special house election also took place in texas. in south carolina, five-term republican congressmember tom rice was soundly defeated in the republican primary. rice was one of just 10 republicans who had voted to impeach donald trump last year after the january 6 insurrection. another republican incumbent in south carolina, nancy mace, survived a primary challenge from a trump-backed candidate. but last year, mace criticized trump after the january 6 insurrection, later campaigned in the primary on a pro-trump message. she even recorded a campaign video outside trump tower in february.

meanwhile, in nevada, two republicans who supported trump's coup attempt won the primaries for the senate and secretary of state. with his victory in nevada's republican senate primary, adam laxalt will now face democratic senator catherine cortez masto in a race that could determine which party controls the senate. laxalt co-chaired trump's 2020 campaign in nevada and led efforts to overturn joe biden's election in nevada. meanwhile, republicans in nevada picked jim marchant to be their candidate for secretary of state. marchant is an election denier who was urged to run for office by a prominent backer of the qanon conspiracy theory. marchant is a leader in an alliance known as america first which helps backers of trump's coup attempt to run for top election offices. according to "the washington post," more than 100 republicans who backed trump's election fraud claims have already won primaries this year. in another closely watched race,

republican mayra flores won a special election for a house seat in south texas which had been held by a democrat for the past 10 years. flores, who was born in mexico and is married to a border patrol agent, outspent her closest democratic rival by a margin of 16 to one. the house select committee investigating the january 6 insurrection appears divided on whether the panel should make criminal referrals of donald trump or anyone else to the justice department. on monday, the committee's chair bennie thompson said that is "not our job." but the committee's vice chair republican lynn cheney said that has definite conclusion regarding potential referrals. another member of the committee, elaine luria tweeted, "if criminal activity occurred, it is our responsibility to report that activity to the doj." the committee was scheduled to hold its third public hearing today but it was postponed. the committee has teased the

thursday hearing by releasing a short video a former white house lawyer eric herschmann recalling a conversation he had on january 7, 2021, with john eastman, the conservative lawyer who helped craft trump's legal effort to overturn the 2020 election. attorney herschmann told the january 6 committee that eastman called him a day after the deadly insurrection to discuss more ways to overturn the election. herschmann described how the call ended. i said to him, are you out of your fin mind? i only want to hear two words comingut of yourouth from now on, orderly transition. now i'm going to give you the best free legal advice your ever getting your life, eating a great criminal effing lawyer. you're going to need it.

amy: nato defense ministers have begun a two-day meeting in brussels to discuss sending more heavy weapons and missile systems to ukraine as fighting rages on in eastern ukraine. on tuesday, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy called for more arms and anti-missile defense systems to combat russian attacks. meanwhile, the pope has condemned what he described as "the cruelty of russian troops" in ukraine. but the pope also suggested the war had been provoked. he said -- "we do not see the whole drama unfolding behind this war, which was perhaps somehow either provoked or not prevented." this comes as a pentagon official has publicly said the biden administration is not pushing ukraine to hold talks to end the war. colin kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said -- "we're not going to tell the ukrainians how to negotiate, what to negotiate and when to negotiate." meanwhile, pharma russian president dmitry medvedev has posted a message on telegram suggesting ukraine will not exist on world maps in two

years. in related news, some biden administration officials are now privately expressing concern that western sanctions on russia may be backfiring. that's according to a report in bloomberg which fears the sanctions are "exacerbating inflation, worsening food insecurity and punishing ordinary russians more than putin or his allies." the white house has formally announced that president biden will visit saudi arabia next month as well as israel and the occupied west bank. biden is expected to meet with both saudi king salman and crown prince mohammed bin salman. as a candidate, biden pledged to make saudi arabia a "pariah" following the brutal assassination of "washington post" jamal khashoggi. but the president has taken a different stance in recent months as global gas prices soared. the talks in saudi arabia are expected to focus on oil production, the war in yemen, and other regional issues. some democratic lawmakers

including dick durbin are criticizing biden's decision to travel to saudi arabia as average gas prices in the united states have topped $5 a gallon for the first time ever. the associated press is reporting president biden has just written a letter to u.s. oil refiners, calling on them to work with the administration to produce more gasoline and diesel. he points out oil profits have tripled in time of war while consumers are facing record prices at the pump will stop we will have more on saudi arabia and president den's decision to meet with mohammed bin salman later in the broadcast. the federal reserve is expected to issue today its largest interest rate hike since 1994 to combat rising inflation. this comes as the s&p 500 drped near 4% on tueay. the stock inx has fallen by % since january. president biden travels to philadelphia tuesday to address members of the afl-cio. he blamed republican lawmakers for blocking his plan to fight inflation. his appearance before the

afl-cio came on the same day that union delegates elected liz shuler to become the afl-cio's first female president and fred redmond to be its first african-american secretary-treasurer. we will have more on biden's speech and the labor movement later in the show. the european court of human rights blocked britain from deporting a handful of asylum seekers to rwanda on tuesday as part of a new government policy. the court issued an injunction in the case of an iraqi national who was on the verge of being flown to rwanda. prior to the ruling group of , a activists attempted to stop the deportations by locking themselves together to block a road near the jail where the asylum seekers are being held. none of them are from rwanda. indigenous-led protests in ecuador have intensified after the police arrested leonidas iza, the head of confederation of indigenous nationalities of ecuador, the country's largest indigenous organization. iza's arrest on tuesday came a day after he helped launch a

nationwide strike to protest ecuadorian president guillermo lasso's economic policies and rising fuel prices. iza spoke out on monday prior to his arrest. >> yes, indeed, we had to resort to resistance because the national government as continued with the policies of the former president, putting in place more and more policies of death which do not allow us to sustain our small economies. amy: in brazil, police have arrested a second suspect connected to the disappearance of british journalist dom phillips and the brazilian indigenous expert bruno araújo pereira. the pair went missing over a week ago in one of brazil's most remote areas of the amazon. on tuesday, indigenous activists gathered in brasilia to demand justice for the missing men. >> we are here to defend life.

indigenous peoples lives. to defend the environment and claiming justice for our missing friends. we want answers. this is why we cam here, to the ministry of justice. y: and the longtime firebrands rights activist charlie kernaghan has died at the age of 74. he spent decades exposing how corporations sold products made in overseas sweatshops. his investigations exposed the sweatshop practices of numerous companies, including gap, microsoft, disney, nike, disney, target, kmart and levi strauss. in 1996, charlie kernaghan made national headlines when he revealed a clothing line by tv host kathie lee gifford's was being made by girls as young as 15 in honduras who worked up to 70 hours a week for 31 cents an hour. he appeared many times on democracynow! >> we found documents in the garbage jump from nike,

sweatshirts that sold for $22 and this was in the dominican republic. do you know what the workers got paid to make that sweatshirt? eight cents. there wages in the dominican republic were.3 of the retail price. this is what is going on. they are just crushing people and sucking the blood out of people. what would happen if they tripled it to 24 cents? that would be less than 1% of the retail price of the garment. in other words, there's plenty of room here but this is the science of exploitation and misery. we have to stand uand push back against these corporations. amy: charlie kernaghan died at the age of 74. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by democracy now! co-host juan gonzález in new brunswick, new jersey. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners

and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: house select committee investigating the january 6 capitol insurrection holds its third hearing democracy now! wednesday. will bring you live coverage starting at 1:00 p.m. et and then on friday's show we'll feature highlights from the hearing. this comes as friday marks the 50th anniversary of a bungled june 17, 1972, break-in when police answered a call at the watergate building complex and found five men burglarizing the office of the democratic tional cmittee. they hadeen hireby staff meers ofhe commiee to reectresident richa nixon. it wasalled creep, th committee to reele the prident. thised to annvestigaon thatevealed ltiple ases of powery the nin administration, and ultimately,

nixon's resignation two years later. but before nixon stepped down, the scandal was examined in the watergate hearings, which lasted 51 ds and we broadca on televisi with wa-to-wall coverage. crits called i"a television-viewing phenomenon." among those who testified were nixon's foer white house chief of staff john ehrlhman. here he is being questioned by republan senator howard baker >> when d you fst learn of th break-in? >> the day flowing the brea and wh i recved this telephon cal towd desk, te in t afterno. >>id youalk to t preside on the7? >> n that can recall. >> did you talk to m haldern? >> the folloing day. >> read concned abouit? >> n partilarly. if meone en remotelon my sff a chargedith brking a enterg into t democric national hequarters were somne wasven asciated

with a nspaper coln, i wou beetermineto find t if th hapned. s there thiair of urgcy in e white use on ts part or derm'part or dean'park? inot comi throughhat way. soundlike a routinetaff eratiobut thisasn't routine. amy: that was the republican senator howard baker. just one of the dramatic scenes that played out in the watergate hearings that followed the watergate break-in 50 years ago on for more, we are joined by friday. journalist and author garrett graff, who has a piece in "the new york times" headlined "three critical lessons of the watergate hearings that the january 6 committee should learn." it draws on his new book "watergate: a new history." garrett, welcome to democracy now! before we talk about the lessons learned and what today's committee could learn from the watergate hearings, which were

-- shook this country, for those who weren't even born yet, can you tell us what the watergate scandal was all about? what happened 50 years ago on friday? >> as you said in the introduction, friday the 17th marks the 50thnnivsary of the watergate break-in, which in many ways is where america thinks the watergate story begins. what my book tries to do is pieced together all we have learned over the last 50 years in terms of new details and newly declassified and released investigative files. what we now really understand about watergate was that it was less an event and more i mindset that watergate burglary was the

equivalent of america walking into the second for third pack of a play that had been underway for yearsat tt poin terge iseallybout this rk criminal,aranoid, conspiratori mindset that richard nixon brings to the white house. it permeates the upper ranks of the administration, drives the actions of so many aides, including men like john ehrlichman we heard from a moment ago. and watergate really becomes an umbrella for about a dozen inrrelatedut dtinct scandalsall of whi stem from esidenti abuses ower, abus tt and yocan civi lirts -- ericanivil liberties, the attempt to

weaponize the government against political enemies, and that carry straight from the campaign avenue 1968 throu the sumr of 14 when non finly resis fromffe. my book and where history i think the settling on the watergate story is to look at the burglary as really just one event in this six years -- at least until then -- unprecedented corruption and criminality inside the white house. juan: garrett graff, that actually begins even before nixon becomes president, doesn't it? talk about the chennault affair and how that affected come even as nixonolitics in the u.s., even as nixon was running for president?

>> this is one of the events we did not understand really until the last decade was connected to watergate at all, and yet we now understand things due to newly declassified document from the johnson presidential i break it begins not with the burgry 1972 but with nix's campaign for president in the fall of 1968. nixon, the former vice president, running against the sitting vice president hubert humphrey, lyndon johnson, the president is desperately trying to bring the vietnam war to a close, convening the paris peace talks to wind down and find a resolution to the vietnam war. richard nixon, as a private citizen presidential candidate working with his campaign director john mitchell, interfes in the paris ace talks with a woman named anna

chennault, washington socialite. anna chennault since a message from the nixon campaign to stall the south vietnamese government, to tell them that richard nixon will give them a better deal as president, and to put a fine point on this, what we see -- what we now understand is richard nixon kept the vietnam war going for his own political benefit in the fall of 1968, kept american servicemen dying in the jungles of vietnam because he thought it would help him when the election. in the final hours of the campaign, president johnson discovers this treachery, confronts riard nixon. richard nixon denies it and the clock runs out. effectively, he wins the election before johnson is able to take action. johnson decides for the good of the country to bury this treachery. these are some of the most

serious, credible allegations approaching outright treason that we have against any politicafigure in the 20th century, but johnson decides he cannot undermine nixon's presidency before it begins. nixon knows that johnson knows, and this treachery, this secret becomes this beggar allan poe telltale heart secret, eating away at the nixon presidency and drives richard nixon overreaction to the pentagon papers and eventually the creation of the white house unit that leads to the dirty tricks operation in the 1972 campaign. this is a huge new secret we're really only understanding in the last decade about where watergate begins and just how closely linked vietnam, the pentagon papers, and watergate

actually turn out to be. juan: i wanted to ask you, taking it to the current january 6 hearings, if you could compare the impact of watergate with these hearings? i want to quote from chris hedges recently wrote that these hearings he believes are spectacle replacing politics, and he writes "the committee goes back to top opponents what they already believed, it is designed to present anction as action and substitute role-playing for politics." he actually compares these hearings more to the 1924 trial of adolf hitler, that it really is more farce than politics. i'm wondering what your thoughts are, not only about hedges, but comparisons between the watergate hearings and current hearings -- which are much more scripted than watergate.

watergate was all live, give. this is -- a lot of it is video playing depositions that are carefully crafted and selected rather than a live give and take. >> i think part of the challenge is we don't know yet the full impact of the january 6 hearings. we don't know whether it will lead to action or inaction. we don't know the evidence that is going to come forward, the ramifications that will unfold. i do think one of the clearest analogues is this idea of trying to capture, that january 6 was not an event as much as i mindset. and richard nixon and watergate, donald trump share this dark, crimin, conspiratorial mindset

that links together so many other scandals. just as we now understand watergate as his collection and umbrella of a dozen distinct scandals, abuses of power, and corruption schemes tied to the administration, i think one of the things that is becoming more clear with the trump administration is the way all of the scandals of donald trump's presidency are linked. the russian attack on the 2016 election, the way it connects to the molar investigation, to the trump obstructions of justice, to that perfect telephone call with ukraine to the first impeachment to the lies around the 2020 election and eventually the insurrection on january 6 and the second impeachment. that is really all one story stemming from that paranoid,

criminal, conspiratorial line of the donald trump. amy: garrett graff, i want to go back again, because when you talk about the dark and conspiratorial mind of nixon, it is really incomprehensible why, for example, a year before the watergate break-in in june 1971, dan ellsberg released the pentagon papers. nixon went crazy over these. but in no way did it implicate him. , and come it implicated his enemies, kennedy and lyndon johnson. it was a secret history of the war in vietnam. nixon at that point was not a part of that. explain why he then went off on that and everything else that ensued. >> this has long been one of the grt mysteries, which is your absolute right. there are 2 million words in the

pentagon papers and not one of them is "nixon." should've been one of the great political coups of his life. two mortal enemies, jfk and lbj, are slammed in these papers and nixon is not mentioned at all. however, the key that we now understand, that has been unlocked in the last two years that gives us the understanding for the first time of nixon's overreaction to the pentagon papers, is the chennault affair, which is that nixon becomes afraid in the wake of the ellsberg release of the pentagon papers in june 1971 that as part of these leaks that the documents documenting the chennault affair will come out. he knows these documents exist. he doe't know where they are. he comes to think they are at e brookings institute, the think tank in washington. he is on tape in december 1971

ordering the only burglary that he is actual on the white house -- wch isn't the watergate in 1972, but is a brookings in 1971. the white house with g gordon liddy and e howard hunt, the sort of overeager plumbers who go on to become the masterminds -- of put masterminds" of the watergate a year later, they come up with this fantastical, while criminal plan to fire on the brookings institution and bring in the same team of cuban burglars that they used a year later and watergate and dress them up as d.c. firefighters, equipped them with a secondhand d.c. fire truck, and have them respond to the firebombing at brookings. and in the chaos of the

firefighting, break into brookings, break into its safe and steal back the chennault papers to keep nixon's treason and treachery secret. the white house decides to abandon the plan, not because this is sort of wild and awful and criminal, but because they turn out to be too cheap to buy the fire truck. and over the course of multiple days in the wake of the pentagon papers release, nixon is storming in the oval office, repeatedly ordering this burglary and asking why it has nobeen carried out. at it amounts to is the creation of the plumbers unit, which then goes on to break into daniel ellsberg psychiatrist office in the fall of 1971, one of the sort of related scandals that comes out later in watergate and actually is the

reason the charges are ultimately dropped against daniel ellsberg, as you know. it sort of creates this unit with an overeager imagination and sort of criminal rambunctious nests to punish richard nixon's enemies inside the white house. amy: i want to ask, why was nixon -- ultimately was the burglary of the dnc -- why was it all about that and not the illegal bombing of cambodia or the whole issue of johnson, you know, understanding clearly nixon have prolonged the war, the deaths of 70 the enemies but he was concerned about u.s. soldiers, so he could get her elected? >> this is fascinating to go back and look at all of these event 50 years later because watergate has been handed down

to us in popular culture in history, movies like "all the presidents men" with robert redford and dustin hoffman, turned out to capture a very small slice of the overall story. much of it has only become clear with the passage of time. that was really the goal of my book, to try and retell the full story of watergate start to finish. because what becomes clear is the guiding adage that we think is te out of watergate -- the coveup is always worse than the crime, would you here basically and every modern political scandal. it turned out not to be true in watergate. richard nixon's crimes were many and quite terrible and serious abuses of power. juan: garrett graff, you know in

your "new york times" recent piece, the lesson from the video "under stores a vast gulf of political between 1973 and 1922 especially the republicans on the committee and in commerce more generally, who backed them were good-faith participants." could you talk about that comparison to the current hearing? >> you played a little bit of this in talking with howard baker in the introductio interrogating john ehrlichman. what really stands out then and now -- obviously, watergate, my books the story of 50 years ago and it is about richard nixon's crimes and corruption. but donald trump looms over every page of this book on watergate. the parallels and the challenges to our country and our democratic since really reading

across half century of american politics. one of the biggest differences i think you see between then and now is the behavior of the behavior of the republican party -- watergate is a sty of a criminal president but i think it is also every hopeful story about how american democracy works and how our system can prott democracy. you see the delicate ballet and rolled that every institution in american government and like had to play to bring richard nixon to justice in 1974. the press, the fbi, the justice department, the house come the senate come the district courts, appeals court, a supreme court -- u.s. supreme court. when you compare that to modern times, most of the rest of the system did its role. the media did the investigations

that were supposed to. the fbi, the justice department did what they were supposed to. where holding president trump to account fell apart was in the house and in the senate. where it fell apart was in the behavior of the republicans specifically in congress. in watergate, you saw the republican members of congress understand that they had an important prerogative as members of the legislative branch to hold the coequal executive branch to account. to keep its abuses of power in check. and they had a role as legislator first and only as partisan republican second. that was true across the republican spectrum in 1972, 1973, 19 74. we saw moderates, solid

republicans like howard baker, and you saw even the conservative standardbearer barry goldwater all play important roles in bringing richard nixon to justice because they understood that protecting american democracy meant making sure executive branch did not run out of control. what we see n is republicans in congress acting as partisans first and members of congress second, if at all. in fact, the number of people -- the number of republicans who have acted to hold the presidency to account is short and getting shorter. liz cheney and adam kissinger on the january 6 committee, we saw last night one of the very few republicans who voted to impeach

donald trump in the house lose his primary -- this is a pretty dark time for the behavior of republican party. amy: very quickly, how did nixon go down? as you say, trump sort of infuses this whole book when you look at the parallels, but you have trump perhaps about to announce again for running for the presidency, but then you have nixon going down. he wasn't impeached. he resigned. >> yes. what you saw -- remember, the watergate hearings in the summer of 1973, it takes a whole year the scandal to play out. see the accumulation of axon's lies, the accumulation of the evidence of the cover-up inescapable.

following the saturday night massacre, his abuse of power and forcing the resignation of the leadership of the justice department, the firing of the special prosecutor investigating him. really weighs on republicans in the senate and the house. they decide by the sprg of 1974, basically, nixon is not savable, particularly in the wake of the supreme court decision that forces him to release the white house page that show his participation in the burglary cover-up -- which he had long denied. the republican party made a decision to abandon him. >> garrett graff, thank you for being with us, journalist, historian and author of several books. his latest "watergate: a new , history." and we will link your peace and "the new york times" headlined "three critical lessons of the watergate hearings that the january 6 committee should learn." next up, president biden

addresses the afl-cio convention and delegates select their first woman president and first african-american secretary-treasurer. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "the garden path" by kamasi washington. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. president biden was in philadelphia tuesday where he laid out to thousands of members of the afl-cio, tackling the worst inflation the united states has experienced in decades. pres. biden: the problem is, republicans and congress are doing everything they can to stop my plans. that is why my plan is not finished and why the results are not finished, either. jobs are back, but prices are still too high. covid is down, but gas prices are up. our work is not done.

amy: buying address the afl-cio just days after delegates elected liz shuler is the first woman president and fred roman -- fred redmond to be its first african-american secretary-treasurer. this comes as president biden has expressed support for unions and used to speech toall on vote to ba including -- elect candidates that back workers' and labor rights, including john fetterman, pennsylvania's democratic u.s. senate candidate, and stacey abrams. he also met with amazon and starbucks union leaders at the white house. both corporations phase accusations of illegally firing and retaliating against unionizing workers. for more, we go to philadelphia to speak with steven greenhouse, longtime journalist who covered labor for "the new york times" and author of "beaten down, worked up: the past, present, and future of american labor." welcome back to democracy now!

talk about the significance of where president biden addressed the catastrophe of the economy right now in some ways because of inflation, though jobs are different story and all sorts of issues from the bear market on and what people on the floor were saying, the thousands of union activists. >> biden very much -- he is under a lot of criticism because of the economy, especially inflation, knows the democrats to do well this november, they really have to went over a lot of blue-collar voters -- not just in the midwest, but the rest of the country. his message was, first, i am fighting for you, fighting for workers, fighting for unions, i am a pro union president. i pass this big infrastructure bill that will create hundreds of thousands of good middle-class jobs. i want to do more on childcare. i want to do more on student debt most of the american rescue plan help kids of millions of

american families. created a .6 million jobs as president, more than any other president in such a short time plus of the unpleasant rate is down. he says i'm doing well on the economy except we have this inflation problem. second, is really pretty forward -- putting forward an blue-collar message. he was hitting corporations hard saying the big corporations, the billionaires are notaying their fair share and the billionaires are paying just 8% of income. he got huge applause. this is one of the best speeches -- very vigorous. he got a standing ovation. i interviewed one union president who said what we as a nation need, what democrats need more democrats to sound like biden did today. juan: steve, how do you deal

with this quandary that on one hand unemployment is as low as it has been in decades, wages have increased substantially, players cannot find enough workers and yet there is such disaffection in terms of the masses of the people, especially over inflation and the rising price of gasoline and president biden is seen as, really, his heart is in the right place but his effectiveness is the problem? how do you see it in terms of labor? he did not really announce any new initiatives by the administration to the afl-cio. >> great question and one that democrats are trying to figure out that biden is trying to figure out. they have them anyways done a great job on the economy. i spoke to top labor leaders and they say democrats are not doing

a good enough job getting the message across. that republicans are blocking them on many things like trying to enact greater subsidies of childcare and that -- he does have this inflation problem and it is hard, but i think yesterday a better job and it is hard to do to say the inflation problem is really not our fault. it is mainly the fault of the ukraine war which is pushing up gas prices and food prices. it is the supply chain problems created by the pandemic was that the republicans are doing a great job saying, come it is all joe biden's fault. joe biden and democrats are not doing enough saying it is not our flt. the problem all presidents face is the buck stops here and if inflation is high on your watch,

people are going to blame you. so that is why biden has to do a much better job showing america's voters and workers that "i am fighting for you and trying to lower inflation and i have done a great job creating these eight points explain jobs and lowering the inflation rate -- 8.6 million jobs and lowering the inflation rate." it is a hard message but they really have to hammer it and hammer it and hammer it. juan: i want to ask you about the changing climate, especially among young people in the united states regardingnions. we have covered here on this show many of the successes of over 150 starbucks retail stores have unionized, b the starbucks stores, although there are many of them, there are small numbers of workers. at that one amazon plant in staten island that unionized,

8000 workers, that is more than double what probably all the starbucks union campaigns have succeeded in recruiting to the labor movement so far. i'm wondering your sense of how the afl-cio and the new president is going to deal with the issue of organizing on a massive scale given the fact so many young people now are predisposed to unions? >> i just finished a big story on that for the guardian. on one hand, the starbucks unionization drive in the amazon victory in staten island, they are in many ways, as you know, have elected the most inspiring unionization efforts in decades. they jazzed millions of young workers about unions. the recent study, 74%, three out of four young workers 18 to 24 said they would love to join a union if they could. young workers are really jazzed

about unions. not just in starbucks and amazon, but at rei and amazon and museum workers and undergraduate workers. the excitement among young workers to unionize. coming to this afl-cio convention in philadelphia, there was a lot of pressure, a lot of christians facing the afl-cio, are you going to step up to the moment? are you as the nation's big established labor federation went to do anything to really push, help ease fuel unionization movement grow? liz shuler, who was elected to a full four year term as afl-cio president, announced what she says is a bold plan that the afl

is going to set -- the 57 unions are tting a goal of unionizing an additional one million workers over 10 years. she says that is great. this is the first time we are creating measurable goals for unions to increase our membership. one million over 10 years really translates to 1% increase in union membership per year. some people say after unions have lost members year after year, our real substantial goal to try to increase number should by 1% a year but i spoke to some well-known union leaders saying 1%, the one million goal is not enough. this is a time, a moment when millions of workers inspired about unions, jazzed up, eager to unionize, that there

criticizing the one million goal as short. they say the afl-cio has to be far bolder. some union leaders i spoke to site it is disappointing that among the 100 speakers at the afl-cio convention, no one from starbucks or amazon and no coincidence those unions -- workers from then on afl-cio unions have not been invited to the convention. some people -- we talked about [indiscernible] why is it workers from some of the most exciting unionization drives in decades are not invited to speak at this convention? amy: what is it? finally, steven greenhouse, talk

about this being the john lewis moment for unions. what do you mean by that? >> john lewis was the president of the united mine workers in the 1930's when that was the richest, biggest most powerful union in the nation. in the 1930's, it was the beginning of unionization a mass production industries. henry ford really began huge mass production lines. in the 1930's, there was a push for unionization but american started -- really did not want to help these people unionize. a bunch of craft unions, carpenters, brick unions. they thought, we don't want to help this mass unionization by this group they saw is largely unskilled workers. john lewis said, these folks, these mass production workers are the future of the labor movement. we are crazy if we don't help them unionize. john lewis, back by other unions

, got behind -- funded this effort to unionize these mass production workers thanks to the big treasury of the mine workers -- they hired to organize autoworkers and still workers and that produced the biggest surge in unionization in american history. the nation went from 12% of the workforce being unionized in 1935 to basically over 30% unionized in 1946, 19 47. that was thanks to the efforts of john lewis and the so-called industrial organizations. they met at the moment. they stepped up. the theme of this afl-cio meeting now is building a movement to meet the moment. some people are questioning whether the afl-cio's goal of unionizing one million over 10 years really meets the moment. they are saying the federation

should do more. liz shuler, very much a consensus later, she says the 57 unions of the afl, this is what we can get them to agree to. some people say this is the lowest common denominator. they should do more to push unions to do more and liz shuler is kind of sang, after years of losing membership, it is in a vicious gold even to one million over 10 years. it is a real tug-of-war. many labor academics come activists ar saying, look, one million just isn't enough and they're pushing the afl-cio to do a lot more. amy: 10 seconds. >> continue doing a lot of unionization. amy: steven greenhouse, thank you for being with us, longtime labor journalists, senior fellow at the century foundation and his book "beaten down, worked

, up: the past, present, and future of american labor." president bynum when running for president said saudi arabia and mohammed bin salman should be pariahs. he has reversed himself. we will bring you more in 30 seconds. ♪♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. the white house has formally announced that president biden will visit saudi arabia next month as well as israel and the occupied west bank. he is expected to meet with both

saudi king salman and crown prince mohammed bin salman. as a candidate, he pledged to make saudi arabia pariah following the brutal assassination of "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi i would make it clear we are not going to some or weapons. we would make them the pariah that they are. amy: but bided has taken a different stance as global gas prices soared. talk to saudi arabia are expected to focus on what production, the war in yemen, other regional issues. for more, we're joined by sarah leah whitson, lawyer for khashoggi's fiancé, filed lawsuit. she is executive director of democracy for the arab world now, or dawn. welcome back to democracy now!

we only have five minutes but i'm wondering if you could respond to this complete versatile of president biden from saying they are pariahs to going to meet with them? it is a very dramatic situation for very clear redline that president biden had announced perhaps off-the-cuff but i think it is in response to a massive amount of pressure from the fence industry, from the israelis, saudis and the increasing oil prices, all of whicich have resulted in a pressuring president biden to do what he clearly did not want to do, which is go and kiss the ring of mohammed bin salman. i also want to note the notion of whether or not biden is going to meet with bah humbug been summoned is bit of a red herring -- mohammed bin salman is a bit

of a red herring. saudis demanding in order to continue to purchase american weapons is the security agreement, defense agreement that will commit u.s. troops to defending the saudi and emirate monarchies. that is what we should all be very worried about. juan: what about the continuing massive weapon sales under the biden administration, not only to the saudi arabia, but to jordan, united arab emirates, as well? >> well, the truth is in the pudding. despite the promise from president biden you just heard that he would end weapon sales to saudi arabia, it was clear from the beginning of the administration that was not going to happen. saudi arabia is america's largest weapons client. it is a largest weapons client in the world. number two behind it is the uae.

everybody knows what the writing to do is come and that is to end the eapon sales given their atrocious war crimes for six years in yemen, but ultimately, the bagman has succumbed to the pressures of the defense industry and the foreign government lobbyists to continue what are very profitable arms sales for the defense industry. certainly -- or serve the interest of the american people, but in very much serves the interest of major donors to the democratic party, major donors to the biden administration, and that is the lobbyists that represent the defense industry and the foreign government. amy: i was watching john kirby question about whether he will raise human rights. he said, well, he does do that kind of thing. we kind of expect he will. what about, for example, is the pressure being brought to end your lawsuit on behalf of khashoggi's fiancé for the dismemberment of khashoggi, the

murder of khashoggi? we're not only topping that one man here. also the dismemberment of yemen, the atrocity that is one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world with u.s. weapons-backed saudi arabia bombing of yemen? >> well, just to be clear, the lawsuit is a lawsuit that dawn is brought in its own capacity and jamaal's fiancé is a coplaintiff. we are joining together in this lawsuit will stop we know mohammed bin salman has demanded the biden administration interfere in our lawsuit to grant immunity. that is not going happen. it is not happen so far but if he since to become king, he will have sovereign immunity. the other lawsuit will remain and we are waiting for a verdict on the court for the motion to dismiss our lawsuit.

we intend to prevail and hope we will prevail. today we will be commemorating the murder of jamaal khashoggi by mohammed bin salman by unveiling a new street side and front of the saudi industry at 1:00 p.m. i think that is the most important active accountability thatxists to date a permanent street side in front of the saudi embassy reminding the whole world of who was responsible for this heinous crime. that's face it, this is a face-saving exit for their futile war that is caused nothing but destruction and brought zero gain even for the saudi's nefarious plot to contain and control yemen. amy: the saudi arabian embassy will be on jamal khashoggi way? >> that's right. the new address of the saudi

embassy. it is officially now jamal khashoggi way, designated by the washington, d.c., city council that unanimously approved our effort to redesignate the street stop we hope you will all watch the unveiling of the street sign today at 1:0ñcñcñcñcooooooo7ú oñ

♪ ♪ hello and welcome back to nhk "newsline." i'm takao minori in new york. policymakers at the u.s. federal reserve spent months trying to hush america's complains about inflation. but they've seen prices rub well beyond their own expectations. now, they're moving aggressively to bring them down. they've decided on their sharpest interest rate hike in nearly three decades, three quarters of a percentage point.