[captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york this is democracy now! pres. biden: let me be clear, this bill would be the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis and improve our energy security right away. amy: president biden is hailing a senate bill to address the climate emergency. and deal after senator joe

manchin reversed himself and said he would support the legislation around a climate emergency. we will speak to a professor who advised senate democrats on the legislation as well as a congressional staffer who was targeted at had of the meeting. we will speak to congressmember andy levin of michigan. rep. levin: it is not ok as a jewish person to support people undermining our democracy. it's not about aipac, it's about taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from them and taking corporate money from other pa cs that are supporting insurrectionist republicans. amy: plus, we will look at two threats facing the nation's imprisoned population, intensifying heat was and monkpox. >> now that the first case of monkpox has been detected in american jls, we are faced

with thiseal possility th is entir outbreak in the unit states may be transformed into something that is much greater and deadly and need be. amy: mabel speak with the former chief medical officer of new york health services and with an incarcerated reporter with the marshall project. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. president biden is urging the senate to swiftly pass the inflation reduction act of 2022 after west virginia senator joe manchin's a surprise announcement that he would support a budget reconciliation package to combat the climate crisis while lowering health care costs. the legislation represents just a fraction of the more than $3 trillion sought by progressive democrats in 2020. biden said thursday the deal would still be the most important climate legislation

ever passed by congress payment pres. biden: this bill is far from perfect, it's a compromise. that is often how progress is made, by compromise. this bill would be the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis and improve our energy security right away. amy: the package includes nearly $370 billion in new spending on climate and energy over the next 10 years, but environmentalist morning it contains poison pills for the in -- environment, like the interior opening up millions of land to elements. the centers for biological diversity said "the new leasing fan the flames of the climate disaster, torching our country, and a slap in the face of the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. we will have more on the emerging legislation later in the broadcast.

in eastern kentucky, at least eight people are dead after torrential rains brought flooding and mudslides to the region, washing out bridges and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses. rescue crews in inflatable boats fanned out to search for survivors, some of whom fled to their rooftops as floodwaters rose around them. on thursday, up to seven inches of rain fell on parts of kentucky, and governor andy beshear said the death toll could continue to rise. >> in a word, this event is devastating. i believe it will end up being one of the most significant deadly floods we have had in kentucky in at least a very long time. amy: meanwhile, millions of u.s. residents face heat advisories again this weekend, including in the pacific northwest where temperatures rose to triple digits again on thursday. the house of representatives has sent the white house a $280 billion bill to support the u.s. semiconductor industry.

once signed by president biden, the chips act will provide more than $76 billion in subsidies to corporations that produce semiconductor chips in the united states. all but one house democrat voted in favor of the bill on thursday. the vote came after vermont independent senator bernie sanders blasted the legislation as corporate welfare for a handful of wealthy high-tech companies. elsewhere on capitol hill, military veterans and their supporters erupted in anger thursday after senate republicans blocked a bill to aid former u.s. servicemembers poisoned by toxic waste. the bill would require the department of veterans affairs to remove the burden of proof from vets who say their health problems are related to the pentagon's use of toxic "burn pits" in iraq and afghanistan. on wednesday, pennsylvania republican senator pat toomey who's set to retire at the end of the year blocked the bill,

after it initially received 84 votes in the 100-seat senate. that prompted an angry response from comedian jon stewart a leading advocate for veterans . >> the senate is where accountability goes to die. these people don't care. they are not losing their jobs. they are never losing their health care. pat toomey is walking away. god knows what kind of pot of gold he is stepping into. to lobby this government and -- on more people. i am use to all of it, but i am not used to cruelty. amy: in eastern ukraine, russia's military says an attack by ukrainian forces using a u.-made advanced missile stem has killed ukrainian prisoners of war and wounded dozens of others. ukraine denied its forces carried out the attack in separatist-held territory and instead blamed russia for the strike on a prison housing the pows. meanwhile, united nations officials say they're hopeful

that a u.n. and turkey-brokered deal to safely export grain from blockaded ukrainian ports could begin as early as today. the white house says president biden spoke with chinese leader xi jinping by telephone for over two hours on thursday, at a time of rising tensions between washington and beijing. press secretary karine jean-pierre said the talks were aimed at restoring the u.s.-china relationship. the pair reportedly discussed climate change, human rights, counter-narcotics, and russia's war in ukraine. >> on taiwan, president biden underscore that the united states policy has not changed and that the united states strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the taiwa strait. amy: after the call, china's foreign ministry said xi warned biden over u.s. support for taiwan, including house speaker nancy pelosi's planned visit to the island in august. "those who

play with fire will perish by it," xi was quoted as saying. west virginia's republican-led state senate is debating a bill today that would ban nearly all abortions, while making abortion-care a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. west virginia's house of delegates approved the bill wednesday after hearing testimony from 90 members of the public who were allotted 45 seconds each. this is addison gardner, the youngest speaker. >> i am 12 years old. i attend buffalo middle school, i play varsity volleyball, and i run track. my education is very important to me and i plan on doing great things in life. if a man decides that i'm an object, it is -- says unspeakable and tragic things to me, and i, a child, supposed to carry and birth another child? am i to put my body through the

physical trauma of pendency? am i to suffer the mental implications of a child who had no say in what was being done with my body? some hearsay they are pro-life. what about my life? amy: supreme court justice samuel alito has made his first public comments since authoring the majority opinion in dobbs v. jackson women's health organization, which struck down roe v. wade. alito spoke july 21st at the notre dame religious liberty summit in rome, in remarks that were made public on thursday. >> had the honor this term of writing, i think, the only supreme court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of four lits -- foreign leaders who feel perfectly fine on commenting on american lives.

one of these was former prime minister boris johnson, but he paid the price. amy: in june, boris johnson called alito's majority opinion striking down roe v. wade a "backward step" for women's rights. alito's other critics include prince harry, french president emmanuel macron, and canadian prime minister justin trudeau who called the ruling overturning abortion rights "horrific." the united states coast guard says at least five people drowned and 66 others were rescued off the coast of puerto rico, thursday, after they were forced off their boat by human smugglers. most of the survivors are haitian. they were handcuffed by border and protection officials as they were taken into custody. their rescue came just days after 17 haitian migrants died off the coast of the bahamas when their boat capsized. this week, rival gangs in haiti's capital port-au-prince continued to wage intense gun battles this week, as the u.n. warned the number of reported killings this year is fast approaching 1,000.

in veracruz, mexico, scores of migrants who were left by human smugglers in an abandoned freight trailer on the side of a highway had to break their way out to avoid suffocation. on wednesday, people at a nearby gas station discovered the migrants aer they bashed holes in therailer's roof. medics treated survivors for knee and ankle injuries. >> we were told there were close to 400 immigrants traveling in the trailer. when they started to feel suffocated, they broke through the roof of the trailer and most of them jumped out. that is why most of the injuries were ankle and knee fractures. amy: the migrants are from guatemala, honduras, and el salvador. this comes a month after 53 migrants from central america and mexico died in san antonio, texas, after they were left in a sweltering, abandoned trailer. in massachusetts, workers at a trader joe's outlet in the city of hadley have become the first to organize a union at the grocery chain. workers voted 45-31 to join the newly-formed trader joe's united, overcoming what organizers said was a relentless union-busting campaign.

trader joe's workers in at least two other states have also launched union organizing drives. and in canada, indigenous protesters confronted pope francis thursday as he prepared to celebrate mass inside canada's national shrine in quebec city. the protest came as the pontiff continued his tour of canada to apologize for the catholic church's role in canada's brutal “indian residential school” system, which saw an estimated 150,000 indigenous children taken from their families and placed in distant boarding schools, where they often suffered physical and sexual abuse. over 3,200 died at the schools. on thursday, two anishinaabe protesters unfurled a large banner reading, "rcind the doctrine" just as pope francis was starting mass. their sign was a reference to the 15th century “doctrine of discovery” used by the catholic church to justify the european colonization of indigenous lands.

and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we begin today's show looking at how aipac, the american israel public affairs committee, is spending millions of dollars in primary races to defeat progressive democrats. in michigan, where voters go to the polls on tuesday, aipac has spent over $3 million targeting andy levin, a two-term member on -- of congress. levin is a former president of his synagogue and he comes from one of the most prominent jewish political families in michigan. his father sandy levin served in congress and his uncle carl was a u.s. senator. congress member andy levin is a self-described zionist who supports a two-state solution. but earlier this year a former president of aipac described levin as "arguably the most corrosive member of congress to the u.s.-israel relationship." due to redistricting levin's opponent in tuesday's primary is

another incumbent, haley stevens, who has embraced aipac's support. senator bernie sanders is heading to pontiac, michigan today for a campaign rally with levin and congressmember rashida tlaib who has also been targeted by outside money groups. a new pac aligned with aipac run by bakari sellers has vowed to spend over $1 million to defeat rashida to leave -- tlaib who is the first palestinian-american woman to serve in ngress. this all comes just weeks after aipac spent nearly $6 million in maryland to defeat former democratic congressmember donna edwards and her primary. other progressives who lost after being targeted by aipac include nina turner in michigan -- ohio and jessica cisneros in , texas. one prominent critic of aipac's actions has been peter beinart, editor-at-large of jewish currents. he recently appeared on democracy now!

>> what this is really about is trying to create a whole new generation of younger democrats in congress who will tow the aipac line on israel-palestine, and often take a more pro-corporate position, and therefore blunt the trend we were seeing toward the democratic party moving in a more progressive direction. amy: we go now to michigan where we are joined by democratic congressmember andy levin who is joining us from his home in bloomfield township. welcome to democracy now! in a moment, we will talk about your breasts around abortion rights as you stood outside the supreme court. but first i want to go to this issue of your primary on tuesday. how many millions of dollars have been spent by aipac pac? although this is new for them. they have recentlystablished this super pac. rep. levin: right.

they recently established a regular pac and super pac. between the money they bundle in the dark money they are spending, independently, i think it is over $4.2 million just to try to take down a progressive jewish congressperson. i n't know if yo remember, but i think i first appeared on your show when i created and ran union summer in 1996, so i'm a little bit unusual as a member of congress. amy: that was the first year of democracy now! that amount of money you are talking about, $4 million, how much overall is being spent on your primary race? rep. levin: i think we are being outspent about 5-1. about two thirds of the money from the other side is not any my opponent has raised in campaign contributions, but

independent expenditures. also it's worth pointing out, emily's list is partnering with aipac on this even though i've been endorsed by cecile richards, by the leading care provider in our region. emily's list is now back by a former seiu local president and they are attacking the person in the race w helped hundreds of women's of color to join seiu, so it is kind of ironic. amy: i want to turn to your opponent in when your opponent may haley stevens defended aipac's support for her campaign. >> i've been endorsed by the american israel public affairs committee alongside speaker of the house nancy pelosi, steny hoyer, jim clyburn, senate majority leader chuck schumer, several dozen members of the

house progressive caucus. certainly that endorsement was based on my endorsement on a strong israel u.s. blue-chip. i am proud to be endorsed by the democratic council of america as well as other pro-israel groups. rep. levin: s didn't answer the question. the question is about giving back money from aipac and other organizations that support incident -- insurrectionist republicans. this is not a gotcha thing. our democracy is hanging by a thread. i will speak jewishly here. it is not acceptable, as a moral jewish person, to support people who are undermining our democracy. it is not about getting endorsed by aipac, it's about taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from them, and also taking money from other corporate pacs that are also supporting insurrectionist republicans. amy: we just did a segment on

donna edwards race in maryland, where the issue of israel and palestine is hardly raised, even by the aipac super pac. they raise other issues. is that the case in your district? are people aware of outside money? rep. levin absolutely it is the same. they may do some mro targeting. 8% of the electorate of this new district is jewish, and they may be doing some micro targetinof them. but there is a double deception here really, amy one is where the money is coming from. most of this money is not even coming from democratic capital sources, but republicans, republican billionaires le paul singer, the guy tha founded whatsapp, who also support right wing causes. the second part is, they don't

en talk about why they are giving the money. they talk about other things. whenever they think will be effective to make their chosen candidate when the race. what you have here is a real threat to the democratic party being able to choose our own nominees that we send to the general election in november. this could go to other issues. you could have big pharma, enbridge, exxon mobil, tobacco companies deciding to flood the field with dark money in democratic categories to get their chosen nominee. it is horrifying. amy: senator bernie sanders is coming out to campaign for you and rashida tlaib. the first palestinian-american woman to serve in congress. she is facing the same issues i detroit? rep. levin: yes, but i feel

confident that rashida will win. she is an incumbent running against a nonincumbent. 6% of the new district as part of her current district. i am really glad bernie is coming, supporting her, too, but i think -- they are not investing at the same level because they know they cannot succee my race is an incumbent with an incumbent primary, so that is different. amy: that is like here in new york, carol maloney and jerrold nadler. i wanted to end on this issue, asking about the president of aipac saying in an email to pro-israel donors that you were arguably the most corrosive member of congress to the u.s.-israel relationship. can you talk about your stance on israel and palestine?

you and jacky rosen are the first two synagogue presidents to become congress members? rep. levin: i don't know if we are the first two, but we are the only current ones. i am such a jish person out in public. i love israel. i love palestine. i feel like, after all the history, the jewish people desee a self-determination in a heland. the palestinian people certainly deserve the same. i may be the clearest jewish voice in the house of representatives saying the only way to secure a homeland for the jewish people is to fully realize political and human rights of the palestinian people. that is principled, it islso practical, and i will not back down from it, no matter how many

millions of dollars they throw at me. i thinwe will win on tuesday. bernie icoming, elizabeth warren was here. ja fonda was able to zoom in on monday. we are out at thousands of doors, making thousands of phone calls. 14 national unions. sunrise is on e doors. progressive jews. arab-american muslims. it's a beautiful coalition of progressive forces saying we are not going to l this a dark money termine who wins this race. it will be the human rights, democracy champion, the workers right champion, the champion for environmental justice. amy: you have been arrested twice in the last week in washington. explain? rep. levin: on tuesday of last week, i was arrested with 16 of my sisters from the house of

representatives in front of the supreme court to say we don't care about sam alito and this right wing cabal taking over the court. we will do what it takes to protect the autonomy of women or anybody that will have a baby, their own body, their own decision. it just happened, the next day, a long planned civil disobedience occurred here. i devoted my life to the labor movement, so i got arrested with them. believe it or not, the senate cafeteria and dining workers joined the local union 23 year ago. not only do they not have a first contract, a first contract is not insight. i'll be standing with those workers. amy: finally, on the issue of michigan and abortion rights. a proposed constitutional amendment would override a 90-year-old state law that makes abortion a felony, even in the

case of incensed or rape. explain what this is about. rep. levin: absolutely. i am deeply involved in it. it is called michigan reproductive read him for all. it got the most signatures in the history of ballot initiatives in michigan. hopefully it will be on the ballot on november 8. it would put the right of abortion care in our state constitution, and therefore, nothing but a federal ban could overcome tha i feel really great about it. we are going to get it passed here, amy, will have the right to reproductive care in our state. amy: representative andy levin running for reelection his fall. his primary is on tuesday. next, president biden's handling of a climate bill, now that senator manchin has said he will support it. we will stick -- speak to a

professor who advised the senate democrats. stayith us ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "do it for the people" by lucy pearl. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. president biden is urging the senate to swiftly pass the inflation reduction act of 2022 after west virginia senator joe manchin's surprise announcement this week that he would support a budget reconciliation package to combat the climate crisis my lowering health care costs. the bill represents a just a fraction of the more than $3 trillion put up by progressive democrats in 2020, but biden said the deal would still be the most important climate legislation ever passed by congress. pres. biden: this bill is far from perfect, it's a compromise. but that is often how progress is made, by compromises. this bill would be the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis and improve our energy security right away. amy: the package includes $370

million in new climate and energy spending but environmentalists worn it contains poison pills like a requirement like the interior department open up millions of acres of public land to oil and gas develop as a prerequisite to installing any solar or wind energy. the center for biological diversity said this will fan the flames of the climate disaster supporting our country and is a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. we will have more on the legislation later in the broadcast. we are joined by leo stokes advised senate democrats on the bill. she is the associate professor of environmental politics at the university of california, santa barbara, and a researcher on climate and energy policy. great to have you. the shockwaves that went through washington when the democrat who was torpedoing this bill turned around and said he would support it. we are talking joe manchin.

what happened? you were working behind the scenes. leah: it was really shocking. the last two weeks, when we thought the entire deal had fallen apart, it was really painful david facing the prospect of absolute no climate investments out of d.c. yet again. we are talking decades of attempts to do this. it was devastating. we don't have another decade to wait if you want to be on track cardi -- cutting carbon pollution and have, which is what scientists say we need to do, what president biden has pledged to do. it turns out a lot of the public work, saying that what senator manchin was doing was not ok, whether it was folks in west virginia arguing to make sure they have the right health care support, or climate activist saying we cannot just torch the planet, not just for us, but for senator joe manchin's grandchildren.

i think that pressure may be got to him and he didn't want his legacy to be one of climate destruction. amy: lay out exactly what has passed and what didn't. it has not been voted on yet. leah: i like your positive thinking. amy: what is in the bill and what isn't. leah: the bill passed the house of representatives last fall, included $550 billion in clean energy and climate investment. the good news is a lot of that has remained intact in this final senate version. we are clocking in at $369 billion. a lot of the changes between the bills are mostly shaving the amount for scific programs, tweaking the language, but not getting rid of wholesale programs. there were some losses like the civilian climate core, but a lot of the provision that we needed are still in there. how can we break tt down for folks? first, a bunch of consumer

facing incentives to reduce energy bills. 41% of inflation right now is being driven by fossil fuels. this bill would make it cheaper to get an electric vehicle, heat pump, and efficient electric appliance that heats and cool your home, and for low and moderate income folks, it would help to get an induction stove, a really important piece of technology to cut carbon pollution and energy bills at the same time. we knoif folksdopt the technoloes that e ll would make cheap, iwould ve the 800 year on eir ener bill accordi to an alysis fr rewingmeri. that is not rprisi. it cos about o dollaa gaon to drive a ev versufour llars or fiveollars f a gas powered car. we are talking about delivering a lot of savings with these clean energy technologies for everyday americans. i could get into the other

details but i will pause there. it is a really big bill. amy: what about environmentalists warning abou the bill containing poison pills like this quote i read fr the center of biological diversity who said the new leasing will fan the flames of the climate disaster, torching our country, a slap in the face of the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. leah: like all bills that potentially become law, it's not perfect. we cannot let perfect come the enemy of the good here. these lease sales are problematic. the basic idea is they require a minimum of sales every year. i looked at what the historic level of sales were for both onshore and offshore, and it is about a quarter lower when it comes to offshore lease sales compared to the 10-year average, and then about half of the onshore lease sales. it is still lower than what we

had been seeing under the obama and trump administration but it is not ideal. we don't want to be doing required police sales. but there are some other changes in the bill that pull us in the other direction such as royalty rate increases. what we are trying to do is reduce demand for fossil fuels by helping americans get access to clean technologies that run off of electricity and not fossil fuels. hopefully we will reduce our demand for fossil fuels, and that will make leasing onshore and offshore less profitable. but this is not the bill that i would have written personally. it is going to have some bad ramifications for communities on the front lines of drilling, and that is not good, but we cannot miss the forest for the trees here. we are talking about a bill that will reduce carbon pollution 40% below 2005 levels by 2030, which will get us 80% to president

biden's goal and to do what climate scientists say we need to do. it's not perfect, but the provisions, the modeling that i have seen, it will add about 1% out of that 40% in the bad direction. we could think of it as saying, the good stuff is something like 10 to 20 times bigger than the bad stuff when it comes to carbon pollution. amy: i want to bring in another guest. on capitol hill, six congressional staffers were arrested as they held a nonviolent protest inside the office of chuck schumer. staffers were calling on him to reopen negotiations on the bill to combat the climate crisis. we are joined by one of those staffers arrested. saul levin helped to organize that action. you are a democratic staffer. i wonder if this could have played a role in joe manchin reversing his action in congress.

explain why you targeted not the republicans but the senate majority leader chuck schumer. saul: thanks, amy. part of this action was kind of an alarm bill that we were ringing from the inside. we were trying to direct people toward the senate majority leader, and frankly, the president of the united states to say these are the people that need to be negotiating like our lives depend on it, which they do. we have seen senator manchin go back and forth with industry, and we thought was needed here was a boost for senator schumer to keep negotiating, to not get discouraged, to keep going. we have no option. there is a huge age divide here. we hope this had an impact, but there are hundreds of congressional staffers who are doing different things to try to get this bill back to life. we are going to live through the chronic crisis. -- climate crisis.

i am hoping that my goddaughter grows up in a livable world. we were on track for that. hopefully we are more livable. amy: we spoke to your father, who was arrested twice last week. you were arrested once. a lot of arrests in your family. talk about why you decided to go this far, and now to identify yourself. in letters you had initially you use just your initials. why now come forward? saul: many of us came forward. there were 17 staffers in the room. only six ended up getting arrested. we came forward because we felt we didn't have a choice. as mentioned, there are hundreds of congressional staffers, members of congress who have

been working for 18 months to pass climate policy during this precious two years of democrats in power, and nothing has happened. we felt like we couldn't leave, go on vacation, without passing climate policy. we said we will take some risks, we will do some things that we are not supposed to do, comfortae doing, we are not supposed to be the people on these shows, but it is so bad the notion that we will not pass climate policy, we had to step out. maybe this will draw the attention and spark those folks who have a say, who are in power, to do something unusual to get this done. amy: saul levin is the coordinator of the congressional progressive staff working group who helped to organize the climate emergency direct action in senator chuck schumer's office, got arrested with five others, also a congressional aid to congress member cori bush.

i'm wondering, professor stokes, how important was this action, actions like these? the level of activism of congressional staff, not to mention congress members, but the staff who have been putting enormous pressure to get climate action done. leah: of course, i know saul levin, pardoned by the action they took. so many felt like that when the negotiations fell apart. i was certainly crying. many members in congress were as well. we were not doing that for the personal reasons, the work that we put in. it was because of the stakes. failure is not an option right now. we had 100 million americans under extreme heat last week. we are about to see those temperatures across the country again today. 60 million americans

experiencing a once in a 1200 year mega drought in the west right now. we are seeing extreme flooding in kentucky, missouri. this is terrible. we cannot just watch the climate crisis unfold, like saul was talking about, and not do something about it. there are so many people working in congress, staff is just elevated, who have been working hard. that includes staffers in chuck schumer's office who have not even taken paternity leave since they had children. i have to tell you, i came on your show one year ago today. i was in the hospital having my own children, twins, and i have not really gone on leave since then. this climate bill is too important. we have to get it over the finish line. i am really grateful for all the folks working in congress to get it over the finish line in the coming weeks. amy: 30 seconds. i know you are in michigan,

saul, but if you could talk about the protesters who were arrested last night outside of the congressional baseball game and fundraiser, as they try to block the entrance to nationals park. this is happening at every level now. saul: absolutely. we were not coordinated with them, but as all of us are rising up and saying, we need more climate justice investment immediately on an absolute emergency basis. as leah mentioned, there have been heat waves all across the country that have been unprecedented, other than the last few years. the consistency between our protest and the protest at the baseball game, people all over the world are saying we have to live through this and our leaders are not doing enough. we are still hoping to move forward with climate policy this year, but this new packet is not anywhere close to the funding that we need.

this is not the green new deal or build back better. people need to keep pushing in whatever ways they can. amy: thank you for being with us. some signs that were held, democrats, seal the deal, talking about the climate emergency. saul levin, congressional staffer or cori bush, one of six staffers arrested in a climate emergency direct action in senator schumer's office. leah stokes, associate professor of environmental politics at santa barbara, author of "short circuiting policy", co-host of the podcast "a matter of degrees." coming up, we take a look at two threats threatening the nation. intense heat and monkeypox in america's prisons.

♪♪ [music break] as tens of millions of people in , democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as tens of millions of people in the united states live under heat alerts this week, we look at conditions faced by those in prisons and jails. here in new york, two city council members made an unannounced visit monday to the rikers island prison complex, and called it a "hellhole." tiffany caban's district includes rikers, and in a statement she described a "lack of cleaning supplies, lack of

medical attention, constant overdoses and other health crises, new yorker after new yorker languishing in intake for day after day with no air conditioning in the middle of a severe heat wave and generally a , persistent wave of what in the outside world would be seen as an emergency taking a week or two to address inside the facility." in the pacific northwest, a heat wave pushed temperatures in some areas above 110 degrees fahrenheit. this is an immigrant held at the northwest detention center, run by the private-prison company geo group, in tacoma, washington speaking to maru mora-villalpando of the immigration justice group la resistencia. >> right now ifeels very hot. the guards to not switch the hours that we go out to the yard. they take us out at 2:00, noon, 1:00, during when it is extremely hot there is no sha and they leave us out there for one hour. >> when you go back inside come do the guards give you water? >> not at all.

>> what if you ask for water? >> there is a water fountain outside but the water comes out very hot. if we want to take a shower or freshen up, the water in the bathrooms or the showers comes up boiling hot. amy: this comes as a new report by the texas prison community advocates and the hazard reduction & recovery center at texas a&m university finds 13 states do not have universal air conditioning in state prisons. this includes texas, where most prisons are not fully air conditioned. one texas prisoner described the environment of extreme heat and the covid-19 pandemic as a "living hell." for more we're joined from austin, texas by keri blakinger, investigative reporter based in texas, covering criminal justice and injustice for the marshall project, where she is their first formerly incarcerated reporter. we just interviewed her on her new memoir, "corrections in ink ." she's been documenting conditions during this latest heat wave. welcome back to democracy now!

what have you found? keri: one of the things that was different, first of all, texas prisons are far more understaffed than they have been in the past. some of the basic things that would have been done to mitigate the heat come in past years, are not available this year. there is not enough aff on hand to be letting people out for showers, letting them outdoors as much, providing ice, things like that. although the heat has been an ongoing issue in texas, this year, it is exacerbated by a staffing crisis that is years in the making. amy: if you can talk about what that means, both when you don't have enough staff -- give us examples in different prisons. we are not talking about someone who can take a cold shower whenever they want to, somebody who can move from three digit temperatures, over 100 degree temperatures to a cooler place.

these are incarcerated people. keri: right. they are stuck in their cells. it is so bad, stapp was reaching out to me giving me some tips, that they are concerned about the prisoners. mom called me the other day and said, she had a hot tip for me. her tip was, this is inhumane. she just wanted to say it is inhumane, the way the prisoners were being treated. i know when i'm asked about this, people will say a lot of schools are not air-conditioned. that is different. when people think about incarcerated people in the context of heat, a lot of people like to blow that off, as if it was some extra offering to give people air conditioning. but it is deadly. 23 people have been documented

to have died in texas prisons since 1998 due to heat related illnesses. that is certainly an undercount. amy: you tweeted this week about a facility in gatesville, texas where the water went out for two days where the air temperature was over 100 fahrenheit. talk about that. keri: a lot of our isons, the infrastructure is aging, a lot of them are in cities with not great infrastructure. it is alarming when it happened during such a heat wave. in gatesville, the city had a water main problem, so one of the prisons and it up with no water for about two days. the prison system brought in water tankers, portable toilets, water. but this happens repeatedly. every time this happens,

afterwards we hear stories from incarcerated people about how they were not able to get access to water, were not being let out to use toilets. this is a solution that is certainly better than nothing but have still been historically problematic. the other piece of it, when you have a city water outage like that, there is usually a boil notice during and after. there are several prisons in gatesville. all of them had boil water notices but no means to boil the water. am i want to bring in our other guest, dr. homer venters, former chief medical officer for new york city correctional services. we will talk about monkeypox. fit, as you investigate prisons on this heatwave. dr. venters: thank you for having me, but thrilled to be on with both of you.

this is a drastically underreported problem. one of the most basic tools is to understand who are the heat sensitive people inside of a jail center, this is almost never taken. when it gets above 85 degrees and a living space, the risk of death and serious illness from that high heat condition is different. the medical staff, the services in these places know the people who are more likely to die or get sick. he almost never identify people as being heat sensitive and focus on making sure that they are ok, get them into air-condioned settings. this is a problem all over the cotry. as more places that don't have air conditioning have high heat days and cannot take mitigation efforts, on top of the long-standing problems and places that keri was talking about. amy: i want to thank keri blakinger for being with us. her new book is "corrections in ink." she is the first formerly

incarcerated reporter at the marshall project. as we move from sheet waves to the issue of monkeypox. the spread of monkeypox behind bars. thursday, new york's health commissioner declared monkeypox and imminent threat to public health amid rising concern increasing cases around the state and elsewhere. monkeypox can be transmitted by close physical contact and , experts say it can also spread inside households and through contact while dancing or cuddling, or by sharing contaminated clothes or bedding. or even breathing the air. symptoms include swollen lymph nodes, fever and muscle aches, and a bumpy rash with lesions that can last two to four weeks. painful lesions. this comes as the first case of monkeypox behind bars was reported in chicago this week at the cook county jail. we are going to continue with dr. homer venters, a physician and the former chief medical

officer for new york city's correctional health services. he has just written a new op-ed for the hill that is headlined "cdc must act to prevent monkeypox explosion in prisons." dr. venters, we last spoke to you about the covid-19 pandemic. now talk about monkeypox. you were formally the head of new york city correctional health services, we are now talking to you in virginia where you are investigating prisons, dealing with monkeypox. dr. venters: wre i aright now there are no cases, but my concern around the country is that there are so many places, especially the intake pens, solitary confinement where people are the lord triple in cells, where there is a mandated force close contact between humans that involves skin to

skin contact. if you look at the part of the cdc recommendations that looks at parties, social gatherings, if you have one iota of experience or even talk to an incarcerated person, you'll understand that that same contact is happening tens of thousands of times every day in prison. right now we have about 5000 cases reported in this country. that number could dramatically increase, and the whole epidemiology of the american outbreak could shift in a direction that involves many more cases among people that have justice involvement. amy: let's talk about the monkeypox vaccine, tpox. the u.s. had the foresight to store millions of these vaccines which also contains smallpox. why are people lined up, outside of prisons, trying to get this

vaccine, not to mention what is happening in prisons. dr. venters: with what you can see in new york city, my ncern is we will go down the same path of a real lack of equity and who gets access to these vaccines. inside prisons and jails and detention centers, one of my concerns is that there will not be adequate contact tracing to determine who, in the postexposure scenario, should be operative vaccines. there will be issues getting vaccines for settings always at the bottom of the list. but just this one technical tool of contact tracing, i found through about 50 covid inspections, often jails and prisons just don't do it. hey don't try to figure out who were the close contacts. monkeypox, we will assume that

there are fewer cases, so we probably will not have 80% of the people getting it. we may have a smaller number of people. but it still requires a will to find out who were the people in that court pen, intake pen, housing area. that is where i have concern about finding out who could, postexposure, be eligible. there are people that are highly vulnerable that we know about today. amy: there is something like 21 thousand plus believed to be monkeypox cases in the world. like covid, the u.s. has something like a quarter of those cases. 5000 cases. then you have the prison population. latinx and black americans makeup a disproportionate share of cases of monkeypox in the united states.

within prisons, the black and latinx population is disproportionately represented. what does that mean inside prisons? dr. venters: it means the mass incarceration is one of the ways -- not the only way -- but one of the ways in which we have a system that produces an equity -- inequity in all level of healthutcomes. the cdc and department of health have been essentially absent from both surveilling the health of people behind bars, but also promoting better health care for them, better health outcomes. a lot of this comes down to a reluctance to measure the risk of incarceration. keri was just talking about it. incarceration creates health risks to individuals and communities and families around those places where people are held.

here it is infections. the same could be said for sexual abuse, traumatic brain injury, where people sustain them behind bars. they go home with new injuries but you don't see the cdc measuring or intervening in these problems, the way they do with other problems. i feel we are down the same path. we may get some fleeting involvement from the cdc and state doh's with the most acute response to monkeypox in these settings, but no real intervention to say, these places create health risk. and we have to fundamentally approach our -- change our approach to help. amy: tpox, the vaccine that can deal with monkeypox, has some major effects. the problem is getting it. who are those lobbying to get into prisons, considering there is such a shortage of it in the

united states overall? and then tick off the most important action the cdc and this country could take to ensure the health of the prison population. dr. venters: about two years ago, we went through the same set of discussions around the covid vaccine. we do have advocates, legal aid organizations, some parts of the public health structure in this country, that are ready and picking about access to vaccines for incarcerated people. there, i think the pump was primed, even though we didn't always get great outcomes, with the need to go to governor's offices, state departments of health and force these questions about access. i think we are in a better spot that we would have been without covid. the cdc today needs to come up with -- and they are working on it -- guidelines for detention settings. and they need to be more

specific. these intake pens, where you will have transmission, they need to sayxplicitly, you shouldot be putting 40 people into a small pen, have them sleep on the floor. they should also be expensive about things they avoided talking about before. people with covid symptoms don't report them either because they have to pay money when they report symptoms, especially in prison, or they may go to a punitive setting, solitary confinement. the cdc can be much more explicit. to do this, their guidelines have to be much more rooted in the actu experience of incarcerated people, sthey need to talk to incarcerated people. when they gon a tour, they cannot take a manicured tour from the jail officials. they need to sit down and have conversationwith people living this experience. amy: how many prisons and jails in this country? dr. venters: 3000 jails, about

2000 prisons, another 2000 juvenile and immigration centers. about 7000 of these boxes. if you think we have 5000 cases in the country today, that number can dramatically increase. amy: we have to leave it there, thank you for being with us.o o8