03/29/23 03/29/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> i have been waiting for their father. they told me they were going to hand him over to me. we started to see smoke building from everywhere. they left the men locked in. everyone was removed from the area but they left the men locked in. they never opened the door. amy: at least 38 migrants held

in immigration detention jail near the u.s. border have died in a fire after guards refused to help the men trapped inside. we will go to ciudad juarez for the latest. into the fight over tiktok as a bipartisan group of lawmakers moves to ban the app, some lawmakers are pushing back. >> we can protect freedom of speech and we can do with the privacy concerns at the same time. right now we are not trying to do both. amy: we will speak with technology journalist julia angwin. then "bootstrapped: liberating ourselves from the american dream." we will talk to author alissa quart who runs economic hardship reporting project. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

in mexico, hundreds of asylum seekers gathered in ciudad juarez tuesday demanding justice after at least people were 38 killed during a fire at an immigration detention center near the border with el paso, texas. over two dozen others were seriously injured. the blaze monday broke out after dozens of migrants set their mattresses on fire protesting their deportations, as well as abusive and inhumane conditions at the overcrowded jail run by mexico's national migration institute. surveillance footage released tuesday shows guards quickly walking away when the fire started, making no attempt to release the migrants as flames and smoke engulfed their cell. at least 28 of the victims were from guatemala, according to ofcials, while others killed and injured were fm venezuela, hondurasel salvador, coloma, and ecuador. this is daniela marquez, an asylum seeker from venezuela at yesterday's protest in ciudad juarez. >> we demand justice for those

who were inside the migration center. they had been inside for a month. take right out of hunger because they did not give them food -- they cried out of hunger because i did not give them food. how is it possible their mothers have to cry for them from mexico? it is not fair. i don't have the words to express what i feel, honestly. amy: after headlines, we go to ciudad juarez, mexico, for more. more information has emerged about the nashville school who killed six people monday, three of them nine-year-old students. this is nashville police chief john drake. >> we have determined audrey but seven farms from five different local gun stores here legally. they were legally purchased. three of those weapons were used yesterday during the horrific tragedy. she was under doctor's care for

an emotional disorder. law enforcement knew nothing about the treatment she was receiving. her parents felt she should not own weapons. amy: a motive for the massacre has not yet been identified. police body camera footage shows nashville officers stopping the rampage four minutes after arriving on the scene. the police response has been compared to last year's mass shooting at robb elementary school in uvalde, texas where officers waited for well over an before confronting the shooter, hour while 21 people, including 19 children, were massacred, almost all of them latinx. russia says it has begun drills with its yars intercontinental ballistic missile system in a show of military might. meanwhile, ukraine has received a first shipment of leopard and challenger armored tanks from germany and britain amid intense fighting in the country's east. the head of the international atomic energy agency rafael grossi is visiting the site of europe's largest nuclear power plant in zaporizhzhia today. president volodymyr zelenskyy

told rossi the safety at the nuclear power station cannot be guaranteed as long as it remains under russian occupation in what he called moscow's radiation blackmail. grossi said talks to stem the risks of a nuclear disaster are ongoing. >> it might be possible to establish some form of protection, perhaps -- what people should or shouldn't do to protect instead of having a territorial concept. amy: in russia, a man whose 13-year-old daughter drew an anti-war picture at school was sentenced to two years in prison in a case that has sparked international outrage. alexei moskalyov, however, has apparently escaped his house arrest and authorities said tuesday his whereabouts were unknown. his daughter, whose drawing featured a ukrainian mother and child under a barrage of missiles, was removed from her home and put in a shelter. the owner of the guardian issued

an apology tuesday for the british newspaper's founders role in transatlantic slavery. the scott trust published research that shows guardian founder john edward ylor and investors gained much of their wealth fm the coon trade after importing the cotton from north america where itas cultivated by enslaved africans on plantations. the findings came as part of an indendent investigation commissioned in late 2020 by the scott trust. the guardian also announced a 10-year, $12 million restorative justice program, which includes supporting black journalists. british-nigerian historian and member of the scott trust david olusoga is featured in a video as part of the guardian's report, as well as a written piece, in which he describes how british ties to the transatlantic slave trade have been obfuscated. >> the guardian, like thousands of institutions in britain, has direct financial connections to the world of slavery. that reality can't be explained away. this history canever be lved, can never be remedied,

but it -- something good can come from it but it needs to be a dialogue. amy: in burma, the ruling military junta dissolved 40 political parties, including aung san suuyi's nld party. nld and others did not meet a registration deadline for the yet-to-be scheduled election, which most civilian parties deem illegitimate. 77-year-old suu kyi was deposed and arrested in the february 2021 military coup and is now serving prison sentences totaling 33 years. the u.n. reports the humanitarian and human rights crisis in burma is continuing to deteriorate, including mass arrests, torture of prisoners, the killing of civilians, and media repression. back in the united states in idaho, the house passed a bill that would criminalize helping someone under the age of 18 to obtain an abortion in another state without parental consent. the bill is now headed to the idaho senate, where it is also expected to pass. almost all abortions are now illegal in idaho following the

repeal of roe v wade. with the measure, state republicans created a new crime, so-called abortion trafficking, with penalties of two-to-five years in prison. the legislation also applies to mail-order medication abortions, meaning an older relative who drives a minor to the post office to pick up a package containing abortion pills could end up in prison. a federal judge has reportedly ordered former vice president mike pence to testify to the grand jury investigating trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. special counsel jack smith, who is overseeing the grand jury, subpoenaed pence earlier this year. while the judge ruled executive privilege does not shield pence from testifying, pence could avoid certain lines of questioning thanks to a constitutional clause known as speech or debate that is intended to protect lawmakers from some forms of legal action. pence could still appeal the judge's decision. meanwhile, former national enquirer publisher david pecker

testified again this week before the manhattan grand jury looking into alleged hush money payments made to stormy daniels during trump's 2016 campaign. pecker is said to have helped broker the deal between daniels and trump's former fixer michael cohen. "the washington post" is reporting ginni thomas, wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas, collected nearly $600,000 in anonymous donations for a conservative group called crowdsourcers for culture and liberty. it's not the first time ginni and clarence thomas have come under scrutiny for conflict of interest issues. in 2020, ginni thomas urged white house chief of staff mark meadows to pursue efforts to overturn donald trump's election loss and pressured officials in arizona and wisconsin to choose pro-trump electors. justice thomas was the sole dissenter in the supreme court's 8-1 decision that led to the release of white house documents around january 6.

in other news from washington, president biden and republicans remain at odds over how to handle the debt ceiling as republican house speaker kevin mccarthy requested a meeting with biden tuesday to push for spending cuts before agreeing to raising the debt limit. e white house and democrats have rejected this idea. republicans agreed to raising the debt ceiling with no-conditions during trump's presidency. yesterday, advocacy groups joined with progressive lawmakers to demand republicans stop cutting essential social services, including medicare and the food assistance program snap, which was recently slashed after being increased during the pandemic. this is april lewis from action north carolina. >> conservatives are trying to increase cost, paperwork, and your accuracy that only put families like mine at risk of losing access to food assistance and increasing the risk of homelessness because the same conservatives are increasing costs for low income families -- excuse me, by protecting tax

loopholes for the wealthy. these wealthy stakeholders and corporations should pay their fair sure. reversing trump tax cuts along with $2 trillion. amy: and a maryland appeals court has reinstated the murder conviction of adnan syed less than six months after prosecutors in baltimore dropped charges against him last october, asserting he was wrongly convicted. syed was released from prison in september following 23 years behind bars for the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend hae min lee. the appeals court on tuesday ordered a new hearing on syed's conviction, saying the rights of hae min lee's brother young lee had been violated when he wasn't given adequate notice to travel from california to attend last year's proceedings in maryland in person. the case gained national attention in 2014 when it was featured on the hugely popular podcast "serial." 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, with democracy now!'s juan gonzález in chicago. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: we begin today's show in ciudad juarez, mexico, where a fire has killed at least 38 migrants held at a mexican immigration detention jail mond night and injured dozens more. the fire occurred just across the u.s. border near the santa fe international bridge to el paso, texas. surveillance video from the jail shows guards walking away as flames spread inside the jail cells. in the video, guards made no effort to open the jail cells or help the migrants who were trapped. mexican officials initially said most of the dead were venezuelans, but authorities in guatemala say 28 of the victims were from guatemala. others killed and injured were from venezuela, honduras, el salvador, colombia, and ecuador.

on monday night, a venezuelan woman who was holding her young child talked about what happened to her husband who was injured in the fire. >> i had been waiting for their father since 1:00 p.m. they told me they were going to have him over to me and then we started to see smoke billowing from everywhere. everyone ran away but they left the men locked in. everyone was removed from the area but they left the men locked in. they never opened the door. we have the paperwork here in ciudad juarez but they took him from the streets for no reason. they are taking us without asking if we have paperwork or not. if you a migrant, they take you in the car. it is that simple. amy: speaking outside the jail, a venezuelan man named raniel murillo decried the treatment of the men locked inside. >> to all of those people who

died, the guards could have open the gates to let them out because there is only a few meters between the gate that separated them from the migration officers. they did not open the gate, leaving them locked in. the fire advanced and they did not leave. the guards did not help them because they did not feel like it. the guards treat you badly. amy: an official investigation into the fire has not been completed but on tuesday, mexican president andrés manuel lopez obrador said the fire began after the migrants set their mattresses on fire to protest conditions. the united nations human rights office said the fire was a "preventable tragedy." in a statement, the u.n. agency said -- "we, again, urge all states to adopt alternatives to immigration detention." we go now to ciudad juarez, mexico, where we are joined by luis chaparro, journalist reporting from the u.s.-mexico border. his new report for vice news is just out headlined "they only listen to us when we die:

migrants killed in fire were locked in jail cells." looking back to democracy now! it is great to have you with us at under horrible circumstances. explain what you understand happened as you talked to so many people there since monday night. >> thank you for having me. absolutely, sadness that this happened. my opinion is this is a tragedy to happen -- at the center of what happened 24 hours ago is -- are these detention centers that mexico claims to be shelters but are no other than jails for immigrants. they have really done nothing, just being undocumented in the country, that is a transit country for them. what goes behind those walls, we

don't really know because these are very opaque and not transparent places or we don't have access as journalists or as ngos. so we don't know what else is going on. judging by the video that was just out, we see these cell guards and immigration officers walking away like nothing was happening when flames were already out. it giv us an example of what is really going on behind the bars. juan: there have been some reports the mexican government in the last few days, especially, was cracking down increasingly on the asylum-seekers, many of whom were forced to take our jobs just to survive while they were waiting for a decision on their cases. could you talk about that at all? >> definitely.

i think that is what really began the whole tragedy. most of the migrants from venezuela, honduras, and el salvador, have no place to stay because shelters are at capacity. some of the shelters will only take families, if they have kids or women. so males are basically left out to sleep on the streets or bag or ask for money at stop lights around the city. many people began complaining about the presence of migrants in the streets, and i think that pushed authorities to combine efforts, between the local police and state police and the mexican immigration, to crackdown on people in the street instead of grabbing people from early in the morning, my understanding is they started to raid from 10:00 a.m. all through the day.

they were locking margaret's inside these facilities with no water, no food, and they did not even understand why they were being locked up. many of them actually had documents to be legally in the country for at least 30 more days. so that is why they started protesting inside the immigration center. juan: could you talk about the significance of the fact in a few weeks in early may there will be the end of the title 42 policy in the united states as a result of a supreme court decision? there are reports there are increasing numbers of migrants coming to the border. you expect these problems to increase over the next few weeks? >> most definitely. the back and forth and confusion around immigration policy has been causing a tragic effect in

the immigration community. from different countries. because they are really confused. the app they're using, it is not working. we recently had a riot in one of the major ports of entry when migrants demanded someone help them navigate the app and they tried to get across to get help from cbp officers. so that was just an example how they feel frustrated and confused. now many of them are expecting for title 42 to end, but they don't know if that is going to happen. they are arriving at border cities in hopes title 42 will end in may, but this is adding a lot of pressure to border cities like ciudad juarez and el paso. i don't think they really have a

capacity to work for and these migrant communities. amy: the deaths in mexico came just hours after the united nations high commissioner for refugees urge the biden administration not to adopt the proposed anti-asylum rule that would deny claims made by refugees who lack "documents sufficient for lawful admission." in a statement, the u.n. refugee agency said the regulation would restrict the fundamental human right to seek asylum, adding -- "unhcr is particularly concerned that this would lead to cases of refoulement -- the forced return of people to situations where their lives and safety would be at risk -- which is prohibited under international law." so that is the u.n.'s comment. while this is in ciudad juarez, literally feet from the border,

if you could talk about the responsibility of the u.s. government as well right now. >> this is one of the very notable examples of how these migrants are endangered by the u.s. policies. the u.n. has been warning for several years nowhat these policies are making migrants more and more vulnerable. one of the situations they face is violence on mexican soil like places like matamoros, tijuana and ciudad juarez. they had been targeted by criminal organizations to extort them and in some of the cases to actually kill them. and now we have this case where it doesn't only show they are being targeted by criminal organizations, but they remain vulnerable to colonel

organizations, but also to very much a nontransparent government, the mexican government. this is only happening because of the u.s. push to keep these policies in place like title 42 true main one of the only policies endangering migrants. juan: you mentioned the mexican government. president lopez obrador has increasingly and the past few months been striking a much more, i don't want to say militant, but independent stance in many of his speeches against the united states. yet at the same time, he continues to cooperate, essentially, with first the trump administration now the biden administration, on the migration issue along the border. what about the contradictions between lopez obrador's public statements and the practice of his government on this issue?

i am wondering if you can comment on that. >> lopez obrador says something and do something else. that has been the policy since the beginning of his administration when he said mexico was not going to be mitarized. he completely militarized the country. also endangering migrants because as of right now, we're probably twice the national guard members deployed to the immigration enforcement task and we have border patrol in both orders of the u.s. that says a lot about how the lopez obrador administration is dealing with immigration, which is basically handing tasks the former military and federal police officers that are not well prepared to deal with immigrants or the immigration community. lopez obrador has also tri to crack down the southern border of mexico.

and even though he has been very active saying he is going to protect his country from u.s. policies that are harming mexico, i think he has been doing absolutely the opposite. cracking down on immigration -- the first to administration that has been so harsh against immigrants in mexican territory. amy: comparisons to trump? >> in trump years, that is when the mexican administration began -- lopez obrador was pretty much complying with everything former president donald trump was trying to do with mexico when he said that mexico was going to pay for the wall. i think that was not not literally, but mostly figurative. i think that is why lopez obrador agreed upon to build and make mexico a jail for

immigrants in places where we probably have even worst cases of these immigration detention facilities, but also by deploying hundreds and hundreds of national guard members to the northern border where they are literally harassing migrants which are doing something lawful , a plane for political asylum. amy: luis chaparro, thank you for being with us. we will eat your new report just out "they only listen to us when we die: migrants killed in fire were locked in jail cells." coming up award-winning technology journalist julia angwin on why banning tiktok is not the answers. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. as a growing number of governments worldwide enact new

limits on social media apps, we look now at bi-partisan calls to ban one specific app here in the united states, the chinese-owned tiktok. last thursday, congressmembers grilled tiktok ceo shou zi chew during a five-hour hearing on the app's ties to the chinese government, data practices, and its effects on children's mental health. this is democratic florida congressmember darren soto questioning chew. >> would tiktok be prepared to divest from bytedance and chinese communist party ties if the department of treasury instructed you all to do so? >> i said in my opening statement i think we need to address the issue of privacy. i don't think ownership is the issue here. with a lot of respect, american social companies don't have a good track record data privacy.

amy: this comes as a bipartisan group of senators has introduced the restrict act, which would allow the federal government to potentially ban technology from countries the u.s. considers to be adversaries, including china. meanwhile, democratic congressmember jamaal bowman of new york has been a leading opponent of a tiktok ban. >> we are talking about free speech for everyday americans. we are talking about small business owners who use tiktok to grow their business. my question is, and we're going to pivot to the other part of the conversation, why the hysteria and the panic and the targeting of tiktok? as we know, republicans in

particular have been sounding the alarm, creating a red scare around china. amy: congressman bowman has since been joined by congressmember alexandria ocasio-cortez, who laid out her concerns in a video she posted on tiktok after opening an account on the app for the first time. >> usually when the united states proposes a major move that has something to do with sick, it risk to national security, one of the first thing that happens is congress receives a classified briefing. i can take congress has not received a classified briefing around the allegations of national security risks regarding tiktok. so why would we be proposing a ban without being clued in on us at all? it just does not feel right to me. amy: for more, we are joined in new york by julia angwin, investigative journalist, formerly with propublica, and contributing opinion writer at "the new york times" where her latest guest essay is headlined "how to fix the tiktok problem."

we last spoke to her in 2014 about her book "dragnet nation: a quest for privacy, security, and freedom in a world of relentless surveillance." julia, welcome back to democracy now! it was amazing to see this absolute bipartisan almost consensus in the particular hearing that the ceo of tiktok was being questioned at, being grilled, demanding that tiktok be sold to a u.s. company in order for it to be saved. talk about what bowman said, what aoc has said, and what you think are the major concerns here. >> thank you for having me. it is great to be here. it was amazing to watch congress finally taking privacy seriously, but for only one app. i have been writing about privacy issues -- i published my

book almost a decade ago. people have been trying to get commerce to pass a federal privacy law that would protect our data on all of our apps and all the ways we are mediated by technology, and we are one of the only western nations that has not passed such a bill. now we have this frenzy around tiktok and this idea they are the ones who need to be protected against. the reality is, there is nothing tiktok is accused of that the other social media platforms have not done as well. juan: isn't there also the issue -- the question of governments being able to use these apps for their own ends? i would assume anything that china can do, the chinese government can do with tiktok, u.s. government can do with the american social media apps that

are spread around the world. >> it is a good point that all of these social media platforms can and have been manipulated and censored by governments. most recently, the most recent example we have seen of this, there is a twitter employee recently was convicted of spying on saudi dissidents on behalf of the saudi government. he used is access to spy on twitter users. google over the years has said they have dismissed more than a dozen employees for misusing data about google users. we have seen this kind of thing can happen at all the platforms. it is also true you don't have to own a platform in order to misuse it. in the 2016 election, we know facebook was basically used by russian propagandists to spread misinformation. we know facebook's platform was

used by the myanmar government to spread lies and hate against the rohingyas which then led to genocide. we note the platform was used by people organizing the capital insurrection on january 6 and facebook did not stop that. we know theselatforms can be misused. there is no question china could also of course try to misuse the tiktok platform. what is interesting, tiktok has proposed a plan that would wall off u.s. data from china access. it basically has had to the government, we would store all of our data about u.s. users at oracle, u.s. company, and we would submit to oversight by the treasury-like committee on foreign investment in the u.s. essentially, that committee would be able to inspect their algorithm to see if there promoting disinformation from china or any other state and

also would be able to inspect to make sure the data about u.s. people is not being transmitted back to china. that is a level of control and state control over an app we have not seen before and is way more oversight than any of the other social media platforms have been exposed to. juan: i am wondering, the broader implications of congress trying to ban tiktok, especially in view of the fact the united states for the last 40, 50 years has been the main proponent of globalization, of breaking down barriers between countries and letting companies extend their reach and their trade -- wondering, for instance, the similar battle that happened over way way -- huawei and 5g come instead of welcoming greater intercourse between

countries was seeking to shut down the ability of a chinese company to market 5g technology around the world. what is this going to do to the potential for individual countries that begin to closer her borders to trade and commerce in the digital age? >> this is a good point. if we put -- the proposals on the table are to put tiktok under state control, to ban it, or force a sale. those are things i think he was government would really be mad about if some other country try to do to one of our companies. right now already if you think about the social media platforms and how they behave around the world, although we often like to be mad at them for various reasons and we have lots of reese's to be mad, the reality is that they are being asked in most countries to act as government censors. like in india, there have been huge pressures to do censorship

on behalf of the government. some of that censorship the companies have argued is illegal. they are out there fighting for their users to have free expression. that is true in a lot of countries. these companies spent a lot of time fighting with the government to try to make sure their platforms can be a place where everyone has a voice. for the u.s. to suddenly say, ok, we want to support freedom of expression around the world, not only are private companies but through our for diplomacy and our usaid, etc., we now to point it at home. we are quick to basically censor tiktok here. it makes it really hard for us to justify supporting freedom of expression around the world. amy: let me ask you about other parts of the restrict act, which is cosponsored -- all of this is bipartisan in a time when the

congress could not be more partisan. going after china on this, of senator thune and senator warner and of course others that are cosponsoring. so we know that they want tiktok to be sold to u.s. company, but can you talk about other aspects of restrict act? is it true you could face a million dollar fine if you access tiktok? also, what does this say about restricting vpn's? and explain what they are. >> the restrict act is this bipartisan bill that has come about because the white house apparently believes they don't actually have the legal authority to ban tiktok, so they were floating this ban and realize they needed the legal authority. this bill, as i understand it, is meant to give them that legal authority they don't feel they

have right now. it empowers the congress departed to do some evaluations of different apps and see what the risks are and take different measures to catch her at them, including a ban. i think the fact it is bipartisan support it is a sign of how united congress is right now. i have never seen them on the same size so aggressively as on this particular issue. it really is interesting because they are not united on privacy as a larger issue. the privacy bills have not moved but this issue, which is more a think a china issue than a privacy issue -- the reality is the reason they are united is everyone sees political capital in uniting to fight against the china threat. you asked me about vpn's. they are a virtual private network. basically, something you would

put on your phone in order to route around your internet provider. it is often used in places like china where the government is censoring internet traffic and a way to try to circumvent that censorship. it is interesting you would think of restricting that when in fact that is something we tend to export to other nations in order to promote freedom of expression. juan: could you talk a little about the difference in approach to dealing with social media and technology by the european union versus what the kinds of legislation that congress is considering? >> that is a great question. the eu has been years and years ahead of the u.s. in terms of taking the threat from the forms seriously and addressing them thoughtfully. for instance, they passed a conference of privacy law in 20 and taken -- comprehensive privacy law in 2018 for how data should be treated, what kinds of rights users have over their data, and in this year new laws

are coming into place to regulate the algorithm. it is the first time algorithms will be regulated. the social media companies above a certain size will have to report to the e.u. on -- that i measure the risks their algorithms are creating to things like teen mental health, the risks to democracy. these are really big and important questions that companies have to answer. then they have to show how they're going to mitigate those risks. that is something that is a creative way to try to approach this issue without censorship. the idea is -- the e.u. is not saying we have decided this is a bad thing for democracy. they say you need to measure the risk, it is on you to show how your promoting democracy and not allowing for authoritarianism. i think it is an interesting experiment and the u.s. has not done any of that. we have not set a basic privacy law. the template are out there.

california has passed a really strong privacy law that basically emulates the eu law. in california, there is a strong privacy law that goes into effect this year. we are finally catching up on the california level, but congress has been threatening to preempt that law was something weaker. we may not get to keep that. amy: we only have about 30 seconds, but especially for young people, it is critical, especially with mental health issues, the increase in suicide, what exactly can be done, as with other issues you are raising, can the company is really regulate themselves? >> i don't think they can. we have had decades of them pretending to regulate themselves and i think we have clear evidence that is not working. i think we need to collectively as a society determine what are

important goals are and i think teen mental health is one where there is not enough research on exactly what is causing the teen mental health problems and how much social media plays in, and we have not put laws in place to enforce the companies to take that issue seriously. amy: julia angwin, investigative journalist, we will link to your new article "how to fix the tiktok problem." author of "dragnet nation: a quest for privacy, security, and freedom in a world of relentless surveillance." coming up, bootstrapped. liberating ourselves from the american dream. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we ended today show with the list alissa quart, executive director of the economic hardship reporting project. she worked closely for years with the late barbara ehrenreich. her latest book ititled "bootstrapped: liberatin ourselves from the american dream. e critically examines self-reliance, emphasizes succesas the result of individual hard work. the myth shapes our policies as portrayed in popular culture including several books and television shows like put little house on the prairie" about a family's life on the american frontier.

th is the eme music fo ittle hoe on the prairie alissa quart, welcome back to democracy now! you write in the preface "i received messages from strangers about how the poor are responsible for their own poverty on a routine basis. those were economically on the edge just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps." can you lay out what this means is the granddaughter of a couple who owned a shoe store another bronx, why you think bootstrap is key to understanding the false narrative that has developed in ts country? >> what i see -- i run this organization that barbara ehrenreich and i created an we got these letters and comments that would be sort of blaming

our writers the poverty they experienced in the difficulties they experienced. i wanted to get to the bottom of it. what was this about? the more i looked into it, it seemed like it was just this story of shame and blame that has followed people who struggle in this country since the 19th century. i see it in the early writings of people like horio alger etc.. amy: you really go into it in the book. >> horatio alger wrote stories of these young men, teenagers. when you look at the stories, is about luck and look, about a young man through hard work making it in america, coming from nothing. in truth, he always meets an older gentleman who is rich who

saves him, basically, and makes it into a success story. horatio alger himself was -- committed pedophilia ask, had been a minister that was chased out of the church in massachusetts. we need to look at the stories and who created them to see some of the hypocrisy and also the complexity. these young men were not doing -- teenagers were not taking themselves into success stories from nothing by themselves. they had the help of wealthy older people. that is really how things work in this country. juan: the title "bootstrapped" struck me because puerto rico in the 1940's and 1950's adopted industrial and economic policy lled operation bootstrapped, supposedly the island was going to lift itself out of poverty. of course, the reality was the

method used federal tax exemptions, local tax exemptions to lure companies to come to puerto rico to set up shop. so it really was not a country lifting itself up, he was using the tax system to benefit corporations that would then help lift the island up. this will idea of the bootstrap -- you talk in your book about how the concept originally began. >> that is a great point come that example from puerto rico. the concept of bootstrapping is possibilities. you can barely pull your boots on by your bootstraps, certainly can't put yourself up by the bootstraps. it started out in 1834 as a joke. it was an absurdity that somehow became something to aspire to over the decades that passed. i think we need to remember it is still an absurdity.

nobody is able to do this alone. you need infrastructure, a tax base, parents, schools. this is the message i am hoping will get through from the book. it also has to deal with the pandemic. things we learned during the pandemic about relying on each other, surviving with the help of others. juan: i would like to ask you also about something that has been bandied about a lot these days in congress in terms of dealing with financial problems and of country, the word "entitlements" used referring to social security, for example. could you talk about that? >> even the word "entitlement" and what i'm doing in this book is looking at the language that people use to demonize those who are financially struggling, the undeserving poor and the opposite, the deserving rich. if we look at what happened at silicon valley bank's and other banks that have gotten a

bailout, they have gotten entitlements on a major scale yet they are not being shamed and blamed for like people were kicked off welfare rolls or have to recertify for snap on a constant basis. we need to look at the double standard we have for people who are at the top of the pyramid economically and those toward the bottom. amy: i want to follow up on that. as the debt is going to be negotiated, the whole debt ceiling, and the question really of these programs being put on the table, you go back in time -- i think your story about ayn rand, worshiped alan greenspan and so many others, the story of ayn rand herself and what she relied on and how is many programs for her were essential at the end of her life. >> at the end of her life, ayn

rand -- silicon valley bank is a great segue because a lot of technologists worshiped her. in truth, at the end of her life, she was dependent on medicare and social security. she had had lung cancer and she used a proxy, a friend or assistant to get those services for her. they were in her name. this is somebody who said, oh, i have to survive -- you have to survive on your own, everyone has to accrue as much power as they possibly can and that is the only thing that matters. in the end, like 70 of us, she was dependent -- so many of us, she was dependent on ultimately the state and i think we need to remember that. juan: you wrote a "new york times" piece in which you cite a

2020 study that found 60% of republicans say personal choices are one of the main contributors to economic inequality. what you think accounts for this belief? >> there's something called loss aversion where you have people who are in the middle class, let's say -- a lot of the trump supporters, if we look back at their earnings, they earned something like an average of $71,000 the year. these are not poor people. but they were afraid of falling down the ladder. i think that is something that means they put too much value almost in the power of their own hard work and determination to protect them from falling down the ladder. they sort of use it almost as a magical thinking. i think that is reflected in that study. amy: what is interesting about your book "strapped" is the way you look at popular culture,

whether we're talking about ayn rand, like you said, ends up social security and needs medicare but we think about her as a person who is completely separate from anything like that, to "little house on the prairie" that shape so much of the 1980's and popular culture. talk about the homestead act. talk about what shaped this country, what people relied on, but then what they deny once they rise to the top. >> the homestead act of 1862 is the biggest to date land giveaway this country is ever seen. any you see stories about pioneers, including "little house on the prairie," there is less likely they received a parcel of land from the us government that led to their farming and their future success, the property holdings. of course, this land was

originally, let's be frank, stolen from indigenous people. the majority of the people who received it were white. many were men. that is the story that begins this country -- the settling of the west. "little house on the prairie" and this popular culture were just the rugged individualism, not sing the root of social generosity. at i'm trying to mythust thisook, i keep ying to point t the aces whe people had aand o and hand up tthey may denyi. ats part owhat we need to do, we need to start critiquing and contemporary politics and historically. we have to go back in the past to get to the future. we have to look at things like the homestead act and the g.i. bill that were real acts of social building that helped keep people alive and we need to use

the more rhetorically. amy: over the years, donald trump has repeatedly portrayed himself as a self-made billionaire whose only head start was a small loan of from $1 million his father. >> it has not been easy for me. i started off in brooklyn. my father gave me a small loan of $1 million. i came to manhattan and i had to pay back and paid back with interest. i worked long hours and working hard and smart. using mywn brand. there was a point where i was making so much, so fast, and was so easy, i almost got order. america and i chapter on rich fictions, you talk about trump spoke to voters who said this was key to their support for him. >> there was the study. i think in wisconsin in 20 that talked

to republicans and republican leaning voters that were deciding i think even in voting polling stations and they thought he was self-made and that was part of why they said they were voting for him. when the researchers played out the ways he was not self-made, their order to vote for him went down by 10%. i thought it was a fascinating study and progressives and democrats should be thinking about when they're up against somebody who, in trump's case, falsely portrayed themselves as self-made. not paying his taxes. once we show people this, it can be a tool for social change. we need to puncture the myth whenever it crops up. juan: this fixation with the individual effort as determining

your success or not, how did that fair during the pandemic? and the enormous sense people had that they needed help in dealing with the pandemic? >> i feel like the pandemic taught us a lot of lessons around the value of what i call the art of dependence, the grace and skill and power of depending on other people in our lives -- which we all do on some level. during the pandemic, we were dependent on people -- so-called curbside deliveries, which were people. dependent on our medical system on a grand scale. we were dependent on the parents of our children's friends to do remote schooling in the so-called pods. the point being, it was a moment

where we recognize cap interlocked we were, how complementary -- i think we were valuing essential work. low-wage workers, essential workers, front-line workers, not unskilled, which is a term i really dislike when talking about people who do a good days job. if anyone has ever made a pizza, the guy making the pizza is not unskilled. we respected those folks. we gave them sometimes hazard pay. i think the pandemic had lessons press on valuing certain kind of worker or maybe in a way that was not sustainable but we need to get back and remember the value of those moments of together myths and interlocking myths. alissa quart, thank you for being with this executive , director of the economic hardship reporting project.

her new book "bootstrapped: , liberating ourselves from the american dream." democracy now! is currently accepting applications for a digital fellow. learn more and apply at democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] pgdki

(sophie fouron) we're in a little village nestled in the mountains. it's an island that's multiple, traditional, isolated culturally maybe, because geographically, it's not very far from italy. and it's unique, independent, autonomous in many ways. the land, the sea, the sun are very generous to the people of sardinia. there's something quite unique in sardinia.