to see out. cancer. and in danger. once on find themselves worlds apart. just on the common ground. my maps in atlanta and welcome to going underground less than 48 hours before the 46th president of the united states is inaugurated in washington d.c. joining me now is someone who campaigned for a democrat nominee that was narrowly beaten by joe biden bernie sanders his name is ben cohen he's co founder of the famous ice cream company ben and jerrys and he's

an activist as well as a businessman ben welcome from burlington in vermont i got to start with even before trump and bible are going to start talking about covert because here in britain it's worse by capita than the united states but nevertheless how have you got a quarter of the world's cases with only 4 percent of the world's population how bad is coven as far as you can see here. you know it's getting worse. there's a surge. you know here i mean it's a lot we have very few cases but you know it's you know tripled probably since. you know the last month or so. you know in a sense this does relate to a question being asked by those on the bernie sanders and of the democrats which is why instead of pursuing impeachment in the house which presumably stands no

particular prism in a political theater why do that instead of talking about medicare for all and trying to get that hammer then to the brains of the new biden administration when they take office you know. i think that you know made lady will end up talking about medicare for all 'd a little later a few few days later because of this but i think it's incredibly important to prosecute and convict trump of some crime because. if we don't we're essentially saying yeah the president is above the law. you know what i always heard was that what we're really proud of in the u.s. that we're a nation of laws. trump. incited to riot i mean

if i did what trump did i'd be in jail you have a i mean and i know your activism proves it but you know the presidents are usually above the law can you name one u.s. president in your lifetime that hasn't been above the law. there has been nothing comparable to trump. i mean you know of sort of corporations there's truth in advertising laws we're not allowed to walk. i think there should be the same for politicians. they should not be allowed to lie and and trump has you know promoted this false narrative of a stolen election which is just a bunch of crap and you know i mean i was always brought up that to believe the president you know that the president tells the truth that the president is

a model for who you're supposed to be and you know he's got a bunch of minions who believe him and it's not so you know it's not so illogical to believe the president. you're supposed to be able to believe the president and he's been abusing that power hugely and he needs to prosecuted and convicted. i mean the point is that surely you have backing something called the qualified immunity bill way before going trump so you knew that there were presidents and you know you don't need to go back that far you need to go back to nixon going to the death squads on their own reagan in latin american countries. president obama destroying africa's riches per capita country libya in the maybe a war that alone your your president george w. bush on iraq and tell me about the qualified immunity bill well qualified immunity

is a judicial doctrine that was created by the supreme court. it's interesting that actually an interpretation of the law 'd that came to be known as the ku klux klan act it was passed in the late 18th hundreds and the situation that was going on at the time was that many police officers were members of the ku klux klan and so they were abusing black people and congress specifically passed this law to allow people to sue the police if their civil rights or constitutional rights were violated so we had this law and then the supreme court essentially eviscerated it and came up with this doctrine that they call qualified immunity and what qualified

immunity says is that it doesn't matter whether a police officer has violated the law the only thing that matters is has another police officer been convicted of violating. other of acting in a similar situation. and if if there has been no other police officer convicted of brutalizing in that exact way then the police officer gets off and that is unjust that's why we have the police brutalizing going so far as murdering unarmed black people and they get off scot free so yes as you know as you know all those police

departments at the state level denied any wrongdoing and refused to imprison. people catalyst to the black eyes mass movement but how does it affect politics regardless of where your security forces at work why did you get involved in this campaign to end that immunity and how does it affect your case. it's a matter of justice i mean it's the same thing about being above the law the the police who are charged with enforcing the law should be should not be above the law and you know the police are the one element of society that we as citizens give the right so use lethal force in our name and we need they need to be held accountable if they abuse that power qualified

immunity keeps them from being held accountable. i mean what progress are you made because obviously joe biden is infamous for spearheading mass incarceration of disproportionate numbers of black americans african-americans is i mean he's a prend of strong the home front racist a legend rapist and presumably qualified immunity doesn't stand a chance under kemal average vice president who of course was a prosecutor in california known for backing the death penalty and imprisoning people. who are innocent actually canal heris is in favor of overturning qualified immunity. the most conservative member of the supreme court and the most liberal member of this dream court are both in favor of overturning qualified immunity 'd. so you know i think that you know it's

a it's kind of a strange sounding term qualified immunity it sounds very esoteric but amazingly enough people in the united states are are understanding it and 2 thirds of the american public wants to see elise held more accountable for their actions so to be plain you are quite optimistic there's a level of optimism there that the new by the ministration may do what you've been campaigning who for so long a you know i mean it is specially the costs 'd biden was part of well worked hard to pass that law that resulted in mass incarceration of black people i think that he needs to do something to make up for that mistake and i believe my understanding is that he believes it was a mistake. my understanding that that's a that's

a big proviso arguably i mean you know the thing is i'm sure during the democratic primary campaign there were bandied around but by the end of it 130000000 had donors biden compared to 100000000 and donors for trump. i mean how telling is that as regards a class issue when it comes to joe biden the rich back by well i mean there's no doubt about it that biden is middle of the road. guy. yes he is a mainstream democrat yes the democratic party is supported by the same corporations and ultra wealthy people that support republicans you know i mean most most. most corporations i believe that are doing political donations they they donate to both sides they don't really care who wins they just want to be able

to influence legislation need to segue into a campaign which you spin that which was the thought of this issue just till tell me about stamp stampede we came up with a campaign that involves hundreds of thousands eat hundreds of thousands of people getting rubber stamps that they used to stamp paper currency that says not to be used for bribing politicians. and there's another stamp that says not to be yours to influence elections. so. you know again there's a huge percentage of the population that wants to get the money out of politics that understands that. probably the root cause 'd of most of the problems in our society is at the politicians are bought and paid for by corporations and

and the ultra wealthy and that's who finances their campaigns so they're not going to have to come up with a new i now give me his people on using cash so much now that there has been a bit of a problem for us about it yeah but we know that i mean 40000000 people in the united states at least won't be able to eat tonight and that food stamps do you really think that. the big millionaires the war chests of money that they supplied to the biden campaign wouldn't affect the biden team's attitude as to klos politics i think it definitely affects their attitude you know i mean they're starting to be the idea in the united states you know one of the big problems in the united states is that we only have 2 parties and. we're starting to now talk about

instant runoff voting or rank choice voting. which would allow people to vote for a 3rd party candidate and not essentially throw their vote away. ben i'll stop you there more from ben and jerrys go found out ben cohen after this short break. it seems inevitable the new security regulations fast into law in the wake of the events on capitol hill the original patriot act was made to legitimize the so-called war on terror well the patriot act you clearly know focus on domestic there. will be us against the e.u. once you're using. nuclear

become a battleground in the u.s. government people of demanding the shutdown of the local plant from yankee is right now my focus because it's a very dangerous. power plant the owner is attempting to run the reactor beyond its operational limits this case just sort of puts a magnifying glass on where's the power in this country where's it going is it moving more towards corporate interests or is it more in the idea of a traditional participatory democracy is are powerline with the people this case demonstrates that struggle in the very real way. the struggle. welcome back i'm still here with ben ben and jerry's ice cream and i'm going to get on to the subject of war and peace because some of those companies donating to buy were obviously interested in the arms industry the syrian government is claiming 60

dead in israeli war plane air strikes on syria just in the past few days and we're getting reports. soldier deployment perhaps in syria now you know the trump called an end a u.s. . arguable war mongering in syria. what do you think of these personnel samantha power as part of us and but on the national security advisory committee this guy blinken infamous for libya i mean how dangerous can abide administration bibi's of war i know that you know you know find a trump and you're probably going to say you're more worried about a war with iran for us. you know i think that. you know both both parties you know all 'd you know by the trump i mean you know all of them. are live under the mist mistaken idea

that war creates peace. you know that's that's absurd. you know war creates more war i mean you know we it's our bombs are called peacemakers it's ridiculous. so you know until until people stand. you know war is self-defeating and and and on top of that in the united states we spend 50 percent of our entire discretionary budget on the pentagon and preparing for war and killing the parent to kill millions of people one person who revealed the level of war crimes that go on in the name of the american people was the world's most famous journalist and publisher julian assange who's a down the road here for me according to the u.n.

being tortured you actually met eunice on in the ecuadorian embassy tell me what you think of think of him. i was incredibly impressed with him in terms of how how much of a caring and compassionate person he is. you know he honestly believed that if he could just expose the truth of what was going on and expose the laws that are being broken expose. ethical moral. you know lapses that. that both the you know both government and the people would force a change would. would would force the government to change their ways and

i think that he was very. saddened to to realize that that's not enough it's not enough just to expose the truth of what's going on to expose the war crimes that are being done in our name and with our money. you know killing unarmed civilians and enjoying it. you know it is a horrible thing and the problem is that the people who did that should be in that cell that a songes and now and instead it's the typical response of killing the messenger the government doesn't want the people to know what's being done in their name and with their money and so if some guy exposes it they don't want to solve the problem they want to kill the

messenger they see the problem as being that somebody revealed what the government is actually doing. you in the new york times in the amazon washington post relatedly those 2 papers you know maybe saying what you're saying joe biden says he's a high tech terrorist and that it's very difficult even to get comment from the so-called squad to the kind of in future generation democrats than supposed to be on the kind of side that you are on politically i mean by them call them high tech terrorists and presumably the extradition doesn't matter whether it's a trumpet ministration or a biden ministration the u.s. government still won some take into that virginia korten and have him hold up 175 years in jail in your country yeah well hopefully we're not going to let him do it and i'm working as hard as i can't prevent that from happening i think. when

people understand the reality of the situation. they'll be a lot of people protesting and trying to prevent it from happening i mean right now there's there's an opportunity to. kind of let. go free. my understanding is that. he's been ordered not to be extradited that our government is appealing it and i'm hoping that between the 2 administrations the window of being able to appeal is going to run out well as far as i know the proceedings are are all going ahead i mean freedom of speech has come under the spotlight as well because even people who hate donald trump. very disturbed by the power of silicon

valley and when it comes to their ability to sense the words of personal echoed by 70000000 americans what's your take on it no people said it was incitement to violence the speech before the deadly capitol hill riot or attempted insurrection requests those comments that he's alleged to have made were made at the white house not it on twitter well i mean yes i do believe that trump has been inciting to riot and that's illegal. like i say if i if i was doing that i'd be in jail and when you have the president himself inciting to riot. we you know we have no choice but to prosecute the guy convict him yeah i know because as i say on twitter his words were different to the words he used at that white her speech

before before this deadly march you can envisage a point where you can say when you were younger with this ice cream company saying all sorts of things about the capitalist system you can't envisage a time when you can imagine powerful interests in as it now is silicon valley trying to censor the kind of remarks you were trying to make about the need for a more peaceful more equitable whoa. i was an out and out lying. undercutting the you know the vote the validity of elections in our country strong. the presidents hold. you know telling me you know i mean i think that the problem in our country is that . there's a there's a lot of people probably about 70000000 of them that get their news mostly from.

fox and other conservative outlets that had been just parroting what the president the wise that the president has been saying so you know what i'm familiar with with the argument that but the lies in the eye of the beholder surely when you are talking about climate change you know that it's only very recently arguably that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent a lot being to say what you were saying was alive it's only recently that people have started to go ok climate change is real i know you've been campaigning on that issue for decades you can imagine yourself being curtailed using the same arguments and you now using against trump given that you were talking about an existential threat to humanity no i have absolutely no i mean he i wasn't i. but you know i mean regular regular everyday people you know there's

nothing wrong with well i mean there's something wrong with them line but you know regular every day people lie all the time but when you have the president of the united states saying that an election was invalid and was a fraud. that is inciting inciting i mean that is it's misleading it's i mean it's not a matter of opinion well there's no there's no 1st amendment in your book there's no 1st amendment freedom of speech right to want trump said it's merely he broke that famous president about incitement so he loses his right thumb and writes automatically. he definitely uses loses his right to incite people to riot he loses his right eye and i think as a president if he's going around saying that. this election was was

a fraud and it was invalid i think that should be you know i i think he should be convicted of that. ok well i wouldn't because if you have a late and and many others i many many journalists support you on that one mine that i was told during the campaign for bernie sanders who's the bernie sanders is not the same mike you might be familiar what happened here with jeremy kuhlmann because a bunny's on his views about the. illegal occupation in palestine what what did you make of those accusations against a candidate you supported and what do you make of the control with him continuing now ben and jerrys in palestine. you know i believe you know i do i support israel i believe israel should exist i believe israel is making

a huge mistake in terms of its treatment of palestinians. that does not make me an anti-semite. just like when when when my country does. you know something that's wrong and i protested it doesn't make me. what it does it doesn't say that i don't. know i don't support my country i support the united states but i think that they they make a lot of mistakes. now it's important to note that we see ben and jerry's ice cream companies run by unilever now but it came from ben and jerrys something to the british home secretary boards johnson's own secretary an appeal from the ben and jerrys account to protect the human rights of refugees and so-called migrants it was sent here to pretty patel why do you feel it was important for ben and jerry's

to side with refugees hearing sanctuary from major wars. i mean these are human beings that are soul oppressed so threatened. that they they they they are forced to leave their homes with just the clothes on their backs i mean that's how bad the situation is that they're fleeing and yeah i think as just as basic humanity. we need to help those people that are in such trouble now i was a obviously want to ask you whether you're going to make a joe biden ice cream like you made a bernie like you made a bernie one. but i mean actually arguably more important if there's any. budding entrepreneurs out there terrible times already because of lockdown arguably what

can they learn from your career because it was you did sell out the unilever one advice would you give them if they want to be socially responsible as well as create great great businesses well for one. i opposed the sale so unilever. and i struggle to keep ben and jerrys independent i lost that battle. so what advice would i give to. entrepreneurs you know the advice i would give is that. do something that you believe in that you can use the power of your business. for the benefit of regular everyday people that business has a responsibility to give back to the community. is in this occupy

a position of power in a society. we have a responsibility to use that power for justice and cohen thank you and that's it for the show will be back on wednesday the day of the inauguration on joe biden as u.s. president until then pick up by. the facebook and. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to us from the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then. max kaiser financial survival guide liquid assets not those that you can burn using cast quite easily. to keep in mind no assets i mean to place

a. board. brush. vaccine program with the goal of immunizing more than the country's population by the end your. sells a 2nd batch of sputnik be arrives in argentina with the money from the russians soaring and mountain america. california holds the nation's from a bunch of drugs which comprised 10 of the us states. on the program the. president. department with the. true.