 Hello, with code pink and many other groups and it's wonderful to be here with you tonight and I'm seeing a lot of new faces which is great as well. And, Marcy you're going to explain what happened to our guest tonight. Oh yeah, so I you know we had a plan on having represented Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan the two co chairs of the house defense spending reduction caucus a new caucus. I had an email yesterday afternoon saying we are being called to the floor to vote on an impeachment rule, and not wanting to object to that. I said of course and no worries will reschedule and in the meantime, media was able to reach out to John and Elizabeth, John Nichols Elizabeth Bevers to join us tonight and we're thrilled to have them. So honey up please, if you will review the agenda and then we'll get started. We've just been over the welcome updates will be, I believe coming up shortly. There will be an introduction of our honorable guests, john Nichols as well as a presentation and the q amp a followed by an introduction of our other honorable guests Elizabeth beaver's presentation by Elizabeth as well as a q amp a and we'll go to the end which is our call to action capital hill calling party, which we're going to be here for, and we're very excited about so. Yes, in fact, at the end of our, not at the end but after our guests speak on every call, we want to engage in an action and we involve ourselves in calling our representatives on capital to hill to urge or leave messages about the issues on which let's let's take a moment to update everybody. Yeah, do you want to talk about CIA. Well, some of you who have been with us from the beginning might remember that we had a campaign trying to get Mike Morel to not be the director of the CIA. And just like Michelle Flournoy had been touted by the media as a shoe in for Secretary of Defense, and in the end was not thanks to campaigning by many of you. I know Mike Morel with a lot of the negative publicity that he was getting ended up taking his name out of the running, because he was so associated with the torture program. And we just got the word that William Barnes is burns is the has been nominated for CIA. I don't know that any of us would be thrilled with anybody being the head of the CIA. Probably, many of us think that it's an agency that should just disappear in the dustbin of history, but nevertheless it's still with us and given that it's the head of the CIA. I must say we were quite delighted that a veteran diplomat who was involved in the back channels to get the Iran nuclear deal going and is a very well respected diplomat for over many decades is now the head. Well, if confer. Well, no, he doesn't need to be confirmed right. He's a member of the cabinet. Yeah, we're not clear. We're not clear. Yeah. So he, it looks like he will be the head of the CIA. Unfortunately, his boss would be the National Intelligence Director who would be able hands and we've had several like calls now with some of you to be reviewing why we didn't want to be confirmed. We had people like a John karaoke CIA whistleblower talking about her background and connections to both torture and normalization of drones under Obama, and we have are still pushing that she not be confirmed, and we would not like her to be the boss of a veteran diplomat who might want to really make some major changes within the intelligence community. So what did I leave out Marcy. I think I think you covered it I believe he mentioned that he, he was a career diplomat he helped broker the Iran deal or back channel it the Iran nuclear deal he also was quietly I guess opposed to the rush to war on again he's not a democratic socialist he's not Bernie Sanders. So we have to be realistic but he's a, you know, much improved over morale the torture defender, and we will be revisiting our campaign to try to block the nomination at least raise salient questions about April Haines so we hope that in the coming week or two, you will share our posts on Twitter on Facebook, and we have some fun videos coming up to you. Well, I'll just add that he predicted that the invasion of Iraq would be a mess. So he's got a better record than the CIA on just about every major event in in our history. Yes. And we also posted in the chat, an interview that media and I did with Jacob and radio Suzy Weissman. And I urge you to share that as well talking about April Haines. So at this point I would like to introduce john Nichols we're so thrilled to have him I've known john for a decade. He used to speak at my mother's home on impeachment of George Bush at the time. The National Affairs journalist for the nation magazine is author of the genius of impeachment how fitting. He also authored a biography of Dick Cheney Dick Cheney Dick, the man who is president published in Arabic French and English, and edited against the beast, a documentary history of American opposition to empire. So john Nichols, thank you for joining us. Tell us where are we, where are we going. Well, I appreciate that very much, Marcy and it's such a pleasure to be with you. I remember very warmly times at your mother's home. When we were talking about impeachment. And in fact a wonderful event we had with Gorba doll. And I dare say it wasn't 10 years ago it was the better part of 15 years ago. And I'm also honored to be here with media, who's been a comrade in struggles for a very, very long time, I have aged, she has not. And also the other folks who are on board, especially so appreciative of honey has worked with Muslim delegates and allies, which is something that was really important work, and has been important work within the Democratic Party to try and move it to a much wiser place on a host of issues and so, and then Elizabeth will come up and say much wiser things to me in a few minutes. I'm appreciative of people's time so let me be quick. And to the point about some of what's going on right now, and why it matters to people who are committed to peace and economic and social and racial justice. I think that the impeachment of President Trump must be seen in a much broader context, and that just this man and this moment we need to understand the power of impeachment. I'm going to go to the front and repeat it again in a moment that impeachment is a muscle. It was allowed to atrophy for decades in this country. It was not utilized at points when it should have been utilized. George W Bush and Dick Cheney should have been impeached for illegally and morally leading us into a war that we should not have been in. And so with the idea of impeaching presidents, not just for domestic wrongs of the sort I'll discuss in a moment, but also for a abusing their power to lead us into wars that we should not engage in and for engaging in military actions that are undeclared by the government. So with that up front. Let me say that the moment we are in is is a very perilous one we should be realistic about what happened last week. Last week in an effort to overturn the results of an election. President of the United States encouraged his supporters to attack the capital of this country. In that attack, you had saw the deaths of at least five people. You saw significant destruction to the capital. You saw people threatened injured. Great deal of violence, much more violence frankly than TV effectively portrayed. Finally, you saw the interruption of the governing process, literally a president of the United States, who did not want to have the certification of his defeat for reelection, interrupt the governing processes of the United States prevent that from happening for a number of years. Now, you can be comforted by the fact that the Congress did ultimately return and complete its work, but you should not be comforted by the notion that that occurred. That's, that is an assault on the basic premises of the American experiment. Now, we're all for protest. Right. I think at least I am. And, and I think most people on this call have engaged in protests. I have even seen media Benjamin on more than one occasion. Seek to interrupt a an event, a hearing of some kind or another to deliver a message, but that isn't what we're talking when media or other members of code pink at a hearing stand up and say hey, somebody ought to be thinking about deaths in Iraq, somebody ought to be thinking here about violence occurring around the world somebody ought to be thinking about the Constitution itself and how we obey it how you obey your oaths. That is very much within the basic premises of our right to speak our right to assemble our right to petition for the redress of grievances. This wasn't what happened last week what happened last week was an attempt to halt the legitimate processes of government and an attempt to stop it. Not to assert people's rights, not to assert basic constitutional premises, not to make sure that that what is done is appropriate, but rather to prevent appropriate action with the goal of overturning an election with the goal of overturning the will of the American people and and whether we like an election result or not. If you get to that point, you've got you're in a very dangerous spot. And, and I think that the two things that I'll make a point about here that I think are important to understand. And one, I think, Code Pink and other groups have been very good at pointing out that American exceptionalism is a fantasy that the United States is often not exceptional United States is like a lot of other countries, but one of the underpinnings of American exceptionalism has been that things of this sort couldn't happen here. Well, the reality is it did happen. And the great test now is whether in this country, there will be accountability for what occurred last week. That accountability is directed tomorrow in the house at an impeachment initiative, right, an effort to impeach Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection. That incitement of insurrection is a classic 14th Amendment violation 14th Amendment to the Constitution, it's clearly spelled out as something that that is a disqualifying action for a elected official for a public official. And Donald Trump did it. There's no question he's on film doing it. And so he'll be impeached tomorrow there's no question of that, but it is important to also recognize that he did not act alone. There were members of Congress who were actively involved in incitements that were very parallel to what the President said and did. And it's notable that after you had a moment where you had deaths, violence, destruction, within the Capitol United States, 147 Republican members of the US House and US Senate returned and voted to sustain the objections that Donald Trump was demanding be made. And so this is, there's a lot to be reckoned with here and Cory Bush, the new Congresswoman from Missouri has proposed an investigation into expelling those Republican members of Congress, who might reasonably be seen to have done the same thing that Donald Trump is being impeached for in that Senate shared Brown has proposed expelling senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and presumably others who again engaged in an incitement that is quite parallel to that of Donald Trump. There's a lot of accountability going on here and there's a lot of discussion about it. I think we have to be careful. Those of us who support protests those of us who support, you know, speaking truth to power, because while I strongly believe that what happened last was something very different that it was not protest that it was something that was indeed a violent effort to overturn an election result. We have to understand that sometimes that in a moment like this there's a rush to create new penalties to create new laws to create new security initiatives. We have to be conscious of that that what we want is accountability for those who did wrong, but not a situation where legitimate protest where necessary protest is criminalized. So I do see us in a moment where there's there, there has to be a nuanced and cautious and smart thinking about what's going on I say that as a passionate backer of impeachment. It doesn't take us because I know we don't have a lot of time and then we're going to go to some great questions which I really look forward to. Let me tell you why this to my mind is really important for supporters of peace, and for supporters of an anti war anti militarist position. As I said at the start impeachment is an incredibly powerful tool, it is the vehicle by which we can do two things number one hold wrong doers to account and number two. Ideally, to prevent bad things from happening by holding the power of impeachment out as a tool to say to an elected official if you do not follow the, the basic standards of how, for instance a war is declared how a war is fought. We will impeach you, we will remove you from office. So it has a two fold power both as the actual accountability tool but also as a lever to prevent officials from frankly doing the wrong thing. And we, those of us who support peace and support an anti militarist position should be excited by the fact that we've seen two impeachments of a president in the last year. In fact, Congress seems to be learning how to use this tool. It certainly isn't using it as effectively as I would like, but there's evidence that it's it's come into play. And that's an important reality one thing that we should keep conscious of, because I guarantee you. There will be another push for another undeclared war in short order and we ought to be very comfortable with asserting impeachment as one of the tools and the threat of impeachment is one of the tools that we use in opposing a rush to war, illegal war etc etc by Democratic and Republican presidents. And the final thing I'd say is the way to get to make that connection to make it all work is by strengthening the anti war anti militarism voices and caucuses within the Congress of the United States, because it's one thing for us to object from outside. It's something else to have people who are in the committees on the floor, willing to move those articles of impeachment willing to push these accountability measures in moments of potential military intervention of illegal war making etc. And so I'm sorry tonight that I'm here as a kind of pinch hitter for Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan, their efforts to form a caucus focused on reduction of defense funding are incredibly important. And this is a this is a historic step where we are getting members of Congress to commit to reducing the defense budget. Naturally, logically, those members will also be a base for opposing illegal immoral wrong headed military operations and an actual acts of war that that need to be either challenged as they are occurring or stopped as after they are launched. And so this caucus is really important and getting members of the House to join this caucus to align with it to put their outcome on the line as supporters of reducing the Pentagon budget, and more broadly as supporters of accountability for the military industrial complex is really vital. And so I'm excited that I'm speaking tonight to a group of people who I think understand and share some of these values and I hope that among the many initiatives you do impressing Congress, you will consider perhaps encouraging members to join the caucus at Mark Pocan and Barbara Lee have formed and to strengthen it to seek to have it become a more powerful force in the House. I'll close off my remarks with one final note, and that is that we are right now, 60 years from when Dwight Eisenhower gave his farewell address as President of the United States 60 years ago, almost to the day. And that was the address in which he spelled out the danger of the military industrial complex. It remains the most important farewell address ever given by a president of the United States. And it's something that in coming days we should all reflect on, and hopefully maybe even reread I think I'll probably write an article about it. And with a reminder that the military industrial complex needs to be not just rained in, but undone. We don't, we don't need a military industrial complex, profiteering off war, and off the building of the Pentagon budget, dial that down. And the work that Mark Pocan and Barbara Lee are doing is very vital to that. So thank you for having me. Thank you, John Nichols. It's wonderful to have you, particularly given your, your knowledge of the impeachment process, which we are now in the middle of. And I read on one of the news outlets that the Senate, you know, McConnell has excused the Senate. So the House are going, House is going to issue its impeachment papers. As far as I understand in the Senate is not scheduled to reconvene until the 19th with Biden to be inaugurated on the 20th, and that the Democrats are looking in at the Senate Schumer is looking in the Senate at perhaps, you know, discussing and holding hearings on cabinet nominations and passing COVID relief in the morning and then afternoon. Does that sound realistic to you? None of it sounds realistic. It's a, it's a messy, awful process, but that's where Donald Trump has put us. And so I rule nothing out that, you know, look, I spent a number of years trying to get Dick Cheney impeached. And, and believe him to be one of the most dangerous figures ever in or around the government of the United States. Now I find myself today, aligned with Liz Cheney in favoring the impeachment of Donald Trump. And so, look, I'm quite realistic about the absurd moment that we are in. But frankly, if I'm aligned today or tonight with Liz Cheney for a brief moment, then I rule nothing out on the possibility that this impeachment process can continue to strengthen that you will get some kind of bipartisan vote out of the House tomorrow. I think I would hope that the Senate would move immediately. I know that's not what Mitch McConnell wants, but I also know that we've moved faster and had more happen in the last 72 hours on impeachment that I've seen in a lifetime of writing about it. And so I would hope that there is quicker Senate action. And I don't think that we should be cautious about pressuring for that. I think we should want that. This isn't something that should be put on the back burner until the Democrats take over, etc. In fact, tonight there was even a report that Mitch McConnell suggested impeaching seeing it through might be good for the Republicans and he might be right. And so, look, Donald Trump should be impeached he should be removed from office he should be barred from doing further damage. These are the things that should happen. I'm in favor of whatever route we get there by the same token. Once the Democrats take charge of the US Senate, which will not by the way necessarily be on January 20. So we have to get the certification of the Georgia results that might not be, you know, we'll see what day that that's all formalized it might be the 22nd sometime around there. When the Democrats have full control of the Senate. I happen to think the first thing they ought to do well, if it was left to me, the first thing they do it would be cut the Pentagon budget and move money over to human needs. But on the chance that that won't be their immediate first action. I do believe that they should. They should do $2,000 checks. That's a that's a tangible thing that a lot of people need a lot of hurting people need right now and that's something that could be done. They should do whatever they can to bail out local governments get COVID, you know, get that funding going get the money in the stream for vaccine these are real human needs that need to be addressed right up front. And, you know, in the mix of that can they can they do accountability for Donald Trump if it has been delayed. I think so. And I think there are basic things that they can do. Remember, even if you don't get a majority for removal of Donald Trump, there are other options with the 14th amendment simply certifying, you know, having a majority vote, centering him for inciting to insurrection, which is disqualifying from holding office in the future so there's a lot that can be done. I would hope that it's a walk and chew gum at the same moment. Thank you john you know we were going to have questions right now, but I am aware that Elizabeth is us for a limited amount of time so if you're starting with you john I'd like to go to Elizabeth now. She's done talking in about 10 minutes we can do a Q&A with both of you. I totally understand that I'll stick around very respectful of Elizabeth's time and also delighted that she's here. Thank you so much. Lydia want to introduce Elizabeth. Elizabeth is amazing. She is an attorney, an analyst, a peace advocate. She has worked as an associate policy director for Indivisible Project which I hope most of you know a Lee Lee and she her job there was leading the organization's advocacy efforts on foreign policy and human rights. She was the senior campaigner on national security for the US section of Amnesty International. She's worked with the Quaker Lobby Group Friends Committee on National Legislation. She's on the board of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. And on top of all that, she's the strategist for public citizen and for people over the Pentagon campaign. So we're extremely delighted to have the brilliant, wonderful Elizabeth Bevers with us. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Can you all hear me? Yes. Good. Okay, great. I never know. I think somebody's unmuted. So I never am sure with wifi and with my earphones and that sort of thing. So if things get a little blurry wave at me and I'll take them out and we'll try again. Thank you all so much for having me. I'm a fan of Johns. I'm a fan of Medias. I'm a fan of all kinds of people who are here. It's really nice to see so many close friends and partners of people over Pentagon campaign and some of the other work I've been up to. So if anybody is just now tuning in and expecting the amazing Barbara Lee or Mark poking, I'm sorry, it is you're stuck with me. But I will do my very best to make it quasi worth your time. I'm really glad to see so many people out. It's really impressive. I think you said right now I'm working on an independent basis. I'm a strategist and I get to have my hands and all kinds of cool advocacy work. Focus specifically on exactly what we're talking about your dismantling the military industrial complex ending wars, reinstating the human rights and civil liberties that have been displaced by that endless state of war and one of my absolute projects I've gotten to work on in a while is the people over Pentagon campaign which I'm doing with public citizen if you all are aware public citizen it's a group that primarily focuses on corporate responsibility and consumer protection but of course as we know this is an issue that very much goes to that because of the greed of contractors and the results that happen in our Pentagon budget because of it. I'm going to try to not take up too much time here but I guess I so nice to be among friends tonight because I'm just really like angry. Lately, and it's nice to be among folks who I don't know if any of you are feeling angry also leave at me if you are sorry no I'm not alone like I'm really not okay lately and I feel really happy about the fact that we can work together and fight back and do something. And so here here are a few stats that I read recently as part of this work, and I'll get to this campaign and what it is in a bit. Some of these came from another client I work with a lot of the cost of war project that's housed with Brown University Boston University and a few others I don't know if you all have seen their research but it's really amazing it gets into the overlooked costs of our endless wars and so here's something. Last year, more than half the Pentagon budget went to military contractors. More than half of our Pentagon budget think how much we're told, you know we can't cut the Pentagon budget like we don't want to deprive our troops like. Service members are. Somebody is. I think, but service members are food insecure and more than half of the Pentagon budget went to contractors last year. Earlier this year, more than $29 billion for the Pentagon got snuck into COVID relief packages. That's wild it would take someone making minimum wage $1,949,602 years with no time off to make that exact same amount. Now thankfully that practice did stop in this latest COVID relief bill. I want to shout out the work of when without war the project on government oversight and many others who led the effort to push Congress to deny more money to the Pentagon and COVID relief bills, but that's infuriating it makes me so angry. And we also know that pouring money into the Pentagon is contributing to the coming climate crisis, the Department of Defense is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and producer of greenhouse gases in the world we know. That means more police militarization here at home. The Department of Defense has transferred at least $1.6 billion worth extra free equipment to domestic police meaning more weapons of war in our community. Unified government which hasn't happened in a while there's going to be one party the Democratic Party controlling the White House the House and the Senate. And ultimately, we all know that the Democratic Party has been complicit in creating the bloated Pentagon budget that we are all fighting against today. So I think that's why one of the big tasks before us is to normalize going after the Pentagon. I think we should be saying people over Pentagon in the endless wars in the same breaths that we're asking for Medicare for all or a green new deal and more. These things are all connected. They all depend on one another as we talked about a little bit earlier. And I think there is some reason to be hopeful about that. So the campaign I work on people over Pentagon. And I do want to shout out code pink is a tremendous partner as part of that work. What we try to do is we are trying to make it more politically normal and make the political consequences better for elected officials to go after the Pentagon. We've had lots of organizations on the progressive side of things who maybe don't always take a stance on Pentagon spending have signed on to statements have joined with us in calling for a reduction in Pentagon spending. And we have talked about what it would mean on all these other issues if we spent our money in a different way. We've worked with immigration groups with climate justice groups with civil rights groups with environmental justice groups. In addition to all of our favorite peace activist friends, many of whom are on this call. It's been really encouraging and we've seen it grow some fruit so far. There were actually multiple proposals in the Democratic primary process this year from candidates laying out their vision of what cuts to the Pentagon could look like in specific numbers. And as you all saw, there was a big fight last year around the NDA to cut 10% from the Pentagon budget which, as we know there are many proposals out there to me I think 10% is like, that's like what the Pentagon finds in its genes and the laundry that they've got to take Apple before they wash it right like 10% is almost like a funny amount but it's real like 10% is a cut that's it that's a real thing. We saw 93 members of the House voted in favor of that. And I know all of you have been working on this for a while but for some folks who don't they're asking like oh Elizabeth are you disappointed that only 93 members voted for that and I'm like are you kidding. Well, the last time we got a vote like this. I think it was a couple years ago right I know Barbara Lee did another cut amendment and I think it was around like 1%. And it just like it went up in flames on the House floor it didn't. I mean it was just nothing and so to get 93 members to say yes we are in favor of that that's tremendous it's just incredible progress. And there's this diversity of organizations who are coming on and support who are making these connections between all of these different issues we care about. And as we mentioned there's this new caucus coming out it's the defense spending reduction caucus for me personally I don't say defense spending I say militarism spending or war spending because as we know we don't quite do defense in our military policy. It's a bit more aggressive than that but that is what our you know federal budget process cause it is defense spending. And it's so exciting we're really excited about Mr. Pocan and Miss Lee, taking on this new caucus and I can tell you as somebody who gets a, the amazing opportunity to work really closely with them they're taking this so quickly they're strategizing with us they're thinking through tactics they're thinking through timing they're thinking about what messages resonate and they're taking this on with this energy that we really just haven't had on this in quite a while. So, just quickly, before I wrap up here I just want to sort of run through what it how it's going to go down in the next few months and just to kind of remind us all there's really going to be multiple election points where we and members of Congress can have an impact and can affect the process but as a general matter, Biden is going to have to put out his first budget proposal that will probably happen over the next couple of months or so. And now that's not law it's not binding it's not really anything it's just kind of a proposal but it sets the tone of the debate. And it shows what the administration's priorities are and that's especially important. In this situation of unified government where you know some Democrats might be a little hesitant to get out in front of the administration or to counter that now, thankfully we have plenty of friends who are have no concern with going against the administration and pushing them but it would be really great if the initial request actually lowered the Pentagon budget and so that's one thing that members can be doing now, like literally today they can be privately and publicly telling Biden and telling the new administration that they want to see that initial budget request actually lower the Pentagon budget. And after that there will Congress is actually the one as we know who sets the budget so there will be the budget committees will go through the budget resolution process that will have to be voted on by the full House and Senate and do we know who the new budget committee chair is now that things went the way they did Georgia it's our friend Mr Bernie so that's very exciting. You know a big champion of cutting the Pentagon budget. And then of course, the appropriations committees are actually the ones who will set the levels for the different programs. And then later on there will be the NDA process which is not appropriations but authorization but does give further opportunities to weigh in on the levels of spending. It's always harder to get amendments on the floor than it is to take on these things early in the process or in committee. So, as you all are doing your calls I'm super psyched you guys are doing this. And I would encourage you reiterate that message it's getting there early I think members should be saying now what they want out of the Biden administration and setting that norm setting that tone now that we expect it to be reduced. It's not flat not just increased a little bit not increased, and also we increase domestic spending by the same amount which is a thing they used to like throw at us as a concession for the last few years no we want it reduced. And so, probably at this point, I do want to say really quickly. There are all kinds of proposals out there for how much can and should be cut. And I want to shout out the poor people's campaign and national priorities project has worked really closely with them on their proposal to cut $350 billion from the Pentagon budget. In the people have repented on campaign during the primary season we were calling for $200 billion in pets. There's the sustainable defense task force and that called for $100 billion. There's been this 10% cut idea, the Quincy Institute recently released a paper. I think it was about at a minimum, taking back the money that increased during the Trump years which is just a side note like I always love for Democratic politicians who want to talk about like, the damage of the Trump years and maybe you're not as aggressive at rolling back some of that supposed damage, for example maybe by like taking back the Pentagon budget increases that happened over the Trump years so I say all that to say that sometimes we get hit with this talking point like, Oh, well you know we don't want arbitrary cuts we don't want to cut just to cut and we don't, you know we don't want it to be unstrategic or you know better than I do most of you have been doing this like for a lifetime we have strategy we have recommendations we have citations we have research we have data we have we have all those things. And not to mention it's not really our job to come up with those things it's actually the job of this giant bureaucracy in the military industrial complex to show us where they can have where they can make some cuts if they're required to make some cuts. I bet they can come up with something but I just wanted to throw that out there and shout out some great partners who have put good proposals together. Somebody's calling to tell me to stop talking I'm going to do that. I just want to reiterate like why I think this is so important and again I know I don't have to sell any of you this is code pink this is like this is it. But like budgets, I get are sometimes boring, and we are actually living through through impeachment going on tonight there's, you know, a violent insurrection that just happened there's there's just so many things going on but I do just want to reiterate the budgets decide who lives and who dies, who has food who has health care who gets richer who gets poorer and more stats that make me angry just to kind of put into comparison the $740 billion Pentagon budget that we have right now. There are estimates that homelessness in the United States could be eradicated completely with about $20 billion and eradicating hunger could take about $26 billion. We could be powered by wind and solar energy at about $80 billion. We could start 160,000 new clean energy jobs to agree to kickstart a green new deal for about $12 billion tuition free public college could be provided for about $70 billion. These are things that I just want us to keep in mind when we think about the kind of world that we could have and all these super important issues on peace on justice on climate they all matter, but they do all start with where we spend our money. It's a value statement. It's a moral statement. And that's what I've got to keep pushing. So I'm going to stop there and make sure we have time for Q&A. So thanks very much for having me. And sorry I'm not Barber Lee. Thank you. You know, I was reading that the budget Biden is supposed to submit a budget I believe the first week in February. And then we're looking at passage and April. And I put in the chat that we have three chairs who are among a handful of the most progressive senators. We have, as you mentioned, Bernie chairing the budget committee which deals with non discretionary spending entitlement programs veterans benefits but not social security. That's not supposed to be touched. And then Patrick Leahy chair of appropriations dealing with discretionary spending which military spending is considered. And then we have Ron Wyden who spoke out against Mike Morel the torture defender for CIA. He is chairing finance so if you follow the money, you'll follow the most progressive senators so so we have to get our requests in early and we should be appealing to them as well and organizing in their districts to ensure that we can cut this military budget. Hanya, as graciously offered to take the questions and now we can open it up. We have a multitude of, we have a number of hands up. But I want to say for the sake of time we'll just submit it to a couple of questions here and we'll stop so we can go into call to action. The majority of the questions came while John was speaking, but both John and Elizabeth could perhaps address them. I do see Alan Minsky's hand up so Alan if you could unmute yourself please and ask your question. Thank you, I have no question but I just want to say that progressive Democrats of America I went to the website, Elizabeth and we have officially signed on to endorse people over Pentagon. Thank you so much. Thank you for the presentation and John Nichols love you as always brother. Thank you. Thank you for publicizing these calls and also for world beyond war and roots action and if there's other groups I haven't mentioned maybe you could put them in the chat. Thank you. Sure, so I do see that Mila also has her hand up if you could keep your question to 30 seconds or less that would be great Mila. And just before we before we go into Mila's question if I can ask everyone to please mute yourselves while our speakers are speaking that'd be wonderful. Thanks. This questions for john and assuming that impeachment goes through. We have been warned that there are actions planned military armed demonstrations at all the state capitals. I have seen people saying that if those actions take place at all at all of the capitals that there's a chance that Trump, even an impeach Trump could call for for martial law, and, and prevent the inauguration from happening and I just like some clarification do you think that that's possible. I think it's unlikely. But I, we have seen Donald Trump go to extremes at so many turns and in so many ways that I think you have to be prepared for it. Nancy Pelosi over the weekend was in contact with the joint chiefs of staff about you know who's got their finger on the nuclear button. Big deal stuff we're talking about and we should not be casual about it we are in a moment where a very unstable very damaged man is the president of the United States, and he will be so for barring impeachment or the 25th amendment he will be so for the better part of another week. This is the time when we ought to be very very conscious. So with all that said, I don't anticipate that a effort by the president to declare martial law will occur or that it would be successful. I think he there that would be your 25th amendment moment. And if I can say one final thing that you believe me this is way outside of the usual parameters of how we would talk about these things. But I'm not sure that Mitch McConnell is on the, on the Trump side anymore. And, and so if Trump were to take actions that that went to such extremes as you're describing potential and these are things to be concerned about. I, I think that one of the reasons, I think that there is a possibility that McConnell would act as well. And so it's a terrible, it's a odd thing to be in a circumstance where we're putting our competence in Liz Cheney, Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell as our, you know, but that is the moment we find ourselves in and we should be conscious that in, again, in the history of the world, there are many countries where unlikely popular front coalitions that extend from the right, you know, all the way over to the far left have become critical. I, I don't think it's too much to say that that at least for the next week we have to be prepared for all such responses. And I guess that brings us to the next question, John, from who I lost my sharing and Mike should the. Well, no, actually, let me go. It's actually from Ellen mass who asks, what are the social consequences if Donald Trump is in control after Senate does not impeach him. Senate does that where the social consequences that the Senate does not impeach. Right. Well, look, this this week's going to move very, very fast. And so the House will impeach possible impeach tomorrow. The Senate would have the opportunity to act sometime after tomorrow it could act immediately it doesn't impeachment I've tried to teach people over many years doesn't take a lot of time, you could, you can have your trial and your vote in a day that's that's certainly doable. And so the consequences are this, if the if Donald Trump exploits a moment in which it seems that the Senate is not going to act. That's a that's a dangerous void that's a place where we ought to be concerned and that is one of the reasons why I think that Chuck Schumer has the suggestion that he may try to pull the bill right you know try to try to force action and as sooner point is certainly appropriate if indeed you were to get to something like that. Bottom line though is, once Donald Trump is out of office, it is still important to see the accountability effort through to its end, be it through impeachment or be it through a 14th Amendment effort, make sure that he never seeks office again. This is really important stuff because I can promise you, having covered Donald Trump for a long time. If he has the option, once he's out of office if he has the option to run for president again in 2024. There's even a situation where he will leverage that opportunity to essentially become a president next time, and he will do it very aggressively. You will see a continuation a lot of stuff that that we've seen up to this point. I'm not a fan of term limits. I'm not a fan of disqualifying people from running for office generally. I think that's, that's not where I like to go. But the fact of the matter is the 14th Amendment written after the Civil War was written at a time of instability where there was a desire to make sure that those who might use positions of power to literally undo the government of the United States or to upend it for incredibly nefarious and dangerous purposes could be barred from doing so. I do think that this is an important reality I agree with Cory Bush, I agree with the members of the squad. Ilhan Omar in particular that you can't just let this thing go. This, this is what happened at the Capitol on January 6 was an expression of violent white supremacist activity by people who are bent on preventing, not just the defeat of Donald Trump, but frankly preventing this country from moving forward on many, many fronts and disempowering Trump at this point is an important act also holding to account those who are aligned with him is an important act. And we do, I do want to go to Medea for her question for both of your speakers and then we'll go to Francis, and I'll ask you to post it in the chat. I was going to ask Linda Milazo's question because I think both for you John who have written so much about free speech and an advocate and you Elizabeth as an attorney and an advocate. What do you think about the censorship issues the social media suspending Donald Trump, where is this going to lead is this going to bite us in the butt. Okay, that's it. I'll start maybe Elizabeth a much wiser things to say, this concerns me. Look, I, I happen to be in the camp that generally believes that when they're as I mentioned briefly my remarks, when there are extensions of restrictions of, you know, kind of a new security state things of this nature that usually circles around and assaults the left assaults, people who are working for economic and social and racial justice people who are working for peace. And if they put new restrictions on Congress, and you know who can interrupt a hearing or who can, you know, who can be in the building and things like that, that's going to affect your work, and your work is noble work and necessary it's not the same as what occurred here but it is these threats are real. So I'm very very concerned about this and I believe that it is appropriate to hold Donald Trump to account. It is appropriate to hold those who aided and abetted him and any activities to account. I believe in impeachment, I believe in accountability for members of Congress, by the same token, I'm very very concerned about any threats to the right to speak the right to assemble the right to petition for the redress of grievances. And I do think that we have to think about the power of big tech, and its ability to silence voices. At this point, you know, addressing Trump's frankly calls to violence, in my view, is understandable. And I can understand it in the in the narrow context of the moment. But if that becomes a precedent, and we are allowing multinational corporations to define, you know, basically our free speech rights, that's an incredibly dangerous place to go. So we have to, with me very vigilant in this moment, and our, our, our concern about Donald Trump and our desire to hold him to account. That can be done within the context of the Constitution at this point, it merely takes courage on the part of our members of Congress are elected officials, we do not have to create a new national security state that limits freedom of speech freedom of movement freedom of activity. And Elizabeth. I don't want to take up too much more time because john, I would, I would echo all of his concerns that I would just add on top of my concern about the potential for empowering Silicon Valley to choose who has access to communications channels and this is speaking on my own account not necessarily even in my clients but that we all use and we depend on for communications for peace activists we we know where those roads go down sometimes right, and I would add that that is also why I vehemently oppose new domestic terrorism laws and the push to call what more things terrorism because that inevitably ends and and empowered and increased security state that is only ever really utilized against the marginalized and to suppress real meaningful dissent and challenges to the military industrial complex among many other things so I would just echo all those concerns and say that you know precedent is important. It really matters. A question that came up by Francis yes mean is, when we get a chance to ask our reps if they will join this caucus, what is the best way to connect with them, if they say yes. I'm going to get in contact with Mark Pokan's office now that they're, or, or Barbara Lee's office, but they are, they're able to just add people directly to the caucus. Yeah, that'll be part of our capital calling action alerts. Oh great. I can assure you. Oh, sorry. I can assure you that Barbara Lee and Mark Pokan will be really thrilled to get the calls. In December I was able to ask both Ted Lou and Sarah Jacobs, if they were interested their ears lit up they seemed super excited about it and they were both interested in following up so just a Thank you. Yep. And I don't know how many questions we can ask. It is we're kind of nearing six o'clock 6pm so maybe a couple more. Okay, there is a question that came to me in private. Why call for Trump's why not call for Trump's immediate arrest and I can't see the name because it's a direct message I can't see the name for some reason so Look, there are people calling for Trump's arrest and prosecution you've heard that. And the it's understand the passion for it. At this point, though, that is unlikely. We, that is an area of the law that is very under adjudicated. The idea of arresting a sitting president for wrongdoing that that has not happened. And, and it is unlikely to happen doesn't mean people can't call for it. Certainly doesn't mean that people shouldn't call for prosecution of Donald Trump, after he is out of office, and it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be very conscious of the abuses of the pardon process. But at this point, let's not let members of Congress off the hook. They have the ability to disempower Donald Trump right now. They have the ability to vote to impeach him and to remove him from office. That's step one, and associated with that step is the disqualifying him from seeking further positions. And that's done. I think there is certainly room for local state and federal prosecutions, because there's plenty to hold this president to account for. And Elizabeth, would you like to also add to this. No, I'll defer to John on that one. Thank you. I guess I'll just go to my last question is, how can we get rid of God bless America at the end of every political leaders speech. And this is by Marilyn so thank you Marilyn. I'll start there. I, there's, to me it's a reminder that there's so many little things like that right like, I guess at the grocery store all the time and the checkout line like would you like to round up your, you know, dollar amounts to support you know troops, eating food. Little things like that right like there's so much. There's militarism baked into everything and and again like I'm all like a lot of people who serve are genuinely food insecure and or not their human needs are not met and that's unacceptable but like hey we have a 740 billion dollar set a gun budget I bet they could find a few pennies to help out. You know, we have a cultural shift that has to happen to right. And you all were talking earlier on about Mike Morel and about the scourge of torture policy and you know that's an area I've worked on quite a bit as well and and I was really struck I wrote a little thing on it once I can send around maybe because of what the United States chose to do. We had this weird shift in in our art in our culture and the way torture is depicted. There are several like kids movies that paint torture and sort of like a funny joking light in the original Shrek movie and the minions movies. There's these torture scenes that are played for laughs there's a lot of things made that glorifies torture like it was no longer a thing that was just this is off the table and it's a thing that should never be done for any circumstances it's come all the way as a joke and so I failed that to say like law and policy they aren't just like things that people in DC do they are things that affect the way we live our lives and the way we express ourselves and I think that it always does it does have to come from the people things have to sort of go out of fashion and become no longer really acceptable to say or to do and you know I this is obviously like not one of the more insidious things that we're facing right now as people saying God bless America God bless the troops whatever but it's indicative of the way that like the primacy of the military the over glorification of the the tool of militarism has just influenced our society and so you know my thought on those things is that as we push for change policies we are also change pushing for a changed culture and it changed awareness and thinking about the role that the military plays in our society I mean like poll after poll shows that in this weird time of the Trump era different feelings about different institutions has kind of waxed and Wayne people see the media in a different way people see doctors in a different way scientists but like the military consistently gets public respect and approval and belief and that doesn't happen just by accident right like they're they're decades of militarism policy that helped that happen so by shifting to a more peaceful world I think we have a more peaceful culture both in in our language our art our culture everything. Thank you so much Elizabeth bevers with people over Pentagon and john Nichols with the nation magazine. It's a great honor to have you with us tonight. And if anyone wants to reach you, but maybe you can just give us a way to contact you, and then we'll move on to our action alert. I'll put it in the chat thank you all so much for having me. You can put it in the chat to that be terrific. I'm glad to let me let me also just thank everyone for joining us tonight it's wonderful to have 200 people on such an incredibly intense night and such a rare moment American history come together to keep the focus on peace and economic and racial and racial justice. I really love the work of code pink. I cherish the allies that are on board here, PDA and others. And I can only say that that when media called and asked me to join you tonight. It wasn't as if I didn't have other things to do. And I know that's true for Elizabeth as well. But the work of code pink, the work of PDA the work of these other groups that are involved is so very very vital, and we can make our eye off the prize of cutting the Pentagon budget and reasserting human needs and human values in this country. So thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you so much, John and Elizabeth let's give them a virtual clapping. All right at this point we have 188 people on the call with us, and we urge you all to stay with us we're going to move into our capital call capital hill calling party right now. The task is for our own representatives our Congress member, we will be calling and leaving a message for to join the House of Defense spending reduction caucus, and I believe that the action alert has been posted in the chat. Yes, it's there. It's there. Yeah. All right, so if you marry posted it we can repost it I'll repost it. Okay yeah please do repost it. So basically what we're doing and there's a script for you. We asked that you call the capital hill switchboard. I believe you can put in your zip code and they'll send you over to your Congress person's office, and you can leave a message for them let's see how many but how many calls we can make tonight. After we make those calls I'd appreciate it if you would also send an email it's good to have a paper trail. Asking your representative to do this and asking for a response that you expect response. And we'll ask that you share this action with friends posted somewhere email it to friends. Let's get your friends to do the same okay. So, let us begin. You have a phone rate if you have a computer you want to send an email, you can start with that. Either way. It's nine o'clock, it's nine o'clock in Washington DC is the switchboard going to answer the phone. Yes, yes, they do all night long. I mean, sometimes it's automated and you say who you want. Okay, let's do it. And I just asked it. It looks like Francis is on the phone now. But didn't she say that she had spoken to Ted blue already and that he had expressed interest in joining the caucus. Even if he said that you know you could ask to have confirmation that he's joined. I think we just overwhelmed them so let's keep trying. Some are getting through. Okay, and you can also email right now. The emails in the chat. You also get a direct number for your congressperson. If you just look them up. We know if anyone has joined already besides Lee and Pokemon. Don't have a list yet hope to get one soon. Are people getting through. Are people getting through. Yeah. No. I think we just overwhelmed them. So let's keep trying. Some are getting through. If you just look them up. Your name. And their official website. My mailbox was full. Send them an email. One. Arizona. So I know some of you already made the calls and some of you haven't been able to get through. Everybody should be able to send an email. And if you're on Twitter. Or on Facebook, you can visit their Facebook page. To make it a public request. And Marcy, I wanted to talk about the next weeks. Sure. My bothering people who are calling. Maybe they'll give out a few more minutes. Let people. It's like most people have called. So I just wanted to say next week we have Yemen. We'd like to make that a key issue that we pushed Biden. And the week after that Iran. And if you want to put in the chat, any other issue you think is really important. For these Tuesday evening calls, please go ahead and do that. As some of you know, I'm a, I'm a Twitter enthusiast. And so I just tweeted. Ted Lou. And I put a link to my tweet and the text of my tweet. You can retweet it, please. If you would. I don't know. All right. I just want to make up a few more comments. And I follow one and Marcy, follow one another on Twitter and try to. Elevate, uh, one another's voices. Um, but I tweeted it, Ted Lou. And I said, uh, thanks for your leadership in these perilous times, I'm hoping you plan to join the new. Defense spending reduction caucus. So that's also an option, a way to go. So we can, we can hit them on all fronts. Phoning, letters, faxing. Email. And Twitter. I'm going to, as soon as I get off, I'm going to. There's only one of us doing it. What else? I can only wonder this is doing it. They're going to get hit by 20 things of it. It's good. No, it's good. You amplify your voice. So I think I'm trying to, I think I used a hashtag. I just kind of made one up for the moment, but maybe. Which is cut military funding. Because I also don't particularly like to call it defense. Spending. It's just a euphemism. So it's now almost six, 15, and I think most of us have either called or emailed our representative. And I do urge you. To encourage others to follow suit as well. We need to flood the representative's offices. Yes. We can have an action alert coming out of this to our email list. So we can. So Alice, I was going to say that the action alerts will be posted in our Google group. If you are a member of great. If you are not and want to join, I just email me. Marcy. Marcy Y at code pink.org. I put it in the chat. We'll also be sending out an action alert about it to the code pink list. But the best way to get the information is to join the Google group. Yeah. Any other thoughts before we close? I have another thought. I just got a. A message from Joseph. Who's told me he's following me on Twitter and I'll follow back. But I think that one of the things that we could also do here is to put our Twitter handles in so that we all follow. One another and retweet one another and elevate. Our collective Twitter reach. Good idea. Yeah. And we are forming a Twitter group. The groups can accommodate, I think up to 50 Twitter. Users. And we've got about, I don't know, 15 to 20 right now. So if you're active on Twitter, let me know. And we'll put you in the group. If you want to be. All right. So. Well, we, we hit over 200 tonight in terms of participants. So we are growing. And that's fabulous. Please let your friends know. This is something consistent every Tuesday night. We're grading great ideas from you in the chat. Of other things you would like to hear. Some people have talked about Latin America. Want to hear what Biden might do in terms of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. You can always send your ideas to any of us. And. Marcy. Is it Marcy at code pink.org. And. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. And that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. Marcy red. And thank you so much. And honey, why don't you close us out before you, before you close them. Let me just say it. Remind everyone to save the chat before we close. You want to save the chat. saying I spoke to my mother a couple of nights ago and I think this was really after our honorable guest speaker Norman Solomon had spoken about Iran and we talked about that a little bit which is going to be another call as Medea mentioned and she said if our allies if if our countrymen and women knew how much our allies in America love them they would have the drive to fight so I want to thank you all whoever's joining this call every single week who's a peace activist who takes the time to be here with us for an hour and a half to make this an action call to move us forward on behalf of every Iranian in Iran who's struggling right now so I love you all I look forward to seeing you every single week and yeah that's really about it I'm done. Two thank you all for joining us. We'll see you next Tuesday. Why don't we unmute and we can say goodbye to each other. Bye! I think it's wonderful, thank you. Bye. I love you, Gloria. Bye, bye Dr. Bill. Oh, thank you. Bye, bangs. Thank you for staying on, taking action. Hey Dr. Bill.