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tv   The Beat With Ari Melber  MSNBC  May 11, 2023 3:00pm-4:00pm PDT

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> thanks so much. welcome to "the beat." boy, do we have a show for you tonight. we talk about those santos tapes which broke exclusively here last night. we have more of them, tapes of the newly indicted republican george santos. when we get on a story like this we stay on it for you.
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that's coming up. also, i have a break you how, with everything we have been through and everything we've learned -- should deal with a proven liar and now someone liable for defamation and sexual abuse, donald trump. how do we deal with him? how do we cover interviews and town halls? we're not against interviews. i have a breakdown on that later. what donald trump said on his live and lengthy appearance on cnn last night is our top story. we'll get to that later. the top story tonight is the tapes. george santos back in washington voting on an unemployment fraud bill, which is wild considering that is part of what he's been indicted for. santos arraigned on 13 separate federal charges wire fraud, money laundering, abusing public funds. doj claiming santos spent money he claimed was for his campaign but he basically grifted,
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pocketing it according to the filing for personal expenses, luxury designer clothing, credit card payments for his own personal use. these charges come after months of reports about santos' lies about his career, his education, his own life, and the tapes that we have as part of this exclusive, the santos tapes were recorded by documentarian blake zef. he was at one point exploring a possible documentary. he also did a completely separate student loan policy documentary that aired on msnbc. mr. santos wanted to find a way to get money for doing what most politicians, whether they're in office or candidates, constantly do without any expectation of money, which which is he wanted to find a payday for participating in a documentary
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that didn't occur. journalistly that would not be how it's done. santos on this new tape you're going to hear now for the first time, was looking for a payday. >> what are the entertaining, like, kind of -- monetarily. i don't have a number in my head. the fact that i'm having these conversations, these are conversations i never in a million years thought i'd be having, but when in rome, let's have the conversations. a lot has changed over the last three cycles, over the last six years. so from '18 to now, a lot has changed. and it's been bipartisan and across the aisle, so i think, you know, this is a different time in congress. where they're understanding this is just going to be a new way of doing things. >> santos may have just been bs'ing, may have been lying to himself, or may have somehow got
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many his head there was a new way, and this is what he'd get away with. all this quite interesting as we report on his indictment. as for the rome reference, i don't know if grifting for interviews was a common thing in rome. jurisdiction doesn't help with you american authorities. santos also discussed whether the ethics community would okay some of the line stretching he wanted to do, and get money. >> i was actually given encouraging feedback yesterday when i spoke to them that it's become a very common occurrence of members selling rights to their stories as politics comes more to the front and center of the national stage and public interest. so it's become a very common thing, and this wouldn't be the first. >> now, these tapes are from the same source we reported on with blake zeff last night, this exclusive set of tapes that have not gone public before. we should note, although we are
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very interested in the news and broke it last night because we thought it was newsworthy. b.s. getting picked up in other outlets, including the attention and scrutiny on santos' attempt to crack a joke about a roomful of jews newly released audio. that's the foreword, one of the preeminent jewish papers in the country. all this interesting because one of the oh charges against santos goes beyond offending people. it goes to him trying to justify a type of public theft so. some of this might be offensive or scandalous. people can make up their minds. other parts add to the mind set of someone who as of january and february was talking this way and now is trying to fight to stay out of prison for a whole host of charges that relate to lying and money. now, here's a new clip where -- a clip tonight i'm going to play for you where he talks about these benefits for unemployed people in the pandemic. >> so, the way i look at it is they're not understanding. the question is simple --
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george, why was your income $55,000 in 2020 and why is your income drastically higher? here's the answer to that. i reached a deal with the company to nobody went unemployed and got reduced to, like, a very basic salary so we could -- didn't get fired. long story short i went from 2019 to making $400,000 some dollars to 2020 my income was 55k. couldn't be more legitimate. i actually qualify for unemployment. >> that's how he was discussing it on tape. the feds disagree. we are joined now by the documentarian behind the santos tapes, the man on the other end of those conversations for hours, blake zeff. big scoop last night, and we wanted to have you back.
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good to see you, blake. >> thanks for having me. >> absolutely. we've seen this story continue to really get traction. santos writ large, the democratic leader for king jefferies was talking about trump and santos as the face of the lying republican party. that's the politics of it, and then there's the law of it. in the new tapes that you've now released tonight, what do you think is important? >> well, you know, i would say that when it comes to what the congressman has been saying, it's -- in the conversation that we had, this is very much a confirmation of some of the stuff we talked about yesterday, where he's clearly trying to get money to spin the documentary. i want to be careful. i'm not a lawyer and i'll not saying this is unlawful. i'm saying as a journalist when you approach a politician to be in a documentary, just in my experience -- i just did a
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documentary for msnbc last year, and there were a lot of politicians in them. not a single one of them asked me if i could pay them to be in it. and we had several conversations with the congressman where we're trying to avoid -- i really wanted to see if we could make this movie without that, and it kept being thrown as a roadblock to get there. >> let's bear down on that point. no one who was in government was paid, for example, by you and your documentary. >> correct. >> and at msnbc they've -- that's a journalistic standard. msnbc's run many other documentaries as well as reports. the entire news standards and practice division does not allow payments to those people in government or most any payment for a source that's participating in journalism. that's like a line. i want to then get your read, as the person who was talking to when he says, i don't have a number in mind. i never thought i'd be having this conversation. he seems like a person who has a
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dim awareness that it could sound bad. is that how you took it? >> it was. one, when i was in his congressional office meeting with him on capitol hill, when this topic started to come up, he stopped me and said, we cannot have this office while i'm in this congressional office. we've got to have a separate conversation. so aphone conversation was orchestrated when he was not in the office. where will the potential disconnect occurred was my filmmaking team and i did not think the ethics team was going to give him the go ahead to take money for being in this. we didn't want to give him money, we weren't going to. we thought the ethics committee was going to say, you can't take money for this any way, and we'll get back to taking the documentary. i kept saying, i don't think the ethics committee is going to sign off on this. then he comes back as you heard in the tapes and said, i have good news, the committee says everything has changed. i can't tell you if that's true,
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but it doesn't jive with the experience we have had in the past. entirely unusual. i have not had that situation where somebody also asked for money. you brought up the wording. i don't have an exact dollar amount. if you listen to witnesses who have been involved in previous situations with george santos, even before he was in congress, he was involved with a dog charity, for example. his language was similar where he has this aw-shucks mentality. i don't know about the money, it's not about the money. similar. >> that may be one of mismechanisms. he also talked to you about running for president. new tonight. let's listen to that. [ laughter ] >> it's not a thought i haven't had. let me make that very clear. it's not a thought i have not had. in light of all the mishegoss
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and filings, until i can get that squared away and put it to bed, the sheer thought of me opening a presidential exploratory committee would break all the rules. >> i just have two thoughts, blake, and weal get your response. on a lighter note, between the mishegoss today and stab at discussing a room full of jews yesterday, i'm wondering if the dentist converted to judaism for the jokes. again, he balances between a completely absurd idea that george santos -- kicked off committees -- would be any kind of presidential candidate material, while also showing some awareness of, i can't do that i do have some stuff i got to get to.
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u giving us a window into the mind set. i'm curious your thoughts on that. >> i think you're exactly right. it was kind of wild. sometimes when you talk to a subject as a journalist or documentarian, you want to bring things out of them. i want to be clear. he didn't bring up the idea of running for president. when i spoke to him he seemed to have such grand ambitions and a high sense of himself that i brought it up. have you thought about running for president? is that something you would do? he has a very good sense of humor. there was a lot of laughing when we were talking. in this case, he got quite serious and said, it's not something i haven't thought about. but as you say, he quickly catches himself and says, but i've got a lot of ethics stuff to get through first. part of that is because he was meet with the ethics committee a lot when i was meeting with him. in some cases just before our conversation, the most previous conversation or meeting he had was with ethics. so some of these things were fresh in his mind at that point.
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but i think even that's interesting because i gives you a sense of how much guidance and interaction he's having with the ethics committee, and as we see now, probably for good reason. >> you have the big tapes at a big time. i'm running over, but you spend so much time with pivotal characters. do you think all in people underestimate or overestimate him as he prepares to fight the case? >> he's probably smarter than people think. he's very confident. he is charming. you can get along with him well enter personally, but i think he has a mountain of inconsistencies and problems he's going to have to explain, and i don't think intelligence and charm can always get you past that. so to answer your question, i don't think it's going to be smooth sailing for santos, but i will say he's not cowering in the corner based on what i've seen of him. he's a confident person. he's been through this thing before where he's involved with the law and he was able to run
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for congress and win, so who knows what will happen? >> yeah. superinteresting. again, blake zeff, thank you for breaking this story on "the beat." people can find him on twitter. we've posted several recordings he made as part of the project. coming up, a development in fox news' never ending headache over alleged lies. and later tonight, as promised we have an excellent mavericks guest. the rapper and producer logic is here tonight. stay tuned for that. but first, a special look at the right and wrong ways to deal with donald trump. we have a straight up conversation for cnn, no punches pulled, when i'm back with you in one minute. in one minute. i'm a veteran of 23 years. i served three overseas tours. i love to give back to the community. i offer what i can when i can. i started noticing my memory was slipping. i saw a prevagen commercial and i did some research on it.
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neutral parties, objective analysts, but also cnn itself. donald trump, now a criminal defendant was found liable for sexual abuse. he faces the special counsel probe, and cnn decided to its journalistic power to give him a live platform he could really dominate. headlines are now splashed like this. cnn town hall was a disaster. cnn town hall was a total disaster, and appealing to conservatives appeared to be a type of disaster. others say cnn failed america. a train wreck. trump steam rolled cnn and cable carnage. cnn has its own media critic, oliver darcy, and he went, cnn aired it all. went on and on like 2016, donald trump's social media feed brought to life on stage. it was a room full of republican voters that cnn staged. in other words, their journalistic choice was not to get something in the real world,
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but pack the room. donald trump had free reign to spew lies in the town hall. one called it a disgrace gifting donald trump a campaign rally. while the trump aides were joyous, they were baffled at how well the night went, and one person working for trump trolled cnn saying we want to thank cnn for the generous donation to trump's campaign. >> trump has many legal probes and a finding for defamation. the legal heat is all around him, and yet -- there is an example of that. some of those things relate to lies. when you're dealing with someone in this situation just found liable for defamation, you have to figure out, how are you going to press them, and there's context to all of that. but when you give them the platform live, when you stack the hall with their supporters, you get something elsele we're going to just show you briefly with a fact check in mind some of what it sounded like.
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>> i never met this woman. i never saw this woman. and by the way, they said she wasn't raped, okay? >> they found that you sexually abused her. >> say what the -- they said he didn't rape her. i didn't do anything else either because i have no idea who the hell she is. >> can i just ask -- >> this is a fake story. >> did you ever show those classified documents to anyone? >> not really. i would have the right to. >> what do you mean not really? >> not that i can think of. >> it's very simple that you're a nasty person, i'll tell you. >> that is how it went for a long time. that was a short clip. cnbc, which covers business, says the town hall shows the network still doesn't know how to handle trump. cnn defended how they did this and the reporter moderator who
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handed the quelling. fox news had to pay out that giant $787 million sum, partly for the way that it replatforms liars when it knew better. tucker carlson ousted after that. trump awaiting a criminal trial and also was just hit with that $5 million judgment for sex abuse and defamation this week, so cnn in that context faced a choice. how do you handle trump? how do you handle platforms that can be abused by people? and there are many alternatives that i'm about to get into with a real tv veteran. but the main reason cnn failed last night, which really poses questions for everyone in this vote and business as we deal with dangerous lies, is that in no way did they seem to erect any mechanism to deal with this independently despite all the warnings they have about how it would go. and the trump folks are celebrating because they think
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we're back. welcome back, sir. >> hey, always great to be here. >> we thought of you for this. there are ways to interview people. i don't believe that a major figure nominee for party should
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be held off all of the internet or all of television. there are also rules and standards and it was striking to see cnn structure it this way with a live platform with, in a sense, an audience they helped pick, so they created that reality. they didn't just reflect it, that really put donald trump with hundreds of people against one live interviewer. and he dominated. he crushed. it was embarrassing for cnn and many of the people involved if the standard for journalism is to do journalism in realtime and not hand over the keys and the tools to then be on defense the whole time, so in that sense it was both sad and at times pathetic from a journalistic standpoint. i say that as a structural comment. not trying to personally impugn any good faith journalist who may have been involved. with all that said, what do you think was done wrong last night? does it concern you about the possible campaign ahead?
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what could have been done better? >> there's a clear template for how you would deal away would be authoritarian who has disdain for truth, which is you don't let them go on live. you interview them, tape them, fact check them. you make sure that you create a kind of frame work in which people can understand the things he is saying are both not true, but also the lies are being done for a specific reason and kind of reveal the sub text behind that reason. i think the thing that was odd about the cnn event was they wanted to train wreck. >> you think? >> there was a kind of too smart by half strategic decision i think they made. they had been trying to tilt more towards the middle. they kind of want to piss off people like me, they want to piss off all the lefties on twitter, get the right people outraged and allow them to kind of reposition themselves in a kind of centerist or even
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possibly pro-trump lane, especially with fox being weakened. >> right, but if you're right, you're putting forward that concept, that's not journalistic either. in other words, bartering with, as you said, this failed authoritarian who's trying to get into office, bargaining with him to create a branding exercise is not a journalist approach is what you're alleging. >> right, and i think, you know, i generally don't buy the lefty critique that all corporate journalism is fraudulent journalism, but this gets as close to that as you're about to get. the broader context for cnn is ratings are down, cable news in general is in a tricky spot. the future of cnn within warner brothers discovery is tenuous at best. there's a potential further merging possibly of the company that owns this network and the company that owns that network
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that puts cnn, i think, in a very tenuous spot. then you have a broader problem which is there isn't a center anymore, and if cnn is trying occupy the center, they're going to be broadcasting to a very small number of people and i think kind of misunderstand where we are as a country and how media works in 2023. >> all shrewd comments. trump held liable for defamation this week, fox paying out over 700 m, ousting tucker. they have another case that could be up to $2 billion. i have more on that later in the program. within that accountability moment -- i don't want to overstate this, but some of what they did last night on cnn is the kind of thing that was put forward as evidence of defamation in fox news' losing case. in other words, you have to
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forget the brands. imagine a blind taste test. some of this was exactly that. you knew it was going to happen. you knew you were on notice. you did it in a way where you didn't have control. those were the things fox got busted for, michael. >> i think both fox and cnn are in a very tricky spot. the gesture cnn did last night is the same gesture that fox did after the last election, which was to pander to their audience, to operate out of fear that their audience was going to rebel against them and reject them. so by kinding rolling over for trump, they put themselves in a vulnerable spot legally but also, you know, in terms of their future existence. because they're going to come to a fork in the road, right? either you go follow the mob or you follow the facts, and each one comes with potentially very high price.
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>> yeah, and the mob is positioned against the facts. i'm running over on time, but in closing, lightning round, was it a debacle or dumpster fire? >> i'm going with mishegoss. >> do you have the standing? >> i have the standing to call it an mishegoss. >> so much yiddish and so much mishegoss. mikkel, thank you. i'm going fit in a break. i mentioned this -- happens to be separate news on the other case against fox and rupert and why they're scared, next. y theyt ethnicity inheritance. nigerian east central from you. benin. my dad's side. it's 30% japanese. thank you, mom. i love how it gives you a little bit of history. yeah! i feel like reading this, like, these are my roots. there's just still so much to discover. now on sale for mother's day.
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t ouour juryry aorneneys hehelpou an escalation in the other big lawsuit against fox. a different voting company is subpoenaing the trump 2020 campaign in the fox defamation case, looking for communications about that voting machine company and anything about those appearances by people like sidney powell. >> giuliani, all of which comes circling around the issue we have been dealing with tonight, which is how do you deal with false claims on air, including the election lies that were spread on fox. >> you just said it all, smartmatic, a delaware entity registered in florida, activities in venezuela. with the assistance of smartmatic software, a back door is capable of flipping votes. >> smartmatic is a company that was formed, it was formed really by three venezuelans who were
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very close to -- very close to the dictator, chavez, and it was formed in order to fix elections. >> the company reached out to fox during 2020 in this period, and they did run some sort of post hoc fact checks across three different shows, so we should note that was the response then to try to address it. fox ceo laughlin murdoch reassuring investors saying this case will be, quote, fundamentally different from the dominion case they lost to a degree they ended up having a lost quarter, being under water in profits. smartmatic is seeking even more money, over $2 billion, which is more than dominion asked for and got. whether they get close to that could wipe out a lot more profits at fox. i told you we got a lot going on tonight. i want to return to something about barack obama. including this big interview
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of this country's long and torturedruf race. it is actually something obama and trevor noah discuss in a special on america's racial divide. >> we share a lot in common. we both have parents who are black be white, both half african, south side of chicago, south side of africa. >> similar. >> the question i've always wanted to know is, how did you navigate that? >> those who are not subject to racism can sometimes have blind spots, but that doesn't mean that they're not open to learning, and caring about equality and justice, because there's goodness in the majority of people. >> obama drawing on his own family's diversity to try to welcome that goodness. now, our next guest tonight has raised his own mixed family background and compared it to
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obama's. ♪ red carpet in my own merch irk like that [ bleep ] is designer ♪ ♪ do you know i'm mixed like obama? ♪ >> that is the platinum singer and rapper logic. he's a world famous artist who has confronted some tough topics from politics to racism to colorism inside hip-hop to mental health stigmas, and it's part of his art that made him such a maverick. we just sat down. i want to share with you some of our interview, airing right now for the first time, complete with logic sharing new poetry, new lyrics that aren't everyone out yet. >> they're angry that i'm, like -- it's like i don't fit in here. i don't fit in there. i have had folks be like, you'll never understand what it's like to walk down the street as a black man in america. i get that. you'll never understand what it's like to be a black man in a white man -- i'm not trying to
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argue with you. your plight is one i may not understand, but i love it, i'm understand i'm here marching in the streets. i want people to flourish. i wrote this. why you think their twitter fingers and aching because they're forsaking what it means to be a person. i'm the blackest white boy you ever seen because really when you look at me what you see is a mirror who reflects what you wish you could really be but clearer. makes you uncomfortable i'm comfortable with who i am. the reason you comment on everything i do, you're my biggest fan. my advice is seek therapy and clarity. i new hate me but i love you with the deepest sincerity. i think that sums up what we're talking about. you have to understand, this is a people that have been impressed and enslaved. enslaved. i get it. i don't look like these people, so i can understand how in many
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ways i myself may come off as some kind of threat like, trying to take our culture. you by am the culture. look of the my brother, my father, my sisters. this and that. the difference saying before is i felt like i needed to prove to these people, you don't understand, i'm apart -- now i'm like, i could give a dam. >> when you deal with people in this space you can have empathy for people who are wrong. there's that sample on "black on both sides", mos def. >> you're so conditioned everyone your conditioning's been conditioned. music and art can do this, but how do we break through what is just deep mental conditioning? >> honestly by people like yourself. that's a real thing. people outside of our direct culture taking the time to appreciate, respect, study, learn, and understand what it
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means to make great art, what it means for us to be oppressed as a people and caring enough to recitemosdef on national television. you should be proud of yourself. >> that means a lot coming from you, thank you. before i let you get out of here i'd love to do a lightning round. i'd love to collaborate with -- >> adele. >> if i could not rap i would -- >> write. >> frank sinatra. >> my childhood, my teenage years by 20s. my inspiration. >> wu tang clan. >> oh. nine dads. >> nas. >> the man who truly taught me lyricism. >> jay-z. >> the man who taught me business. >> eminem.
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>> not fitting in, and that's okay. >> that is okay. that's some of the new interview. mental health has become a pretty common topic these days especially after covid and lockdowns, but it wasn't cool when logic dropped an entire song about mental health and suicide risk six years ago. the title, you may have heard about it, was the number for the suicide prevention hot line at the time which is now 988. here's a bit of that song. ♪ i don't want to be alive ♪ ♪ i been praying for somebody to save me ♪ ♪ no one's heroic in my life ♪ ♪ i know it, i'm hurting deep down but can't show it ♪ >> industry insiders didn't view that downer song as any kind of hit. they were wrong. like many anthems about tough topics the, song resonated deeply, especially with young people. we can tell you now it went five times platinum. it surpassed a billion streams on spotify for that one song. that is more than the top single
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off taylor swift's new album. you can compare it that way. that song that logic did operated as a viral psa, and that's a factual thing i can tell you on the news. it led more people to use that hot line, a study found the song and listening to it actually correlated with an increase in calls that can save lives. it's an anthem for today's youth, much the way voices have done similar work on big issues for other generations. i brought that up with logic and, this is part of that conversation. there is a hue, a glow, a nostalgia to the really old protest anthems. because they've aged and been celebrated and to some degree, not always, but somewhat embraced by the establishment. so if you look at "strange fruit" or bob dylan "hurricane." >> i was going say dylan. >> were you?
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later they get that. of course at the time strange fruit and a woman of color, the label wouldn't even put out that billie holiday song. "hurricane", dylan had white friends who are mad. they want rock 'n' roll. we don't want to be bogged down by this. when you were doing this for a lot of people it was -- and certainly not hip-hop, it was not popular, so you were cutting up against it in a way that at the time had all this pushback. i'm curious how you -- you already sound like you stand by it of course, but how it feels over time, because the whole point is it's difficult. if it were embraced and easy it wouldn't have been a breakthrough anthem. >> it's really cool. like, i'm really seeing -- especially just me stepping out of the bs of the internet and literally being like, this exists. that's fine. i'm not going to partake in this -- it lets me see what an
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effect my music has had. it was difficult to wrap about mental health, anxiety, anime, video games. it wasn't the cool thing to do, and now it's normal. there was a time i was like, i can't stand this song, because i'm doing this song every day about killing yourself. i'm like, this is deep. and also i'm like, i'm the 1-8 hundred guy. i'm like, damn it. i just want 24 carat gold. i want to be bruno mars. then i woke up one day and i'm like, dude, what honored to be this with amazing people behind the camera, in front of the camera, and i'm known as the mental health advocate, like, bro, congress wrote me a letter thanking me, showing that statistically, it's been proven that my song has saved lives. please, if i'm only ever remembered for that, then let's do that. i'm happy. >> and being biracial, his joke
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on full circle. you can see some of the empathy that he has. you can see the full interview at msnbc.com/mavericks. scan that qr code or search melber logic on youtube to find this, our latest installment of mavericks. when we come back, we're going to share something i can tell you we have literally never done on "the beat" before. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ get 2.9% apr for 36 months plus $1,500 purchase allowance on an xt5 and xt6 when you finance through cadillac financial. ♪ (seth) not to brag, but i just switched to verizon. when you finance through cadillac financial.
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(cecily) wow! (seth) and i got to choose the phone i wanted. for free. (cecily) not that you're bragging. (vo) choose the phone you want, on us. during our spring savings event. (cecily) on the network worth bragging about. verizon that's some bad luck brian. and i think i'm late on my car insurance. good thing the general gives you a break when you need it. yeah, with flexible payment options to keep you covered. so today is your lucky...day [crash] so today is your lucky...day for a great low rate, go with the general. ♪ the thought of getting screened ♪ ♪ for colon cancer made me queasy. ♪ ♪ but now i've found a way that's right for me. ♪ ♪ feels more easy. ♪ ♪ my doc and i agreed. ♪ ♪ i pick the time. ♪ ♪ today's a good day. ♪ ♪ i screened with cologuard and did it my way! ♪ cologuard is a one-of-a kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45 plus at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪ i did it my way! ♪ ♪ they need their lawn back fast
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and you need scotts turf builder rapid grass. it grows grass 2 times faster than just seed alone. giving you a stronger lawn. smell that freedom, eh? pick up a bag at lowe's today. feed your lawn. feed it. (seth) not to brag, but i just switched to verizon. (cecily) wow! (seth) and i got to choose the phone i wanted. for free. (cecily) not that you're bragging. (vo) choose the phone you want, on us. during our spring savings event. (cecily) on the network worth bragging about. verizon i bought the team! kevin...? i bought the team! i put it on my chase freedom unlimited card. and i'm gonna cashback on a few other things too. starting with the sound system... curry from deep. [autotune] that's caaaaaaaaash. i prefer the old intro! this is much better! i don't think so! steph, one more thing... the team owner gets five minutes a game. cash bros? wooooo, i like it! i'll break it to klay. cashback like a pro with chase freedom unlimited. how do you cashback? chase, make more of what's yours.
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. welcome back. we like to end the hour in style. and if you were watching, i mentioned this is something i have literally never experienced in an interview before. i'm going to share it with you right now. we kind of anyhow unscripted moments can be revealing, even a field like this, where yes, i can see the cameras rolling and so can anyone who comes through here, but after we finished that interview with logic which we aired for the first time
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tonight, he told me he wanted to do something else. this is a first. the artist and producer shows me from scratch, from nothing, how he will compose and create a song, how he builds a beat from scratch. and then he kind of had me engage and vote on some of the ingredients. he's doing all the work, just like ordering off a menu, but this was unscripted, one take, this happened just once all the way through. by the end, you'll see logic starts doing some improv lyrics, including about msnbc. >> go through, you can say this one right here or you can go through, pick any drum beat you like. or we can even go to others. but for the sake of time. >> i like that one. >> you like that one? okay. i'm going to take this right here. now, it's going to sound even
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better. so go through these. pick one. if you don't hear one, we'll go to another. we got time. i want you to like what you hear. i want you to like it. we got time. i got others. we got a million. >> it could be this. let me hear this. let's do that. >> okay, cool. so i'm going to show you this now. when it comes to making beats, you already know this. it's about the four count, one, two, three, four. wherever you start, i want you to make sure you come back to it. >> okay. >> all right. now it's going to be -- >> see what i mean? mm-hmm. >> now you're going to do it, a
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count in. >> one, two, three and -- ooh, yeah. literally. >> okay. >> now that right there is a beat. that's your beat. the cool thing is just to be able to vibe with this, check it one time i designed a rhyme. you already know the deal, mass appeal how you feel. the elegy i see on msnbc, this is how we do it, got to kick it with the freak. we in the tele, the hotel. let me bring it back one time design a rhyme. i got to kill it one line at a time just having fun. we call this a freestyle, most rappers are in denial who they really are or who they pretend
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to be. i tell you this forever i don't need to defend me i am me, will be me to the end. this is how we get it, can't you see. one more time msnbc, "the beat." >> yo. that's wild, man. that's "the beat's" first beat courtesy of logic. >> that is the beat's first beat. that is logic. we're so grateful that we get this time, as you sathere, that's something that really only happens if you go deeper. we sit down with artists, do a more in depth thing. if you go to msnbc.com/mavericks or go to youtube and search melber logic, you can find the whole thing. the interview is about an hour ending with, because we rap, say the good-bye, and then he said wait, let me make this beat. i think you see the creativity there. whatever genre you're interested in, whatever you like, some people are more into opera, into country, but when you see an
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artist at work, see the creativity, the connections made, it can be pretty special. and we do appreciate "the beat," logic said we can use it on the show. he actually just gave it to us in terms of the copyright, so you may hear it in the future. good you're looking to connect or want to recommend people we should have on mavericks, find me online @arimelber, on social media at ari melber on tiktok, and if you see at the top, at arimelber.com. you can give me your email and i'll email you myself. if you're not into the internet, keep it locked on msnbc and i'll hopefully see you here tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. "the reidout" with joy reid starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- they were there proud, they were there with love in their heart. that was an unbelievable, and it was a

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