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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  July 26, 2023 1:00am-2:01am PDT

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every sunday at noon eastern right here on msnbc, bless catch me, new original episodes of inside with jen psaki every thursday exclusively on peacock. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> jen psaki, it isnow. good evening, alex. >> jen psaki, it is a delight to see you, my friend. >> i told you i'd come visit you in new york so i'm here. >> i am in new york state. i may not be at 30 rock, but i will comet you shortly. even if we're in a hand over boxes, i can feel your positive energy. >> can't wait to watch the show tonight, alex. >> thank you. and thanks to you at home for joining us this evening. we have been keeping our eyes on the federal courthouse in washington, d.c. where a grand jury may be on the verge of inindicting the former president for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. that grand jury did not meet today. we do not know why they didn't meet or what this means for the
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investigation, but the jury is expected to meet again on thursday. in the meantime, we have significant revelations about what special counsel jack smith may be investigating. this week we got new reporting that the special counsel has been focus sing in on a white house meeting on valentine's day of 2020, february 14th, which was of course months before election day. on that day president trump reportedly met with senior u.s. officials and white house staff to discuss the election itself, and during this meeting the president was apparently bragging not just about, well, all the things he always brags about but about just how secure the election was going to be. according to the reporting we have, trump touted his administration's work to expand the use of paper ballots and support security audits of vote tallies. president trump was so encouraged by federal efforts to protect election systems, that
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he suggested the fbi and the department of homeland security hold a press conference to take credit for their work. bragging about the security of election systemalize the way back in 2020. he knew so well he wanted the fbi and homeland security to go out and tell everyone how secure america's elections were. put a press release out, take credit for it in advance. and then something unthinkable happened, a global pandemic. within weeks of that meeting covid-19 was spreading and it was spreading rapidly across the united states. people were staying home for the most part, but remember this was an election year, so states across the country started expanding access to mail ballots in order to keep people safe. people could still stay home, but they could also exercise that fundamental democratic
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right. by early march the republican state of ohio was expanding mail-in in voting. in april states like kentucky followed suit. in april president trump suddenly decided that very same election system he'd been praising just weeks earlier, that that same election system could no longer be trusted. >> they're cheap, okay? people cheat. mail ballots are very dangerous things for this country because they're cheaters. they go and collect them, they're fraudulent in many cases. >> and trump repeated those claims, and he repeated them again and again up until the election. >> this mail-in voting where they mail indiscriminately millions and millions of dollars to people, you're never going to know who won the election. we have to be very careful with the ballots. the ballots, that's a whole big scam. the biggest problem we have
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right now are the ballots, millions of ballots going out. that's the biggest problem. >> in november trump lost the election. at that point trump had so poisoned the well against mail-in voting, had told everyone in his party it was a scam, that those mail-in in ballots ultimately in the end favored democrats. and all the groundwork trump had been laying with the repeated claims about ballot fraud, that became his justification for not conceding the election. when the mail-in ballots were finally counted and they tipped key races to joe biden, trump claimed that the election was rigged, that he was the real winner. immediately after the election in trump's own head of cyber security, a man named chris krebs, said the election was the most secure in american history trump fired him by tweet within days. but all along it sure seems that president trump knew he had lost. he had been briefed months earlier about how secure the election systems were.
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he wanted to put out a press release about it, and he had admitted privately multiple times to multiple people that he had lost. >> and the president says, yeah, we need you to let that issue go to the next guy being president biden. >> i remember maybe a week after the election was called i popped into the oval just to like give the president the headlines and see how he was doing and he was looking at the tv and he said can you believe i lost to this f-ing guy. >> i said does the president really think he's lost, and he said a lot of teal times he tells me he lost but he wants to keep fighting it. he's pretty much acknowledged he'd lost. so he said something to the effect of i don't want people we lust, mark, this is embarrassing it, figure it out, figure it out, i don't want people to know
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we lost. >> that tension between what trump was saying publicly about the 2020 election and what trump was admitting to in private, that is what special counsel jack smith appears to be zeroing in on, at least according to the reporting we have in these closing day of the federal investigation. so what does all of this tell us, and where might all this be headed? joining us now andrew wiseman, former member of special counsel robert mueller's team and co-host of the prosecuting donald trump podcast and of course also with us is former federal prosecutor barb mcquade. andrew wiseman, let me first start with you. we're on high alert at all-times. every time i get a ping on my phone i'm convinced this is it and it's go time for a potential doj indictment. what do you think is happening behind closed doors at the special counsel's office? how are we to read the activities or lack thereof of the last two days? >> so it wasn't that long ago i
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was on the inside of this looking out. and i have to say now i'm on the outside it's a moment like this it was nicer to be on the inside and to know what was going on. but if i take to hazard a guess from my experience in the mueller team and other sort of high profile matters, there is an awful lot before you bring a charge of double-checking, have you looked at everything? a lot of people are looking at every single word in a proposed indictment, every single word. and there's lot of people doing that, and that certainly is going to be the case here. i think that is a key aspect. obviously there could be last minute holes being filled, whether it's bernie carrick or people suddenly cooperating who had not been cooperating before, that's another possibility.
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i still think we're really close to the finish line. we just don't know exactly when that line is. >> barb, andrew mentions bernie carrick, and those who have not been following the saga of bernie carrick and the claims of january 6th and a stolen election, he's been working on a report with rudy giuliani and now turned over the notes of this report to the special counsel's office after basically foot dragging for a while. it sounds like that report contains a lot of -- and this is not an official term -- hooey, shoddy statistical analyses and witness affidavits of widespread irregularities that sound relatively baseless.
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>> he just wants to know what's out there, and with regard to bernie carrick and his connection to rudy giuliani, one kind of unanswered mystery of this whole case is what happened at the willard hotel in that war room? and bernie carrick was part of that group along with rudy giuliani. there were connections with roger stone, with the people who attacked the capitol, the proud boys and oath keepers. and i wonder if jack smith doesn't want to close the loop there and see if there can be some connection drawn between mark meadows, donald trump, and what happened at the capitol on january 6th. we recall that cassidy hutchinson said mark meadows was going to go to the willard hotel on the night of january 5th and she talked him out of it. instead he participated in the meeting by conference call. instead if bernie carrick could shed some light there that could be interesting to jack smith. >> it sounds like beyond the proofreading and this election of words and the nomenclature of
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all of this, it sounds like there's still some material that needs to be checked, some substantive material, whether it's bernie carrick's notes or the reporting we have from nbc news that at least two more fake electors have been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury in early august. i've got to ask you, how firm do you think the thinking is or should we suppose that the sort of deadline that jack smith needs to get this done before the fulton county d.a. fani willis releases her potential indictment, how serious of a deadline is that do you think to the special counsel's office? >> so i think that the deadline that he might be thinking about is in part fani willis but more so if you're thinking that the american public should have the benefit of a trial and seeing the evidence, whether you're able to prove the case or not gnat, that that should happen before the election, i think
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that is what's weighing on jack smith and his prosecutors, and i think that's the reason that they will be going as fast as they can to bring this to a conclusion because it's already going to be a very tight time frame to be able to accomplish that goal. and so i think that's the reason that we're seeing them match so quickly. it's not surprising to me how much is on jack smith's plate and how quickly he's operated that we're hearing about additional leads and additional matters for him to follow-up up on, because he's really done a herculean job when you think about how recently he was pointed and how much he has accomplished since that time. >> yeah, i completely agree with that, andrew, given just the reporting of the evidence that we have thus far. and barb, i've got to ask you about this valentine's day meeting in 2020 that we talked
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about at the entry to the segment, where trump is basically briefed by his various intelligence heads and is so enamored of the security in place for the election that he wants to put out a press release about it or suggest the agencies put out a press release about it and brag about the security of the election. how meaningful is that information as jack smith tries to establish that trump knew what he was saying were lies in terms of election fraud? >> yeah, i think it's another brick in the wall of the evidence. you know, it's not the whole case, but prosecutors are going to have to show that he had this intent to defraud or corrupt intent, which means showing he knew he lost the election. so to do that, you want to gather bits of evidence from wherever you can. a jury will be instructed along the lines of because you cannot read another person's mind, you must draw reasonable inferences based on the totality of the circumstances, everything the person did, everything the person said, everything the
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person heard. to the extent you can build a wall of evidence with all these different people telling donald trump how fair the election was, how secure the election was, at some point the evidence becomes overwhelming and a jury becomes convinced he luteally knew he lost the election. >> yeah, i mean, in terms of this case and what you're saying, andrew, about the american public's right to have trial before the election, there is a ton of evidence that needs to be plowed through in a potential trial of january 6th, and then there is mar-a-lago. which i have to ask we have reporting today there were seven additional search warrants filed in that case. how do you read that information? is that there could be seven search warrants for different parts of the mar-a-lago property or seven search warrants for different properties. what inference should we draw from that in terms of the time line for a mar-a-lago investigation concluding? >> so i don't put a lot of stock in that. in part one of the things of the
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special counsel mueller investigation we had in the course of it 2 months over 500 search warrants and you might be thinking does that mean you searched 500 physical locations, and the answer is no, of course not. but what we did do was do searches of telephones, the actual phone, and then also searches of e-mail accounts. both of those things require under the fourth amendment and case law that you get a search warrant. so this could simply be a question of different e-mail accounts. and that seems pretty normal for a case to have those kinds of search warrants. i'd actually be surprised if there aren't a lot more than that but just unrelate today the mar-a-lago investigation. >> fascinating. so don't be thinking this is a search warrant for bedminster. it may just be walt nauta's
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address. very important inside information. andrew wiseman, please stick around. i have more questions for you. barbara mcquade, always good to see you. thank you for your time tonight. coming up we have new reporting about what charges trump may be facing down in georgia, and here's a hint. you are going to hear the word "conspiracy" a lot, a whole lot. that's next. and later the state of florida's strategy to subject its public school kids to conservative indoctrination reaches a new level of absurdity. stick around for that. >> despite what some confused people think masculinity is not toxic. me confused people think masculinity is not toxic.
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well, we await an indictment out of georgia over donald trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state, there's new reporting today about what that indictment might actually include. today the guardian newspaper is reporting that fulton county d.a. fani willis has in recent weeks weighed potential statutes under which to charge trump. and they are solicitation to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit election fraud, solicitation to destroy ballots, and solicitation of a public officer to fail to perform duties. now, an example of soliciting a
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public officer to fail to perform duties could be president trump calling the georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger and asking mr. raffensperger to find 11,780 votes see that trump could win the state. experts also think the former president could have legal exposure under the conspiracy statute for the steps his campaign took to replace the state's legitimate electors with 16 fake trump electors. still with me is andrew wiseman, former justice department prosecutor and joining us now is michael moore, former u.s. attorney and partner with the moore hall in atlanta. michael, let me start with you in terms of the words solicitation and conspiracy sound alarming. what do you make of these potential statutes and how difficult or how uphill a battle fani willis will have in court to try and prove them? >> well, it's a pleasure to be with both of you.
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you know, the charges they're looking at here are sort of bread and butter charges for prosecutors. a conspiracy charge is simple to explain that and is an agreement between two or more people to do something wrong and they have to take some further act or step in doing that. and that could be as simple as having a phone call and e-mails stoosetup fake electors. that could be having people on the line saying we're going to pressure the secretary of state to do something as it accounts to the ballots, so that's fairly simple. and the solicitation is just asking somebody to do something. in this case there's a question whether or not the phone call will be sufficient evidence to show he was asking brad raffensperger to do something wrong, or was he asking people to go in and take voting machines or data out of certain raej strar's offices. there's an issue of an agreement and there's an issue whether or not he's asked somebody to do something, and so i think she'll have the evidence there to put
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that forward, and obviously we're at the beginning stages of the race with whatever charges she comes out with and they'll have to prove their case, but nonetheless i think there seems to be at least some evidence for her to get an indictment from a grand jury here. >> andrew, the phone call seems to be critical here. there's the request to find 11,780 ballots trump makes to raffensperger, but he also threatens him with criminal prosecution. just the notion the president of the united states is threatening the secretary of state on the telephone with prosecution is that sufficient? i mean do you think that there's any sort of wiggle room on a phone call like that? >> alex, i'm really happy you're focusing on that part of the tape because i think if you put those two pieces together, the find the votes, the fact that brad raffensperger says but
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there is no fraud, we've checked, there's nothing there, and then you have the then-sitting president of the united states not very subtly saying, you know, it would be terrible if you found yourself at the other end of an indictment because of what you're doing. brad raffensperger wasn't committing any crime at all. even if you thought he was wrong, it is not a crime to be wrong. so the idea he was threatened with criminal prosecution by the president of the united states i think that is one that because there will be obviously some additional evidence, i think that goes a really long way with a jury. that is not normal behavior even if you thought that you had won the election. that is not how you behave, and it goes a long way to understanding this was a way of extorting a state officer to not do his duty. >> yeah, and as both of you
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pointed out, michael, you just mentioned solicitation doesn't mean the other person has to carry through with the request. because when we're talking about the solicitation to destroy ballots, i can only assume that is when, again, president trump calls georgia officials and asks hem to conduct signature verification going back two years, which a much longer window than qualified to. does that qualify for solicitation to destroy ballots? >> it does. and let's take a nonelection example. i mean, let's say somebody wants to kill their girlfriend or boyfriend, they pick up the phone and calls somebody who happens to be an undercover fbi agent and says, hey, i want to pay you to kill this person at the diner on some night. you don't have to go through with the murder to be charged with the asking or seeking, the solicitation to do it. and so that's essentially what you've got here, and i think andrew is right, part of that tape so compelling is the issue whether or not the president,
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the sitting president at the time is threatening the sitting secretary of state with some criminal problem if he doesn't do it. i mean that i think is going to be a huge issue. that's just like a recorded confession that's been in the d.a.'s hands for this long period of time. so i think the evidence is going to be significant. i think there'll be more motions and appeals and everything else, you know, than we've ever seen in a case like this or there is no case like this. but the evidence as we just we just talk about the evidence of what the d.a. may need to move forward to get an indictment i think it's been laid in front of us for a long time. >> andrew, in terms of the actual charges, we know about these individual statutes, but when we've been talking about fani willis the thing that often follows her name is the word rico or racketeering. as you're looking at this case is the expectation these are
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going to be individual charges or does this fold in a broader rico racketeering case? >> i think we could end up seeing both. this is one where you can have a sort of overarching rico charge and we know fani willis has had some success at bringing those kind of cases, but that doesn't preclude her from also bringing these individual charges, and so a jury would have all of that in front of them, and so i kind of suspect that's what we're going to see because it's really not an either/or. we can see both of those. and it's a way of also with a rico really being able to bring in a wide range of evidence to fully explain exactly what happened, and then you can have individual charges that are predicated on specific conversations and on a specific tape recording and specific conduct, but then you have this overarching charng to lay out just the full scope of what she
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is alleging. >> michael, you're a son of georgia, and i'd love if you could enlighten us as to sort of d.a. willis and her track record on pursuing these sort of racketeering charges and rico and how aggressive you think she's being in this particular case given the reporting that we have. >> look, i think the d.a. is known as a capable lawyer and good lawyer. she's had some success as she's prosecuted some folks associated with the public school system with a rico case. she's been in the middle of a case, frankly, that has gone on for many, many months i think half a year now trying to select a jury in a another rico case. you think about these generally as we talk about the mafia and drug organizations and those type of things. the reality of the rico statute, it's a boom dog for a prosecutor because you get to talk about all the dirty laundry and not just one particular item. and so she's got some good
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lawyers working with her in the rico case. she brought some people in, so i think we're going to see a rico indictment. i think that could be really the only explanation we're talking about, this time lag that's gone on since the beginning of investigation. so i think we'll likely see one for the coming weeks. >> i boom for prosecutors. andrew wiseman, thank you for making extra time this evening. really appreciate it. still more to come tonight including revisionist history about the evils of socialism and what people are supposedly getting wrong about toxic masculinity. all courtesy of the state of florida. but first donald trump is on the campaign trail again today telling reporters he's not worried about more criminal indictments. and so far republican voters agree with him. does this last? we're going to talk to claire mccaskill about that coming up next. e mccaskill about that coming up next ♪ ♪
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♪♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪♪
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goli, taste your goals. voltaren. the joy of movement. okay, so this was the headlines of a new monmouth university poll out today. trump maintains strong gop advantage despite indictments. despite being criminally indicted twice with potentially two more on the way, former president trump very much remains the figure head of the republican party.
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according to that poll only 1 in 4 republican voters are very or somewhat concerned that the criminal indictments would make trump a weaker candidate against joe biden in a general election. and nearly half of them do not think the charges hurt trump at all. now, this poll tracks with a larger trend we have been seeing among republican voters that despite all the evidence to the contrary none of this is a big deal to them. at least as it concerns the existing indictments. but what happens if special counsel jack smith brings forth charges related to say, trump's role in the january 6th insurrection or his efforts to overturn the 2020 election or if fulton county d.a. fani willis decides to charge trump with criminal solicitation to commit election fraud? what happens then? joining us now to help answer that question is claire
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mccaskill, former senator of missouri. there have been people who have been religiously following every turn of the screw as it concerns these indictments and the evidence leading up to potential indictments, but do you think the american public more broadly has a real sense of what may coming down the pipe for donald trump as it concerns the special counsel? >> i think it totally depends on where you get your information and how tightly your circle of information is drawn. i'm from a state, alex, where a whole lot of those folks of that 50% for trump, a whole bunch of missouri is right there, certainly the republican party. and so they are not going to be phased by more indictments. they have been convinced, they've totally swallowed the big lie, and they've become convinced that this is a plot
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against donald trump. now, it's very hard for those of us who follow it carefully and who understand the facts and understand the law to swallow that, but that's the reality the republican party is in. now, does it help donald trump in the primary? you bet it does. but does it help the republican party in this country? no, it doesn't. because as that poll just shows you, alex, 40 some percent of republicans aren't for donald trump, and a chunk of them a really worried about these indictments. maybe not a primary, it won't be enough, but in a general election it can re-elect joe biden. >> i've got to ask you on sort of the other hand not trying to draw sort of false equivalents here, but we see the plot being hashed out in the open by at
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least congressional republicans doing the bidding of donald trump. today the speaker of the house of representatives, kevin mccarthy, has suggested a potential impeachment inquiry for president biden for what i'm not sure, lots of questions they have about potential untoward financial dealings. those may include a single unfounded allegation that biden was on some of his son hunter biden's business calls or so-called irs whistle blowers who said that hunter biden's tax issues were slow walked. i mean, when you compare this to what donald trump may be on the hook for it seems apples to oranges and that's being euphemistic. but i wonder if the misdirection is the point and whether republicans can actually be successful in suggesting these two men have both done inappropriate things. >> i don't think so. i don't think it's going to work. i mean think of the reams of evidence that's been produced against donald trump. i mean we're talking about
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indictments on two or three different things, everything from paying off a porn star to defrauding the government out of classified very important national security documents and lying about having them and trying to keep them to false electors to trying to steal an election, trying to influence a secretary of state to not do his job. i mean there's a wide variety of serious, serious stuff. so far on joe biden they have the tragedy that he has an addicted son that made some very bad choices in his life at a moment when his father was in the public eye but not one scintilla of evidence connecting that to joe biden, and i think most americans get that. i think most independent voters get that. polling shows that. so i think this is mistake by mccarthy in terms of him winning the carve out in the house or helping a republican candidate for president because ultimately i think this is just about him trying to hold onto power as
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speaker, and he obviously is struggling with that. >> claire mccaskill, american sage is what we should call you. former democratic senator of missouri and msnbc political analyst, thank you, claire, as always for your thoughts. >> thanks, alex. still to come this evening, while president biden acknowledges america's legacy of racism by designating a monument to the victim of one of the most heinous acts of violence in the jim crow south, the state of florida takes the opposite approach to american history. that is next. history that is next attention... are you suffering from hearing loss? the fda has finally approved hearing aids to be sold over the counter direct from the manufacturer... no prescriptions needed!
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what i'm about to show you here is a sampling of the supplemental educational materials that were just approved by florida's department of education for showing in public schools kindergarten through 12th grade. >> america is more than just a place on a map. it's an ideal and a set of values stemming from judeo christian principles. >> masculinity is not toxic. >> most gender stereo types exist because they reflect the way -- >> change, however, came to india when the british empire took control along with advancements in transportation, agriculture, and government the british spread the influence of
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christianity and western values throughout india. >> yes, yes, the famously benevolent english occupation of india. these videos are part of a program called prager you kids. it is overly right-wing and answers a question i have had for a while. ever since florida governor ron desantis signed the state's stop woke act which restricted teaching anything too woke in florida schools, i have wondered what that will actually mean for lesson plans and class time. last week we got our first glimpse of that with florida's new history standards that require students to be taught that black americans benefitted from slavery, and now we have another glimpse. prager you kids. the right wing non-profit, prager university, which is not actually an accred academic institution, it describes its mission as fighting back against the left wing propaganda pushed
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on children in schools, and that translates to kids magazines that teach about american heroes like charles schwab, jp morgan or and randt. and also means videos about why your kids should black the blue and reject black lives matter and also has crafting lessons like building a model version of israel's iron dome, a classic children's activity right up there with cats cradle. there's also lots and lots of overtly religious, quote, judeo-christian content and all of that is approved for any teacher who wants to use that as supplemental material from kindergarten. maybe take a note from prager youth kids video how to be feminine and, quote, just try
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smiling. just try. we have one more story tonight and it is actually hopeful news about how our country is remembering the darker parts of its history. that's next. parts of its history. that's next.
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goli, taste your goals. this is your moment. critics declare oppenheimer is magnificent. the new york times calls it staggering. it's utterly enthralling and one of the best movies of the century. when emmitt till of louisville was taken from us, taken to be tortured and brutally murdered, back then when there was terror and fear
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of certain death in the darkest of a thousand midnights in a pitch-black house on what some have called the fear room, back then in the darkness i could never imagine a moment like this. >> emmitt till would have been 82 years old today. his cousin who you just saw speaking there was with him in 1955 when they visited family in a town called money, mississippi emphasis it was there emmitt till was murdered by two white men after a white woman accused the teenager of whistling at her. that is the unvarnished and recent history that president biden commemorated today honoring emmitt till and his mother with a national monument. that monument is marked by three sites in chicago, the church where till's funeral was held, in mississippi in the wooded area where his body was recovered, and the courthouse where his killers were wrongly acquitted. the monument stantsds in sharp contrast to the efforts under
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way in florida and other republican led states to do the very opposite instead of looking honestly at american history conservatives have launched a multipronged effort to whitewash it. joining us now is somebody who knows about republican led attacks on american history all too well, creator of the 1619 project and reporter for "the new york times" magazine. nicole, thanks so much for making time for the show tonight. i've got to ask you as we look at this moment i'm reminded when you came out with the 1619 project, trump comes out with the 1776 commission. and i wonder how optimistic you are about the truth winning out given the battle at hand. >> i think that part of the reason we're seeing efforts like ron desantis and the florida board of education to really whitewash the history and so many efforts happening legislatively across the country is because the truth had been winning out, that we did have, you know, large numbers of
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americans who for the first time were getting a more honest version of american history. and so that's where this push back is coming from is understanding that these truths were breaking through. but i think it's hard to say that i'm optimistic because i think we are seeing people like governor desantis and, you know, his appointees to the board of education that they are being -- they are successfully using the levers of the state to really try to proscribe our understanding of our history, and we're not seeing i think enough efforts to combat that. >> yeah, on that end i guess i wonder what you think about monuments and how much they are an antidote to the whitewashing that's happening, the indoctrination that's happening in school systems around the country. do they matter in this fight? >> it matters of course.
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we memorialalize because we think they're important for us. so whom we memorialize, how we memorialize, what moments of our past we choose to memorialize clearly matter because in public spaces they tell us what we value as a society and what story we want to tell ourselves about as a society. but i actually don't think most of us learn history that way. what's happening in the classroom is much more important because most of us are understanding of american history, of global history as being shaped into places, being shaped in the classroom and is being shaped in popular media. so i think what we're seeing in florida, in other states, conservative states across the country is far more critical to our historical understanding and kind of our collective memory of how we think about the united states and its history. and of course the reason that matters is that shapes how we think about the united states right now. >> yeah, when you talk about collective memory i was so struck and i think all the people that work on the show,
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with when we talk about emmitt till, i think a lot of us contextualize as something that happened a while ago but emmitt till would have been 82. we have grandparents and some parents who are that old. his accuser just died in april. do you think of the struggle of civil rights in the 1950s and '60s as a separate chapter from the struggle going on today or think of it as one continuum. i'm eager to know how you process these moments of national trauma and whether you delineate a sort of "a," "b," "d," "c." >> let's be clear my father was about the same age as emmitt till. he was born in greenwood, mississippi. emmitt till was killed outside of greenville. just like emmitt till my father's mother had migrated north and would send my father
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home to mississippi in the summers to with his grandparents. this is not ancient history. i'm 47 years old. a decade before he was born black people were murdered all across the south fighting focitizenship, the right to vote, not to be segregated in parks and libraries. so of course i see this as part of a continuing struggle. that generation that did not have rights of citizenship in the country of their birth, they're still with us. i interview them often in the work that i'm doing. i feature them in the 1619 documentary series, and they're still fighting for us to maintain the right to citizenship that we had. and so then you have, of course, this counter movement that's happening, for instance, in a place like florida, which is why we're talking about this tonight that is really trying to erase that history, trying to whitewash it, trying to make it seem like that is unrelated to the society we have, that that's
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just part of a distant past, that it wasn't really systematic. you know, i was -- i spent some time looking at the new florida history standards, and i particularly looked at the way they discuss the holocaust compared to the way they discuss the black american experience. they describe the holocaust as a planned, systemic, and state sponsored persecution and murder of jewish people. they don't talk about other genocides that have happened in the world. they don't talk about the holocaust in florida. they don't about how jews could have gained some skills they could have used when they survived the concentration camps. they make it very clear this is systematic and even have the chapter on the dangers of holocaust denial. and then you compare the black history standards which talk about slavery in asia during ancient samaria, talking about the skills enslaved people may have gained during slavery, and
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you see what it is that we're doing here, which is really trying to paint the picture of america of the country that never existed. and they do that in order to justify the inequality we see in america today. >> nikole hannah jones, thank you so much for your time and amazing writing and reporting. really appreciate it. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. you don't look like a guy who's concerned about two indictments. >> i'm not concerned. we have real legit, very corrupt people running our country. congress, if you will please investigate the political witch hunts against me currently being brought by the corrupt doj and fbi who are totally out of control. >> two very different versions of donald trump yesterday with a second federal indictment looming over the former president. we'll have an update on his growing legal troubles in just a moment. meanwhile, house

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