it was a win-win for donald trump. >> reporter: is that joe biden's job? is that the legitimate separation? >> i've been around for a while. if lbj had been president and didn't want something like this to happen, he would have been all over the prosecutor, saying you better not bring that forward or i will drive you from office. >> reporter: but i'm sure you support separate and equal branches of government. >> i do, but had i been president biden when the justice department brought indictments, i would have pardoned him. i would have pardoned president trump, why? because it makes me, president biden, the big guy and the person i pardoned the little guy. >> that is not a smart strategy. we will have more from that conversation right here on msnbc's the 11th hour. you can find me on my podcast. having a fantastic conversation talking about all things musical.

"all in" starts right now. tonight on "all in" -- >> i do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully. they are highly respected. >> the red tie brigade comes to court. >> i am here and all of us are here as friends of donald trump. >> how trump's trial turned into a vp audition. >> the only thing being done wrong is the judge. >> is trump using surrogates to violate the gag order? tonight, ramifications for the defendant and what could happen in court tomorrow. then -- >> donald trump lost two debates to me in 2020 and now he is acting like he wants to debate me again. well, make my day, powell. >> president biden and donald trump come to terms, but will the debate happen? and there is good news on the inflation front on bidenomics.

senator elizabeth warren is here with that when "all in" starts now. good evening from new york. i am in for chris hayes. wellstar witness michael cohen testified at his new york trial yesterday, the former president was joined by the entourage of defenders. according to reporting from rolling stone, in the early days of the trial the former president was infuriated by a lack of visible support from his allies. where are they, trump complained earlier this month? his allies now appear to have heard those complaints and showed up in force. trump received visible support from multiple members of his family. his son, eric, along with daughter-in-law laura and a who's who of republican politicians. surrogates included vivek ramaswamy, florida congressman -- north dakota governor doug

burgum and even speaker of the house mike johnson. trump's entourage was united in their message as they all spoke to the cameras. >> all of us are here as friends of donald trump, supporting him in our personal capacity. >> president donald trump is in a set of these charges. >> the american people have already acquitted donald trump. >> the judicial system has been weaponized. >> this trial is a joke. this is a harsh. where is the crime? there is no crime. >> it is so corrupt and everyone knows that. >> trump's surrogates also used time at the microphone to level attacks against a witness and even judge merchan's family. they were saying what trump himself cannot, because he is under a gag order. i will talk more about that later in the show, but the other clear intention was to bring the campaign to the courthouse. several surrogates were obviously auditioning for vice president. all reportedly under

consideration. the entire group in coordinating outfits with a dark suit and red tie even recorded a fundraising plea for trump's campaign, posted to social media. >> we are here in court with president trump and standing with them, but we need you to stand with them. support president trump and his efforts to win this election. democrats are not sent must be defeated. >> anything you can give would make a world of difference. we are fighting the good fight. they cannot win. we need your help to make america great again. >> let's make america great again and he is the man to do it. >> so, trump's entourage may have provided moral support. politics was clearly the main purpose. we are joined now by congressman jamie raskin, democrat of maryland. first your impression of the political support you saw for the former president this week. >> well, you know they are all

attracted to the mecca of the courthouse in order to demonstrate sycophancy to donald trump and i think it is a good thing that they are identifying themselves. the people who completely allowed donald trump to devour their critical thinking skills and political and moral independence. speaker johnson is a guy who has said that the bible is his guiding document and basically the law of the land and yet he has made the pilgrimage to new york to demonstrate, you know, how obsequious he can be to donald trump. a guy who is now an adjudicated rapist, adjudicated fraudster in new york and is on trial for cooking the books for lots of money to cover up hush money payments to his porn star mistress. i am a member of the free

thought caucus and we have been saying all along that speaker johnson's adherence to religion is just a form of political tribalism. it doesn't have anything to do with religious principle and now he is showing the whole world that is true. >> especially interesting since he is not on that long list of potential vp pics. how is the fact that you have all of these sitting members of congress traveling to new york to do donald trump's political bidding impacting the workflow of the u.s. house of representatives. -- representatives? >> well i know they had to move one farce, the scheduled hearing and markup session about holding attorney general garland in contempt for complying with their order and turning over the complete transcript of donald trump's interview with the special counsel. now they have decided that is not enough. they don't want the verbatim

transcript, they want the audiotape and to salvage the completely discredited and humiliating impeachment, they are trying to hold merrick garland in contempt. that was scheduled for tomorrow and we got noticed it was moved 8:00 him because a lot of members are traveling to new york so they can soothe donald trump's wounded feelings that nobody was there to support him. >> as you said, one farce crowding out the other. they are standing in the courtroom, all in the service of a second trump term. when we talk about the potential dangers of that possibility there is reporting about a mar-a-lago dinner. the former president promised to ease regulations on the oil industry while asking executives to steer $1 billion to his campaign. you have opened an investigation into that dinner. which details do you hope to gather and how do you establish that as a quid pro quo?

>> it is amazing how explicit all of this is. he's basically saying to the oil and gas executives, pony up $1 billion which will go in some part to his campaign, but mostly probably to his lawyers and legal expenses and who knows how much makes its way back to the trump family. in any event he is saying give me $1 billion and i'm going to reverse the biden administration actions on liquefied natural gas. i am going to, you know, blow the roof off the house in terms of allowing you to drill wherever you want to drill and so on and everybody knows where donald trump stands, but it is almost as if he wants to walk right up to the line of criminal bribery and state what the quid pro quo is. obviously there can be no criminal or civil action before the election. we look at the trials taking place now based on things that transpired several years ago, but at least the public can see

this for what it is. donald trump is saying at events if you want to come up and make a speech, give me $1 million and i will let you do it. >> and people say yes. two people jumped up on that stage, congressman. >> that in itself might be a campaign-finance violation. again, we have a kind of dysfunctional relationship at the fec because republicans block action, but he asked for $1 million, which is more than all of the different elements he could actually be soliciting for. again, i don't want to place too much faith in the legal system, the campaign-finance regime. i'm putting my faith in the people. the people have got to understand what is going on. we have contrasting schools of thought about what government is and one says government must be an instrument for the common good for all of the people in the other says government is a simple moneymaking operation, an instrument for private self- enrichment for the guy who gets

in and his family and his businesses and that is what the gop has become and that is the scandal and the shame of all of these republicans who are, you know, taking the metro liner up to new york so they can prove to donald trump how much they love him. >> they may be learning the wonders of amtrak. congressman jamie raskin, thank you so much as always for getting us started. the washington correspondent for new york magazine. tim o'brien is senior executive editor for bloomberg opinion and the author of trump nation. joining me now, on your day off, guys, really? you choose to be here. here is the thing that gets me. the continuity of the graft, right? he begins as a grifter. the graft carries through the campaign and he almost teaches his supporters to follow in his script. the fact they are now doing campaign ads inside the courthouse so they can raise money not for down ballot republicans as the rnc would traditionally do, but rather

for his own legal defense fund and this thing for the oil executives and it is not just what he is doing as a candidate, but what he imagines himself doing as president. >> promoting a legal defense fund when they don't know what they will do with the money. he is not going to use, i think, any of the federal funds or funds going into the general accounts to do any down ballot support. it will all be for trump to use as he wishes and some of it undoubtedly will be used to pay his legal bills. and i think that this is generations of drifting coming home. donald learned this from his don -- his father, fred. he ran his business this way as you noted and the party is being run this way and then you have a series of politicians from the party of the rule of law, showing up at a criminal

fraud trial to give him support and going after the judges daughter, going after the legal process at a time when all of these institutions are under fire already and on top of it part of the prosecution involves donald trump overtly, i don't think there is any doubt in the evidence coming in that he had a relationship and mike johnson, a christian minister, is ignoring that to offer support. so the graft is financial, the graft is pervasive. >> our colleague, stephanie ruhle, she has an exclusive interview with senator romney. he weighed in on the fact all of these republicans are showing up outside the courthouse. take a listen. >> i think it is terrible for our country to see people attacking our legal system. that is an enormous mistake. i think it is also demeaning for people to try to run for vice president by donning a red tie and standing outside the courthouse. i would have felt awkward. >> and yet the cheese stands

alone, as he so often does. what he is saying is about the institutions and undermining the institutions and the fact that that will have a longer tail than donald trump himself. >> it is interesting. i was thinking about the republican members of congress and they all looked like trump. sitting in their suits, looking rather ridiculous and you see that outside the courthouse, but what that says to me is the trump takeover of one of our two major parties is basically complete. lara trump is the nominal chair of the rnc. being chair of the rnc is a boring, administrative job. we talked to people who know about the inner workings of that place. they don't think she is running the day today, but nevertheless the image of her, someone with no experience to do this, in charge of a major party, is significant. to see these people taking time

off of work, even if congress is out and coming to kiss the ring, treating it basically like mar-a-lago or trump tower, at any other time in trump's rise is pretty pathetic. >> especially when you factor in the veep of it all. every time people are on stage he flirts with them and makes them think they are potentially on the list. when you listen to these guys -- >> a crucial element of it. he is at heart a reality star. he helped define what that medium was in america and globally and that is how he has campaigned. since the bullet -- since the beginning of his political rise. >> what are you watching for tomorrow? >> i think todd blanche is about 10 seconds to get his reputation intact because he gave a very poor cross- examination of michael cohen.

>> making it about himself? >> not just making it about himself, he was bouncing around from topic to topic. he brought up all of these names that michael cohen uses on social media, which i don't know that the jury cares about. the jury needs a coherent narrative that breaks down michael cohen's credibility and basically undermines him as a credible source of information and instead these attempted gotchas. he said you are known as a fixer and i think michael cohen said right. he said are you fixing your problems or other people's problems and i think cohen said both or something like that and he hopped onto the next point and did not connect that to any other points he was making. >> trials, like campaigns are about storytelling. whether or not you think they have been convincing where it is going to work, they have presented a pretty clear narrative and so far there is not really a counter narrative presented by the defense. >> and you know michael cohen

would be an easy witness to fillet and supposedly todd blanche prepared months for this cross-examination and it just does not show. his voice is shaky, he looks uncomfortable and the other problem is he has a client who does not want him to do a proper cross-examination. a client who wants him to stand up and destroy and insult the witness and sort of carry trump's emotional water and that does not make for a good cross-examination either. >> he has a client that is so problematic in many ways. thank you for being with us. coming up, as donald trump's trial nears its conclusion, could he face additional penalties for using his toadies to get around the gag order? that is next. next.

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donald trump is currently under a gag order which prohibits them from attacking the judge over seeing his manhattan criminal trial, as well as the judges family. instead he got his cronies to deliver his attacks for him. >> the judges own daughter is making millions of dollars doing online fundraising for democrats. >> you have a judge whose kids are collecting money from democratic operatives, by fundraising off the very trial that judges presiding over. >> the only thing being done wrong is by this judge. his daughter is making money for democrats. >> if trump is behind these attacks, how is this not a violation of his gag order? running me now, two people closely following the trial.

andrew rice is a contributing editor at new york magazine. anna bower is a correspondent at l'affaire. help me understand the timeline of what it is you witnessed. you saw him annotating, making notes on their remarks. >> it is hard to speculate exactly what is going on, but after lunch time on monday as i noted in my new york magazine article when i read about this, trump was actually going through a printed out sheaf of papers that had quotes from individuals including jd vance. jd vance had been in the courtroom. one of the quotes said something like what is going on in this courtroom is a threat to american democracy. this, in fact, is something jd vance said outside the courtroom. the timing of it was that the speech was given maybe an hour before trump was going through

this. he was going through and making notations. probably trying to figure out what kind of things he might want to put on truth social later, i don't know. but the overall point is that everything happening in that courtroom is very coordinated. all of the messaging is coordinated, almost like a political convention in which convention speeches happen, but no one says anything on the convention stage that the nominee doesn't want them to say. i think they are all saying talking points that are things that donald trump would like to be saying if he did not feel confined by the gag order. >> i am struck that some of those things are about the judge and the judges family and those are in the parameter of his gag order, so help me understand as a non-lawyer how this does not violate the gag order. the court can suppose a

situation like this where you have someone under a gag order and using proxies to say the things he wants to say. >> right. i think one of the complications is the criminal defendant, not these other individuals, so there is a different balancing act when it comes to how you limit a person's first amendment rights. it would also be another thing if, for example, there was something that showed that donald trump was specifically directing these people to make statements. maybe that is, in fact, what is going on. i don't know. i did not see what andrew did in court the other day, but i think also what we have to keep in mind is that it is up to the prosecution to decide whether or not they want to make a motion to once again have donald trump held in contempt for violating the gag order. it is their burden to bring that to the judge and make that argument. he has already been held in

contempt 10 times. you have to wonder if maybe they think that the trial is almost over. it may not be a fight that is worth fighting at this moment in time. so we will see, but again, just underscoring the big difference here which is a different first amendment calculus, because these are people who are not criminal defendants, though it certainly raises questions about whether donald trump is directing this conduct. >> there is no reporting into nbc news. a source close to all of this saying that tomorrow that the redirect with michael cohen is really going to be about his credibility. no big surprise. i wonder what it is you are expecting to see. >> i think what i am expecting to see is the initial couple of hours of cross-examination that todd blanche did, primarily

focused on events after 2018. basically after michael cohen decided to become a cooperating witness. he demonstrated and questioned a lot about his podcast and terrible things he said about donald trump and questioned him about the money he made as a result of it, so he has demonstrated, i guess, to the jury that michael cohen has a grudge against donald trump. he has admitted as much. now i think what they are going to try to do in the next go around is actually go to the facts of the case and try to poke holes and create reasonable doubt about whether these payments were reimbursement, explicitly, or the defense story is presumably going to be that these were payments given to a lawyer for performing legal services and so i think they are going to be asking michael cohen, why did you call yourself the personal attorney to the president of

the united states? were you not actually an attorney for the president of the united states and questions like that. >> go ahead. >> i think that is right and i think if i am the defense today i am listening to the reactions. tim o'brien spoke about how convoluted and disjointed blanche's cross-examination was yesterday. it truly was that someone following this case, covering it and there every day in court. it was very hard to follow. i think what they will try to do in addition to continuing to attack the credibility of michael cohen, by portraying him as a liar and focusing on his convictions or pleas to false statements to congress, that kind of thing. i think in terms of defense strategy they are going to try to be a little more focused, more efficient. really more clearly bringing out some of these themes in a way that is not as disjointed, because they've had a day of

hearing the reaction to the process. >> i think they really wanted to get under his skin right off the bat and that is why todd blanche went after him with the tiktok thing. i don't think it landed all that well in the room in part because michael cohen, contrary to his reputation, contrary to what all sorts of prosecution witnesses have led people to expect, has presented himself as a fairly levelheaded and not emotional person on the stand. >> i hope you guys enjoyed your one day respite from the courtroom. back at it tomorrow. andrew rice and anna bower, thank you both. still ahead, president biden issues a challenge to his twice indicted predecessor, but will the debates actually happen? that is next. wait, can we afford a safari? great question. like everything, it takes a little planning. or, put the money towards a down-payment... ...on a ranch

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it is here. the presidential election cycle is upon us and so is the trash talk. >> donald trump lost two debates to me in 2020. since then he has not shown up for debate. now he is acting like he wants to debate me again. make my day, pal. i will even do it twice. let's pick some dates, donald, i hear you are free on wednesdays. >> challenge accepted. less than an hour after president biden posted the video, donald trump took the social media and agreed to the biden campaign proposal for two

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month over month we came in with a gain of 0.3%. the estimate was 0.4%. that was the headline number. that is the number we got and core, same thing, up 0.3%. >> if we look at cpi, food and energy year-over-year, this is 3.6. that is definitely cooler than the 3.8 we had last time. last time and along with the 3.6 this time is now the lowest level of year-over-year core inflation since april, 2021. >> this morning's consumer price index report showed inflation may finally be slowing down. the cost of all goods and the economy came in below expectation with year-over-year inflation coming on target. a bit of good news for american consumers and president biden as inflation remains a top issue

for voters ahead of the november election. senator elizabeth warren is a democrat from massachusetts and serves on the banking and finance committees. she joins me now. senator, good evening to you. this is the last report before the fed is going to meet on interest rates. how might chair powell be looking at this? >> look, what he should be observing is both that inflation is headed in the right direction, which is down, but also that it is time to lower interest rates. the problems we have on pricing right now are not problems from some kind of overheated economy. what we really have is a problem with a lot of price gouging from giant corporations and there is nothing about fed interest rates that is going to change that. we also know that the inflation number reflects about one third of it for housing cost. part of the problem we have right now is that when interest rates are high, that drives up the cost of housing.

you don't get new starts for apartments and investment in it and also homeowners. the costs have gone up for them. it just -- it is time to bring interest rates down. we are headed in the right direction and don't need them nearly as high as they are. >> senator, when i talk to voters i hear about two things. housing, which you referenced, and i hear about food. you've called on the president to use executive authority to lower food prices. explain to me how that would work. >> understand, look, this is pratt's -- president biden's, one of his central issues, bringing down costs for families. he has been very successful doing that on junk fees. everything from buying airline tickets the concert tickets to junk fees on check overdrafts and credit card fees.

he is pushing down costs for families. the other thing he has done is he has been bringing down costs on healthcare. we all know about $35 insulin. the fact that seniors now spend no more than $2000 maximum across a year on prescription drugs. he is bringing down the cost of other prescription drugs for everyone, so that is a big one. canceled student loan debt for 4.5 million people, that helps bring down costs. he also has been focusing on grocery prices and has been bringing his administration to bear on this and it is particularly here where what we see is a lot of concentration in the industry. we see basically for major grocery chains who kind of old the world in the grocery space. and the supply chain, so it is just a couple doing meat processing, chicken processing and it goes farther back.

farmers are getting squeezed, because there is so much concentration that they can only buy seeds from one or two suppliers and the consequence of that kind of concentration up and down the line is that at every point where there is not real market concentration, it means that the company can say not only are we going to pass along costs when they go up, we are going to add on extra, extra, extra profits. so what we have seen, for example by these giant companies is that profits increased by 75%. that is not inflation. that is profits going up, because these companies have figured out that when everyone is talking about inflation, that is the time to raise prices. by the way, don't take my word for it. take the word of the ceos themselves, who get on these

quarterly calls with their investors and basically say inflation has been good to them, because it has let them raise prices way above costs and that is a problem. we want to see the president use more tools to attack it. >> let's talk about those tools, because there is actually big news on capitol hill today. the faa reauthorization bill passed the house and is headed to biden's desk with a provision that codified automatic refunds for travelers. talk to me about what it required to get that provision and how the traveling public will feel it. >> this one is really good news, both for anyone who ever flies, buys a plane ticket, but also good news for anyone who just believes in basic fairness. so here's the deal. you buy an airline ticket and it turns out the cancel your flight. you would think you get your money back, right? well, the airline company says there is this part and this

part and jump through this soup and do a dance backward and maybe we will give you a credit or a voucher and the airline companies are now sitting on billions of dollars. in vouchers for flights that maybe someday customers will figure out how to cash in on. basically the biden administration said no more and so the department of transportation said when an airline cancels a flight, they have to refund, automatically, the price that the person paid for the ticket. unless the person wants to rebook, they have to give the money back. they already have the credit card information, they know what happened to the flight. give people the money back. we all celebrate. in the airline industry, which i have to say, talk about a ferocious lobbying outfit. they are there all the time, but with faa reauthorization, they are on high speed, ready to go.

so the airline industry, lobby, lobby, lobby, push, push, push. four days after the biden rule comes out, the authorization has a line buried on page 429 that says after the customer applies, then you have to give money back. of course, who is going to determine how you apply? it is going to be the airlines. so the biden administration came roaring back. i did an amendment with josh hawley and ed markey and said, no, it is going to be automatic. we fought, we got it into the bill and now that is exactly what it is going to be. if they sell you a ticket and then cancel the flight, they have got to give you your money back. basic fairness and one more time of joe biden out fighting not for the rich airlines, not for the lobbyists, but fighting

for regular folks who just want a level playing field and a little fairness. this is joe biden doing joe biden at his best. >> senator i want you to take a listen about what you're calling ted cruz had to say about his opposition to this. >> i have to say this is one of the silliest stories i have ever seen. the faa reauthorization bill came out of the senate unanimously. every republican and democrat supported it. it also came out of the house committee unanimously. we had a vote yesterday on the senate floor. the vote was 89-10, so you are saying there is a lot of controversy. you know what controversy is? one tweet by elizabeth warren. >> senator now that it is headed to the president's desk, your response to the senator from texas? >> well, ted, it turns out that a lot of people once they discovered once page --

discovered what page 429 said, they didn't like it. so the bill that is going to the president of the united states says we are going to have automatic refunds. and i get it. ted cruz is out there, pushing hard to try to help those airlines be even more profitable and this will cost the airlines money. boo-hoo. for somebody who thinks in basic fairness that if you don't deliver the product, you ought to have to give the money back, that is what joe biden thinks and what we managed to get through and i want to be clear. it is now the law. as soon as joe biden signs it in, it is the law. airlines have got to give the money back and that is right, that is fair and that is what joe biden does for us. >> senator elizabeth warren as always, thank you for your time. still to come is the republican front-runner promises to cut funding to schools that encourage diversity, an inside look at a

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across america, some of the most viralant battles are happening in schools. south lake texas is an affluent mostly white suburb near dallas. in 2018 a viral video of students surfaced chanting the n-word that led to the school district to become more

welcoming and inclusive. but then came the backlash, where a conservative takeover of the school board became a model across the country. a senior investigative report fer nbc news who has been all over that story. won a peabody award and was a finalist for the pulitzer prize. there's a book called they came for the schools: one town's fight over race, identity, and the new war for america's classrooms. why the schools? >> the schools are where america tries to teach the next generation what this country is about, what's right and wrong. and so of course, when these fights over race and identity and belonging take off in national politics, the schools are the place where they are the most intense. i wrote this book so that if you're a teacher or a parent in a community -- >> mm-hmm. >> -- where you've seen angry

neighbors coming to school board meanings talking about woke gender identity or trying to ban library books that you could get a sense or understanding of why that's happening. and the way i do that in the book is by telling the story of one town where that fight has been really intense. >> one of the most compelling parts to me was the fact that people want you to believe these are moms and dads that have come to this of their own volition. and in reality, this is a well funded, well organized effort. >> yeah, there's -- in 2021, as you were seeing backlash to pandemic safety restrictions -- >> mm-hmm. >> -- and the protest of racial justice, black lives matter, there were parents showing up at school board meetings concerned about dei programs. but then what happened is the steve bannons of the world and donald trump say that as an opportunity. for the last three year, americans have been fed a really

scary story about public schools that have been taken over by this shadowy liberal whose mission is to indoctrinate and teach white children to hate themselves, to get kids to change their genders. it's this straw man very scary image. and folks -- some parents really have taken in that message and have worked to try to push those things out of the schools even though those things respect really happening. >> help me understand, though, if you see they came for the schools in part as a guidebook for parents like myself who may see this happening in their own community, school, what is then your counsel for how you begin to push back? >> i think a big thing is just understanding how this moment fits in a much longer history. one of the things i do in the book is i connect now the moms for liberty of 2024 to a long history of reactionary movements

in america that have sought to halt or walk back social progress or cultural change by controlling what kids learn in schools. this is -- what's happening now is maybe unprecedented in its scale and how much it's connected to national politics, but this type of thing has happened repeatedly throughout our history. and i think knowing that and recognizing that helps us understand where this is all going and how we fit into that story. >> you also tie in white christian nationalism. you write in alabama a lawmaker introduced a bill to allow children to pray aloud over public address systems. in oklahoma, roman catholic organizers pushed the state for approval to open a publicly funded christian charter school. >> there's been a long campaign in america by a segment of the christian right to undo the separation of church and state in america that. predates what's happening now,

what started to happen beginning in 2022, last year, was some of those folks saw the backlash happening in schools as an opportunity to step forward. so we're seeing laws passed in texas and elsewhere trying to hang the ten commandments in every classroom, putting chaplains in the school, bringing prayer back into classrooms. and the goal is to get the supreme court to chip away at this. the attempt to create a catholic public school in oklahoma is an explicit open attempt to try to draw a supreme court test case and remake some of these foundational principles in the country. >> about a minute left, but i want to just underscore the trump of it all. you write donald trump rise to power had a profound impact inside america's schools. where does this go if he gets a second term? >> the south -- and so the

federal government might come in and impose some of the changes that south lake voters rejected. if trump niece office, that goes away. he's talked about abolishing the education department, project 2025. this kind of blueprint for a second trump term. has talked about ending federal enforcement of the civil rights policies and sending those back to the state. and so i think there's a line in the book that, you know, ron desantis ran saying make america florida. well, in some ways we're talking about make america south lake. >> mike, congratulations. thank you so much. his new book, they came for the schools, is out now. it is available wherever you get your books. that is all from me on this wednesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. hello, alex. hello, my friend. such a good and essential conversation, and mike has been doing the work reporting from the front lines. everybody who cares about the future of this country, even if you don't have a child in school should be reading about what's