that is just one of the many examples of how the high court is inadvertently playing an outsized rule out of this year's election. the court's decision and trumps immunity case will determine if, twice impeached recently convicted ex-president might face a second criminal trial before november. although, some say that in taking so long to even issue a decision on this question, the court has already effectively immunized donald trump or criminal liability in those cases. pending decisions on other high- profile cases involving reproductive rights and the prosecution of the january 6 insurrectionists also have the potential to alter the political landscape. just yesterday, the court struck down a trumpeter of and on bump stocks, a gun attachment that allows semiautomatic rifles to fire at a rapid rate. that decision, plus another pending gun case could turn gun control into a more crucial

election-year issue. meanwhile, the ongoing ethics scandal surrounding some of the justices could also be a major factor this fall. recent efforts to hold the justices accountable have largely stalled in congress and this week, senate republicans blocked a democratic sponsored bill that would have required the supreme court to adopt a more binding code of conduct and would have exposed the justices to greater oversight. democratic representatives alexandria ocasio-cortez and jamie raskin also announced that they plan to introduce legislation in the house that would do the same thing. but, republicans will likely prevent that from even getting a vote on the house floor and that is just the political reality right now on capitol hill. that means that the future of the supreme court might very well be another important issue that the voters will be forced to reckon with when they had to the polls in november. for more on this, i am joined by molly jong-fast, special correspondent for vanity fair and host of the past politics

cast. she is also an msnbc political analyst. i am also joined by my nyu colleague ruth ben-ghiat who is a professor of history. she is also the author of the lucid newsletter that tracks threats to democracy. she is also the author of the very well-received but strongmen. molly, first question to you. nbc jonathan allen made an intriguing point about yesterday's bump stock decision, quote, former president donald trump did not really want to buy bump stocks. when he did, he knew that the supreme court was likely to overturn his action. what are your thoughts on that and the dynamic between the trump administration and the supreme court during his first term and what might it be like if he has a second term? >> i think that gives trumped way too much credit that he would ban, that he would be thinking three steps ahead -- i don't think so. certainly someone in trump's administration maybe had that

thinking. this supreme court, we know they almost always do the most conservative thing and one of the really good examples of that is the mifepristone case. they kicked it out on standing. there had been anxiety that they would overturn fda approval that has been approved for many decades. in the end, it ended up that they should not have taken the case in the first place. it was not a victory for anyone. of anything, they introduced the comstock act. you heard two very conservative justices talking about the comstock act, which is their plan to banned abortion pills. you have to always assume this court is going to do the most conservative thing and when they don't, there is no reason to celebrate. >> just for our viewers, the comstock act is an 1873 act that bans the distribution of any material that might be used in an abortion and it is still on the books. it just has not been used in a long time. all the trump administration would have to do is start

reinforcing it. >> they are clearly ready to go with it. >> ruth, project 2025, the fascist playbook, if you will, you pointed out many times in the past that judges and the judiciary are often prime targets for authoritarians seeking to consolidate their power. why is that? why are they so focused on courts? >> well, because, totalitarianism in its essence is replacing the rule of law with rule by the lawless and making the leader and the party he controls like his personal tool, safe from prosecution. so, that is a fundamental thing. the other is that it actually connects to elections because today, many autocrats -- think of victor or yvonne in turkey, they don't ban elections altogether, they keep them going to fix them. if you have a purged loyalist

judiciary, any challenges to election outcomes will be sure to go the way the leader wants them to. we have a situation where the gop never wants to repeat what happened after the 2020 election with over 60 judges, many of them appointed by trump, turned back to his bogus selection claims. that is what project 2025 is about too, a purging, a cleansing of the judiciary to make sure that never happens again. >> molly, it seems at least some members of the public understand the relationship between the court and the rise of authoritarianism. right now, the public's confidence in this supreme court is at a near historic low and polls suggest many people support different kinds of court reform but as of yet, we have not seen the biden administration make much of that issue. is that a mistake? >> if biden gets reelected, he is going to have to reform the court. it is a wildly unpopular thing

to do but this court is wildly unpopular, so it works out. the reality is, what that looks like, whether it is term limits, it can look a number of different ways. it is not necessarily unpopular to reform the court but, historically, it has been a loser for the candidate or the party in power. i think it is necessary. i think this court has one goal, which is to radically remake this country in a very conservative image and we see this again and again. they are radically out of step with the rest of the country. even the right, which has some real farright control right now, they are not even necessarily as right-wing as this. i think that they want to usher in the handmaid's tale reality. >> amazing. ruth, in a recent dissent, there is a striking paragraph from justice sonia sotomayor where she posts every single member of the court's super majority who has endorsed an

approach to interpreting the law that is based on the ordinary understanding of terms that congress uses and she concludes on this quote, today, the majority forgets that principal and substitutes its own view of what constitutes a machine gun for congress's. what you make up justice so to mayor's very sharp words to her colleagues and the fact that she may have taken on the role as the principal spoiled to this conservative super majority and the voice of the people? >> i think she, better than anyone, knows what goes on behind the scenes and knows that this court contains justices who are really far right activists who are out to wreck democracy. she knows that to do that, it is not enough to issue rulings that are in line with farright antidemocratic principles. several of these people have been demonstrating with their

personal conduct that they do not feel bound by democratic notions of justice, accountability, conflict of interest and their personal conduct like flying flags at their home -- i have said before, fascism is not a day job. you have to be in it totally. it is not just about ruling or argumentation or even judicial appointees. it is about showing with your personal conduct that you scorn and disc reddick democratic notions of justice. that is the big frame for this and i think that the justice understands that and is trying to communicate that to the american people. >> molly, fascism is not a day job but it can get an assist if you have a court that takes its time issuing decisions. we have been waiting for a very big decision for this court to drop and that is the decision in the presidential immunity

case. do you think that if this decision is released, at sometime in the next couple of weeks, is there still a chance that january 6 election interference trial actually goes forward? >> what i think is interesting -- remember, donald trump's whole legal strategy is delay, which is why he spent, according to the new york times, $100 million of donor money on lawyers, and it worked. a delayed three of the court cases. that one case that when forward, he was whenever you delay, you serve donald trump and i think just like taking this mifepristone case from the fifth circuit, which was completely -- they had no standing. it was a totally made-up case, made up by a trump appointee, set up to set the goals for the next time, this is the same thing. just taking the case is a way for trump. i don't know what will happen.

my guess is this supreme court loves to drop decisions right before they go on vacations. they will drop the slightly less insane ones earlier in the month and then the real big ones, remember roe v. wade, right before they go on vacation. >> what will we do now? molly -- molly jong-fast and ruth ben-ghiat, thank you so much for those insights. coming up, the supreme court's conservative super majority has, in the words of justice sonia sotomayor, put machine guns back in civilian hands. we will talk about how this new ruling fits into a long pattern of expanding access to weapons of war. the princess of wales, kate middleton, makes her first appearance since announcing her cancer diagnosis. ali velshi could not leave for the weekend without a special meeting of the book club. we have a family immigration story that highlights family migration stories and identity and it is all coming up on

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president biden is back home in the united states after spending several days in italy for the important g7 summit. among the many topics at this session, of course, the israel- gaza war. >> did you all have a chance to discuss a possible cease-fire? >> yes. >> are you confident it will be done soon, sir? >> no. i have not lost hope. >> the bottom line is that we made an -- i have laid out an approach that has been endorsed by the u.n. security council, by the g7, by the israelis and the biggest hang up so far is hamas refusing to sign on even though they have submitted

something similar. whether it comes to fruition remains to be seen. we will continue to push. i don't have a final answer for you. >> 20 now from tel aviv is nbc news international correspondent matt bradley. president biden confidently put forth that proposal from the white house back in may but now he seems to be retreating from that confident posture. what is the latest on these talks? >> reporter: there was that burst of optimism earlier this week, especially right after the un security council seemed to almost unanimously bless this proposal that joe biden, as you mentioned, had put in the mouths of the israelis back on may 31 when he presented this a couple of weeks ago. he said this is an israeli plan and ever since then, we have been hearing american officials like antony blinken, the secretary of state, who has been traveling around the region, his eighth trip to the region, trying to secure some

sort of deal. he had said that hamas are the only outliers. israel had already signed onto this. it does not seem that way. even after joe biden presented it back on may 31, the israelis spent the better part of the following week carefully blocking back this idea that they have exceeded the agreement. it looks as though, while it is not necessarily a loser of a negotiation right now, it is still back to where it was before with both sides spewing maximalist ideas and demand. they are really torn over one central question and that is when there will be a permanent and final cease-fire that will see the israelis completely withdraw their troops from the gaza strip. again, this is the negotiations from the beginning. this is not new. it is just that neither side seems to have wavered on this central issue. the israelis have said they will not stop there incursion of the gaza strip until they are certain hamas has been completely eradicated. hamas is not going to sign off on any deal that involves their own destruction and they say they will not sign onto a deal that does not involve the full

and complete end to the war in the gaza strip. neither side has budged here so we are back to the drawing board. >> and an to be released on thursday, a spokesperson for hamas says the group does not know how many hostages remain alive. much is that uncertainty about the status quo holding up these negotiations? >> i don't know if it is holding up the negotiations. this has been a feature of it from the beginning. while it is a big revelation, it is not necessarily surprising. what we saw on october 7 itself was hamas leading the charge, breaking over the ramparts of the israelis created all around the gaza strip, screening into israel. they were followed by other militant groups, chiefly among the palestinian islamic jihad but other smallest groups that took advantage of that opportunity and took their own hostages. there were also people who are not affiliated with any group who have fought to committed violence on that day. it was not just hamas

necessarily in control but remember all of these hostages with any hostage situation as we have seen regularly in the middle east, hostages change hands. they are traded back and forth from different groups. all of these things could be happening at the same time. remember, there is very tough communication between hamas and the people conducting the negotiations and those hamas officials who are in the gaza strip, under bombardment. that makes it very difficult. i don't know if it is necessarily delaying the negotiations but it is certainly complicated them. >> that is nbc's matt bradley in tel aviv. thank you for the update. the conservative super majority on the supreme court just took back one of the precious tiny steps toward gun safety that we have seen in decades. that is not all. there is also more to the story and i will be joined by one of

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this week, teenagers who survived the sandy hook elementary school shooting 12 years ago graduated from high school. they were just six and seven years old when the gunmen massacred 20 of their first grade classmates and six school staff members. also this week, demolition began at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida where 14 students and three faculty members were shot and killed six years ago. the building has remained empty since the shooting and now, the city is tearing it down. wednesday, just this last week, it also marked eight years since the second deadliest shooting in american history when 49 people were shot and killed at the pulse nightclub in orlando, florida. all of those mass shootings were carried out using semi

automatic ar 15 rifles. the deadliest shooting in american history, for now, happened in 2017 at a las vegas music festival. there, 58 people were shot and killed and at least 400 more people were wounded from bullets or shrapnel and one of the main reasons why that shooting was so deadly was because the shooter used what is known as a bump stock. a bump stock is a mechanism, an attachment that can be fitted onto a semi automatic weapon, lly transforming it into a fully automatic machine gun. the ar 15 semi automatic rifle high school and the pulse nightclub, all of those guns can shoot about 45 bullets in one minute but a bump stock modified gun can fire up to 800 rounds in a single minute. the las vegas shooting and the sheer number of bullets fired in such a short amount of time prompted then-president donald

trump to sign an executive order effectively banning bump stocks altogether. this week, the supreme court concerned it's super majority, ruled that americans should be allowed to have bump stocks. this case was not technically a challenge to the second amendment but it is obviously a huge win for the gun lobby and for second amendment enthusiasts. whether it is a direct challenge to the second amendment or not, as justice sotomayor said in her dissent, it nonetheless puts machine guns back in civilian hands. the supreme court has only ruled on the second amendment a handful of times in its history and most of those decisions have dated back to just 15 years ago. most of those decisions have expanded gun rights. to be clear, this is not just about the court. the most far-reaching gun safety law, an assault weapons ban was allowed to expire in 2004. even when you factor in

legislative inaction, it is undeniable that this supreme court has a proven track record of ruling in favor of guns and this particular court has a proven track record of putting guns back in the hands of people who don't need to have them. just a few weeks after 10 black people were massacred in a racially motivated shooting at a supermarket in buffalo, new york back in 2022, this supreme court struck down new york was banned on concealed weapons, making it much easier for concealed carry to be done throughout the nation. aside from a modest background check law passed in 2022, the bump stock ban was the only common sense federal gun safety law that we have had in years and now, this conservative super majority has overturned it. joining me now to discuss the relationship between guns, the court, and the law is saul

cornell. saul has been an expert witness in dozens of cases on gun control laws. dr. cornell, i want to get your initial reaction to this ruling. it is not a second amendment case, obviously. it was chaired by those who are second amendment enthusiasts. >> thank you for having me, melissa. what is interesting about this case, i suppose, is it represents what i like to call the super majority's original is meant to dualism for the and anything we want for me. there is a lot of talk about how to read the statute. the first thing, as a historian, you have to point out is that justice scalia was not the founding father and the idea that we are adopting justice scalia's motive textualism itself needs to be historic fight because the founding fathers would have found the approach to reading statutes unbelievable because they did not have this hyper textualist approach but even if you apply justice scalia's

method, this court seems to take a -- almost like an etch-a- sketch approach. they extend -- expand things when they want to. they are hyper literalist when they want to and not when it does not serve them. when you look at it, you have to ask the question, would anyone who wrote that law in the 1930s have found this decision plausible? as a historian, i have to say it does not make any sense because it is such a hyper literalist approach and even justice kelly a said we are not literalists. we are supposed to remember what the ordinary person on the street would have said. it is hard to imagine that anyone dealing with machine gun kelly and the st. valentine's day massacre, which is the reason why we have these laws would have said, yeah, yeah. this is not a machine gun because of a very technical parsing of what it means to have a single action of the

trigger. if you look at all the diagrams -- the new york times has a wonderful one of how a bump stock works. the most obvious thing to say is, you pull the trigger once and then everything else moves. is that they single action of the trigger?-justice sotomayor was right. if it walks like a duck, if it talks like a duck and swims like a duck, i think most people would say it is a duck except for the six people on the supreme court. >> you mentioned the approach to statutory interpretations, very much an over reading of texts in some cases. you also mentioned briefly the court's commitment to individualism, that is interpreting the second amendment in the way the court believes the founding fathers would have understood the terms of that amendment. you recently wrote an article for the history news network where you wrote, quote, the second amendment does not prohibit robust gun regulations, it compelled it. today's gun rights ideology is

antithetical to the original understanding of the second amendment and only emerged in the 19th century when individual states began passing the first gun control laws to deal with the new problem posed by handguns. let's talk about that. this is a court that, in 2022, expanded gun rights on the view that it was required by an original understanding of the second amendment but that might not actually be original is in. can you say more? should liberals and progressives be leaning into the actual progressive intent of the second amendment? >> i think what is amazing about all of this is that we have had gun regulation as long as there has been guns in america. after the adoption of the second amendment, gun regulation got more intense. what we have seen throughout american history is when guns become more of a social problem, legislatures pass laws to deal with them and they only pass the laws when those new problems arise. in the 18th century, muskets

just took too long to load and fire and more particularly, accurate. everything we do when we talk about the second amendment today kind of misconstrues with the original understanding of it was. the original understanding of the second amendment is essentially an effort to transfer the cost of public defense into individual households. there was not a gun violence problem in 18th century because you are much better at hitting someone with the stock of your gun and taking the time to load it and use it as a weapon. it is just ironic that under the ban of original is him, the other irony is that there are so few historians who are originalists because once you dig into the past, you realize it is much more complicated and we can bring these assumptions from the president to the past. they just are not worried about crime in the way we are worried about crime. they were worried about british regulars coming over the hill. >> dr. saul cornell, thank you so much for those insights. coming up, kate middleton

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revealing in march that she is undergoing treatment for an unspecified form of cancer. the princess and her family attended the royal ceremony known as trooping the colour, an annual military celebration honoring the monarch's birthday. in this case, the princess's father-in-law. the princess arrived with her children and watched the ceremony from the buckingham palace balcony. she was also seen smiling in a horse-drawn carriage along with her three children as the procession made its way through the street. the event featured 1400 soldiers, 400 musicians and 200 horses and king charles and queen concert camilla appeared to take part. the royal family then went to buckingham palace, followed by a huge crowd to watch a fly passed by the royal air force. nbc megan fitzgerald is at buckingham palace and she has been covering this all morning long for us. take us through the day. what was it like when the public saw its first actual public appearance by the missing princess in months.

>> reporter: it was an extraordinary moment. it was a moment that a lot of people did not think they would see today, especially the balcony shot, the most anticipated moment of this entire day. we saw the king, we saw the queen on the balcony alongside the princess of wales and their three children. all of this coming when we knew that she is still undergoing the preventative chemotherapy treatments. again, a lot of surprised by the entire nation and people who came out. i want to take you back to earlier this morning when we saw the glimpse of the princess of wales rolling down the streets inside that horse-drawn carriage with her three kids inside. remember, it was pouring down rain at one point. we had torrential downpours. the wind was whipping. did not stop that thousands of people who lined the streets to get a glimpse of her and they just erupted with excitement at first glance. they made her way down to the

horse card parade and then making her way back to buckingham palace. this comes after kensington palace released that photo, you will remember, last night, of the princess of wales. then, she may a message to the world that she wrote. i want to read for you part of what is said. i am making good progress but as anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are good days and bad days. my treatment is ongoing and will be for a few more months. she then continued to say, i am not out of the woods yet. it certainly speaks to the courage that she has to come before the world in the midst of the treatment that she has receiving. we do see her trailing the king and the queen who are in the horse-drawn carriage ahead of her, a little bit of a difference in the ceremony this year. the king is typically on horseback but he rode in the carriage from the advice of his

doctors. again, he is also going through cancer treatments. this has been a very difficult and challenging year for the royal family. seeing him altogether unified sent a powerful message to the world. >> thank you so much for giving us that first-hand view of all of the pomp and circumstance. that was megan fitzgerald live at buckingham palace. thank you. still ahead, ali velshi could not go away for the weekend without leaving us with a meeting of the velshi band book club. today's feature is dragonwings by laurence yep, a story of identity, family, and what it truly means to be an american. that is coming up next. next. listen. what you really need in life is some freakin' torque. [ engine revving ] oh yeah man, horsepower keeps you going, but torque gets you going. ♪ ♪ [ engine revving ] oh now we're torquin'! - i love car puns! oh, i know. pppp-powershot! [ engine revving ] [ laughing ] the dodge hornet r/t.

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when moon shadow is eight years old, he makes the long and unknown journey from southern china to america's west coast. there, he joins his father wind

rider who he has never met. together, they navigate life in san francisco alongside americans who ruthlessly mistreat and discriminate against them. they refer to their oppressors as white demons. they face cruelty and kindness. they find community with all kinds of people. they survive a deadly earthquake that destroys so much of the city that has slowly become their home. despite relentless poverty, racism and hardship, the aspiration to fly an airplane guides their little family toward the american dream. the award-winning celebrated children's book dragonwings by laurence yep is today velshi banned book club feature, written utilizing vivid descriptions, chinese folklore, true historic event and frank language that is appropriate for children, dragonwings is both an immigration and a coming-of-age story. masterfully creates a word that is equal parts world and

fantasy, equal parts american and chinese. the world through the eyes of an immigrant child, the wooden houses where the white americans live are, quote, little shells of wood which terrible monsters have spent about themselves. dragonwings is a story of resilience, identity, and family. it explores the power of dreams. it is loosely based on a true story of a chinese immigrant who constructed his own plane in 1908, improving upon the wright brothers 1903 blueprint. wind rider and moon child dream is to fly. it is the north star that guides them through the everyday cruelty and persistent tragedy that is being an immigrant. eventually, this dream of flight delivers the message of the novel. it is not the act of finally achieving your dreams that is important, rather, it is those who you are with when you finally do. despite his 1975 initial publication, dragonwings has been targeted for removal as recently as 2022 . according to

local news outlet the tennessee conservative, one blunt county parent filed a complaint against the book, condemning it as anti-american and as promoting racism, quote, from cover to cover, the author refers to americans as demons, including statements like white demon, demon land, and the american double means harm. dragonwings is the first of 10 books that chronicled generations of the young family from 1849 in china to 2011 in america. in the forward of my copy of dragonwings, a newer edition , laurence yep encapsulates the entire series writing end quote, i try to chronicle the young family's ongoing love affair with the land of the golden mountain, or america, a love that has lasted over 150 years. these books represent my version of chinese america, in its tears and its laughter, its hunger and its fears, and in all its hopes and dreams, end quote. the country -- the problems we

are facing in the country centers on the immigrants love affair with america and a school parent that believes that same series as anti- american and racist. whatever that parent in tennessee wants to believe, this is the truth. this country is for the person who stays here, despite the fear and the cruelty. this country is for the person who contributes and endures, despite all odds. that person, that immigrant is the american dream. right after the break, i am joined by laurence yep, author of numerous children's books including today's velshi 's banned book feature, dragonwings. don't go anywhere. anywhere. everyone can get the best deals, like that iphone 15 on them. (man) switching all the time...it wasn't easy. (lady) 35! (store customer) you're gonna be here forever. (man) i know. (employee) here is your wireless contract. (man) do i need a lawyer for this? those were hard days. representative. switch! now that i got a huge storage and battery upgrade... i'm officially done switching. (vo) new and existing customers get iphone 15 on us when they trade in any iphone, any condition. guaranteed.

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i am joined by the prolific laurence yep, author of more than 60 award-winning novels for children and young adults including today's banned book feature, dragonwings. welcome to the banned book club , thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much for inviting me. it is such an honor to be here. it is a dubious honor to be in the banned book club. >> it is a dubious honor but you are in good company. let's start with the airplane and that beam of dreams throughout dragonwings. i am not going to give away whether or not wind rider ever takes flight but i do want to talk about the metaphor behind it. tell me about how you came to this. >> when you read about chinese american history from this period, it is very depressing. the used to be little

chinatown's all across the west and in just a few decades, they were all wiped out, sometimes violently. when you do the research and the history, a story like the chinese aviator just really stands out. dragonwings really grew out of trying to explain why he had built that airplane in the first place. and, the dream of flight is such -- now we take airplane travel for granted but the dream of flight is just -- has to have such an impact. for instance, when my mother was a teenager, she was a straight a student in high school but she actually cut class in order to go see the parade of charles lindbergh, who had just crossed the

atlantic solo. there is a personal reason why i also wrote dragonwings. i was trying to step into my father 's shoes and think about his dreams. he had -- he had met -- he did not meet his father until he was 10. my father lived in china. my paternal grandfather came back from america and brought him to san francisco where they moved right away outside of chinatown. my father had to adjust as a child to living in this strange new land, except, he would never really talk much about those days. i was trying to imagine what it was like for him. >> there is a great moment in the book where moon shadow gets into a fist fight with a white boy named jack.

surprisingly, it is not actually moment of division. it is a small moment of unity. let me just read this. i swung out and my fist went right into his face. jack sat down with a plop in the dirt, blood running down from his nose. you hit me, he said in surprise. what do you expect, i asked wax he held out his bloody hand. i took it and helped him up. suddenly i realize these demons were like the tang boys i knew at home. you only had to punch out the biggest and the toughest of the bunch and the others would accept you. dragon wings is full of moments like this, small instances that prove him similar to the people of san francisco. tell me about that. >> part of that just grew out of my father too. he was living in this area outside of chinatown and, at first, he was beaten up but then he gradually learned american games and wound up on the basketball teams of his different schools. he eventually made these strangers into friends.

it is so easy to look at people as things and i used to visit the locked of schools and i have also taught in colleges. sometimes i would meet a student who would tell me two things. one of them was, he did not see why he had to learn about chinese americans. the other thing is that, he had nothing to write about because nothing had happened to him. he was like this limpet that -- in a shell that had just clamped down on this rock. i would -- there are things you can do that -- imagination games you can play that can show him that -- i would try to show him, at least, that the shell is just artificial and

you can have fun playing with it. >> one of the things about this book is that it includes a series of themes including addiction, violence, prostitution -- not in explicit detail. how do you respond to critics who might argue that those topics are not appropriate for children's literature? >> well, i don't know. i assume they are not turning on the local news on their tvs every day. the thing is, i went to school in chinatown and i grew up in an african american neighborhood that the media now calls the harlem of the west. though, as a child, i would not have been allowed to go to the jazz clubs or anything. all i knew was life in two . i don't go into all of the green

-- grim details with people but it can be fairly grim. then, my mother got me a library card and that just opened all the doors of the world. the thing is, when i would go to the library, i could never really get into the -- the popular american books about white children living in the suburbs seemed as much fantasy to me as the -- books every children had a bicycle and left their front doors unlocked. no one i knew had a bike and every front door had two or three blocks. the oz books were truer to my own experience because in those books, you have children from our world taken to another place where they had to learn strange new customs and strange new vocabularies. that was something that i did

every time i got on and off the bus. now, in my books, i try and invite people to step off the bus with me. >> i love that idea and i love the role that libraries played in your introduction to these things. lawrence, good to talk with you. thank you for being here and congratulations on the dubious honor of being a member of the velshi banned book club. laurence yep is the author of dragonwings , he is the author of 60 books. the award-winning dragonwings is the subject for today 's velshi banned book club. before we go, a quick note on behalf of my friend and yours, ali velshi. if you are in the toronto area on monday, june 24, do not miss the chance to see allie discuss his new book, small acts of courage, a legacy of encourage -- the fight for democracy. the event will be at the wellington event venue. there

are still tickets available so get them while you can. you can check ali velshi social media account for all of the details. that does it for me, melissa murray. thank you so much for watching. velshi airs every saturday and sunday morning from 10:00 a.m. until noon eastern. do not switch off. off. i am katie phang. here is the week that was. hunter biden is found guilty on all three charges tied to the possession of a gun while using narcotics. >> i will not do that. >> the house attorney general wants to hold merrick garland in contempt. >> what do republican