has helped us understand loyalty versus expertise. i did not think loyalty was a bad thing until i came across how donald trump uses it in government. we do not want it in our intelligence community, in our defense community for loyalty to take precedence over rationalism. thank you, mark always your executive director and founder of the james madison project and cofounder of whistleblower a. straightahead, west made it to the interview in-person with kamala harris? how is donald trump appearing to respond after a week of failing to lead a line of attack against kamala harris and mark this week's meeting of the velshi banned book club, author of "the last white man" joins me. another hour of "velshi" starts right now. ight now. good morning, it is saturday, august 3rd, 93 days until election day. it has been 13 days since vice president kamala harris took over the top of the ticket.

yesterday, the dnc enough that harris had received enough votes to secure the party's nomination. president took to x to congratulate his vice resident, quote, one of the best decisions i made was speaking can make here is as my vice president. now that she will be our party's nominee, i cannot be prouder. they were supposed to be a debate september 10th, but it is unclear if donald trump will show up. within the last hour, the harris campaign put out a statement, reading in part quote, donald trump is running scared. he needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on september 10th. the vice president will be there one way or the other. we are happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to. mr. anytime, anywhere, anyplace should have no problem with that, unless he's too scared to show up on the 10th. i had a bit scheduled

debate, here is needs to announce her running mate. we know the harris campaign betting team has met with six potential candidates. we know a decision is expected before a tuesday rally in philadelphia, where they are anticipated to appear on a stage together. since the rnc, where trump remember call for unity, trump has grown increasingly belligerent. here is a taste of what trump's itch to the nation has been like then. >> they all say, i think he has changed. i think he has changed since two weeks ago. something affected him. no, i haven't changed. maybe i have gotten worse. i am being indicted for you. did you like my mug shot? you like mug shot? two weeks ago i was talking about biden. i did not even know her name, nobody did. >> i did not know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and she wanted to be known as black. she was indian, all of a sudden, she made a turn and became a black person. i've

done so much for the black population of this country. coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking black jobs. you have the best-- >> what exactly is a black job, sir? >> a black job is anybody that has a job. >> i guess, so much for unity. in essence, this pitch, a bigot of this, racist bits of that, regurgitated over and over across is nothing more than red meat for his core base. he has no real message for this country other than hate. it is also meant to obscure and deflect from the actual plans that trump and the right have should he retake the white house, plans contained in this 922 page playbook called project 2025. project 2025. cohort continue to try to distance themselves from it in public. but that is not easy work. as we have been discussing every single show, project 2025 was written by trump and his

allies, many key figures from his last administration. in none other than trump's running mate made the forward for the upcoming book authored by kevin roberts, who is the president of the heritage foundation, who spearheaded and oversaw project 2025. kevin rogers announced the project 2025 was winding down its policy work, although we source also tells nbc news that project 2025 itself is not shutting down. make no mistake about it. this is not a change of plans. all of the plans are right here inside is 922 page manifesto. they are not going away. a 180 day plan if trump retakes the white house. this is our future. join me now with julian maxwell, former director of progressive media for hillary clinton's 2016 residential campaign and author of "end of what politics: how to heal our political divide". the former creator and cohost

of the circus, the greatest political show on earth. welcome to both of you, thank you for being here this morning. mark, i want to ask you because you spent a lot of time involved in the political party. it is the same question i asked michael steele an hour ago. ae there is a document called mandate for leadership for many years. the heritage foundation put that out, in many cases, many policies are an act did by republican administrations. what is different about this project 2025 to you? >> well, it just reflects an ambition by resident trump and his allies to knock down all the traditional barriers of government and create executive authority that overrides congressional intent. the thing about donald trump this time around is that he knows the drill, and he's got people around him now. m what he did during the presidency was to try to figure

out a way to exert executive authority. and he did a pretty good job of it. but now the document points out exactly, you know, how he is going to do it. believe him when he says the quiet part out loud. the quiet part out loud is pumping the document. >> this is interesting. one of the things hurting donald trump is this impenetrable 922 pages. nobody was talking about it for a while and now seemingly everyone is talking about it. er republicans are trying to run away from it and donald trump is trying to run away from it. what he does not do well with his actual effect checking. you and i were talking about his appearance at the and a bj. it turns out that the nba aj said that trump did not want to be fact check and delayed the event by over an hour. this is what it comes down to. donald trump does not want somebody digging deeper than anything he says on the surface. >> that is because most of the things he says are only on the

surface. i think one of the things that voters at home need to te understand is that this has always been true. the job of the media in this moment is to adjust how they cover donald trump. for example, he backed out of the debate that was agreed to. some headlines today say that me he had proposed a mock debate, basically saying, i will have you come to one of my rallies, vice president harris, and you can debate me with my friends from fox news that one of my rallies with a big audience. and that is simply unacceptable in this environment when you have had a president that never has said factual things about specific policy. he always is talking on the surface level. and i think the stakes in this election are too high to continue to do that, but that has always been true about donald trump. >> the harris campaign announced several additions to the campaign. they are keeping the campaign

team, they have david plumb as a senior adviser to the campaign. you call him a o jedi master. and paul mary, who you say a hall of famer. explain the importance of these additions to the team. >> ultimately, we give too much credit to the staffers when it is really the candidates. but presidential campaigns are incredibly complicated exercises. and they are sending up a huge g corporation in 100 days. i think it is a tremendous sign that the harris campaign has at opened the tent and as really brought in a team of rivals from obama and biden. they have brought in the best gh of the best. that includes david bluff, who i think it's really important. what he has the ability to do, the thing about the harris campaign is that everybody is so excited, there is so much juice going on that they have 5000 things they could be doing, but we have to focus on

five things they must do to win. and that is where plumb is really a huge asset. he will cut through all the noise and figure out the signal. he is really good at playing well with others and sharing a responsibility. he just wants to win while keeping his head down. of course, the best of the best. to me, it is like saying they brought together a team of rivals and now they've got a team of killers in there now. >> so let's go to that point, they will focus on a few things. that is a big deal because there are a lot of things going on and that one could focus on. vice president harris is focusing on hope, the future, rather than the past, she is e focusing on freedom. some of us are focusing on the existential threat to america because of things like project 2025 and the election denial and the supreme court ruling on immunity.

what you have a lot of experience with campaign messaging, where do you go withd this? is it a policy election? i hope election? a me versus chaos election? what is your best line of attack? >> well, it is a great question. >> this is a freedom election. so there are so many things that the vice president can at talk about all under this larger umbrella about freedoms and rights. in 2016, one of the things that was difficult was to warn people about the dangers of a trump presidency because many of the things we were warning about had not happened yet. but in this election, roe v. wade has been overturned, so you lost rights that you had before. so when you are talking about that larger umbrella of freedom, you are talking also about the future. because when she says we cannot go back, she is not talking about to 2016. she is talking about 1955.

i spoke with the congressman e james clyburn earlier this week, and he talked about project 2025 as jim crow 2.0. we are not talking about going back to 2016 or 15. we are talking about going back to pre-civil rights. that is why it is so important to talk about freedoms and rights. that is something that will recognize -- resonate with the crowd of support. >> so you make the choice of freedom and the positives things versus warning about donald trump, or do you believe that voters can hold both of those thoughts at the same time? >> i think freedom is a great frame for the messaging. it is taking back the idea of freedom from republicans, who have taken it away over the last decade or so. and it is a great frame for what matters to voters right now. and what is key about all of this, i think, there is a tendency in politics to look through a mirror. in other words, we plan and

think about politics by what in has happened before. successful campaigns do not do that. they do not take da mirror to the campaign, they take a periscope in the look around. ri i think what is important, stephanie cutter, and all of the rest of the great team that they have assembled, including those already there, they knows -- that you have to run the last campaign, that is what it looks like they are doing. >> thank you. the former director of progressive meet up for hillary clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and market cannon, arthur and cohost of the circus and media adviser to george w. bush and john mccain. so had, spies, murder, messages, and a promise of the story of the rare diplomatic feet that freed 16 prisoners. the latest novel, "the less white man" is a new concept. what would happen if every

white man woke up with darker skin? the realities of loss, death, and a master class in realism. ♪ (woman) ugh. (woman) phone! (man) ahhh! (woman) oh! (man) oh no. (woman) dang it! (vo) you break it. we take it. trade in any phone, in any condition. guaranteed at verizon. and get the new galaxy s24 on us. (man) oh yeah. (vo) only on verizon. everywhere but the seat. the seat is leather. alan, we get it. you love your bike. we do, too. that's why we're america's number-one motorcycle insurer. but do you have to wedge it into everything?

what? i don't do that. this reminds me of my bike. the wolf was about the size of my new motorcycle. have you seen it, by the way? happy birthday, grandma! really? look how the brushstrokes follow the line of the gas tank. -hey! -hey! brought my plus-one. jamie? nexium 24hr prevents heartburn acid before it begins. get all-day and all-night heartburn acid prevention with just one pill a day. choose acid prevention. choose nexium.

dave's company just scored choose acid prevention. the comcast business 5-year price lock guarantee. high five! high five! -i'm in a call... it's 5 years of reliable, gig speed internet... five years of advanced security... five years of a great rate that won't change. yep, dave's feeling it. but it's only for a limited time. five years? -five years? introducing the comcast business 5-year price lock guarantee. powering 5 years of savings. powering possibilities.

vice president kamala harris has become the democratic nominee. her team just announced a record making fundraising call in july. now she just needs to reveal her running mate. two sources familiar with her tell nbc news the vetting process has concluded and the person conducting the vetting is the former attorney general eric holder. we do know that he has arrived at the naval observatory, which is where the vice president lives. we are going to presume that briefing about the vetting is underway right now. and that should be the next to

final stop before picking a candidate. harris plans to meet with final contenders over the course of this weekend. she will kick off a crucial week of campaigning. the yet to be named vp candidate will join her at a rally in philadelphia on tuesday. according to our reporting, the shortlist has been narrowed to six. the minnesota governor tim walz, josh shapiro arizona senator mark kelly, transportation secretary pete to get in the illinois governor j.b. pritzker as well as kentucky governor andy beshear. some had cleared their schedules for the weekend. governor shapiro of pennsylvania pulled out of two planned fundraisers for his personal campaign election committee in the hamptons. he gave no explanation. kentucky governor bashir canceled a plan to stop in western kentucky at a distillery yesterday. you know it isn't serious if you cancel a stop at eight distillery. he sent his lieutenant governor instead and made no official comment on the change. tim walz canceled a string of

events in his home state today, again, giving no specific reason, which could mean something. it could mean nothing. let's get to the reporting. joining us now is senior national reporter jonathan. first of all, a lot of people said, if they are starting their thing in philadelphia tuesday, it has to be josh shapiro. philadelphia is a 19 delegate rich state that democrats have to win. >> yes, absolutely. no matter who her vice presidential candidate is, they will have to win pennsylvania. the democrats lose pennsylvania, it is basically impossible to see them winning the presidency. i suppose it is possible if the mother set of states come in, but pennsylvania is necessary for them. it is also close to washington, d.c. and wilmington, which would make sense to be the first stop on a tour. kamala harris is planning on going on the tour in battleground states basically all week next week with her vice presidential candidate. i would not read too much into that, but it certainly could be shapiro. >> but one would argue that she

has a lot of good choices. everyone has a couple of pluses and a couple of minuses. what do you make? what tea leaves have you got? anything you could tell us that are not just guesses like the rest of us are making? >> there has been a tight lid on information. i think the vice president has been helped by a couple of things in that. number one, she was at the naval observatory, which is difficult for reporters to access. she is sort of in a fortress. i think another reason is because it has happened so fast. it is not like people had to hold onto secrets for weeks and weeks here. this process is supercharged. you saw the photos there. the head committee for white dudes fort harris. the vice president of selection field right there. all of them have pluses and minuses. i think it will come down to a couple of things. who might help her sustain

energy, and, of course, number three, which is really number one, take all the factors into account, who helps her win? >> of course, the do no harm rule seems obvious, but it has already been broken by jd vance. that becomes an important one. good to see you as always, my friend. coming up, the largest prisoner exchange since the cold war. i will speak with the former director of the cia on the agency's involvement in pushing this historic prisoner swap over the finish line in getting those americans home. those ame r-o-l-a-i-d-s spells relief.

you built this? it was easy once i found the parts. looks like you need a break. the general gives you one with flexible payment options. look, a chemical reaction! oh! [robotic sound] for a great low rate, go with the general. hit it again, gen! it's time to get away for and cash in ate, cache creek casino resort. to rock and to roll. to go all out or go all in with four stars and rising stars. northern california's premier casino resort is the perfect place to do as much... or as little as you want. make your getaway now and cache in at cache creek casino resort.

but it's under siege from big out-of-state media companies and hedge funds. now, california legislators are considering a bill that could make things even worse by subsidizing national and global media corporations while reducing the web traffic local papers rely on. so tell lawmakers, support local journalism, not well connected media companies. oppose ab 886.

paid for by ccia. most people call leaffilter when their gutters are clogged and they notice one of the many issues that can bring. sometimes it's the smell of mildew when water has seeped into the interior walls. or maybe they've spotted mold in the attic. but most often it's the more obvious signs of damage like rotten soffit, fascia, or water pooling near their foundation. you can get ahead of costly damage by protecting your home's gutters today. we're in your neighborhood and ready to help. schedule your free gutter inspection today, call 833 leaffilter, or visit leaffilter.com this week, the biden administration pulled up one of the largest prisoner swaps between u.s. and russia ever since the cold war. patience, creativity, and a poetic prowess. three americans in a dominant resident to are wrongly imprisoned in russia were freed in a high wire act of diplomacy

and negotiation that took two years to orchestrate. evan gershkovich, paul whelan -- were freed on thursday in exchange for a russian hitman and seven other russian operatives. as mentioned, this deal was in the works for years. back in december of 2022, when wnba star whitney greiner was on her way home from a russian prison, the biden administration was unable to secure the release of paul whelan, who was arrested on espionage charges in 2018. but biden kept trying. in march of last year, was held on espionage charges. the u.s. was considering a prisoner swap that would free paul whelan in turn 18 and volney. we note that the volney was intended to be included in the prisoner swap but died during

his imprisonment. after much negotiation, schultz was on board, reportedly telling biden, quote, i will do this for you. vice president kamala harris played a role as well. she met separately in the munich conference in february to urge both leaders to push the deal through,". eventually, poland, norway, and slovenia also agreed to release russian prisoners. two weeks ago, russia agreed to the deal in principle. present biden touted the deal on thursday as a byproduct of friendship and l.a. ship meanwhile, the former president and republican presidential nominee touted the deal as a win for putin. trump claimed that putin would only release navalny for him. joining me now, john brennan,

and nbc senior security and intelligence analyst, former director of the cia peer director brennan, you and i are normally talking about major world issues at any given moment. but think of yourself here as the script writer. this is a movie. of all the spy movies we ever watched, this is literally one of them. the mechanics in the craft that went into this release is really complicated, high-level stuff, and your agency that you used to have -- had, the cia, was the lead negotiator in this. >> yes. this is the reality that our world is in. for many, many years, the cia and intelligence community has maintained these leads on channels with russia, as well as other authoritarian regimes for exactly this purpose, so that there can be very sensitive discussions taking place and negotiations regarding the release of individuals who have been unfairly detained.

and so therefore, there is great confidence that these intelligence channels are able to be used in order to prevent any kind of release of information that could derail and undermine the negotiations. so as you pointed out, there were so many different players and countries involved in this. not just in terms of internationally, but also within the united states. my experience is that this is something that would have been led by the white house and security council. the cia would've been the implementer of some of these discussions taking place with the questions, and negotiations took place over the course of many months until finally there was an agreement on a deal for this exchange that lace. >> i just want to lean into what donald trump said. he would have gotten evan gershkovich out for nothing, with no exchange. people say it is a weird

construct to imagine that you will get hostages or wrongfully detained people out without giving something. and the issue is what you given how that works. if you want to call this a win- win for everybody, it is. putin did get his criminals in its essence and we got our wrongly imprisoned. you do always have to have some way of getting her people out. >> that is what eight negotiation is. you see what type of possible concessions the other side is going to make, what you will do, and to compromise. it is not just in terms of what the united states was willing to do or concede, we also needed to get support and cooperation of other countries. and this is where the strategical alliances and partnerships that have been built up over the last 80 years since world war ii have been so instrumental. the fact that president biden talked to the chancellor of germany and prime ministers of other countries and got them to agree to be part of this swap really demonstrates that the united states benefit so much from these partnerships.

all presidents since world war ii has recognized that the united states strength and ability to operate globally really relies on the strength and trust that we have with these other countries. all presidents i have worked for and all presidents since world war ii recognized that with the exception of donald trump. donald trump thought it was a one-way street. that is not the case. we rely heavily on these countries to work with us. whether we are defeating al qaeda and isis or putting sanctions against russia, china, iran, and others, this is when u.s. leadership in the respect that these countries have for u.s. leadership and president really come into play. >> this is an important point. the assassin released in germany assassinated a guy in a public park in berlin. it is not, the german people are not sitting here thinking, what a fantastic thing that we let this guy go. olaf scholz really had to have trust in joe biden and some

l.a. ship, and maybe some hope that things start going further south in europe, america will continue to stand up for germany. this does not come for nothing. >> no, it does not. sometimes concessions made arbiter pills to swallow. but it has to be put in the context of what is it that we are going to be benefit as a result of these discussions, negotiations, and concessions. clearly, germany, norway, slovenia, poland, they saw that. there would be benefit and not just getting americans out, but also these russian dissidents and others out. therefore, there has to be something you can negotiate with . i do give the biden and harris administration a lot of credit for orchestrating something that really is unprecedented in scope and really has brought individuals at home who really need to come home and out of harms way in russia. >> director brennan, thank you as always. former director of the cia and msnbc senior security analyst. breaking news out of the middle east. moments ago, the u.s. embassy in lebanon issued a new alert

for u.s. citizens, urgent, quote, those who wish to depart lebanon, to book any ticket available to them, even if that flight does not depart immediately or does not follow their first choice route. this just comes after the state department updated its travel advisory for lebanon to level 4, do not travel, amid ongoing and escalated fighting between israel and hezbollah in lebanon. it also comes after the defense secretary lloyd austin announced yesterday an update to u.s. military posture in the region ahead of an anticipated retaliatory strike on a ran by israel for the retaliation of the political leader in tehran. more cruisers and jet fighters have been ordered to the region. we will be right back.

[music playing] tiffany: my daughter is mila. she is 19 months old. she is a little ray of sunshine. one of the happiest babies you'll probably ever meet. [giggles] children with down syndrome typically have a higher risk for developing acute myeloid leukemia, or just leukemia in general. and here we are. marlo thomas: st. jude children's research hospital works day after day to find cures and save the lives of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. tiffany: she was referred to st. jude at 11 months. they knew what to do as soon as they got her diagnosis. they already had her treatment plan drawn out. and they were like, this is what we're going to do. this is how long it's going to take. this is how long in between. this place is like a family to us now. like, i can't say enough how grateful we are to be here. medical bills are always a big thing to everybody

because everybody knows that anything medical is going to be expensive. we have received no bills since being at st. jude. we have paid for nothing. marlo thomas: thanks to generous donors like you, families never receive a bill from st. jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food so they can focus on helping their child live. for just $19 a month, you'll help us continue the lifesaving research and treatment that these kids need now and in the future. join with your credit or debit card right now, and we'll send you this st. jude t-shirt that you can proudly wear to show your support. tiffany: anybody and everybody that contributes anything to this place, no matter if it's a big business or just the grandmother that donates once a month, they are changing people's lives. and that's a big deal. [music playing]

for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again. ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ask your doctor about farxiga. firefighters trying to

control california's largest wildfire of the year are bracing for threatening conditions this weekend as lightning and very high temperatures could erode progress they have made over the last week. the latest status update from cal fire reports that the arson cost park fire is expanding almost 400,000 acres across four counties and is only 25% contained after destroying at least 524 structures so far. multiple fires are also burning in colorado this week. so far, killing one person, damaging or destroying at least 30 buildings, prompting the evacuation of thousands of people enforcing the governor to deploy the colorado national guard. and the oregon fire marshal's pre-positioning extra forces this weekend after temperatures surpassed triple digits and the crazy creek fire grew to more than 35,000 acres yesterday. a red flag warning has been put into effect until tomorrow. joining me now is in bc national correspondent david noriega. good to see you. what are firefighters was concerned about this weekend? the weather. it is now officially

history. crews were able to make significant progress while contending that over the last few days things largely to do do a break in the weather. a break in the weather is now over. very hot, very dry, the possibility of some lightning that could create new ignition points. it is not just about, the same is true about the fires in colorado that you mentioned. crews were able to make progress. there are very closely and densely populate it areas outside of denver. it is not just how the weather affects fire behavior itself, and is also how the weather makes it significantly more difficult for crews to fight those fires. issues like heat exhaustion, potentially even heatstroke. the thing to remember here is that we are pretty early in the fire season out west. just in california though it is already close to 3000% worse

than it was compared to the entire fire season last year. we haven't even hit the peak of the fire season, which usually happens in august or september. last year was a relatively mild fire season. we are still looking at something pretty dramatic this year. we are taught about crews that will have to go out and fight fires and go home for potentially a few days and then go back out again with potentially much, much worse to come. so those are the main concerns. particularly keeping an eye on colorado. again, the fire in california is very big, but it is mostly going away from population centers. the ones in colorado are close, there is even a big lockheed martin factory that was evacuated this week as a result of one of those fires. definitely something to keep an eye on. >> thinks your great reporting on this. we appreciate it. david noriega, national correspondent. we have the meeting of the 19 banned book club. "the last white man", while we prepared for the eating of the book up, the state school board enacted a massive censorship

effort. 13 books are officially banned from every public school in the state, including the runaway best-selling fantasy novel, to ellen hopkins book, margaret atwood, and the generational classic "forever" by judy bloom. the new law went into effect on july 1st and requires a book to be removed statewide if three districts, quote, identify pornographic or indecent material, or objective sensitive material. what counts as pornographic or objective tentative material remains questionable as ever, but apparently judy bloom qualifies. utah is not the only state to pass laws allowing censorship like this to occur in public schools and libraries. since july 1st alone this year, it has occurred in idaho, south carolina, and tennessee. those states will not be the last, and neither will those book.

announcer what if you could whiten your teeth by simply brushing your teeth? now you can with smileactives, the teeth whitening breakthrough that safely gets your teeth white and keeps them white every day just by brushing your teeth. christine i never thought that whitening my teeth could be so easy. i just put the gel on the brush, the toothpaste on it, brush and i can see my white teeth. announcer simply add smileactives to any toothpaste, and our patented polyclean technology activates into a powerful micro foam that penetrates into the enamel surface to safely lift and remove stains. robert you need a simple way to withen your teeth without strips, without trays, without going to the dentist.

and it was about time that a product was developed that you would be able to do that with just brushing. announcer and now smileactives is even better. with new pro whitening gel with 33% greater whitening power. clinically shown to whiten teeth faster up to eight shades. 100% of users saw whiter teeth on food stains, coffee and wine stains, even on veneers, crowns and dentures. paul i eat the blueberries, i drink the coffee and i know that smileactives will keep my teeth white every day. janell if you could do something so easy like smileactives to take yellow teeth to white teeth, why wouldn't you? announcer why spend hundreds of dollars for whitening treatments at the dentist, when now you can whiten your teeth with new smileactives pro whitening gel every time you brush your teeth. call or go to smileactives.com and for a limited time get new pro whitening gel for just $24.95. order in the next 5 minutes and buy one get one absolutely free for just $24.95. that's two for one and save 58%.

we■ll even include free shipping. get your teeth whiter, guaranteed, or return it within 60 days for your money back. i smile every day now. the difference is literally night and day. so now i'm always smiling or cheesing because now my teeth are much wither. announcer this offer is not available in stores, so call or click now before the special buy one, get one free offer goes away. the virus that causes shingles is sleeping... in 99% of people over 50. it's lying dormant, waiting...

and could reactivate. shingles strikes as a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. and it could wake at any time. think you're not at risk for shingles? it's time to wake up. because shingles could wake up in you. if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention.

today's velshi band book club features "the last white man" . note on our country is never disclosed, and we never discover what is causing every single person, white person, to wake up one morning with a six wickedly darker skin. one morning, anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown. we do get to names. anders, our protagonist who works at a gym and tends to his dying father, and his yoga teacher girlfriend with a racist mother, . it functions as a vehicle to explore what happens when whiteness just disappears. written in mohsin hamid's long prose and poetic language, "the last white man" is first and foremost a meditation on structural racism.

this magic darkness, as the book describes it, is symbolic. it is not depicted as any race. it is not a book propelled by action, moments of unrest, death, and violence. there is unrest led by militants, but it feels distant from our protagonist. in consequence is of a racist society are quickly forced into a reckoning. the result is successful, but quiet. for some, at least for me, some of the strongest moments in "the last white man" are between anders and his ailing father. mohsin hamid captures the nuance of loss and love, the futility of chronic illness, and the dynamic between a child and parent. quote, standing was hard enough. and he ignored his pain, for it was part of him now. constant, not remotely bearable, but also not avoidable, and so put up with like a nasty sibling.". ander's father is the last white man to go from the change from white to brown. the last white man exists in a

long tradition of movies and literatures that play with the concept of changing race or identity. from the classic metamorphosis to the 2016 lovecraft country. this is well trodden territory, which makes it all the more surprising that the last white man, a fresh take on this idea, caused such a firestorm after its initial publication in 2022. it even found itself right smack in the middle of a tucker carlson segment on fox news. >> what is this? >> well, it is a new phenomenon that goes beyond books. but it is important to actually do an overview of "the last white man". the character suffers through these apocalyptic changes as violence escalates as whites disappear. pale skinned militants in camo stock the streets, attacking people with immunity from the cops. but a coleman settles upon the world once whites disappear from its face forever. a book like this, which is somewhere between racial extermination astute literature with a kind of wistful touch,

and liberal pornography, can only be written about one group. and that privilege is reserved for white. >> this level, any novel that explores and grapples racism through motifs is not racial extremism or pornography, it is a critical view of our society. one of the few ways to begin to enact change is to extract empathy. it is a quick read, only 180 pages, you can read it in an afternoon. although if tucker and his guest credits, they did not take the time to try to understand it. the award-winning author of today's velshi band book club feature , "the last white man" by mohsin hamid . . and speci. don't miss out. get started today. on medicare? have diabetes?

with the freestyle libre 3 system you'll know your glucose and where it's headed no fingersticks needed. covered by medicare for more people managing diabetes with insulin. visit freestylelibre.us/medicare everybody wants super straight, super white teeth. they want that hollywood white smile. new sensodyne clinical white provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients. did you know that if you shave, 1/3rd of what you remove is skin? (♪♪) new dove helps repair it. so, if you shave it? (♪♪) dove it new dove replenish your skin after every shave. this summer. subway is making snacking history. first, epic footlong cookies, churros, and pretzel's. now, all new $3 footlong dippers. is there a hall of fame for snacks? find your perfect footlong snack at subway today. i thought i was sleeping ok... but i was waking up so tired.

then i tried new zzzquil sleep nasal strips. their four—point lift design opens my nose for maximum air flow. so, i breathe better. and we both sleep better. and stay married.

sorry girl sorry girl team usa is back! let's see that enhanced 4k from xfinity. wow. everything you'd want is right here when you say... “olympics” so, what if your favorite athlete is... "grant hollowa”" nice. or you can't get enough... “swimming” definitely adding that to favorites. now let's check... “medal coun”"

and when is gymnastics on? “olympic schedule” it's that easy. find it, see it, count on it with the best seat in the house. get the fastest connection to paris with xfinity. welcome to the velshi banned book club. i want to include an authors note that was included in my copy of "the last white man" . this novel's beginning can be traced back to september 11th, 2001. after that day, many things changed for me. i was 30 then and lived 18

years in the west. i had always been a brown man with a muslim name. that had not changed. and yet something had changed. it took some time for me to understand what it was. i had lost my whiteness.". this idea of whiteness is the central theme of your book. tell me about how this relates to you. >> so, around 9/11, i was living in new york, i had a well-paying job. of course, i encountered discrimination, but i would not say it was a major factor in my life. after 9/11, i suddenly noticed that people were looking at me differently. i was getting stopped at the airport, people would get up on the subway and change seats. suddenly, this idea of who i was had changed, although i had not changed. and i think that notion of being somehow not quite just a person had a huge impact on me.

in a sense, whiteness is about being a white person in society in the u.s. and whiteness is no longer being a person, it is being something else, something other. >> talk to me about your use of surrealism and why you use it so much in your writing in general, including in "the last white man" to tell the story . >> i think what is happening is what we call reality is not entirely real. the more we realize we are creating reality. the color blue is not blue, it is green reflecting off of an object. similarly, you know, who we are is a story we tell about ourselves. our race is something we imagine to exist. and so what playing with reality in a novel allows us to do is to tweak those moments. what would happen if we imagined things differently? >> i want to discuss which in the book. white and whiteness are used in the book, but never other labels about color, like black, for instance. tell me about that. >> i think that is, in a sense,

whiteness was invented. up until some centuries ago, people belonged to a particular tribe or a particular group, their ethnicity. but the idea of a whiteness really comes to us from spain when muslims were pushed out of spain. people were trying to figure out, well, what if you are pretending to be a christian? what if you have, you know, deep down, some muslim or jewish background? and they come up with this notion that, well, if you are descended from africa two or three generations, perhaps you are not really spanish, not really one of us. in this notion was invented, colonialism start, and whiteness goes with it. the invention of whiteness is the beginning. the other races are then of course invented to be in opposition to whiteness. >> una and anders eventually have a daughter that does not

remember anyone being white and he only hears stories from her grandmother. the years went by swiftly for anders and una , more and more swiftly, as they do for all of us. and will memories of whiteness receded, memories of whiteness linger too. when her daughter arrived and grew fast, too fast, into a woman, they wanted to give her things from before, her inheritance, and they spoke of whiteness then. speak on the book in the next generation. >> the way the world changes often, it is not necessarily that we are transformed individuals, our ways of seeing things are transformed. but the big way in which human society changes is that, you know, old people die in young people grow up. as young people grow up, they have different views. and so the daughter is growing up in a world where you are unable to tell what race somebody is by looking at them. everybody is some shade of brown. and growing up like that, she is not burdened, in a sense, by

the concept of race that we have today. and for me, i think race is something we have invented into existence and has a terrible power. but because we imagine that into existence, we can imagine it out of existence. >> i want to talk about una's racist mother. before she turns brown. you wrote, she was active online, listen to the radio, and watched the news. you come to believe that she was, on the inside, among the elect. those wonders of the plot, the plot her daughters that was ridiculous, a plot that had been building for years, for decades, maybe centuries, a plot against their kind.". it feels like something people may say today. >> absolutely. we are living in a moment where human culture and machine culture is changing. are you likely or not likely? are you like this or not like this?

and as we become more immersed in social media and other forms of machine culture, we ourselves are becoming obsessed with sorting. what is my kind? are you like me? what is happening to my kind? are you a threat? because we are told that we are interested because we have privileged information about threats, it is all around the world, russia, pakistan, the u.s., we believe that our group doesn't face some enormous threat and that we must save it. >> i touch on the controversy surrounding this book, something i do not typically do. the tucker carlson statement to describe the book as antiwhite or racist. what is the word he used? extermination, something about exterminating white people in liberal pornography. i do not typically get too far into how others react to this stuff because it is all the same nonsense, but that is pretty extreme. they had some choice words for your book. >> i do not think they read it. the book has four characters that are white, they think of themselves as white, and there

is no extermination. there is no death of white people. it is people turning brown and being recognized in a racial way. that in a sense might feel to some people like and extermination. and i think that so many of us are grappling with the loss of physical identity, whether that is face -- faith, religion. as we get older and we see these pillars begin to disappear or become a shaky, it can feel to us like a personal extermination, but it is not. in fact, it is the way of things. humans lose these things, we lose everything in our lives by the end. it is trying to dignify that sense of loss without having dignity necessarily to the loss. una's mother can feel powerfully that she is losing something, and we can feel for her losing that . we are not necessarily recognizing the thing that she has lost. >> giving dignity to the sense of loss without giving

attention to the thing that is lost. thank you for joining us. is the author of the velshi banned book feature , "the last white man". do not forget , velshi is available as a podcast free and available wherever you get your podcasts. you can also watch velshi on youtube . stay right where you are. the kt bank show starts right now. >> i am katie phang life from the studios in florida. florid. >> why didn't he do it