and rights activist said there was never a chance of a democratic process in the 1st place if you thought a country which is now working health care. human rights violation. somebody's very in jail who's going to be happy and maybe 8 percent no it doesn't make sense. because so. many people we spoke to here say they wanted change it looks like they won't get it. malcolm webb al-jazeera brazzaville republic of congo . this is al jazeera and these are the headlines japan's prime minister says north korea has far too ballistic missiles yes he does so guesses they fell outside japan's exclusive economic zone so korean and u.s. intelligence are now analyzing the launches. at least 300000 brazilians have died from cold with 19 president general sanaa has repeatedly don't play the threat of

the virus from the outset but has no caved to maintain pressure and announced a national committee to tackle the crisis want to see an accurate has more from rio de janeiro. practive of a fellow like brazil in the world of united states the united states has the vax the vaccines are coming in whereas here are the vaccines you slow hospitals are for medicine to intubate patients there is running low so it's everything nothing is really working and although there was this decision to finally have a national committee the 1st meeting already showed some differences president walked out of the meeting talking about preventive medicine which in this case here means you think all the medicines that have not been proven to prevent.

the european union and the u.k. appear to still be in a collision course of events in surprise as the book faces a 3rd wave of coronavirus is set to tighten rules the e.u. . exposing vaccines and spies of the astra zeneca job the central issue here is say to for ginia has abolished the death penalty 1300 people have been executed there since its findings a colony 4 centuries ago so 23rd states to do so governor rolf northam says capital punishment has no place in the states the south or the nation yes president joe biden has pointed calmly harris to manage these steady influx of migrants at the southern border vice president will lead serious efforts with mexico to stem the flow of migration and that's here to date keep it here on al-jazeera the bottom line is up next a fight. hi

i'm steve clemons and i have a question after all the drama that came with the 2020 election will it become harder or easier to vote in the united states let's get to the bottom line. one of the biggest political battles this year will be over voting and elections millions of americans led by former president donald trump still don't believe in the results of the last election they call it stolen so ironically instead of celebrating the record breaking number of americans who voted in november for both republicans and democrats this too is dividing the country today we have new proposals for laws in 33 states to restrict how people register and how they vote mostly coming from republican politicians in the u.s.

senate the democrats are pushing a bill that would widely increase registered voters and make voting easier republicans say the democratic proposals would lead to chaos and a fraud democrats say the republican restrictions amount to voter suppression especially among the disadvantaged so the country is torn in 2 opposite directions but which way will it go to figure this out we're joined by city quote reynolds the c.e.o. of the urban league in louisville kentucky the urban league is america's oldest movement focused on empowering african-americans and john fund a columnist with the national review and author of the book stealing elections how voter fraud threatens our democracy thank you both for joining me today john let me start with you you've written a very compelling very powerful piece called h.r. one must be stopped which is the voting rights legislation that nancy pelosi has had successfully passed in the house and is has gone over to the senate i guess my question to you would be what is your concern about that after we had so many voters turn out in the last election what are the primary concerns you have about

cost of fighting that and further expanding voter access. well we have a divided country when it comes to the legitimacy of elections you pointed out that about a 3rd of donald trump's supporters believe the election wasn't legitimate or counted fairly. but a poll by scott rasmussen taken just last month found that a 3rd of democrats still believe that the 2016 election was either stolen or the votes were not counted fairly citing everything from russian interference to computer voting machines scandals and i'll remind you that democrats in the house of representatives objected to the results in 7 states 'd certifying those results so both sides have an enormous number of people who have basic questions about the fairness of our system 2 thirds of americans so what do you have what do you do when you have such a divided country you have bipartisan legislation in 2002 we had the help america

vote act it was a bipartisan piece of legislation passed by a republican congress and signed by president bush. stressed dodd the democratic sponsor said this bill does what every election should bill should do at the same time it makes it easier to vote and it makes it harder to cheat where americans we can do both at the same time in contrast to that when h.r. one passed in the house of representatives not a single republican voted for it not one so you have to ask yourself how long lasting with these changes be until the next party upheaval that brought in a republican majority perhaps only that long and how much credibility with they have with the 2 voters who already think that the system is rigged against their own beliefs so we need bipartisan support we don't need a one size fits all federal takeover of elections which has 0 bipartisan support so

john let me just follow up on one point here which is what is the republican agenda today as your. francine a piece of legislation i admit it would be great it would bipartisan but decades ago what is the forward leaning republican legislation on voter scaffolding and voter expansion and how to make this process easier and frankly modern i mean it is remarkable how unmodern the voting system is in some places in this country. well we don't spend nearly enough on election infrastructure and as we should the reason why you sometimes take money from your a.t.m. machine at the bank and you don't always count every bill is because you trust that machine but that machine cost about 8 times more than the government electronic voting machine that most states use so i'm not going to go get into the fact of whether or not the election results and computer terminals are accurate i think they are but the real problem is we don't invest as much in our election

infrastructure we don't increase the confidence level to the point that we should ask for expanding voting i think early voting is far superior to absentee or all mail in voting conducted under the supervision of government employees it's still 'd a secret ballot which mail and voting is not and i would much prefer that be expanded and i also would consider perhaps we should as the former mayor of atlanta andrew young said and perhaps we should change our national election day maybe it should be on a sunday maybe it should be having tuesday declared a national holiday all of these things are possible but they're not possible if you have a one size fits all take over of things like the federal election commission which has always been divided equally between the parties but in h.r. 11 party would have a majority and would be able to ram through any changes that it wishes including changes that have clear partisan advantages to sit equal one of the things we've

seen in places like louisville kentucky but throughout america is an uptick in voter participation and voter engagement we and this has happened during a time of national crisis when given the pandemic when i think literally the 1st time in my life everything has gone digital and we've been moved from the analog world to the digital world but particularly the african-american community as well and i just be upset to get your dashboard your sense of this voting rights act and what dimensions of it are most him. horton to you and maybe any thought you have a response or something to john to share sure absolutely thank you for having 'd me here and i appreciate let me let me start with the things that john and i agree on i think that early voting is very important as it is really fundamental and it's something that we should see expanded to the extent that we have things that were improved because of that and me to the extent that we were able to rely on technology in early voting in those things that really allowed people to engage more freely in the process i think those are things that we need to focus on and

enhance it is it is wrong though to not talk about the bills and the things that have been introduced across this country by republicans that really do lead to less voter access i think you we cannot avoid this conversation and while i do appreciate the need for bipartisan legislation and i certainly hope that someday we can get to that point the reality is there's just no evidence that we're going to get there now in this country in this climate and i think that's important for us to really have a conversation about it seems to me and i heard you know the information that was shared earlier around how democrats might feel about a 2060 election how people feel about a 2020 alexion but at the end of the day well the feel is not the point the issue is what can you prove and there is no overwhelming evidence that voter fraud exist in any way shape or form that is something that we need to address in the way that

republicans talk about it's just not as extensive i'm not saying that there isn't some of that sure there's fog in everything but is there an overwhelming evidence mountain of evidence that say is we have to do something the answer to that is no but what is what we do have evidence of is voter suppression and when you look at these these bills that have been introduced when you look across the country and you see the things that are being put on black and brown. communities you understand that the issue here really is about reducing voter access there are people in this country that don't want to see black and brown people participate they just don't they want a certain group of people to be able to control the outcomes and that's what we cannot have we cannot have it any longer so while again i certainly wish that we could have bipartisan legislation i certainly wish that we come to some agreement i just don't think that can happen right now so the answer is in my view to do

whatever it takes to ensure the most greatest number of people can protest the paper in this democracy because that is the only way to actually secure the democracy so what are some of the steps that can be taken so that we can get a high trust a voting environment as opposed to one where people are really skeptical. well i mean 1st of all if you think that we need early voting so that you have people actually able to participate i do think that absentee ballots work in many places we should have no excuse i mean we should do that i think that you have to have elected officials who actually respect the outcomes so if you look at what happened in this 2020 lection you have a president who is claiming that the election was stolen but if you look across the country and there were republicans who won all over the place and in fact there were republicans who were actually in charge of the election but the party that really won the majority of the vote in many many cases was claiming that they lost

and that the election was stolen so i think there is a lot of responsibility to be placed on the elected officials who get on television and use the media to say things that they know just flat out are not true i mean that leads to a lack of trust and that happens quite often and we've got to talk about we've got to begin to address that i think there have to be consequences for that and i think we really need to point out again you have a president who lost the election and other people in their party who want across the board and still they were willing to say this somehow every election was stolen but there's it just doesn't make sense and so we do not get to suspend our common sense when we're talking about election fraud but we can look at how we are engaging in suppression i mean if you think about even who gets to run why would people be upset around a match if you're able to raise money and then there is

a matching component to that so that you have more people who are you know regular folks who are unable were engaged in the process what is wrong with that why do we want the wealthiest people in this country to continue to be able to run or continue to be able to fund these elections and then control the outcomes right why wouldn't you want a woman to be able to pay for childcare if she's. raise money but you let a man pay for a tuxedo those are things that don't make sense to me they don't make sense to anyone because they're not fair we still have more than 75 percent of our congressional representation they're white with more than 74 percent are men so i think what republicans fear is not voter fraud they fear voter access they fear voter likes they fear a real system that includes everyone where everybody gets to speak and we get to decide who represents us and how they represent us and how long they represent us because some of these folks need to be sent home right rat and republicans so we

need voter reform and it is absolutely necessary for us to ensure that this country really becomes its great is i know this country can make a right john i'm not asking you to represent president trump but any president trump was asking for states not to be able to conduct elections the way they were and he failed completely so the system worked. look states have 34 states have voter id laws of some form or another the national bureau of economic research looked at 10 years of data and they concluded that voter id laws quote have no negative effect on registration or turnout overall or for any group defined by race gender age or party affiliation i do not believe there is this mountain of evidence that there is voter suppression out there i believe we should take every some reasonable step possible to ensure access to the

polls we fought a great civil rights struggle in the 1960 s. over that we need to preserve and extend those gains but and voter i.d. laws there is no evidence that they lead to lower turnout in every election minority turnout goes up not down despite all the distance of these voter id laws what he calls one would do is basically tell the states you can have voter id laws you may have them on the books but if somebody wants to go in and simply say i am who i say i am they're going to be allowed to vote nullifying the basic law you're getting to me of 34 individual me i finish place yet you're going to 34 individual states and there are laws in the debate that took place in those states in which there was a reason for putting in those laws as for whether or not candidates want to deny whether or not they lost or not what president trump did was completely deplorable i think what stacey abrams did in georgia she still hasn't conceded the race for governor of georgia now i'd like to ask you do you believe that stacy abrams should

concede the race finally after 3 years and say look i lost the race for governor of georgia this happens in both political parties and you can't put it on one political party i certainly don't so there's no perfection in either these are these unfortunate as i see it when finally you can see yes or no now are you going to let me finish let's just answer yes or no no you don't get to tell me what's answer when you just wait one second and allow me to think you want to answer. what i'm going to do is answer when i'm ready but what i want to do 1st is say this we are still in a fight for perfect union in america and you are correct that there is there are flaws with both of these parties that being said i don't think our concession at this point matters one way or the other the issue is that we do have to ensure that people have access to vote we have to make sure that people who are alive and well and intending to vote are not purged from election rolls and that is what happened

in georgia and you understand that and so did president trump the arguments are very different the 2 but i want to talk about voter access i think this is important when you talk about the laws for example let's look at texas the legislation they are they are proposing that no no that's not wrong that's not right they actually had this in texas if you have a gun license you can vote with your gun license i.d. but a student i.d. doesn't work why does that matter because 80 percent of gun holders in texas are white and 50 percent of the students people are people of color so i want you to understand that we understand what is being done here and it is it doesn't always say this is about black people and brown people but we understand the impact so if we're really going to have bipartisan legislation or even a bipartisan conversation well let's start with the truth you know let's start with the truth of the unintended and the intended consequences i am happy to have these

discussions i think they are the right thing to do for this country that i love so much and it seems to me that you love so if that is the case let us on some common ground but let's not start with dishonesty john would you let me and i think maybe just finished yet yes your question regarding her shouldn't id and gun i mean that's a good question did not ask you a question well i make the issue and i like the answer but again we're again i'd like to. answer it i talked to congressman henry quaoar who is the democrat or represents laredo texas in the house of representatives and he had a perfect explanation for why this is the case of a gun license you have to show i.d. a photo id to get the gun license so that process is already been taken care of a student id does not require you to show any kind of id other than the fact that you're a student at the university which means that if you're under occupation it and you

have absolutely no right to vote as a non-citizen you can still get a student id so allowing someone who has a student i.d. to vote would basically be saying if you're on documented all you have to do is get a student i.d. to vote and there were no questions asked which is a complete work around of the voter id law that's in place in texas so you're comparing apples with oranges and that is the answer from a democratic congressman to me and again it doesn't matter to me if is a democratic congressman or republican congressman the issue should be a not artists what if we want to really talk about policy change and we really care about voter access and who is allowed to have a place in this country we shouldn't be speaking as republicans or democrats we should simply be speaking as americans and what i am saying is there is no evidence that there's overwhelming voter fraud but people who are not registered to vote in this country you just don't have the evidence we have anecdotal information that is all in something you don't know and you know when we'll talk about whether or not

even when using a fake at the to get a gun license you think that doesn't happen but yet we're still ready to assume that every gun license holder is qualified to be a voter watch because of race and racism that is just the truth at the base of this argument and we have to talk about that and if nothing else has exposed the damage that racism is done in this country certainly to god it is this pandemic and all of the separations in the way that it has impacted our country and my community so let's have some real conversations around that. john do you look at gerrymandering as a problem in the united states how would you approach that do you look at a problem that transparency is bad for democracy just interested in how you would deal with those dimensions of that bill well again the constitution gives the primary role in conducting the time manner and place of elections to the states and many states have disclosure laws many states have campaign finance restrictions

many states have transparency laws and some are models for the rest of the country and some are adapted to local conditions i would simply say again a one size fits all doesn't make any sense it's parts of h.r. one would make it illegal illegal to question the validity of the voter registration rolls because that would be viewed as a form of voter suppression but the pew research center very recently came out with a study that said one out of 6 voter registrations in the country are outdated inaccurate or false and the problem with h.r. one is it would mandate that every state take every government record whether it's an unemployment record whether it's a driver's or just ration record and they would have to register automatically everyone on that list including duplications but which would make the current sloppy state of our voter registrations even worse and many state secretaries of state including democrats are paula that this power would be taken away from them and your views on gerrymandering. well i wrote the very 1st articles on

gerrymandering because i experienced it as a staff member in the california state legislature the 1980 s. and i opposed it when republicans were doing it i opposed it when democrats were doing it gerrymandering probably should be handled by a commission my favorite version is iowa's where a computer draws the lines and it doesn't even take into account where incumbents live but that's a state decision and the see us supreme court has ruled on that i do not believe that the gerrymandering provision of h.r. one would pass muster with the latest supreme court decision on gerrymandering so it's an exercise in bloviation it's not going to go anywhere and it's providing false hope for gerrymandering reform german reform has to come at the state level and i encourage it so when it comes to kentucky and your constituents that you're dealing with i don't know the kentucky scene well is that is that something where some of these other provisions on transparency of political donations which you were just talking about for the small donor but also for the large donors and these

provisions about gerrymandering reform as john just talked about would those make a difference in your political climate oh of course doesn't make a difference everywhere and i think that's why it's important for us to have political consistency and that's why it's so important for the federal government to be engaged there i mean at the end of the day we all agree gerrymandering is really about limiting you know people's access and their ability to be represented and sell to the extent that we can have draws a lot a lot of strong in a neutral way that is exactly what we need so again my friend not here may have found another place where we actually can agree i think it should not matter where the elected official lives or or who is in that district you know i mean to date that has been really focused on race and controlling political outcomes but this it really is if we're drawing lines really just about the numbers and what makes sense

i think that would be great across the country but i. cannot imagine that states can be trusted to do that individually independently i think we do need the federal government in h.r. one matters and it ship paths just real quickly john i've been intrigued you know i know the differences between the 2 of you have been in fascinating list of the similarities and that are there you're neither of you are are elected to this role but if i were to get you together to solve this problem could you draft something and say hey here are the areas the equities said america should be concerned about and there is opportunity for a bipartisan agreement he would you agree with that john oh yes and i think a lot of the people pushing h.r. one have not fully consulted the groups that they have shall we say decided to speak for for example on voter id laws and none of the points i made on voter id laws were challenged including the fact that turnout continues to go up as long as these voter id laws continue to be passed every single survey every single survey without exception including one taken its monthly show

a majority of african-american support voter id laws a majority of hispanics support voter id laws a majority 'd of asian americans were voter id laws so i think the 1st area of common agreement might be let's actually consult real people in real voters what their priorities are and rather than have special interest groups whether it's on the right or left come up with their lists let's have a much broader debate in this having at the state level rather than stuff everything into a bill that's 900 pages long that has passed without a single bipartisan shred of support and rushed through right in the matter of weeks without even hearings there were no beginnings on this here oh well nearly as a good bill and the voter out to vote or increase voter participation write the creation of voter id laws is ridiculous and i just didn't think i needed to address it but now that i have there it is well we're going to have to leave this one there we're going to have to leave this one there are 4 states have it and then they have

it but that's not why not. well they showed up because they were never. going to think. because of this so whatever it was they're out there we had i thought i had you all overlapping but really not the case i want to thank citicorp reynolds c.e.o. of the urban league in louisville kentucky and john fund column this with the national review online thank you both so much for being with us today thank you thank you so what's the bottom line why can't there be a bipartisan effort that keeps american elections easily accessible and secure at the same time wouldn't both sides like to take credit for upgrading and modernizing the way americans vote online registration is that such an impossible task in the 21st century and wouldn't that be the appropriate way to celebrate the historic turnout of 2021 a record number of americans voted and mail in voting worked without widespread fraud without virtually no fraud of course not instead the parties today are going

to spend their time accusing each other of trying to undermine democracy the country will still be pulled in opposite directions with some states expanding voting rights and others restricting them somehow these united states keep feeling more and more divided and that's the bottom line. a footballer. and a pioneer of british sport he lost the chance to play for his country one

a legal battle paved the way for a generation of brazilian players. footballing legend eric cantona introduces off one seed of. buyers club for his political beliefs he took power into his own hands and blazed the trail for players rights. from the al-jazeera london. to people in full conversation. with no host and no limitation society has structural racism built into it. and i don't rather low paid people tend to be migrant labor disproportionately women in care what comes down to prejudice few d.a.p. unscripted and. we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world.

bringing you the news and current affairs that matter to tease. out a zinger. he did in doha with the top stories on al-jazeera japan says north korea has far too ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast they were launched from south hamdy on province south korean and u.s. intelligence authorities are analyzing the incidents live now it's iraq mcbride she joins us from saw rob how significant is this if indeed they turn out to be ballistic missiles. this is what the job.