everyone who lives alone has been forced to be socially isolated for the 1st time ever highlighting its effect on physical and mental health and discovering unique ways of coping. controlling, being alone to get back to of all hail the locked down on al jazeera. ah, of him wrong caught in the top stories on al jazeera kennedy as president as dismissed the prime minister and suspended parliament for 30 days. kind of said made the decision off to protest over the handling of the current of ours pandemic and a struggling economy. he insists the movies label. i don't, i don't, i wouldn't. you have to have a sudden the 1st decision is to freeze all the powers of the parliament. if the constitution does not allow the parliament to be dissolved. but it does not stand in the way of freezing all it's worth. otto said. the 2nd decision is to lift the

immunity of all members of parliament. and for those of whom a cases related says, i will take care over the public prosecution. the head of unity is ruling and other party, russia gunner, she is describing the president's move as a qu, that was a stand of outside parliament as canoe she and other ministers were prevented from entering. he's calling on demons. a support is to demonstrate cut out sentence. not decisions have no basis in the constitution, nor in the law, and we are against them. because in short, it is against the constitution against the revolution and against public and private liberties in the country. the president meet misinterpretations that actually clashes with the reality of a senior us general has asked strikes in support of the afghan government will continue for the next few weeks. as the taliban continues to control more parts of the country, the head of central command,

general kenneth mackenzie declined to say if the strikes will continue after the us mostly withdraws or the end of august. but he said logistical support will still be provided prison by to set a date of 31 august furthest station of our of our campaign. here. after that date, we will still provide significant logistics support to the afghan military. we will still provide significant logistics support in particular to the afghan air force through maintenance here on the ground as well as maintenance at advanced bases in our, in the central and the central command theater. so all of those things will continue . so we will continue to support the afghan forces even after that 31 august date. it will generally be from over the horizon. thailand has reported its highest number of new corona virus cases. since the pandemic, again, more than 15300 infections have been confirmed. hospital beds in the capitol, bangkok are capacity, and people have been reportedly dying in the homes because there was no space to

treat them. tony chang has more from bangkok. medical services are under extraordinary pressure. the moment we've seen in some cases hospital spilling over there. that covert woods out into the car parks of those hospitals until they can get people into the facilities to be treated. in some cases, people who are positive but not symptomatic of being told to remain in their homes . other people who've been treated and don't have severe symptoms of being sent home early, but told to isolate it's really a big problem for the government and fight in some cases we've. we've also seen very well documented on social media here in town or instances when people have dropped dead in the street with and tested positive cove at 19 religious parliament is holding a special session to discuss the government's current of ours plans after a 7 month suspension due to the pandemic, the country is facing a new wave of infections fueled by the delta vary health workers,

say the system is struggling, thousands are going on strike across the country in a protest against pay and conditions. and china is blaming the u. s. cellmate in relations, accusing it of creating an imaginary enemy that says, u. s. deputy secretary of state when the sherman meets her counterpart. sure thing in the engine sherman's the highest ranking official to visit from the biden administration. and protest of gathered in manila, philippine presidents rodrigo detect, profess to deliver his last state of the nation address before the end of his crowd, the march into the street, some holding signs protesting, due to the so called war and trucks and organizes of the tokyo olympic games they moved and 70000000 people in the whole nation. watch the opening ceremony leading up to the games pole suggested more than 80 percent of the locals were opposed to the events bows. other headlines. the news continues on out there off the bottom line. ah

. i am steve clements, i have a question. you know how people always say us politics weren't so toxic in the good old days? well, really, or is it all pretty much the same, but our memories are shoddy. let's get to the bottom line. ah, spanish philosopher george pantheon is famous for saying those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. even though really big surprises can happen and change everything. the truth is that if you hang around long enough, you'll see the same cycles repeat themselves, especially in politics. at least that's the message that i get from reading the memoirs of my guest today, who had a front seat well more like a front podium to decades of american history. he is chris matthews, long time robbing d. c. bureau chief of the san francisco examiner speechwriter for president jimmy carter, former host of the tv show, hardball and m s n b c, which was

a political institution for more than 20 years. he retired last year and recently published his autobiography, this country, my life in politics and history. chris matthews is terrific that have you with us today. let me just ask you about the frame you have. what i read about you getting into politics coming out of the, you know, the catholic scene and in, in pennsylvania and, you know, getting a patronage job, you know, all of the inner workings of those political forces at the time. you know, it kind of reminded me that it had kind of a tribal dimension. and so as i look at new tribes emerging in american politics the day, you know, i'm just interested in whether or not we're just at the front end of what it was like when boston catholics were, or philadelphia catholics came in. and how you know, whether or not we're just reliving history and aren't yet quite really realizing it well, i was, i was on chip o'neil's last junket code, you know,

back in 86. it was. it's all related to market. we went everywhere, went ways. aries, we went to brazil. yeah, we went to red rio. we went to whatever way la, we went to dominican republic. it was quite a trip or a lot of business meetings at all, but it was fun. and it wasn't till i when we got to easter sunday in dominican republic and cars with a company that got torn as a golf resort. but i noticed that everybody was a mass. i mean the republic is the democrats, jolly wrangell was there was african american and everybody was there. and i said, what is this group having come? and i knew her all catholic. so i don't know how much the chip and with that put into that. but that's the way it turned out. and i, oh, this is interesting and i think about his power. they were no catholics, but certainly the infinity with jack mirth in the charlie rangel and people like that. and it was interesting. so i guess there was tribes. i know when i 1st went knocking on that, you know,

not your doors on capitol hill and you're getting back to the peace corps. i started with the irish catholics come with i got one, it was bogged up. i will give his name, but he was clearly marked up. they had a terrible expert on him about a body being taken out of his basement. it was a loan shark. this guy was in try and real deeper with the hudson county democratic machine, which was corrupt, certainly then and, and he was much, and they had the tape recordings on him, but working with a local cargo, helping him protect his gambling interest opperation syndicate. so i was a smart move, but that was the way i began looking for a job. i thought the peace corps holy cross where went to college would help me get the door open in those cases, it didn't particularly help. i ended up i radically with tip o'neill for 6 years. we certainly fit the bill. i ended up actually in that case, working for a very devout mormon from utah, bueno. and it was copied to frank marsh, the last liberal senator from utah. but that's how i started off. so yeah,

i guess i had a little weather that the trouble is. mimic, it's really what i really enjoyed about your book in the stories you tell is you tell the great and good you talk about america at its best. you talk about american patriotism, but you have this frame. i mean, you are a cop, you know, got a walking along pennsylvania avenue at night, which i found amusing and we may reflect on that in a minute. but i think there's another side to it, which is if you look at the other myth of american politics, is that it's a melting pot, that we've got people from all backgrounds and races that can come to you. talk about the magic of america being a place that people can come to and be accepted and b and b here, i found it very powerful. but at the same time, when you get into this town in washington, d. c, we've got, you know, right now the democratic party divided into different factions. you know, we've got the left, we've got folks in the center. we've got a jo mansion. we have an ag sandria across your cortez. we have the black and brown communities as you write in your book that are finding their places. and i guess

what i'm trying to figure out is where it comes out or whether this kind of, you know, bumper cars of these different groups is really a lot like what you started out in, in the seventy's. and whether that or, or how we evolved. so that we can actually you know, better. i think the rich question because i remember we used to have these democratic retreats, greenbrier, west virginia, that wonderful. so any bell on resort and i love the fact that we had sort of amateur so i'm sure entertainment nights and you'd have the country western guys, the country guys miss south sing along when you had a dan glickman who's jewish doing al jolson. he was pretty good at all, just not great, but pretty good al jolson. you had a gay member who is openly gay there. and in a wardrobe i selection, i would say is choices. it was a great mixture. liberals concerning northern southern, all kinds of people. they are all democrats,

they were not all homogeneous league politically together. that's for sure. they were southern democrats, meant in those days still. so it was a coalition party. no other than a party of identity or a party. but let's read the right word of ideology was not a party by the ology. today, it's increasingly becoming a part of our idea. ology. the progressive group is getting noisier appropriately, so they come from the big cities generally. they come from minority groups. people of color, generally, they are being heard in every newspaper article, you read it, but in the restructured today, you can't pick up an article, but infrastructure or police, or integration certainly doesn't have voices from that new progressive wing from the minority if you will, wing, and that's all there. now let's do that, or certainly no, they're not just keeping, you know, showing up in the office servers time servers. they're there to make a point and say it and make it message and in fact they're very urgent about it. so

that's different. i think that we have allowed or less than we did back then we have a disappeared right. and there's no more right wing democratic party. and then there's no more real moderate republican party left what's called modern republican day is sort of conservative denmark conservative republicans like appointment. and to me, the northern arizona maybe i guess my susan collins could are many mccallski from alaska. but generally, anybody's not trump, in the bag with trump is called a, a moderate republican now. but the parties are much more like the british parties now today, right, more important, the liberal brittany got the lead, they reported which is left with tony blair one time or it was johnson. when the concern started wet, tory, tory, when you sort of a moderate conservative but clearly the parties are becoming more logical. that's different. you are deep into covering politics. you are also in politics. i want to tell my viewers that you actually ran for congress once you lost the primary,

but you gave it a good go and you went knocking on every door that you could get. get near. you kind of look at that, one of the things you were aware of all the dimensions. and one of the things you write about in the book is, you know, that the rise of trump was related to earlier movements like ross perot and pat buchanan. i would have gone one step further and raised george wallace, who was one of the big race peters in america, and looking at that at that dimension of the george wallace dimensions. but that's been with us for decades and decades and decades. so given your experience, yeah, i know it has a number of pieces to it. part of it is race. nativism. yeah, that's all there also has some new pieces of it that are actually go back to mccarthy. joe mccarthy, n t l e t o n t ivy league, a resentment of people who think they're better than us because of their academic success. i think that's a big, big draw. among the trump, people making fun of the academic lead,

even though he talks about going dependent on the word school. he has a wonderful, i mean, a politically wonderful undertone, a grievance, a resentment. you look at the biggest, more the more cation point in american politics today is probably education. if you've had our an ira higher education and the universe to your college, you are probably not trust me. and probably that's general rule. if you haven't had a higher education, if you work in their hands or your skilled craftsmen, for example, you're probably with trump. so that's, that's because i remember not loyal really one of his speeches on kate, about those who live in our finest houses. those who went to our best universities there, there was basically defending the communist so very much he was always tired and there's a little bit of an eye semitism in it to put it lightly with there was a kind of an anti academic elite that trump place on and then of course joe george was to make your point. steve would talk about the point,

the pony headed bureaucrats with their shade cases, with filled with peanut butter sandwiches. you know, you have a way of putting down there or, or bureaucratic elite ism making them look like fraud, which is what he wanted to do. they weren't really smart, but they were carried out to shake his around to make himself looks martin official . yeah, this, these are common strange databases or racism, certainly ethnic credulous and anti lee and the academic lead or in the strange going back the path you can. and i mean, kind of would say things like how that brandeis football team doing this year. he had very clever ways to get to get a lot of people and he knew what he's talking do. there was a pro life crowd that had a lot of that they got it to get along with their own pro life position. it's donald trump, a patriot no. the great thing our country has going for it has been, has been the much miraculous marriage,

honest elections. every 2 years for congress going back to 1789 or residential election every 4 years. this absolute belief in our electoral system, electric college, to the point where hillary clinton would lose by when by 404000000 vote in the pocket of just next morning. and now she lost with great grace the same of the gore . same with jack with nixon, but i can 60, when he met with jack kennedy after a very tricky elation. chicago with questions about dead people voting, instill he's new for the go to the country. how you should meet with kennedy did that following monday. they drag, coax, they go down the key miss game, whiskey hotel, and my god, he just gave it to jack case. it's all yours. you have one, but there be no interruption or leadership during the call or was grand. even ted kennedy came out, said after dixon died said what would grace next and showed in that election and

accepting its results. and he had reasons for complaint because texas had no procedure for re recounting. and there's certainly questions about cook county under dick daily. so that all the family fathers just didn't put that in. they didn't. you must concede defeat, you can, but it's almost like he has broken the unwritten role american politics. i have love that glory didn't concession speak a stories? are you with our producers and abortions on campus? please make a point to show as many concessions spaces as you can. i'll actually because it's what makes elections of the sacraments because they're, they're absolutely faithful to the democratic will. and even the guy or woman who lose the said so that i last i let down my supporters. i said the verdict, the majority. i lost he or she won. and hillary, don't everybody, john kerry john mccain. everybody has done that due to going back that certainly in my life and stevenson, when he said beautifully,

i'm too old to cry. but to it hurts too much to laugh. well, that's what we want from our leaders. is grace under pressure, and defeat. well, what chris, one of the things that gave me chills reading your book was the part the part of history that i didn't know. i guess it was in the sixty's. you can correct that if i'm wrong, when there was a bomb place in the rotunda of the capital, and that there were protests at that time. and protesters coming up the capital and that a congress person at that time told you, wow, i was worried what the police would do to these young kids out there out there, protesting. but it reminded me of just, you know, a flashback. but in that time, they did not break through to the capital. they did not bomb the rotunda that didn't come through. but we saw another point in history with a very different outcome. yeah, that was bill. actually the very anti war woman who were that had famous for where you had from the west side. she was very nice. she came up to me. she said, how like a regular person working person said my feet are killing,

be to just chatting with me. can you, are you are you say, i mean, you know, for my by monday party miller haircut my short here and everything. and, and she was very warm and friendly, very friendly. and there also was a guy, a tourist, in that same vein who came up to me when i was i was sort of controlling the west front of the capital red before the demonstration. this was the made a demonstration of 1971. and he said he wants for me. i couldn't take you to tell you how much contempt i had to that person. he thought i was so sorry that we would like batting people over the head with a night stick. i don't know what he thought, but he thought that was cute to come up to be in to him once for me. but in tribute to the police leadership and notice day it was better than it is this year, january sets because to be prepared. i remember going down in the lower floor of the cab, i forget whether it was the mezzanine or it was the basement. there was a whole force of the shred team, people,

all in riot gear. how much shields everything ready to go to work. if anybody did something really cause trouble, they kept them in reserve. just think it, they had done that simple thing. of having a cavalry really ready up on the hill. it says on january 6, then they could have rushed to the doors with their shields, their right, you're stopped everybody calling in the capital and prevented the whole thing. but the leadership and the charges at arm and the leadership of the house, the senate didn't do that. they didn't prepare for the worst and then they left their patrol and their regular officers to face that frightening mob with their regular civilian. that's their day to day, uniforms, day to day equipment. you know, they need to have night clubs. they know that he was guns, they really couldn't use and so they weren't supposed to kill. you can set fire with window, mob americans like that. you can't use it. fire power, you can't, you. you can use that kind of violent force against the markets who are

demonstrating even if so forcefully. you can't just shoot people down, but they're not going basically disarmed attack will be disarmed. the face that bob, that training mom and i believe it in the leaders. i want to see the best a geisha, i know why i know why the leaders wouldn't want investigation. why didn't you equip your rank and file police officers with the equipment and the backup? they needed that day. they needed back up, right. and they did it back in 71. they didn't do it this time. they didn't give them back up. okay, one of the question i want to get to and it kind of addresses in part, you know, when you left m. s. ebc and there was some, you know, turmoil around that at that moment. but i want to ask you quick when you read your book and you were john paul seconds, you know you were when the berlin wall came down. you were, you saw hungry, went and hungry, but the soviets were, were doing this. you saw these moments in an american life where, which were tense and lot of things happening. i'm just wondering if somehow the framing that our newer generations are bringing to america and

a lot of the debates where we have right now are somehow they've got amnesia about all these other contributions of what it took to become an american. and whether or not we're brad more fragile is a nation that we thing. and in terms of referencing the case of how we compliment each other or something, it seems to me to be so trivial compared to you know, how we dealt with the vietnam war, or how we deal with afghanistan and rock and hard choices out there that you covered, do you think we are falling into a trap becoming too self serious and lost when it comes to some of the big issues that america has to contend with? why need some issues the time has come that we address them? we don't always adjust them. maybe the best possible way, but certainly anesha gender equality at work which is i guess the sort of the context in which i found myself in a situation back last year was i've been a big proponent of that. i mean, i always make sure my sunday shows 5050,

and i was arbitrary about a nancy nate and i, we created this sunday chris matthews show we insisted that every single sunday to be to manager, when we said we're not going to do that. one is that we couldn't find a right well or a game like that. we're going to play games. there's always be equality here in the set, right? when i was a pick executive producers, i pick women generally really smart, best executives. i could find they were women, so i know we needed to move in my wife. when i was an acre woman in d. c. for 15 years, she understood there was an inequality in the way they paid people the way they dealt with people. you can't even anchored banker people. and so i was very sensitive about that, where i was out of date was recognizing really personally recognize that there is something truly wrong about complimenting someone's appearance at work. now everybody from every generation has their own view on it and my view was it was a legitimate complaint. and i could, i said, well i'm out of here. i was going to leave it to nbc nbc to try to put some sort of

snake on me, some punishment, some kid i wasn't going to get involved in that place and okay, there was a complaint, it was honest, it was accurate. it was wrong. what i did was wrong, so now you and it's not, there's never been a clear the reporting on it was, i think, somewhat clear, but not that clear. well, it's certainly in my book, i make it clear what happens all day. i'm going to charleston company to the south carolina primary, the next day i'm out of there. right. so it was going to affect why i think you did a great job explaining, you know, what happened there, but it also raises interesting question of, where are we as a nation, are we, are we tribes that are all fighting each other or we are trying to understand each other have empathy and kind of, you know, build a thing and you, i comes in, i'm going to ask you a question. your chris matthews, run hardball the night. i thought of some topics, you know, maybe you might cover, you know, biden's, belly flop on, you know, the infrastructure deal or might cover, you know, pulling out of afghanistan. or you might cover, you know, the role of jo mansion and whether or not centered or did you do those? i think if restrictions the key thing and as howard baker,

the great former republican leader, the senate was you know, all you need to know about the, from what you learned in arithmetic about 3rd grade. you need 60 votes to break the filibuster. and so by need 60, he may have 55 now, but he need 60 and my question is, can we get the all the way, which is all part? because if i were running the show in the ban schumer's office right now in the white house, i would play hardball. and i would get 1st to make sure that every democrat was aware of all the projects, the roads, building, tunnels, bridges, all that stuff that needs work as well. that should right now in bad shape and their state they're aware of. and they tell their people about get the list county by ken, and that's what i did with frank watson, utah i went through, i didn't so like i was do every county and i list and i felt how many projects were shovel ready, ready to go and should be done into sequentially getting funded. and then i tell everybody in my state, this is why i'm quoting for the restructure bill,

because i need this work done here in my state in your state. i bring the issue home to people don't make it theoretically, big spending issue. democrats, democrats always lose that argument. they are expanders. don't let the issue be spending, make the issue. what needs to be done at home? david guards the great democratic insult, the new york who got everybody like cautioned everybody, lindsey, everybody. he said replace the smell kid decay with the smell of construction, the smell of 3rd being moved. that's where people like, that's not about democratic republic, it's about stuff getting done in the public interest. don't let it be a near radical argument. overspending, where the democrats could well lose the scene a quite not the bill they have to pass, which is the bipartisan infrastructure bill. if they lose that, i think they the republicans roll the table from here to next election november chris, we've got when this, when you get to we've got about 45 seconds to answer. yeah, great. very good. well, i will talk about joe mentioned next time, but i was going to go to a few seconds,

but i just want to ask you one big hardball question. are you a politician? it basically deep down in journalist clothing trying to burst out and how it is, you know, to our viewers who are thinking about politics and journalism. how do you keep those lines? right? and what is chris matthews really? well, what do you do? do is the difference i look at here. i was like mary mcgrory, peggy noonan. you can have a point of view that coincides a lot with one of the 2 political parties. but you have to be honest to your point of view, not the party you have to want to take them down when they're bad, when it's watergate, whatever it is, or monica, whatever it is. you have to be willing to separate your views, which normally coincide with the political party. one political party from loyal to the party itself. you have to be independent a party and to its people. but you can be generally aligned with their points of view. but that's a big difference between being a partisan hack, right? slack working for the d. n. c or the are and see if you're just knocking out press

releases. right. one of the political partners you are a hack. that's what i think. well listen, i think that's pretty strong. the book is this country, my life and politics in history and the author is chris matthews. legendary former tv host of hardball and m s n b c. chris, thank you so much for being with us today. please. clemens. thank you so much for the big audience. so what's the bottom line? my guess today deeply believe that us democracy has its fragile moments, but then in the long run, it's only going to get stronger. i love to share his and shaking faith in this country's ability to correct itself and appeal to with higher angels. the truth is that america and what it stands for has come close to crashing down. so many times before the contest is real folks. there is no hollywood ending where the good folks are guaranteed to win and justice prevails. i hope chris matthews, his right. wouldn't that be nice? but trump ism is winding up for another chance, a bad q and on is america's biggest online conspiracy game. in reality show, it will take all the will and focus and work of americans to keep the country moving in a direction that we could really call democracy. and that's the bottom line

ah, besieged by violent crime and drugs. confronted by racism and integration, era traces, a history generation lebanese australian exploring the conflicts and the struggle for except once upon a time in punch bowl. on our 0, i have always been a hands on washing and asia and africa there'd be days where i'd be choosing and editing my own stories in a refugee camp with no electricity. and right now, where confronting some of the greatest challenges that humanity has ever faced. and

i really believe that the only way we can do that is with compassion and generosity and compromise. because that's the only way we can try to solve any of these problems is together, that are so important we make those connections. ah, i mean, ron kon, in the top stories on al jazeera unity as president has dismissed the prime minister and suspended parliament for the 30 days. case said the decision after protesting the handling of the current of ours pandemic and a struggling economy. i'm not, i don't, i wouldn't you have to have a sudden the 1st decision is to freeze all the powers of the parliament. if the constitution does not allow the parliament to be dissolved, but it does not stand in the way of freezing all its.