press. fantastic book. i know it will be number one just like the other one. no doubt. mark: god bless. see you next time on "life, liberty and levin". ♪ ♪ ♪ ainsley: one week after kim kardashian west visited president trump in the oval office, alice johnson, a 64-year-old grandmother from tennessee, was granted clemency and released from prison for a nonviolent drug conviction. despite receiving a life sentence, alice spent more than two decades rehabilitating herself. a second chance has changed her life forever. ms. johnson, it's so nice to see you. thank you so much for sitting down with us. >> thank you. ainsley: you're welcome. how have you been doing? it's almost been a year. >> this seems so surreal to me, all the things that have

happened over these past months. it seems like i've been free much longer. ainsley: let's talk a little bit about your book, congratulations on your new book. it is "my journey from incarceration to freedom," and it's called after life are, because your faith means so much to you. the most important thing in your life, right? >> the most important thing. my faith sustained me for over two decades. ainsley: you got a life sentence, but knew god has something better for you. >> i knew that god was going to get me out. so many things he promised me he was constantly doing things -- it might seem like small things, but i'd pray forking for somethd it would materialize. if i can take care of the small things, trust me with the big thing. ainsley: tell me what your life was like growing up in this house where your parents were christians, your parents were still together, and it seemed

like a very loving family. >> we never knew we were poor. maybe because we had so much love. my life, it was not optional that we went to church, but i loved church. my family are singers, musicians, prayers. and we, during hard times, we'd sing. we'd always sing. and that singing is one of the things that i did in prison too. i'd always sing. i would take a shower, and i'm singing, and i'm praising god. and people would sometimes stand outside the shower just to hear me sing. but i learned so many lessons during the time that i was growing up from my parents, from their faith. because they always prayed about everything. and i saw the miraculous happen in my own family growing up through prayer. and so the same god of my parents is my god.

i was never hungry. our house was never devoid of love. i had a good childhood. ainsley: you get pregnant at 15 years old, and your mom suspected it, and she came to you and said what? >> she asked me if i was mr. president. if i was pregnant. i told her, yes. it was a very hurtful thing for my parents, because they really trusted me. they decided that it was a good thing for me to be married. apparently, they asked him, and he said yes, but no one asked me if i wanted to be married. so i found out that i was getting married three days after my mother discovered i was pregnant. ainsley: how did you feel about that? >> i tried to run away. i told my older sister, and she told my mother, and she said -- she sent my brother back home to make sure i didn't get away.

ainsley: how many children? >> we had five. we were married for 19 years. ainsley: and then he had an a affair. >> he had many affairs -- [laughter] during the time of our marriage. i think that probably after the first year my husband continued to live. he was young too. he was older than me, but he was still young. he still lived like he was a single man. ainsley: what happened to him? >> we finally divorced after many years of marriage, and he has now remarried, and he's a christian now. so i'm happy for him. ainsley: he became a christian, that's great. so to raise these children, and he wasn't giving you any money, no child support -- >> no, nothing. ainsley: you had to get a job. and that led you to fedex. >> after we broke up for the last time, my first job was at the urban league. and then i got a job with fed education. i was a manager in commuter ops and then -- computer ops, and then i started training people.

ainsley: and then there was a turning point. you meant a man you call ted in the book. and what happened? this. >> i was introduced to gambling. and it seemed so exciting for me, ainsley, but it came with a big price. i started getting behind on my bills, because i'm gambling now. before i did pretty, i'd been pretty level-headed in just making sure i took care of everything, but my gambling losses started to mount up. ainsley: and how did that lead to drugs and what happened next? >> i lost my job. i had -- i would travel, and i'd have, get expense. i spent the expense money for a trip that i was not going on and couldn't pay it back. so i ended up losing my job. because -- ainsley: i was mad at ted because ted said, let me take the money, you'll make it back, and you'll have more money to pay your job back. and he lost the money. >> i didn't get it. i had 30 days to get it back.

he kept promising me that he would have the money back. and when it didn't come back, up until the day of the confrontation when i knew it was over, i still was looking to him to give me that money back. ainsley: how much was it? >> it was not even $5,000. i lost a very good job, and my family would have helped me. but sometimes, ainsley, we're so prideful, i didn't want my family to think that i was a failure or to know what i had done. ainsley: right. >> so once again i hid that. i didn't let them know, and that was another bad mistake. ainsley: and before you started getting involved in the drugs and illegal activity, your son, something happened to your son, your youngest child. >> yes. ainsley: his name was corey, and you called him coco. >> yes. during all of this terrible trauma, the things that were going on, my son corey was killed in a scooter accident. his brother was driving, and

they were hit by another teenager. and we don't know who was at fault. there was a stop sign, there was overhanging trees, and later on they put a stop sign there after my son was killed. but it was terrible. that was a terrible time for me. ainsley: you had to make a decision to take him off of life support, and this was your child that was so affectionate. you say he doted on you, and you doted on him. >> i really did, sometimes i'd feel guilty. and later on i realized i'm glad that i doted on him, because i have those precious memories of coco. he was, i think he was a lot like me. our family loved coco. he was always trying to help people. ainsley: i imagine as a parent that has to be the hardest thing, of everything you've been through, is that the hardest? >> it is. it was and it is the hardest thing. to bury your child. i always thought that my children would bury me, that i'd never have to be faced with

that. and so you know how you have a barometer of pain? nothing compares to that pain. finish. ainsley: how in the world do you get through that? >> one day at a time. like getting through prison, one day, one moment at a time. ainsley: do you think about him every day? >> most days i do. it was months that i cried every day. i'd have my own time of grief every single day. and i couldn't look at his picture. i took all the pictures down. that was very difficult for me. ainsley: i know your faith is so strong, and when people have friends that are going through hard things and they don't understand why god allows hard things, bad things to happen to good people. >> i think for me, trying to deal with it and come to grips, i kept having these dreams about my son. one of the very strong dreams

was i kept seeing the clock, and i thought that if i could just beat the clock and get past that time, that somehow i could stop it from happening. the next morning in the dream i woke up, and it was that same time again. and i kept reliving it and reliving it. and finally, in my dream my son said to me, coco said to me, mama, please let me go. i know you love me, but please let me go. you can't stop this. ainsley: don't make me cry. ♪ ♪ ainsley: you were accused of participating in drug conspiracy. and you said you weren't a dealer, but a telephone mule. explain what that is and how you got involved in it. >> that means that the people who are selling, the people who are dealing, whatever their roles are, they never contact each other. i don't need to know who it is, and i don't really want to know

who it is. you could almost say almost like an operator. they call me, and then i'd make the call and say call this number. and so i'd get paid for that. ainsley: got it. how much did you get paid? >> well, the first time i got $1,000, and i was so happy, because i was able to pay bills, and my house was about to be foreclosed on. i filed for bankruptcy, so that put food on the table. it kept the lights on. and so that was the first money that i got, and i was very excited about it. ainsley: and then after that, how much did you make? >> it would vary are. and it wasn't a continuous thing. i know that even at trial they tried to pretend it was a continuous thing, but it wasn't. i'm the one with all the phone records, so so it was easy to point the finger and say you've to got the phone records, but anyone who's in that business, who's in a drug business knows that the people who are at the top don't connect their phone

numbers. ainsley: on purpose. they don't want the get caught. on purpose they e don't do it because they get the buffer. you've got this person over here, and that's why at trial they couldn't identify me. they just knew me from calling this number. and so even one of the men who was caught had a card with my phone number on it. he didn't know me, he just had a card with my number on it. ainsley: and did you make thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands -- >> oh, i wish i -- not that i had wish i made hundreds of thousands of dollars. absolutely not. even when i came to prison after i was arrested, they looked at my psr, which is your pre-sentence report, and it shows that i'm still behind on bills, i'm still trying to take care of bills. i don't own my car. i wasn't living a big, lavish lifestyle. so i didn't fit. i remember my attorney during his closing arguments, he did say one good thing. said -- he said where's the

beef, that had become popular, where is the money on my client, where is the drugs? where are the drugs? it was just not adding up. but it don't matter if it adds up. iowans what was it like that day when you knew, i'm in trouble? did you get a knock on the door? >> they not only arrested me, they arrested my daughter too. it was horrible. i was so embarrassed for my children to see this, for my children to hear this. for my daughter to be going down to a county jail with me, for her to have to go through what she did, and it was all my fall. i was so hurt for my family too the, because my family had no idea that this was going on in my life. and even with some of the ones who testified against me who talked about coming to my house, my family knows that that couldn't have been true, and my neighbors knew that it wasn't true. my neighbors were questioned about any traffic, any different

people, and -- ainsley: they didn't see any of that. >> they didn't see any of that. and my family, my house was always open. as you know, i come from a very big family. i was always cooking for my family, they'd drop in un announced, so my family could testify to this. they never saw anything strange at my house. ainsley: there were 16 people indicted and 10 testified against you. did they do that on purpose? >> the ones who testified, they've got a lot to gain. they could not do time. they could get reduced sentences or no sentence at all. so that's a big motivation. ainsley: why were you the one that they really pinned all of this on? >> because i went to trial. everyone else took a plea. they had gotten caught with drugs, or they knew that they were facing very long sentences. and really, ainsley, what would you give in exchange for your life? ainsley: and did you have the option to plea? >> yes, i did. ainsley: and your attorney gave you advicesome.

>> yes. i sat down with them, and they said you could do 3-5 years and be out if you'll cooperate. we left the room, my attorney said, don't do it. he says they have no money, they have no drugs, all they have is telephone records. and since those are unrecorded calls, they can't prove that you did anything. so let's go to trial. ainsley: clearly are, bad advice -- >> very, very bad ad vice. ainsley: did he tell you what the consequences were going to be, life behind bars? >> no, i never knew that, ainsley. when i found that out was right before my sentencing. that's when i found out that life was possible for my life was possible for my crimement -- s... s...u... s...u...v... these letters used to mean something. letters earned in backwoods, high hills, and steep dunes. but somewhere along the way, suvs became pretenders,

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iowans not realizing a life sentence was a possibility, alice had to come to grips with her new reality, life behind bars. despite the setback, she never gave up. alice became an ordained minister, mentored prisoners, wrote, directed and produced numerous plays and earned a number of study certificates. >> when they sent me my psr report and my attorney gave me that, when i saw that, i just held the paper for a long time.

i couldn't stop looking at it, because i thought mine has got to be different. and i kept looking at it, and at the bottom it said that those charges came with life. ainsley: judge gibbons, you said, made you sound like you were "el chapo." >> oh, yes. [laughter] ainsley: and you realized that the laws were nonnegotiable. you're a first-time, nonviolent offender, and you could go away for life. so is that day in court she said life plus 25 years and no the parole. >> uh-huh. there's no parole in the federal system. she suggested, she said that she was going to recommend that i go to carswell in fort worth, texas, because they have a mental facility because she felt a woman like myself might need some mental help having to deal with a life sentence. ainsley: and how did you feel about that.

>> i hate to tell you what my thoughts were, but i'll tell you any theway. i thought to myself, you'll lose your mind before i lose mine. ainsley: you were determined. you went in with hope. >> i did. ainsley: in that courtroom that day, your family was there, and you write about the gasp, and then there was just silence. >> yes. ainsley: and they knew their mom, their sister, their little girl was going away for the rest of her life are. and you thought about your dad, and you thought that you had disappointed him. >> i could hear sobbing, and it was the my father. sobbing in the courtroom. everyone was crying. because i wouldn't tell them that i was safe in life. ainsley: i would think, as a mother, not seeing your children grow up, who's going to raise them, how do i know they're going to turn out okay. >> i could not imagine what my children were going to do without me. and everything was, my head was just spinning. what is going -- because still,

e still held out some hope that at my sentencing maybe the judge would have mercy upon me. ainsley: so what was it like behind bars? >> when it became the most real to me, is when i was in that transport vehicle headed to get on a plane to fly over 1500 miles away from my e family. every mile that i was taken was taking me farther and farther and farther away from my family. and i knew that there's no way my children could come out and see me. once arrived in california, started going to law library, i got to make myself knowledgeable. i went into the system very ignorant. but i was not going to remain ignorant. ♪ ♪ ainsley: in prison you were leading bible studies and putting on christmas plays. >> yes. when i arrived in the prison,

one of the things that i saw was i saw hopelessness in the faces of women. well, i wasn't hopeless. and i think that drew people to me too, to know that i had a life sentence, but i'm not hopeless. as i started writing plays and getting women involved in acting, in dancing, i was in the choir, and it wasn't fake for me. i was, i was not happy to be in prison, i was happy to be alive, i was happy to see what i could do for other people, that i could e help them change their lives too. ainsley: did so many lives get changed? do you feel like god used you in prison? i was touched by that. you're putting on the christmas plays and telling people about christ and reading your bible continuously. and then you were reading about the law, and you learn about clemency. and there are 200,000 people that have signed a petition at this point asking for you, for barack obama, president obama,

to give you clemency, right? >> the first time that i applied for clemency, i was denied in 2011. i applied again, i was denied in 2013. and then the clemency initiative came, the clemency project 2014. there was a list of criteria. i knew that not only did i meet that criteria, but i exceeded that criteria. so hope is around everywhere like electricity. my family, my sisters go to white house, they do a candlelight vigil with my big petition with all of these suggests, and they're praying -- signatures, and they're praying. i'm selected to be one of the six prisoners in an ad campaign for smart justice. from the aclu's smart justice campaign. so my face was already getting media attention. and at the end, i had 270,000

people who signed the petition for my freedom, and i just knew that i was going to be granted clemency. but on january the 6th, 2017, i was denied again. ainsley: president trump's in office. >> yes. ainsley: jeff sessions, he has a strong stance on criminal justice reform. right? president trump is elected, did you think -- were you hopeful, or did you think there goes my chance? >> i know this might sound crazy, but i still felt that the i still had a chance. we didn't know what president trump was going to do. we know that he ran a campaign tough on crime, but i've always been a believer that -- in fact, i was standing on that scripture out of proverbs 21:1, that the heart of the king is in the hands of the lord. so i started praying that his

heart would be turned toward me even before kim came on the scene. that was my scripture. and, of course, i was closely watching everything, and i also filed another motion in the courts to get, to get a sentence reduction. so i never stopped fighting. ainsley: i think that people thought in america, like, if you do something wrong, you're supposed -- there are consequences. you get locked up. you don't think about, okay, first time, nonviolent mother, grandmother, great grandmother, maybe we should give her another chance. let's look at her record, what's she doing behind bars. i think your story's changing the prison system. >> i hope so. ainsley: how did your story go viral? >> while i was in prison, i was allowed to do something incredible. there was a youtube and google event, and this was a person at one of the google events that -- actually, youtube event, it

was a criminal justice reform summit. and mr. horowitz was sitting in the audience, and he heard my story and reached out to ask me to do a video op-ed. i struggled financially. i couldn't find a job fast enough. and i did that video op-ed, and the first day that it was dropped, it went viral. the second day, kim saw it. someone she says who she follows tweeted it out to her. she had not been on her phone for days, and when she turned her phone on, she said my face popped up. and i started telling my story. my name is alice marie johnson. i'm a 62-year-old mother, grandmother and great grandmother. and she tweeted out, this is so unfair.

and she contacted her attorney, sean holly, and asked sean holly to find me. and she did, and she asked me, told me that a very wealthy and famous woman wanted to hire her to help me become a free woman. and she asked me, would you like for that to happen? so the rest is history. and kim fought like a wild woman for me. we're finally back out in our yard, but so are they. scotts turf builder triple action. it kills weeds, prevents crabgrass and feeds so grass can thrive, guaranteed. our backyard is back. this is a scotts yard.

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>> live from "america's news headquarters". president trump says the tariffs imposed on chinese goods are having an effect on the marketplace. trump telling the field and on the box so, the next resolution, companies will move production out of china over to vietnam and other countries in asia. trump says u.s. and china have a very strong deal and a good deal but china changed it. president also added any agreement with china cannot be a 5050 deal. australian prime minister ruling

conservative coalition voice to secure an outright majority in parliament. coalition which has been in power for six years now 175 seats on saturday's election one less than 76 needed for a majority but his coalition meeting in two of the five races and have still not been called. now back to the alice johnson story.y. "the alice johnson is story." ainsley: a strong belief in god helped alice persevere and encouraged her to campaign for freedom. her video plea went viral on social media and caught the attention of kim kardashian west. kardashian then turned to senior presidential adviser jared kushner for guidance. together with the president, they would pave the way for her release. how did you find out, it's kim kardashian? >> well, i don't know kim, but i'd seen kris jenner before on a show, and i just knew it was kris jenner, i was so happy, i was singing. oh, kris jenner is going to help me. and my daughter asked me, she said, what if it's kim kardashian? i said, kim who?

[laughter] ainsley: you didn't know who she was? >> i didn't know. i said, who is kim kardashian? and my daughter went on to explain to me who kim was. i started getting magazines, and i'm looking at her pictures, and i'm reading about her, and, i mean, this was all in this day, another day, two days passed, and sean told me it was kim kardashian. ainsley: did you ever talk to i'm kim on the phone? what were those conversations like? >> i'm glad i didn't know she was a celebrity, because not knowing who she was and not having been a follower of kim, we talked as friends. and she gave me so much confidence that this was going to happen. ainsley: then the day comes when she says i am going to oval a office -- >> yes. ainsley: that was a very special day for you, for many reasons. >> yes. my birthday. my birthday in prison. and when she says that they're going on that day, i said, did

you know -- she said, this is it then. she felt that that was the sign. ainsley: i remember she said this is not about politics, this is about people. >> it's about people. and to put me before herself -- and that's what she did, because this could have backfired on her. but kim was determined that whatever it takes for me to come home to my family, that's what she's going to do. ainsley: so then you get a call from kim kardashian -- >> uh-huh. ainsley: -- in prison. and that was on june 6, 2018, right? >> i was all over the news that morning, and they were saying that there was a possibility that the president was going to sign my clemency. i had read an article the day before that it would be sometime next week if he considered it. so people are telling me things, and i just shut everybody out. it's a wednesday. it's hamburger day. [laughter] i decide, i'm just going to do something normal, i'm going to go to lunch and shut everything out.

so i get this call over the intercom telling me to report back to my building, that i had a legal call. so i'm expecting just my legal team to give me another update. but instead kim is on the phone. and she tells me, we did it. and i'm like, what? did what? she said, we -- i said, what do you mean? she said, we did it, you're outta there. i started screaming and jumping and just praising god in that little room. i'm just going crazy in there, and kim is trying to -- she's asking them, she didn't know, they tell her you're the first one who's telling her. she thought that i knew. and i'm so glad that it was kim who told me. ainsley: what do you say to create sicks that say, look -- critics that say, look, these are the laws, she's supposed to be behind bars for the rest of her life. what do you say to those folks?

>> i would tell them that mercy, that judgment or justice without mercy is not justice at all. that what is the worst thing that you've ever done in your life. do you want to pay for the rest of your life with that? no matter what i did, that there was never an opportunity for redemption, for me to get a second chance. and i've gotten a second chance. and i don't take it lightly. ainsley: ask you don't deny that you did something wrong, and you should have had some time. >> absolutely. i should have had some time in prison. i'm not saying that i was not guilty of committing a crime. i'm saying that the time did not fit the crime. the first thing that people say is if you do the crime, you should do the time. but my answer to that is that time should be fair and just based on the crime and not just rubber stamped.

ainsley: what do you say to kids that are watching or a mom that can't pay her bills that's about to get into something pretty bad and possibly illegal? >> oh, i would say, please, don't do it. when you think that there is no hope, there is always hope. if you can just take the time to think about what you're doing and don't let pressures, life pressures, peer pressures cause you to do something that you know is wrong to do. that very thing could cost you your life, it could cost you your liberty, it could cost you your family. don't do it. ainsley: and what's your message to president? >> i hope that you're proud of the things that i've been able to accomplish, and i hope that to you will continue to be proud of the things that i will do for this nation, for other people to change the trajectory of how we

look at prisoners, how we look at people. thank you for seeing me as another human human being and gg me a second chance in life. ainsley: okay. so the president granted you clemency but not a pardon. what's the difference? >> a pardon means that i get to start over totally. i don't have to report in to probation. i have to report in constantly to probation. i have to get permission to travel. and i'm traveling a hot. eaps eans are you asking the president, if he's watching this interview, are you asking him to, please, pardon you? >> i would like a full pardon, but i don't want to make it just be about this. i'd rather focus on other people. if i could choose between myself getting a full pardon and someone getting clemency, i'd say give them clemency. ainsley: is your biggest regret getting involved with this guy ted who got you into this mess? >> that's one, but my biggest

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ainsley: it was in the east room of the white house where alice finally hugged the president. >> i told him i finally get a chance to hug you and properly say thank you for believing in me. ainsley: the goal of the initiative is to transform federal prisons into safe and effective facilities that will reduce recidivism and strengthen our communities and the economy. the administration believes in giving those like alice, who have paid their debt to society, a second time. jared, thank you so much for sitting down with us, i know this is an important issue to you. we met alice johnson s and she's such an incredible person. what made you want to sit down and do this interview? >> the story of al his is a story that -- alice touched the president, it's touched me, and i think it's touched a lot of

people throughout the country. a lot of people got to see a real window into how the criminal justice system -- it's a great system, but it's far from perfect, and there are people who get caught up in it and who have the ability to change and who can live a second life and do great things. but they're held and held for their past mistakes in a a way that's not necessarily fair. ainsley: yeah. how did you hear about her story? walk us through the process. >> i originally got a call from kim kardashian. we'd met before in the past at different events, and she said she had a case she was interested in. so she sent me the video and some information, and i said, okay, let me look at it. it seemed deserving of consideration, but there's always somebody who will add slow -- advocate for it, and you go deeper, and there's more nuance that's not covered in the it. but this case seemed to be one that was very deserving. so i brought in some of the white house lawyers, we spoke to department of justice, we got

the more information on the case, and at that point i thought it was a case that was worthy to bring to president. so i brought it to president, and i shared with him the pros and the cons. i explained to him the crime and what had, what had happened at the time, but then i also shared her extraordinary track record in prison. he was very touched by the fact that she had a letter from the ward recommending that she -- warden recommending that she be considered for clemency and also the fact that she was such a good mentor to so many of the inmates. ainsley: we hear a lot about criminal justice reform, the first step act. what specifically is that? >> sure. so what the first step act does is it makes our prison system more purposeful. it takes our federal system, and it takes inmates who are nonviolent offenders, people who have a lower risk of committing a crime in the future, and we give them a risk assessment program. so we take the every inmate based on the data available, and we say what is their risk of committing a crime in the future.

then what we do is look at what are the things we can do for them while they're here to lower that risk in the future. and it's very basic things, it's job training, family reunification, drug treatment, making sure that they don't have addiction problems, mental health treatment where appropriate. and then figuring out skills and how mentorships so that when they leave, they can figure out how to lead better lives. and we incentivize them to take these programs by giving them the ability to earn their way to a quicker release to supervised custody. ainsley: what do you say to critics that are against this? >> so i've met so many people now who are the biggest champions of the reform who started out as critics of the reform. i would just tell people to keep an rope mind, look at the data -- an open mind and to meet people like alice johnson and to spend time understanding the issue. of. ainsley: i know it's the hard when you go through a hard time, you don't understand why god's allowing this to happen in your life. many people experienced that.

i'm sure you did when your dad was incarcerated. i know you said it was unfair, the his treatment. do you look back at that situation and say i'm glad we went through that as a family, because it allowed me to have compassion for other people? >> i look at where i am today, able to serve the president, i'm in the white house. this is the last place i ever thought i'd be. you go from visiting a family member in prison to working in the white house in a a decade, and that's a pretty dramatic shift in life. i do believe that it's because of god's grace and the fact that there's a bigger plan. and, look, that experience that i had in my life at the time seemed like something that i didn't understand why it was happening, but i didn't put my energy towards being angry. i didn't put my energy towards being bitter. i used it towards growth. it helped me become stronger and helped me put my energy towards productive things. and i think that's been the attitude i'veed had ever since. ainsley: jared, what was it like to sit next to alice at the

state of the union address and see the video of her coming across the street into the arms of her family? >> we're just very proud of her, and i do hope it serves as a lesson to other people who are in prison that you should have hope, and people coming out of prison, you carry the burden of being an example to other people. alice has definitely been one of the leaders of that movement, and she's opened a lot of people's hearts and minds to this issue. so for alice, we're very proud of you and just keep doing great things and live your life. what's going on up here? can't see what it is yet. what is that? that's a blazer? that's a chevy blazer? aww, this is dope. this thing is beautiful. i love the lights. oh man, it's got a mean face on it. it looks like a piece of candy. look at the interior. this is nice. this is my sexy mom car. i would feel like a cool dad. it's just really chic. i love this thing. it's gorgeous. i would pull up in this in a heartbeat. i want one of these.

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ainsley: as hard as it's been for alice, the one thing that has remained constant is the love and support of her family. her first steps out of jail were into the arms of her loved ones. long overdue hugs, kisses and a long ride to a home-cooked meal. today she works to free inmates who are also remorseful and have paid their debt to society. what was it like when you found out she was getting to come home, she was going to be out of prison? >> oh, man. i was on the phone with my older sister, and she was like i just got a pic from al sharpton camp

saying congratulations on your mom's release? and i was like, huh? what? and we're flipping through the channels, and on every channel, fox, cnn, abc, i'm like, oh, my god. i was doing this horse trot new the house -- [laughter] and i'm on the phone with her, i said, you know what? i'm going to call the lawyer to check first. let's check this, that might not be true. and i called jennifer, jennifer turner with aclu. as soon as she picked up the phone, she's screaming. it's like, oh, my god, this is true. ainsley: how old were you when your mom went to prison? >> 24. ainsley: 24. what was that experience like for you? >> it was extremely, extremely egressing and just -- you couldn't believe it. my mouth dropped in court. i was in court every day, and i'm thinking, these people cannot believe these people. this don't even sound real to me, and i'm in this house. this part, what they're saying, all this stuff couldn't have happened. and i'm, like, they can't be guilty.

ainsley: your hands are tied, there's nothing you can do. it's the law. how did that feel? >> it's just, it's no way to even really describe that feeling, because your heart just literally sinks into your stomach. that's not -- i wouldn't wish it on anybody, but especially my mother. i'm, like, i'll take her place before i'll allow her to go. and that was the worst. ainsley: i know when your mom was released in june, there was one car -- >> the lawyer said, you can go get your mother. i called everybody, we can go, we can go. we meeting up, and my aunts left from here, and i ended up meeting them on the highway, because i'm rolling. [laughter] and my brother was behind me, we're flying down the highway. i'm like, oh, my god, oh, my god. i'm getting all these phone calls from media, and i'm like, i can't think straight right now, i just want to get my mom. i had to get in the van with my brother -- >> they only allowed one car to go in to pick her up. ainsley: the whole family was

lined up, basically, outside. >> yes. we were lined up. we got there, and we pulled up, and all you could see was my mom coming out of the building. and i'm trying to pull my phone out. i forgot to hit record, nothing was recorded, but luckily -- [laughter] my sister-in-law recorded it. it's like, oh, my god, she's walking out those doors. ♪ ♪ ainsley: you grew up singing. we would love for y'all to sing for us. >> let it be known that this has been a faith walk, and we have come this far by grace. ♪ we come this far by faith. ♪ lean on the lord. ♪ i was trusting trusting in his

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good evening and welcome to the next revolution paradigm steve hilton. this is the home of positive populism. pro- worker, profamily, pro- community and what a treat we have for you tonight. last week i had the tremendous honor of sitting down with the president at the white house. we had a great conversation about a wide range of policy issues, about politics in the next election, and some fascinating personal insights into life at the white house and his response to the criticisms of how he does the job. it's a side of the president you don't often see. we didn't want to cut it down or chop it up. tonight we are devoting the