paris. ♪ >> this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. u.k. government has approved the pfizer and biontech vaccine to be rolled out. prime minister boris johnson praised scientists for their work but said they still need to be cautious. >> it will take some months before all the most vulnerable are protected. long, cold months. it is all the more vital that as we celebrate this scientific achievement, we are not carried away with over optimism or fall into the naive belief that the

struggle is over. it is not. we have got to stick to our winter plane. >> u.s. officials say they hope to have around 40% of adult immunized by the end of february. thanks eads are expected to be -- vaccines are expected to be approved next week. that is as the u.s. hits a daily record. health secretary alex azar says millions of vulnerable people could be vaccinated by the end of the year. u.s. president trump has released a 46 minute speech on social media outlining what he believes the election was stolen from him. he continued to allege fraud took place during the election despite the failure of several legal challenges. the afghan government and taliban negotiators have agreed on a framework for talks. the nato secretary-general has welcomed it as a positive first step. the united nations has signed a deal with epo pos government to get unrestricted access to the

tpa region. the agreement will allow aid workers to access federally controlled areas. more than a million people are thought to have been displaced by fighting which begin nearly a month ago. u.s. media is reporting that saudi arabia is close to reopening its airspace and land borders to qatar. qatar has been under a land, sea and air blockade by saudi arabia, bahrain, the uae and egypt since june 2018. jared kushner was in qatar on sunday. those are the headlines. don't go away. the news continues after the bottom line, which is coming up next. ♪

>> i am steve clemons and i have a question. does morality maer anymore? did it matter ever in american politics? let's get to the bottom line. ♪ since election day a few weeks ago, many american politicians have been talking about the need for the nation to heal. the rift between people inside america is really deep and there is frustration on both sides of the divide. those who voted for donald trump are wondering who is going to stand up for them now. the ends of voters in the democratic side feel their hopes and aspirations could be dashed as well. trump once told writer bob woodward he wanted to bring out the rage in people. are americans doomed to be motivated and divided by fear and anger and is there a way to heal the nation? today, we speak with one of the most unique voices in public life. reverend william barber the second is the cochair of the

people's campaign, a social justice movement that mobilizes social change. it is great to be with you today. what i am hoping to get at in the important work you are doing is to -- the question of what that common ground could be as you think about healing the breach and addressing it at the main time many of the core problems of the nation. what is that agenda look like? >> steve, thank you so much. what is so interesting about that question that you just raised is that we actually have answers. answers that are a as the -- that are ancient as the bible. answers that are as old as our constitution and our deepest religious values, but the for -- but the problem is we begin all of our conversations i think with two mythologies that

constantly keep us in division. maybe even three in light of what you just quoted from trump. one is the mythology that there is some grand place behind us, behind us where everybody was unified. it it it -- it is interesting to me the constitution began with a confession that the reason we are writing the constitution is to move toward a more perfect union, which is an admitted we are not perfect behind us. it costs -- it causes us to look forward only to do what one of our great hymns says, amend our every flaws. instead, sometimes in politics, we start talking about how to get back to these glorious days of american exceptionalism. i think that is dangerous. the second mythology i think is this notion of language of left

versus right. now we say left, right and centrist. i often wonder, where did that language come from? i know it comes from the french revolution chain those on the left were against the monarchy. we are not in the french revolution. to automatically try to put people in these false categories, left, right and center, i think creates division. but also, many times does not allow us to say some things are not left versus right. they are left for -- they are right versus wrong. we have to be able to say, some things are unconstitutional. morley unacceptable -- morally unacceptable and economically insane and constitutionally out of line. have to be able to do that, otherwise we end up giving equal moral status. the third thing in the mixed of

trump -- the midst of trumpism is the danger of putting all the problems we see now are on him. he is a big cause but he had a lot of enablers. like you said in your opening, when he said he wanted to bring out the rage, he is not even courting himself. he is quoting pat buchanan and kevin phillips and the people who worked with richard nixon in the 1960's to develop a strategy called positive polarization that was designed to split the country for political power. it has been used by republicans from reagan to nixon to even dachshund the bushe dashed -- even though bushes used it. there is a scripture in the bible that says, only the truth will set you free. we have got some truth telling

that must be done in america so we can at least have an honest conversation about what healing needs to take place. >> like you, president-elect biden is not talking about left and right. he is not talking about division. he is talking about, this is the time to come together. uni both know there -- you and i know there are a lot of americans not hearing those in the same way. >> he is right when he says it is time to heal. it is admirable he would raise that in that way. i know he says that people are not our enemies, they are our -- they are americans, but there are some people who are the adversaries of poor and low wealth people and black people and moving forward in this country. they are not adversaries. the policies are certainly adversarial to justice and what we are called to be a by our deepest constitutional values.

if their policies are adversarial, the question is, are they adversarial? i understand what he is saying in the sense that you do not have to go around saying that people and nobody can work and they are beyond change. even though we have to be realistic, there are some people that are totally committed. we know what happened one obama ran for office. there were people totally committed. we have watched what has happened in the senate, not just trump with -- but with the senate that were totally committed in an adversarial way to being fair when it comes to supreme court justices. we look at a mitch mcconnell. he has refused to fix the voting rights act for over seven years. that is a politically adversarial position. he has refused to let living wages come to the floor even though we have 62 million -- 62

million americans working for less than a living wage. i have talked to people from apalachee hotel alabama and they see that as an adversarial position. they see that as a problem that the people are not acting like americans when it comes to the least of these. as dr. king once said, they give socialism to the wealthy and then give rugged individualism to the poor. we have to recognize that politics is about fighting for things. it is about recognizing that i do not believe there is this so-called centrist viewpoint. i would say that to the president because there are some saying you need to be a. how do you -- what is the center of establishing justice? you give half the people justice? what is the center for providing for the common defense. you give half the people the common defense? you give half the people

promotional wealthy echo that is what we have now and it leans more toward the greedy. take the first cares act. 84% of that money went to corporations. it did not go to the people and the essential workers. those who voted for that are adversarial. i would not, and people or say they are young transformation. i would not say there is not a possibility but right now, we know that they have entrenched attitudes toward those who are being hurt the most before covid and after covid. what i would say to the president elect is you promised some things when you ran and you promised to fight for people. we have seen what people public policy can do over the last four years and how committed some people like trump and mcconnell are. they will do whatever they can. people need to see what good

people will do with power. what good policy looks like. you said you wanted $15 an hour. if you do that, that will heal the nation because there is no healing of the soul of the nation that is not heal the body of the nation. you said you would expand health care. we need to fight for that in the first 50 days. he said you would make sure it essential workers had sick leave and unemployment and the rent forgiveness and mortgage forgiveness. they must see a president that will fight for that. you said you would deal with systemic racism in terms of voting rights and police reform. that needs to happen in the first 50 to 100 days. people need to see there will be a true fighting for all americans. you said immigration reform was necessary. we would stop caging and losing children. we would properly address native americans and make sure they have what was promised to them. you must do that.

i think the president lastly must go into the places where people have been so allied to that they think a democratic president and vice president are against them. go to the south. let them know the current policies we have now are costing us a trillion dollars of loss because of child poverty. $2.6 trillion in lost wages because of wage gaps. flip it over and show them if we expand health care, how many people will be helped. black, brown, and dig, white. how many people will be lifted if we pass living wages. let the american people know what a cost of inequality is. what is it costing us? the body of the nation heal, then the soul of the nation will be healed. it cannot just be rhetoric and

it cannot just be some spiritual coming together that does not have a reality, that does not have an embodiment of the establishment of justice. >> powerful. my question is, a lot of americans who voted for joe biden were voting against donald trump and they were voting for what they saw as a return to normal. i know that normality is not something you think we can go back to but i would like to hear for those people who do have that as their motivator in this moment, what cuts you think have to be made, what divisions have to be made to wake those folks up. >> i think jesus is pretty clear on the human condition. jesus was saying of his own ministry, often times people present jesus as being a nice guy who loved people and got killed. he was killed because he threatened the empire.

because his love and the kind of love connected to justice that lifted the poor, all of these who have been rejected by the roman power structure, jesus was -- jesus said you are not god. he said to the empire, it is wrong to have so few people with wealth and the rest living in desperation. those who have been made poor by economic exploitation. he said nations would be judged by how you treat the least of these. the gospel or the truth of god creates division. what he meant by that is there has to be a division from truth and a lie. when people say for instance in america that we do not have the resources, but when covid began, we saw two or $3 trillion given to corporations while people on the front lines have not gotten

what they need, there is a division. there has to be a cutting asunder of that and exposing it for what it is. every senator and congressperson, they get the best health care. we have to call that out. how can you get the best free health care with a public option paid for by the people? and then you do not want your constituencies to have the same thing. truth and lies cannot exist together and be ok. that is what jesus was saying. there are times there has to be a division and the truth of the matter is, we just came through the election. what is an election about? it is a division of visions. one group prevents their -- presents their vision and another group presents their vision and the people decide. i know a lot of people voted against trump appeared that is major, to reject all that is

connected to the extremism and division that has gone on because trump did not create it himself. he has an american and he was created out of the american reality, at least part of it. part of the american reality has been a reality that is always trying to go back to the vision and trying to live in the division and believing that is the way to have power. as i said, he spoke to an audience not that he created both had had been -- but that had been created for some 50 years before he ran for office. the vision is -- division is a part of our reality. even in the health. when i was in the country, my grandmother used to have something called splitting a -- in a real sense, we have to do that. in addition to the people that voted against trump, which is huge, we now know from early

returns that 55% of people making less than $60,000 a year voted against trump. last time poor and low wealth people voted against trump, the volume was not as high because something -- because some 34 million did not vote but 6 million more voted this time. they did not vote to go back to pre-covid because pre-covid was 140 million poor and low wealthy people in this country. 43% of the nation. 66 million white people. 26 million black people. pre-covid was 87 million people without health care or underinsured. pre-covid was 62 million people working for less than a living wage. pre-covid was 4 million people getting up every morning who could buy a unleaded gas but cannot by unleaded water. pre-covid was every

discretionary dollar going to the war economy. $.16 going toward health care infrastructure and education. pre-covid actually preconditioned us in some ways to be harmed by the pandemic. most public health officials will tell you that in addition to the terrible and criminal like response of the trump administration, it was the fishers of poverty and systemic racism that has given the opening for this pandemic to be even worse than it could have been. the majority of the people that are dying are poor and low wealth people. the majority of the people are poor and low wealth people who did not have the wages prior to covid and the health care prior to covid and the sick leave prior to covid.

large numbers of people if they voted against trump, they also were not voting to stay where we are. a large number were voting for us not to return to normal because normal was not good. normal was not good. this moment of pain gives us a chance to address what the bad normal was so hopefully we can move to some new possibilities in this nation. >> why has the republican party been able to have almost a monopoly on evangelical christians? >> that is a long conversation, steve. >> can you give us the executive highlights? >> again, these are not new struggles. we started out in this country saying women could not vote and white men who did not have land could not vote in black people could not vote and black people were 3/5 of a person and native americans could be exterminated. all of those evils, people found

ways to misinterpret and engage in theological malpractice to support what they were doing. i often tell people that economics used to not be a branch of thinking unto itself. it was a part of moral philosophy. it is hard to have economics as a part of moral philosophy and also have slavery and know that morally speaking, you cannot support slavery. our deepest religious values do not do that. we have had this problem in america with twisting the scriptures and slave master of religion, religious people who stood against -- were paid by corporations to stand against the new deal and call franklin delano roosevelt a socialist. when i say religionist, i am not saying christian. the way the media talks about

evangelicals -- i am an evangelical but ine would not be counted because the way the media talks about evangelical, they talk about white evangelicalism. that is a more emphasis on white . a lot of people will say they have a religious perspective but they have not -- they cannot lighted up with scripture. they cannot lighted up with the teachings of jesus or the prophet. they are light -- they are right when it is a religious perspective. it is not the religion of christianity. it is not the religion of judaism. when they say they have a constitutional position when you read the constitution it does not sound like anything they are talking about. i have to say this as a trained theologian, we have a lot of people engaging in modern-day heresy. that is way more and more people -- we are putting out a 14 point plan rooted in arab -- in our

deepest constitutional principles this week for the biden administration to say here are things that have to be done if we are going to be constitutionally consistent, more lay defense and economically sane. >> what would be a redlined disappointment for you in the incoming administration that they could get this wrong and not take the enlightened path you are encouraging them to? >> it sounds like you have read the post 19 thanks -- i am so glad you have because some people think all he said was i have a dream, which is the closing of the speech. it was not even the title of the speech. the title of the speech was normal c never again. -- normalcy never again. one of the ideas of the march on washington was two dollars living wage, which today would be 15. dr. king said we have to deal with three issues.

racism, poverty and militarism . it was the women who pushed him to do the core people's campaign. it is what jesus was saying about i have not come to break peace. the worst thing the biden administration or any administration could do is to set on what the pope called recently the magic formulas of neoliberalism and trickle-down economics, which do not work because they do not lift from the bottom. centrism does not do it. i agree with him. those that are -- now that we have one, we have to find some centrist way we cannot push for health care for all. we may have to slow down on $15 an hour. it took us from zero to 400 years to get to 7.25. we started out making nothing in slavery. we have to wait another 400

years to get a 15 at that rate. that does not make sense. what we need to do now is take the constitution of these united states that says the first goal of a government is to establish justice and the second is domestic tranquility. you cannot get to domestic tranquility without beginning the establishment of justice. every policy ought to be examined under the lens of the constitution. does this policy x -- policy establish justice? not as it left, right, centrist, but does it establish justice for those who are hurting the most and they are hurting not because they are immoral but because of the failure of public policy over and over and over again. if we do not do this, even the fed chairman recently said we are not going to get the economy back that we had. we know that wall street does

not measure backstreet and dirt roads and side roads. we cannot exist as a democracy, a genuine democracy where nearly 50% of the people living in poverty and low wealth. 8 million have been added since may. i would say to president-elect biden and vice president-elect kamala harris, the first thing you do is do exactly what you said. do not listen to those who tell you to slow down. this is an fdr moment. this is a third reconstruction moment. people are dying. poor and low wealth people are dying. if you want to heal the nation, heal the body. do not have an agenda of doing it for just a few or just enough that some people can be accountable. those that will only become to bowl with a few, the truth is they would be accountable with things being as they are and that is unacceptable. >> thank you so much for your candor today and we look forward

to seeing what you rollout, the 14 point plan and other plans you have to help give counsel to this new administration coming in. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you so much and your listeners can go a poor people's campaign.org or bridge repairers.org. >> so what is the bottom line? it is hard not to be moved by the powerful moral appeals of reverend barber. the spotlight is on american now and the world is watching. will america come out of this divided and nasty play stronger and fairer and more just and restore its place in the world as the so-called beacon on the hill? i guest believes the breach can be and should be healed, that people in the richest nation in the world should not have to struggle to make ends meet and that has been a long struggle. the election of joe biden and kamala harris is an opportunity to begin to move on a new course. american history is also full of

opportunities that were never taken and that is the bottom line. ♪ ú/÷é÷é÷éléddddd"

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