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tv   Ronan Farrow Daily  MSNBC  August 27, 2014 10:00am-11:01am PDT

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10:00 a.m. on the west. as one u.s. hostage comes home, the mother of another journalist is pleading for his life. shirley sotloff, his mother, spoke out to the terror group's leader directly. >> i ask you to please release my child. as a mother, i ask your justice to be merciful and not punish him for something that he has no control over. i ask you to use your authority to spare his life and to follow the example set by the prophet mohammed who protected people of the book. i want what every mother wants, to live to see her children's children. >> we also know another american, a woman, is being held hostage by isis in syria. that 26-year-old aid worker
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hasn't been identified. theo curtis who was held by al nusra spoke out for the first time since being released. >> total total strangers are cop to me and saying, glad you're back, good to see you. i suddenly remember how good the american people are and what kindness they have in their hearts. >> reporter: the family released these photos just after their e reunion yesterday. he was held for two years. a cease-fire between israel and hamas appears to be holding today. israeli troops remain positioned along the border and a government spokesman today still questions hamas' motivation. >> we hope that this time the cease-fire will stick and i think now that will begin to clear. many people will be asking, why
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is it that today hamas accepted the very same egyptian framework that it rejected a month ago. >> the cease-fire hasn't had all of the details released just yet but it appears to call for a definite widening and open crossings from israel into egypt. much more of that later in the show. back here in the u.s., though, a recording may have captured audio of the gunfire that killed michael brown. it appears he was shot and then a pause and then four more. after careful review, we decided there are just too many questions about authenticity to play it. it was taken by a neighbor who was recording an unrelated video at the time. the individual's lawyer said this about the authenticity. >> there's no doubt in your mind that this is real? >> absolutely not.
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he's a very solid citizen. you know, i think that if it came to testifying, he would be a very reliable witness. he has no reason to make it up. >> all right. we're going to be keeping you posted on whether this is authentic in the end. meteorologists are watching hurricanes on both coasts right now. out west, meteorologists are bracing for hurricane marie which could bring 10 to 15-foot waves. on the east coast, hurricane cristobal could cause problems up and down the north carolina coast. douglas mcau tcthur mccain eventually moved to syria to join isis. he sent a tweet "we will see you
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soon." back here in the u.s., his cousin does not believe that he was a member of isis. >> it's hard for me to believe that he was part of the isis terrorist group. and i don't believe that. i don't believe he was part of the isis terrorist group. how can they say that? do they know that? i don't think they know that. >> here's the thing. this isn't just the story of one 33-year-old man from minnesota waging jihad against his own country. it also reveals an influx of foreign fighters at the heart of the isis defenses. joining me now is nbc correspondent ayman mohladin.
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>> that's worrisomeness. it's mostly a law enforcement issue. they are working hard to understand this. when we talk about the potential immediacy threat, the idea that they can get over there, get l radicalized and then come back to the homeland. >> how many other douglas mccain's do you believe could be in syria right now? >> the estimate has varied anywhere from 70 to 100. keep in mind, it's not just american passport holders who pose a threat to the united states. if you widen the circle, to come back to the u.s. and travel into the u.s. easily, you widen that circle to include europeans. in the uk, they expect the number to be anywhere from 500
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to 700. it's a widening circle of potential people that could cause harm to the u.s. if they were to go to the battlefield and return. >> of course, every foreign passport is an extreme strategic importance. let's talk about this video released by shirley sotloff today. obviously a very emotional and moving appeal. do you think that allowed any impact on the conversation with isis? >> well, ronan, you're absolutely right. it's an emotional appeal and one of the things it's trying to appeal to the humanity of its leader, at least on a human level as a mother to the leader of isis but we've seen over the course of the several months, this is a group that really has no humanity, has demonstrated no humanity or any compassion for not only any of the western or foreign hostages it captures but also for any of the other muslim hostages, including regime officials and locals that they have terrorized with some of its tactics. it would be hard to believe that
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they would feel compelled to answer the calls to steven's mother no matter how appealing it may sound in that video. the obama administration is looking for allies as it considers waging this war against isis. "the new york times" began a diplomatic campaign to enter a coalition. among that list, united kingdom, turkey, qatar, united arab emirates. joining me, national correspondent for t"the daily beast" mark halprin. how important is it, both at home and abroad, for the president to have a coalition of supporters? >> well, you've got to think about a lead opinion and i think the press is a cheerleader for
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war. congress is hope to it. it's hard to build support within congress when they are in recess and they are not around but i think it's imperative that the president reach out and you're hearing leading members in both parties saying, reach out to us, have more conversations. i think those need to ramp up. public opinion is going to be hard to gauge and direct. one of the admiral things about this president is he's not guided by that issue right now. i think what he's looking for is a solution, a plan he can feel good about from the pentagon, he can sell first to congress and then to the public. >> eli, there is something about motley crue of guests on that list. they have been in the news to facilitate the release of theo curtis but they've also been accused of funding isis. >> they certainly have ties closer to al nusra and the taliban has been a long-held suspicion. isis has managed to get its own
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source of income because of its military victories. oil fields that it now controls and other kinds of operations. i don't think isis needs another foreign backer at this point. it's generating its own income. but qatar has played both sides of this. and if you look at it broader, if obama decides to say, listen, this is more than just a group of war against a particular group, it's a war against ideology, let's call it jihadism, then qatar has been on both sides of that. it certainly funds a number of groups that sort of share in the broader sense the ankles if not the tactics of the groups like isis. >> mark, if the president cannot convince the coalition of the willing, what does that mean? >> there has been chatter about the president being remote, about the president not having perfect pitch in some people's
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eyes about taking the current event seriously. i think you've seen from the secretary of defense, chairman of the joint chiefs a stepping up and making clear what the stakes are here and he's going to have to build the coalition. this is not a solvable problem. i think people who know more about this than i do, it can't just be air power. it can be a start but it has to be a diplomat tech and political effort and some sort of force on the ground. when the president says no boots on the ground, for instance, in iraq, there are some boots on the ground. although we built isis up, it's this fierce enterprise, some combination of political air strikes can make a ground effort not so daunting but he's got to step up and do it and the quiet way he's done it is typical. we need some results and need to see these countries step up and be more than contributors. >> you make an important point there. no boots on the ground is a
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highly technical language because there are more than 1,000 in various capacities. >> right. >> liberals use the term no boots. but eli, that also allows room for proxies on the ground, for local militias, for especially the peshmerga and potentially for more collaboration with elements in syria. that's a very fractious set. >> i think the syrians have shown that they are clearly on the western side of things and they are good elements of the free syrian army but what you risk is that when you work with proxies and give them advanced weapons and then you lose, then you really see what we're seeing now, which is isis using american material, american armored personnel vehicles against american targets or american al tied targets. so it's very tricky. if you're going to work with proxies, you better make sure they win because if you don't you run the risk of having our best equipment from the west
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ending up in the hands of terrorists. >> and we've seen that in a lot of places, including afghanistan. >> yeah. >> mark, how does this sales pitch go to congress for the president? obviously congress has said no to even air strikes to syria in the past. what's changed this time? >> well, i think the dramatic beheading of a journalist and appeals regarding other journalist matters, i think people understand now in congress and to some extent the broader public, the iraqi state and how high that would be for the united states and this is back to the post- 9/11 sens sensability. it's a threat to the united states of america. when they call isis a cancer, i think he's buying into that. he needs, as most people, to take the next step and say, okay, it's a cancer and they cannot be allowed to not just keep the land they have or expand the land they have, they must be rolled back.
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the implications of that is they must build a coalition and build them back. >> we'll see what that translates into. mark, eli, appreciate your insights on this. we're watching for two briefings to see if we get an answer to those questions that we just asked. the white house and state department both speaking out. we'll bring them to you as they happen. we'll see if there is any news coming out of them. you'll get the latest right here. up next, take a look at this scene. could scenes like this one in gaza eventually look more like this one on the west bank? we're going to talk to israel's former ambassador to the u.s. about what this new cease-fire could mean when we return. much like these majestic rocky mountains. which must be named after the... that would be rocky the flying squirrel, mr. gecko sir. obviously! ahh come on bullwinkle, they're named after... ...first president george rockington!
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today is the first full day
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since the long-term cease-fire finally ended 50 days of blood shed in gaza. 64 israeli soldiers and six civilians were killed. so far, no new fighting today. but this outcome is something of a stalemate. hamas continues to control gaza, israel, egypt still maintain a blockade and many ask what was gained from so much death, so much destruction? michael is former israeli ambassador to the united states. good to have you back on the program, ambassador. both sides are declaring victory here but has, in fact, anything been gained from an israeli standpoint? >> no. and it's really quite tragic. hamas accepted the same cease-fire offer that egypt developed over a month ago. so all of this was unnecessary. hamas accepted it only because israeli forces began to target
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hamas leaders and then the hamas leaders could careless even worse than the israelis care about. they care about claiming victory and i can't be very confident of the future if hamas remains in control of gaza. >> let's look at this cease-fire. there's still a lot of ambiguity. june 10th, 20008 cease-fire had restrictions that never happened. what is the chance that israel will follow through on that? >> well, actually the restrictions did happen. starting in 2009 and 2010, i was in the white house when that pressure was put on us to ease up restrictions, particularly on concrete, on buildings materials that would be used to repair the damage of the previous round of
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damage in 2008 and 2009. that went for building bunkers and tunnels. and now the senior adviser to the white house during that time said it was a mistake to put pressure on israel. we have to be very careful about what goes into gaza. hamas doesn't care much about the people of gaza. and it will take away building materials to use it for building those bunkers and use the aid to buy rockets for the purpose of killing israeli citizens and creating a situation where civilians get hurt and killed. that's a win for hamas. >> i take your point about concrete and its use certainly by hamas but it's also the case after the agreement in 2008 we still saw the people of gaza starving. >> the people of gaza did not starve. there was no humanitarian crisis. >> no humanitarian crisis in
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gaza? >> none whatsoever. hundreds of trucks, hundreds went through the border crossings every day. they were only closed when hamas itself shelled those border crossings and they shelled them just before the cease-fire went down, came into effect the other day. they want to create a humanitarian crisis. that looks terrible on the news, it looks terrible on msnbc. it puts pressure on israel but the border crossings were opened. >> it's very different from the claim you've just made, which is there is no humanitarian crisis at all in gaza. >> it didn't succeed. there was no shortage of food. look at your pictures of gaza. do you see starving people of gaza? >> we see wounded people in gaza. >> wounded, maybe. but not starving. >> and smuggled in through tunnels as a product of that. >> it smuggled into tunnels so
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that hamas can collect a duty on it. at the end of 20009, again with the cooperation of president obama, a border crossing was opened and an actual customs center was set up. hamas took over that customs center and collected all -- and collected basically extortionary rates from importers. they controlled those tunnels. those tunnels are huge business for hamas. it's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. so they are controlling the flow. the maritime blockade doesn't stop food. it stops rockets. and it's an internationally recognized legalized blockade. >> but it's received lots and lots of protests and it's interesting that you raised the blockade. the question s. regardless of what it looks like, what kinds of enforcement action will there
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be both from israel and hamas? there's been a lot of controversy about this. there was a searing statement put out accusing israel of blocking access for outside monitoring. they put out this quote. amnesty saying "the israeli authorities appear to have been playing bureaucratic games with us over access to gaza even as the death toll mounted." human rights added this, "if israel is confident in its claim that hamas is responsible for civilian deaths in gaza, it shouldn't be blocking human rights organizations from carrying out on-site investigations. >> well, irrespective of how they are carried out, let's look at the facts. european observers were sent in to gaza and it was coordinated with israel and the united
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states. hamas threatened those european advisers and observers with weapons and the europeans fled. people actually had guns held to their heads. it's one of the difficulties that we have the europeans to go back in. it's occurred again and again. there are proposals out there by the germans, the french and others to supervise that flow. people who are prosperous, who have good lies have something to lose. hamas keeps it a situation where people have nothing to lose. so look at the west bank. i think you showed it in a picture before you went to the commercial break, there are cities in the west bank that are flourishing right now. it looks like a flourishing
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city. gaza could look like that if it weren't for hamas. >> i still don't see that as an answer as to why no outside monitors. ambassador michael oren, i wish we had more time. it's a good conversation. appreciate it. >> me, too. thank you. ahead, why are so many people in congress decrying the evils of this fast food whopper. this is a business story that you keep hearing about. it's not what you expect. which is why he's investing ain his heart health by eatingw. kellogg's raisin bran ® good morning dad. hi, sweetie. here's another eye opener, not only is kellogg's raisin bran ® heart healthy, but its a delicious source of potassium. mom make you eat that? i happen to like raisins. now that's what i'm talkin' about. invest in your heart health.
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expedia. find yours. welcome back. we are watching two briefings going on at the state department and the white house. josh earnest is at the white house talking about the video of steven sotloff's mother and he
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says he has not seen it. outside las vegas, a shooting instructor is dead today after being shot by a 9-year-old girl he was teaching to shoot an uzi submachine gun. take a look at this video. >> you have to keep that held in. otherwise the gun won't fire, okay? right there. just like that. okay. turn this leg forward. there you go. just like that. all right. go ahead and give you one shot. all right. pull out another one. >> we're stopping that video just before the fatal shot he receives to the head. that instructor was air lifted to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. the county sheriff has announced no charges will be in this case.
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the website is down but on the youtube files, there are many videos and there are gun rights activists saying, hold on a sec. this is a one in a million occurrence. >> what you're talking about, from what i understand of this incident, it is extremely unusual. i have been at this now for 40 years. we've been having a machine gun rental range. and i've never heard of any of this happening. >> if only. it was just 2008 when an 8-year-old boy was killed as he was shooting an uzi with an adult certified instructor su. r unusual, maybe. here are some videos that caught our eye.
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. it isn't eastbound september and already a sexual assault has been reported on one college campus. that's vanderbilt university in a freshman dorm just one week after those freshmen moved on to campus. the school said, "we take steps to raise our students' awareness of the risk of sexual assault and deal with alleged offenders." . 76 schools are now under a federal probe for the way it handles sexual assault. part of a growing effort to raise accountability on this issue. that includes legislation on the hill and some states with new models. virginia is leading a new task force reviewing every public college in the state.
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joining me now is virginia attorney general. thank you for joining me. what was the impetus behind this task force? >> this is really part of a larger national conversation that we're having about sexual violence on campus. the white house came out with a report a few months ago with statics that were appalling. and behind every number there is a student whose life has been changed forever. so last week, governor mcauliffe, myself, and all of virginia's presidents came together and we issued a joint declaration saying this is a problem, that sexual violence has no place on our college campuses and committing ourselves to doing everything we can to make sure that our college campuses are safe and we spoke with a clear, unified voice that sexual violence is unacceptable on our campuses and a societal culture that condones
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it will not be tolerated. in addition to the joint declaration, i have already started with lawyers in my office a top-to-bottom review of all of the policies and procedures of virginia colleges and universities to make sure that, you know, we're not only compliant with the laws and the regulations but, more importantly and equally importantly, that it's something that is meeting the needs of the students. we want to make sure that every virginia student, if they report an instance of sexual violence, that they are not going to be treated with suspicion, they are not going to be judged but that they are going to be treated with the respect and the compassion that they deserve. >> that's a hugely important goal and certainly everyone watching will commend that. you immediately went from virginia to the national conversation. it is indeed a national conversation but there are people who say that there are
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specific problems right there in virginia, you know, maybe even specifically extreme in virginia. there are four universities in virginia being investigated by the government for possible title 9 possible sexual assault allegations. take a look at this from "the washington post." for years students have accused virginia universities of botching sexual assault cases." has virginia failed students in this respect? >> there have been complaints about how the universities have handled complaints and what that tells me is that there are students who have been a part of the process and filed complaints who feel that either the response was not what it should have been or the outcome was not just and fair and it's important that we act as quickly as we can. i think a lot of colleges have made a lot of progress in virginia and across the country but there's a lot more we can do. and i think not only the review
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of the regulations, the commitment of the support to do something about it but also this task force is going to be a huge part of addressing the problem. we're going to be campus advocates, we're going to bring university administrators, experts, law enforcement together to share ideas, to share experiences, what's been working in the past and how we can improve. if there was ever a time where schools have not been doing what they should, that time is over. >> you know, this is an initial conversation that's so important. we'll be watching what policies actually come out of the review very closely and we'd love to hear more from you on that. while we have you here, we'd leak like to ask you about another issue your office is dealing with. exactly one week ago today, the supreme court delayed gay marriage in virginia, just one day before it was going to begin. you're actively fighting that state's ban. what's next? >> well, when i came into office, i did an immediate
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review and vigorous analysis and concluded that virginia's ban on marriage for same-sex couples violated the 14th amendment. i sided with the plaintiffs and we were successful in the district court, we were successful in the fourth circuit court of appeals and the supreme court just last week intervened to issue a stay as it's reviewing various appeals from various circuits. so all of the different sides are filing papers to have this case heard. i'm doing everything i can to have the supreme court hear the case and move it as quickly as possible so that committed couples in virginia and around the nation don't have to wait a day longer to be able to exercise their fundamental right to marry the person they love. >> virginia attorney general mark herring, appreciate it. >> thank you. the fight against sexual assault on campuses is the subject of our call to action all week long.
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it's not enough to rely just on the colleges themselves. you can head to our website, ronandaily.msnbc.com. keep it coming. up next, it's a company that likes savings. but is burger king trying for a different kind of tax savings by moving out of the country? everybody is talking about it but there's something you may not have heard. we've got an explainer, next. would go with chocolate cake and ceviche? the same guy who thought that small caps and bond funds would go with a merging markets. it's a masterpiece. thanks. clearly you are type e. you made it phil. welcome home. now what's our strategy with the fondue? diversifying your portfolio? e*trade gives you the tools and resources to get it right. are you type e*? smoking with chantix. for 33 years i chose to keep smoking...
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fresh fallout today in the battle of american fast food giant relocating to canada, some saying to dodge taxes. even the holding company financing the merger with the canadian chain is now being targeted. politicians have been quick to pile on as well. here's ohio senator sherrod
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brown. "burger king's decision to abandon the united states means consumers should turn to wendy's old fashioned hamburgers or white castle sliders." joe wisenthal has been doing great reporting on this. >> thank you. >> there is a higher tax rate in ontario than florida where burger king is located now. it's only by a percentage point or two. is this merger really about taxes? >> i think there's an element of taxes. the company says that it's not warren buffett who is helping to chip in on this deal. saying that it's not about taxes, that the only reason they are relocating to canada is to make the tim hortons' people happy. it seems like there's going to
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be a tax benefit. burger king's stock fell 20%. i don't think that would have happened if there was no financial benefit. there's an element of that and this year we've seen several tax inversions. >> inversion is this phenomena of companies leaving the country for tax reasons. >> right. so this year there's been a huge wave of companies specifically buying foreign companies so they can move their headquarters to countries that pay less taxes. >> and actually, we have a goldman sachs' chart on that. it's really interesting. it's a huge spike. in 2014, this massive elevation in the rate of the countries just fleeing. why is that? >> a lot of them have been pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical -- they haven't gotten that much public attention because pharmaceutical companies are rarely brand names that people know. >> so why pharmaceutical companies? >> it has to do with the fact of
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intracracies of u.s. tax law. but pharmaceutical has high sales. the cost of a pill is very cheap and if you sell them overseas you can get a huge profit on them. so companies don't like -- one of their frustrations with the u.s. tax system is that companies in the u.s. are taxed on their overseas sales as well. a u.s. fopharmaceutical company that sells in europe as well as the u.s., they are taxed from both places. >> you mentioned the intracracies of the tax code. >> right. >> reforming the corporate tax system is a fairly broad consensus that it needs to be
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done. almost everyone agrees there are areas that it can be fixed, taxes are too high, too many loopholes. >> we're looking at an interesting graphic here. in 1952, 32.1% of federal taxes came from federal taxes and in 2012 it's way down to 9.9%. maybe a problem of a tax code not catching up to these loopholes? >> that's part of it. i think there's a fact that now we have these u.s. companies that are these huge multinationals that do tons of sales overseas, which was probably less the case in 1952 and there's a whole issue of companies being taxed on their foreign sales which companies hate and there's good reason to think that's not an optimal solution to the way we have it now. there's a fairly broad consensus that something needs to be done but nothing is going to get done, as we know, because of how politics are in d.c. >> that's the tragic truth and
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certainly we're seeing the normal and politicians are critiquing the companies and not a lot of policies. >> correct. >> we'll see if that changes, ever. thank you. >> thank you. up next, news of a major breakthrough in fighting one of the world's most contractible diseases. >> a massive assault on polio gets under way in texas as doses reach people with the vaccine. >> that frightening scene from 50 years ago and the fight continues today. the surprising developments and surprising allies in that fight, when we come back.
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our thoughts and prayers are with families of those innocent americans who are being held hostage by extremist groups in the middle east right now. and this administration is exerting significant influence and resources and time and
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effort to secure the release of those individuals. >> white house press secretary josh earnest moments ago with the first white house reaction to the latest news of american hostages being held by isis. the mother of one of those hostages, steven sotloff, just released a video today pleading directly to isis' leadership for her son's safe return. earnest also reiterated the u.s. is not in the business of paying ransom for hostages. and happier news today, important developments in the global fight against polio. new research showing the most powerful blow against this disease could be a one-two punch. a double dose of vaccinations from both intravenous and oral forms. the world health organization calls this new finding truly historic. it comes on top of other new developments showing that islamic clerics, one of the big obstacles against vaccinations in many parts of the world, are now promoting vaccinating against this illness in places
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that need it the most. joining me now is a human rights lawyer and senior editor for "the islamic monthly." thank you so much. so we took and interesting look at this problem in nigeria. our colleagues at msnbc.com went to a village in that country located in the region where boko haram is most extent. where that group messages against vaccination strongly, repeatedly, we're actually seeing in some of those places muslim clergy pushing back. do you expect to see more of this around the world? >> i do, ronan. you know, i think what's important to keep in mind when it comes to, you know, many undereducated, impoverished areas, primarily in africa and the middle east, is the best way to reach out to the communities is through their local imams, the people that, you know, they listen to during the friday prayers, give the sermons about issues affecting their communities. and i think that the nigerian government has done a great service not only to polio
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vaccination efforts in their country and worldwide but also in terms of other sources of, you know, community engagement by reaching out to these imams and hopefully more countries around the world will help reach out to grassroots imams and religious leaders on the ground to make sure their messages are getting out to the masses. >> there are three country in the world right now where polio is still endemic. nigeria, afghanistan, and pakistan. what role can islam play in those places? you mentioned how powerful it was for people to go to their local imams. we've been tracking how this pushback has caused resurgences of polio. >> yeah. you know, ronan, when you talk about nigeria, afghanistan, and pakistan, pakistan is the second largest muslim country on the face of the earth. nigeria is, i believe, the fifth or six largest muslim country on the face of the earth. obviously with majority muslim nations, it is going to be local imams and local prayer leaders and religious leaders that are
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going to be able to undo a lot of the influence not only of misinformation when it comes to polio vaccines but in terms of countering extremism also that we're seeing in isis in iraq and in syria. so i really hope that governments around the world will reach out more to their islamic religious leaders and muslim scholars on the ground to help, you know, combat a lot of the misinformation that's going on today in many parts of the world. >> it's such an important point you make, and it is so important to finally seeing this illness eradicated. you can't do it without the faith leadership. so this is a promising development. thank you so much. >> thank you, ronan. >> and if this is a story that you feel compelled to participate in, we have a way to do it. we're actually participating in a collaboration with the group global citizen right now. msnbc is hosting with that group days of action that will give you things to do to end poverty and disease. you can visit
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msnbc.com/globalcitizen right now. we're asking people to share their hopes for the future, but we're also giving people ways to tackle problems, including this polio fight. global citizen is using an interesting model here. you get points from actions contributing to those causes. not donations, actions. and you can potentially snag tickets to their concert here in new york city on september 27th. we're going to be covering that live right here on msnbc. it features some big names. jay-z will be there. no doubt will be there. i will be there, most importantly. get in there. thousands have been responding. we'll be keeping you posted on the impact that has. that wraps things up for today's edition of "rf daily." time for "the reid report" with my colleague joy reid up next. what have you got coming up? >> first of all, thank you for explaining that. i think it's really important that people get involved in that global citizen effort. thank you for explaining it. >> an interesting model. worth a look. >> definitely. i think you and i are going to have to talk more about that. stay tuned for that, everybody. next on "the reid report," the isis threat. how big is it, and how close could it come to the united states? and will a combination of
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diplomacy and military might beat it back? we'll ask our experts. then, a case of nonmagical thinking on what president obama could do to make law enforcement more responsive to minority communities. and the hope of the whopper is now canada? the fact and figures behind burger king's move north and what it all means come tax season. "the reid report" is next. hey. i'm ted and this is rudy. say "hi" rudy. [ barks ] [ chuckles ] i'd do anything to keep this guy happy and healthy. that's why i'm so excited about these new milk-bone brushing chews. whoa, i'm not the only one.
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happy wednesday, everyone. i'm joy reid. right now on "the reid report," how close is the u.s. to air strikes on isis in syria? as president obama tries to mobilize an international effort to fight the most lethal terrorist group since al qaeda, an american held hostage for almost two years by another terror group is speaking out. >> i have learned bit by bit that there have been literally hundreds of people, brave,
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determined, and big-hearted people all over the world working for my release. i had no idea that so much effort was being expended on my behalf. and now having found out, i'm just overwhelmed with emotion. >> also, what can the white house do about racial profiling by police? pressure is building for the president to use executive power to intervene in the relationship between police and communities of color. and oh, canada. burger king facing a whopper-sized backlash after striking a deal that will move the fast food giant's royal headquarters to toronto. but we start with the fast-moving developments in the middle east as major world powers attempt to confront the growing threat of the terrorist group isis. president obama is reportedly trying to coordinate allies for a forceful response that many analysts believe inevitably will include an expansion of u.s. air strikes into syria. and talk of war comes as the mother of one american hostage named steven sotloff