tv Melissa Harris- Perry MSNBC May 16, 2015 7:00am-9:01am PDT
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it took tim morehouse years to master the perfect lunge. but only one attempt to master depositing checks at chase atms. technology designed for you. so you can easily master the way you bank. is america one nation under god? plus breaking news on a u.s. military operation and the chilling new documentary, southern rights. first, first lady michelle obama speaking on history that's not even past.
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good morning, i'm melissa lee harris-perry. we're going to begin with breaking news. u.s. special operation forces entered syria to capture an isis leader. that senior leader known as abu sayyaf was killed. no u.s. forces were killed or injured during the operation. joining me now from washington, d.c. nbc white house correspondent correspondent kristen welker. do we know about the target? >> reporter: a lot of fast-moving developments. according to a report, president obama approved this operation at the recommendation at national security team. the mission aimed to capture the isis leader that you mentioned known as abu sayyaf and his wife. during the operation abu sayyaf was killed. here's some details according to jim lachefski saying it was carried out by army force
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commandos. raided an isis compound in eastern syria and an intense fire fight ensued and that's is when abu sayyaf was killed. he was killed fighting. an official tells me 12 other enemy fighters were also killed. i want to underscore the point you mentioned melissa no u.s. personnel killed in that raid. um sayyaf was captured. and held by a slave by the couple. i was told earlier um sayyaf may have been in a broader trafficking and in isis. abu sayyaf had a senior role in overseeing isis's oil and gas operations. oil and gas is a key source of revenue. and in a statement defense secretary ash carter said the operation represents another
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significant blow to isis and it is a reminder that the united states will never waver in denying safe haven to terrorists who threaten our citizens and friends and allies. the president is expressing his gratitude to the u.s. personnel who carried out the mission and iraqi authorities. they supported this mission. the next step, melissa u.s. forces are hoping the wife and other intel they may have collected from the raid will help them lead to other members of isis. melissa, back to you. >> nbc white house kristen welker, this is a fast-moving story. i'm sure we'll be checking in with you again. thank you. i want to bring in jack jacobs who joins me now by phone. colonel jack i'm curious. what does this mean the significance of u.s. special forces doing a ground operation inside syria? >> well, these are special operations forces. you hit the nail on the head. it is rare that we will admit that we're inside syria particularly in ground
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operations, as you know in the past we've gone after enemy combatants, isis operatives using drones from a great distance away, controlled from a great distance away but this is a completely different operation. we were interested in getting this guy so that they could interrogate him and much more important, all of his computers and wreckage and so on this is a finance officer. and much of the cash that flows into isis in that part of the operation comes from oil and gas kidnappings and ransoms and human trafficking. what's going to result from this, why it was so important to get on the ground, weren't interested in killing him. wanted to get on the ground is that we would be able to produce an enormous amount of information that would provide us with intelligence for a long, long time to come. >> so colonel, you made a good
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point there. the goal of boots on the ground was to extract but instead he was killed during the raid. what are the consequences for our intelligence purposes? >> as it transpires it's much better to take him captive because he can be interrogated but we got his wife, a wealth of information. she can be interrogated and use other intelligence we can use but much more important, we got all the records. and when you have the records and computers, that generally means that you've got information about other operatives, about the chain of command, about future operations, about past operations as well. as we discovered when we went to abad abadbad and got bin laden's computers and records, that's a treasure-trove and it's going to be some time before we actually
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realize all the benefits of getting that information. but getting that information is the most important thing. >> colonel jack jacobs thank you so much for your insights this morning. we're going to continue to follow this breaking news story throughout the program. we'll have much more even later in this hour. but for now -- >> thank you. >> thank you, jack. for now we make a turn to a different type of story. the story of michelle obama's speech. when the first lady addressed tuskegee, it was with a history lesson about triumph in the face of adversity. she encourages students to look to the past of tuskegee, a historically blocked university with a long list of distinguished alumni and the airmen, first african-american military aviators trained at what was then tuskegee institute and went on to become one of the most highly respected fighter groups in world war ii.
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>> here they were, trained to operate some of the most complicated high-tech machines of their day. flying at hundreds of miles an hour with the tips of their wings just six inches apart. yet, when they hit the ground, folks treated them like they were nobody. as if their very existence meant nothing. >> this is obama expanded on her narrative of african-american pioneers pushing against the confines of racial inequality offering the students her own personal experience as one of america's historic firsts. >> as potentially the first african-american first lady, i was the focus of another set of questions and speculations, conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and misperceptions of others. was it too loud or too angry or too emasculating? >> the first lady admitted even her place alongside her husband
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to the road of the white house made her one of the most recognizable people in the country, she struggled to be seen in the racial and misperceptions. >> then there was the first time i was on a magazine cover. it was a cartoon drawing of me with a huge after rowro and a machine gun. yeah, it was satire. but if i'm really being honest, it knocked me back a bit. it made me wonder just how are people seeing me? over the years folks used plenty of interesting words to describe me. one said i exhibited a little bit of uppityism. another noted that i was one of my husband's cronies. cable news charmingly referred to me as obama's baby mama. >> first lady obama's real talk to the graduates pulled no punches in her reminder to them
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that they too would be facing some of those challenges and struggles for recognition. because of their race. >> the road ahead is not going to be easy. it never is, especially for folks like you and me. because while we've come so far, the truth is that those age-old problems are stubborn. and they haven't fully gone away. so there will be times just like for those airmen when you feel like folks look right past you or they see just a fraction of who you really are. >> it's not the first time we've heard this first lady speak candidly about race and how her experiences with racism have informed her world view and her understanding of the role in the white house and perhaps proving her point. it wasn't the first time some of the usual suspects among her conservative critics cast michelle obama's candor about race as race baiting.
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but the speech prompted from some of the critics a particular claim, that she misunderstood and misrepresented the legacy of the school's booker t. washington. >> booker t. washington is spinning in his grave like a, if you ever read up from slavery, that is one of the greatest men to ever live in america. >> it's the opposite of everything he stood for and believed and advocated. >> glenn beck was joined in his teaching about history. american thinker charged that america's race-baiting flotus knows nothing about booker t. washington and the headline about michelle obama's disregard for tuskegee's university founder, booker t. washington. personal account racial misrecognition of insufficient understanding as the american
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thinker claimed this week, stirring up racial animosity is an approach washington shunned and perhaps mrs. obama's critics should read more deeply into washington's ideology. born into slavery and rose to such prominence as an educator and thought leader that u.s. presidents sought his advice was an advocate of self-help as the key to advancement for formerly enslaved people. believed they could earn gradually by dedicating to vocational education and proving their value and usefulness to their country. in that regard michelle obama, the december senscendent of enslaved people, opened the doors of opportunity to their children is the em bodiment of washington's vision but the years of hard fought civil rights battle that paved the way for obama family's occupation of the white house stand in defiance mean
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sacrificing the political empowerment cost of the african-american advancement. washington eloquently articulated his acceptance of segregation and voting discrimination in 1895 speech known as atlanta compromise saying in all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress. if the first lady's address is to truly be understood in the context of booker t. washington's legacy it is in the portion of her speech that her critics overlook because she followed her lived account of racial injustices with a message to the students very much in line with washington's beliefs. >> graduates today i want to be very clear that those feelings are not an excuse to just throw up our hands and give up. not an excuse, they are not an
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excuse to lose hope. to succumb to feelings of despair and anger only means that in the end, we lose. >> joining me now brittany cooper and peter slevin author of "michelle obama: a life." >> so many feelings. >> all of them about everything. i want to open it. what did you hear in that speech and in the critique that followed? >> sure. what i think is so compelling, it reminds me of a couple arguments you make in "sister citizen." the politics of recognition. so saying to them, you will be misrecognized, folks won't see your cap and gown when they self-incriminate discriminate against you. black women matter in politics and we get a sense of the hurt and pain she felt around that
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new yorker cover. she is having her say and this is the first time we've heard her say that hurt kept me up nights and that is so important. that's a moment she took off this cloak of strong womanhood and validate our right to say racism hurts racism is painful but we persist move on and figure out a way to make it. i think that's a nice balance of a structural critique or acknowledgment of structural critique and acknowledgment of the spiritual resources we marshal to deal with it. >> peter, i think this is part of the reason i wanted you as her biographer. was that point about the pain the thing i think that caught, i've heard her say many of these, that topics and issues and framework before. but the way she said basically, i worry that i was a liability to my husband's presidential campaign. that really, i felt her humanity in a way that i have not really
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since she put up the shield to make it to the white house. >> she was mortified during the 2008 campaign. you remember when she started being criticized in ways she described so powerfully in tuskegee and you remember at the maya angelou memorial service, said ivy league classrooms, i was lonely. on the campaign trail, my womanhood was challenged. she is using her story as she does all around the country and now around the world you've seen in her recent speeches to say, the deck is stacked. it is not easy, but you have to carry on. that's the point you're making too about the booker t. washington part of it all. >> i think for me, i battle with this because she says it's hard but also says hard doesn't have to do with the fact you have to do it anyway, draw on the historical resources. it also feels to me, brittany the president has a bucket list. white house correspondents dinner immigration reform,
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bucket. and feels like flotus may be bucket. i got some things i need to say. >> she was like how you like me now in the mix? she came and responded to her critics and she's right. she's having her say. here is the thing about her critics. not only are they misrepresenting and flattening out a series of very complicated conversations in the history of african-american intellectual thought but also, she wasn't just standing in the traditional booker t. washington and was at the same time. said in tradition of his wife margaret murray washington a famous african-american club woman, leader, who stood in the gap around women black women's issues. so she was very important in that regard and those women also took every public opportunity to have their say to defend the virtue of african-american womanhood and that's what i see her doing when she stands up. >> more on that. and another lady who went to tuskegee and the responses about race when that occurred. plus we continue to follow this morning's breaking news. the u.s. raid inside syria that
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killed a top isis leader. the target, abu sayyaf, was the head of isis' oil and gas operations. no u.s. force injured in the operation which the military calls enormously successful. a lot more this morning. orta the valet. both drive for a living, both like to save money on car insurance and we both know you may not get this car back in the same condition. watch your toes. wo! ya boy... get it! sorta you isn't you. with drivesense from esurance, you can earn a personalized discount based on how you drive not how someone sorta like you drives. you'll even get a discount just for signing up. esurance. backed by allstate. click or call. bring us your aching... and sleep deprived. bring us those who want to feel well rested and ready to enjoy the morning ahead. aleve pm. the first to combine a sleep aid... plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. for pain relief that can last until the am.
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i had the peace of mind of knowing that all of the chatter, the name-calling, the doubting, all of it was just noise. it did not define me. it didn't change who i was. and most importantly, it couldn't hold me back. i have learned that as long as as i hold fast to my beliefs and values and follow my own moral compass, then the only expectations i need to leave live up to are my own.
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>> again, first lady michelle obama at the tuskegee commencement. chooilds contributor to sunday morning and editor for the nation. nancy nancy, i know you want in on this as well. >> i never got over the cover of the new yorker. i just didn't. for starters, from a hair perspective, you know, michelle chooses to wear her hair straight. i wear an afro. but the whole thing was so condescending and we know readers of the magazine supposedly understand satire and more intelligent, it just sat there without any kind of response and i remember saying, it might have even been on your show, the editor said, oh we're going to do more satirical covers of the other candidates. nuh-uh nuh-uh. never. >> it has to be rooted in something real. the image of president obama that appears on that cover, that
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image is an actual picture. so they are satirizing a picture of then-candidate obama that exists. >> a framed picture of osama bin laden. >> sure. but that image exists. there is no moment of baby michelle robinson, a grown--- i don't know if i can say that, a grown michelle obama. >> no counter. none whatsoever. it just laid there. and that always upset me. and saying, it made me feel bad to hear her bad how it made her feel. it was a great acknowledgment of the myth of the angry woman. by the way i am angry. i think i have justification. >> this is what's getting lost in a lot of this. actually, her message is a black power message.
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and it's really important in understanding, there are two different ways that racial inequity are discussed and have been discussed since washington america. black people deficits and got to be lifted up individually or structurally, got to fix black people and then the problem is y'all. the problem is white people and white supremacy and our problem is to not tricking to feel less than. that's her speech. that's noise. don't get caught in it. it's not about you. because i am powerful. >> so there's also a little bit of sort of the historical rewriting of that moment. because of course it isn't just noise. i'm thinking, in this moment, peter, the fact that when you are a candidate when you are even a candidate for first lady and appear on a cover it's not just noise. it is actually meaningfully impact the public's face.
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it is possible those representations could have meant a no obama presidency and that would have had repercussions good bad, or otherwise, but they would have existed. >> i think something lost in this discussion certainly from the critics on the right is that these are real lived experiences that michelle obama endured things she is sharing, lessons she is trying to push forward. she is someone who in this very role, look at the power of my own trajectory. it may not work for everybody, but right now, it's all we got. we can't get the cavalry right fast enough. take my example, as far as you can take it and also, recognize what, in fact is true to an awful lot of people. >> just also, as a matter of history, kept wondering. she didn't invoke eleanor roosevelt but i kept wondering if she was thinking about eleanor roosevelt, who as first lady, goes to tuskegee, but stands there in 1941, gets into an airplane with an
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african-american pilot, flies for more than an hour, a white woman alone in the with an african-american pilot, the entire public's fear goes nuts as a result. right, she stands there with images of booker t. washington and writes it in extraordinary my day columns but the idea of the first lady in tuskegee speaking on race and provoking response, i was like, oh eleanor roosevelt. >> can you imagine if there is twitter back then? hashtag hashtag, eleanor what are you doing? >> twitter would have lost its entire mind. what the first lady to do about this is when we come back. the world is filled with air. but for people with copd sometimes breathing air can be difficult. if you have copd, ask your doctor about once-daily anoro ellipta. it helps people with copd breathe better for a full 24hours. anoro ellipta is the first fda-approved product containing two long-acting bronchodilators in one inhaler.
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it makes a lot of other cards seem one-sided. you don't have to be president of the united states to start addressing things like poverty and education and lack of opportunity. graduates, today today, you can mentor a young person and make sure he or she takes the right path. today, you can volunteer at an
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after-school program or food pantry. today, you can help your cousin fill out her college financial aid forms so that she can be sitting in those chairs one day. >> that was first lady michelle obama speaking last weekend at the tuskegee university commencement. last weekend, we were talking on this show about then-senator obama's race speech in philadelphia and we were kind of saying, is it time to do that again? i'm wondering if first lady obama was giving the speech that we wanted while we were talking about it. because, man she does something different with the cousin than -- that ain't cause of pookie. helping the application. >> i think we got to talk about the way she uses the kind of black women's political resources here. so she really steps into what she can uniquely do as the first african-american first lady. i was like, this is the conversation i had with my mama dealing with racist classmates. this is the way you say the
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folks. i know there's real structural racism. intimately affects you. it might even hurt you. but you can address these challenges. you have to get up and try again. right, you have to so help your cousin. i thought, i have a cousin i helped into college. those are very real kind of experiences. what she hones in on is what it looks like on the ground when young people are in families trying to become, not be family's exception but to mark that exceptionalism as a pathway for everybody. >> it does feel different than the critique, for example levels at president obama about his discourse around black families. not that i want to set up the two in opposition to each other, but it is a different way to think about the booker t. washington of it all. looks very different in the hands of first lady obama. >> you have to actually consider the them next to each other. their messages are so starkly different. the matter is where you locate the problem. the president said it's the problem with black people.
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what are our deficits that we must fix? where how does cousin pookie need to do about himself. said here are the ways you can use your strengths. you must remember that you are strong. you make your choices. i made my choices. you make your choices and let's live with them. they can't get in your way. that's her message. a very different -- >> and it's god in history and it's family. what i heard, institutions right? so it's like, it's how god helps us knowing history bears us up how these institutions like tuskegee are meaningful and what we do in our families. and that feels like the michelle obama in your text so who is four pieces. >> she is all the four pieces when you remember just how pragmatic she is she is not someone who wants to argue how many angels can dance and in the history, it's concrete. you can do in your life to make
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a difference in your life and by the way, once you get there, reach back. do the whole reaching back. >> the thing of lifting us we climb, right? even though that has problematic, on the ground what it looks like is you have to help somebody do a college application and a fav is a. >> i love the recognition of who you are and being comfortable in your own skin but the recognition of her history each individual's history which is something that i could just rattle this country's head about. we're big with like, don't go there. don't talk about it. da da da. and really just recognizing where we come from, what the real situations are. >> when you say recognition i just want to point out that the other valuable thing that's kind of happening underneath it although she quite explicit, no matter how good you are, the obamas are better than all the rest, just are. they've done it. they went to the best schools, achieved the best, they are better. >> president and first lady.
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>> right. >> and still receiving it. you can't respect your way out of it can't perform better. all you can do is exist in your own authenticity. you can't fix. >> better than that. >> i love she shouted out name discrimination too. we have so much respectability around names. i love that she shouts it out and that's also to black mothers largely doing this to say don't shame. your name is not your destiny. >> that's right. >> it was a lot happening in that speech. we could all day, but there are other things in the world. >> i know. >> when we come backseat, more on the breaking news story we have this morning. u.s. military operation that took out a key isis leader.
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borders of syria. the defense department announced this morning u.s. special operation forces entered syria with the intention to capture an isis leader and his wife. that senior leader, known as abu sayyaf, was killed when he engaged u.s. forces. his wife was captured and is now in detention in iraq. no u.s. forces were killed or injured during the operation. joining me now from washington, d.c. is kevin, executive editor of defense one. kevin, what are some of the details we know about the raid itself and who else was involved? >> we know that this was u.s. army special operations forces and they flew in from iraq on the tilt rotor half helicopter. multilevel building with the intention of capturing this man. instead, he engaged them with a fire fight. that turned into really a hand to hand combat i was told and in the process, about 12 or about a dozen enemy were killed.
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i was told that they were using women and children as human shields. the report is that no innocents were harmed. no u.s. operators were harmed or killed. but abu sayyaf was killed. there was a lot of intelligence recovered. laptops and information and the wife and a, the woman was brought back to iraq where they are now. >> the u.s. entered syria and i was wondering, when was the last time this happened and do you think we're likely to see more u.s. operations actually over the border in syria in the future? >> absolutely. we were trying to think of defense one going back maybe to the james foley raid when we announced there was a rescue operation. this is different. this is straight for an offensive target. even though it was the same kind of snatch attempt to get somebody. what i think it means is that the pentagon and the administration made a
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calculation that it was worth the risk to go in to get this man and they were going to make it public because it appears to be militarily a big success and i think it shows the administration is doing more for this fight which is something people have been clamoring for, administration and opponents have been criticizing for and i think this is the kind of thing we're going to be hearing about with war. with special operations, intel, not a massive boots on the ground. whether it's a few dozen operators flying in a helicopter for these kind of raids this is the way these wars are being fought against terrorism now and they will be for the future. >> when you say these are how the wars are fought, you use war, the thing that will come up in the coming days this is happening just at the level of the administration or whether or not congressional approval at any form or congressional information was offered. i just know that's going to be
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part of this discussion and conversation. so i'm wondering if you know what the protocols typically would have been in this kind of decision-making. >> this is not a kind of a bin laden raid level incursion. there are umaaumfs. the same that allowed them to fight al qaeda are the ones that allow them to fight isis. congress hemmed and hawed about some unsure about that. but congress is taking a sideline. nobody thinks that congress is going to put this to a vote because no one wants to vote for a war that maybe later need to say they're against. this kind of isolated action is completely within the realm of the administration to make happen. and i say wars, it's really one war. one war of terrorism going on across the entire middle east and north africa with several groups linked in ideology. but it is a war, make no mistake
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about it. >> kevin baron thank you so much. what it means in the campaign against isis is next. plus 10 gigs of shareable data. yeah, 10 gigantic gigs. for $80 a month. and $15 per line. more data than ever. for more of what you want. on the network that's #1 in speed, call, data, and reliability. so you never have to settle. $80 a month. for 10 gigs. and $15 per line. stop by or visit us online. and save without settling. only on verizon. the network that monitors her health. the secure cloud services that store her genetic data the servers and software on a mission to find the perfect match. and the mom who gets to hear her daughter's heart beat once again. we're helping organizations
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it was a key player in isis. i'd like to bring in retired british senior officer and former advisor to the u.k. minister of defense michael kay. what can you tell us about this particular area in syria where the raid took place? >> melissa, let's just start more broadly. what's been happening in the middle east last week has been quite intensive. isis have basically been on the rampage across syria and iraq over the last week. in ramadi particularly in the province next to baghdad. the iraqi syrian forces have been fighting in ramadi
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specifically. put up over the government headquarters in ramadi and now declared control over anwar province. in palmyra ancient artifacts and ruins, isis is trying to destroy anything that isn't with their version of islam. in palmyra, that's where it is at the moment but particularly interesting. there's a battle going on here for a year. the components are interesting but this is where abu save, very near to deir ezzur. my sources back in the u.k. have been telling me for the last 12 months that u.k. and u.s.s.f. forces have been striking for a
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year. this is different in the leadership. >> how important is that development of isis' extension in iraq to what you suspect is probably likely the decision-making about our syria operation? >> abu sayyaf was effectively the coo of isis. the person who controlled the revenue streams. oil or internet or raqqa, here is a self-proclaimed capital of the islamic state in syria. he was an incredibly prominent figure when it comes to the revenue streams and we know the revenue streams are vital when it comes to bankrolling an organization like isis. this is just but a small component. the dynamics in syria and iraq are incredibly complex because what we are talking about is the regime the syrian regime of where assad is in all of this. the components basically are you've got isis on the one hand. you've got syrian regime with hezbollah which have come in from south lebanon and the nusra front, al qaeda-linked
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organization. and they're sort of competing for control in syria and iraq. if you like. now, there are reports that assad is kind of collaborating with isis, if you like in order to sort of give them a counterbalance of importance within syria. so assad is basically saying the reason you need me in syria is because you have isis and in doing that sort of collaboration gives him a raise. the components are complex melissa. >> michael, thank you so much for your insight this morning. we're going to continue to follow this breaking news throughout the show, but up next, newly released video of a controversial police shooting in madison, wisconsin. the police chief is going to join us live. [announcer]when we make beyond natural dry dog and cat foods. we start with real meat as the first ingredient. we leave out corn,wheat and soy. and we own where our dry food is made-100 percent! can other brands say all that?
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with xfinity from comcast you can manage your account anytime, anywhere on any device. just sign into my account to pay bills manage service appointments and find answers to your questions. you can even check your connection status on your phone. now it's easier than ever to manage your account. get started at xfinity.com/myaccount on tuesday in madison, wisconsin, prosecutors cleared police officer matt kenny in shooting death of unarmed tony robinson. march 6 they were responding to multiple calls about a
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disturbance involving robinson who according to toxicology tests taken hallucinogenic mushrooms and other drugs. in an apartment building after hearing sounds of struggle. he opened fire after an altercation with robinson. after the announcement that kenny would not face criminal charges the department of justice released a dash cam video. some viewers may find the following video to be disturbing. the d.a. called the close-range shooting a lawful use of deadly police force but according to the wisconsin state journal, robinson's family criticized his final shot saying he was not in danger once outside the home.
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the mother plans to file a civil suit against the police department. the decision reignited protests hundreds took to the streets calling for justice. madison police chief michael cobalt acknowledged the tension surrounding robinson's death and added madison eats's issue go well on race and include justice and poverty. in part, i'm not going to absolve law enforcement for whatever role we played in being complicit in the calculus of racial disparities. given the sobering backdrop one can sense why there's hopeless and desperation and all the opportunities many of us take for granted. chief cobalt joining me. i appreciate your structural, historical statement, but when we look at the video and see an officer backing up as he shoots someone who we now know was unarmed, it's difficult to see
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that like a broad structural moment. it feels like an injustice happening between two people. >> yeah. those are going to be difficult dynamics because of the dimensions of that camera footage you have. and of course the physiology of what an officer can respond to what a subject is providing will always be a sort of a gap in realtime. we don't know to what extent the threat was advancing. based on the totality of the work, the d.a. must have said there was no criminal cup paabilitycupability cupability. we have to make sure all our training protocols and procedures are followed. at some point there will be an opportunity for him to return to full duty. in what capacity or assignment, that has yet to be determined but he has the due process right and he has been exonerated. >> i know you've worked hard to
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try to develop good relationships with community. so, again, we don't know yet the circumstances under which officer kenny may return but is there some kind of protocol you're thinking about how to manage that kind of moment relative to the community. >> well, i do think we have to be mindful that the lessons learned here already has been shown that we didn't have the same illustration that we saw in baltimore and i believe that's owing to the fact that we have been in constant dialogue with our community constituents in looking at and dialoguing about our issues long-term and short-term. i think that gives us an edge. >> i want to pull up to my table for just a second, chief. brittany cooper is still at the table and in madison involved in some of the early protests after mr. robinson's death. do you want to jump in here a bit? >> yes, while i'm glad we see some level of due process and that we definitely see the officer here the chief having a structural analysis, the real
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goal is to stop these killings of unarmed black citizens every time they have these encounters with law enforcement. so yes, we want trials, we want convictions, we want due process. we want there to be a disruption of the thing that makes black folks feel like a threat and makes it so these encounters are more dangerous than they have to be and are frequently deadly. that's not acceptable. >> so, chief, can you respond to that? i think that's an important part of an entire movement here that says, yes, we want justice on the back end but the front end, we want to be safe in interactions with police officers. >> well, i agree. i think we have some fences to mend and bringdges as well. the trust gap is unmistakable it's undeniable here. i have to have our officers redouble our efforts to regain that momentum that we had lost in terms of looking at where we could find collaboration and trust. i don't want to have to meet with african-american moms and say why their teenage sons have
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to worry about driving around in the city of madison. we have to create a different paradigm so that isn't the norm or the expectation. >> have you had an opportunity to meet with mr. robinson's family? >> yes i have met with andrea as a post-script to the actual killing of tony, but not as a post-script to this verdict, no, ma'am. >> let me ask a final question. you acknowledge baltimore and the long-term questions and issues that have been raised by it. how has your department been having conversations about what's happening in baltimore? >> well i think that we looked at it from a logistics standpoint as any incident command should but more over, i think we looked to where we could look to our community leaders, whether titled or de facto as such and say how could we help our whole community as one and having them project themselves into the field? we had over 150 parade marshals or mentoring preaching a sense
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of restranltint that helped infinitely. >> thank you to madison police chief michael koval. i appreciate you making yourself available. here in new york thank you to brittany cooper and peter slevin and nancy giles and kai wright. next, the latest on the u.s. raid inside syria that killed a top isis leader. and when you bundle your home and auto insurance through progressive, you'll save a bundle! [ laughs ] jamie. right. make a bad bundle joke a buck goes in the jar. i guess that's just how the cookie bundles. now, you're gonna have two bundles of joy! i'm not pregnant. i'm gonna go. [ tapping, cash register dings ] there you go. [ buzzing ] bundle bee coming! it was worth it! saving you a bundle when you bundle -- now, that's progressive. ♪ sfx: engine sounds
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welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. the latest on breaking news we've been following for you this morning. u.s. military officials say a senior isis leader who led its oil and gas operations was killed during a u.s. special operations raid inside syria. the u.s. defense department announced this morning the mission was to capture abu sayyaf but he was killed when he
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engaged u.s. forces. his wife was captured and now in detention in iraq. a u.s. official said 12 enemy fighters killed in the raid. no u.s. forces were killed or injured in the operation. joining me from washington, d.c., kristen welker. what do we know now in this operation and its target? >> reporter: melissa, here's the latest. according to a statement released by nbc spokesperson bernadette mien president obama approved this at recommendation by the national security team. the mission was aimed initially at capturing isis leader who's known as abu save and his wife umm sayyaf but during the operation, abu sayyaf was killed. here's some of those details according to jim lifsashefski. carried out by special forces commandos, tilt aircraft raided an isis compound in eastern
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syria and then an intense fire fight started to break out and that's when abu sayyaf was killed. an official tells as you say, 12 other enemy fighters also killed. no u.s. personnel killed but umm sayyaf the wife was captured, taken into custody. currently in u.s. custody in iraq. u.s. forces also freed a young woman held as a slave by the couple and i'm told by one u.s. official that umm sayyaf may have been involved in a broader human trafficking effort and is also a key player in isis. abu sayyaf was a senior isis leader involved in the military but also had a senior role in overseeing isis' oil and gas operations. u.s. officials tell me at this hour, they are trying to get information from umm sayyaf, the wife, in the hopes that she will lead them to other isis operatives. >> nbc white house correspondent kristen welker, thank you. i'd like to bring in richard inn
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gal live fromst istanbul. what are the accomplishments of this mission? >> reporter: i think that it was in syria in the middle of an isis stronghold. this took place evening time local time yesterday with the sprays and black hawks going into an area of deir spz eez-zur area. hostiles on the ground. initially, a snatch and grab operation and then after a fire fight broke out, the primary target was killed along with 12 to perhaps 20 other gunmen who were in the area and then the wife who's known aumm sayyaf was taken into u.s. custody.
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mostly it is a psychological blow. it shows isis that u.s. commandos will come with their helicopters and land in the heart of unfriendly territory and conduct operations. we've seen the u.s. operating openly, extensively in iraq but we have not seen this kind of mission in syria. incredibly risky. if it had gone wrong then you would have had a situation where you could have had american troops killed or even captured in the heart of isis territory. >> we heard from mike kay in the last hour that isis has been gaining ground in iraq. consolidating its control. and i'm sort of wondering about how this strike in syria might impact those that ground control in iraq. >> isis is still able to operate offensive operations, if you look at what's happening in ra
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ramadi, an iraqi city west of baghdad. isis took over a government compound in ramadi. isis is on the outskirts of the historic city of palmyra, threatening to bulldoze another archaeological site. the global picture is still quite grim but the fact that the u.s. launched this incredibly risky operation authorized by the president to go into the heart of isis territory and kill, the initial intention to capture a top figure shows a kind of aggressiveness in syria which we haven't seen thus far. >> thank you to nbc's richard ingle for joining us. we have continuing coverage on msnbc including much later in this hour. for now, we're going to turn to news back home. at a surprising study released earlier this week you see, it's a common theme among presidents that the united states is at its heart a
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religious nation. >> the gooiding principle is now and has ever been in god we trust. >> in god we trust. let us engrave it now in each of our hearts as we begin our bicentennial. >> america was founded by people who believed that god was their rock of safety. he is ours. america has always been a religious nation. perhaps never more than that. >> god bless you and god bless the united states of america. >> may god grant us wisdom and may we watch over the united states of america. >> now you might think it's been this way from the beginning. but our current understanding of the united states as a christian nation began just 60 or so years
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ago. in the space of a few years in the 1950s when dwight eisenhower and fighting the godless communism, we added under god to the pledge of allegiance for the first time. made the official national motto in god we trust and created the national prayer breakfast at which the president still speaks. this year, president obama spoke about one of his favorite lines of prayer. >> keep us at tasks too hard for us we may be driven to strenlt. i wonder at times god was answering that prayer a little too literally, but no matter the challenge, he has been there. for all of us. certainly strengthened me with the power through his spirit. as i've sought his guidance, not just in my own life but in the life of our nation. >> this centrality of faith, the number of american adults not
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affiliated with any religion is big and growing. according to a new pooug research, a quarter of us unaffiliated. an increase of 7 percentage points in just seven years. the last time pugh did the religious landscape study. the survey asked about the religious beliefs, making it the most comprehensive picture of faith in america that we have. does not tally religious identity. the growing number of unaffiliated folks 56 million includes atheists and agnostics but most people who say their religion is just nothing in particular. unaffiliates make a bigger share than catholics, main line protestants and every non-christian faith. seems due largely to two factors. younger people, the millennials less likely to be affiliated with religion and of adults between the ages of 18 and 33 about a third are unaffiliated but also due to people of every age dropping out of religions that they were initially raised in. for example, a whopping 19% of
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american adults are now former christians. joining he nowme now, christopher hale. catholics, alliance for the common good and journal for young catholics in the u.s. kelly brown douglas, author of stand your ground, black bodies and the justice of god. chris stedman executive director of the yale humanist funt and author of faitheist, how an atheist found common ground with the religious and at the union and theological seminary. thank you all for being here. what do you think is going on with this decline? particularly among the young in religiousot; affiliation? >> sure. well, there's a lot going on here. and you know, i myself am a millennial and also a none. you may not be surprised to hear me say this but i think this is a good thing. it's encouraging and i think of faith should agree.
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here's why. i think this signifies that a growing openness and tolerance in this country for religious differences. we are now living in a country where people are much more free and open to be able to change their religious affiliation without losing their friends, their loved ones without basing these grave social consequences and that's great and that's something we should all celebrate. my sister is a christian. i'm an atheist. my sister is a mother, three young children and asked me to be godfather to her youngest child recently. i asked her, is this an issue because, you know, in case you forgot? i'm an atheist. and what she told me i think is a beautiful thing. she said, i think you being an atheist is actually a really good thing for this because i want my children to grow up knowing that they will be loved and they will be a part of this family even if their beliefs change or they don't share my beliefs as a christian. and i think that's something that we should hope to see more and more of in this country.
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>> it's interesting story this idea of being a godfather while not having a faith in god. my daughter, my youngest daughter is catholic my husband is catholic. when we made the decision to find our god parents, the catholic church, not so much on this. there are real rules who can stand as the official god parent of a catholic child in the process of baptism and catholicism and it was fascinating to navigate the questions whether or not my episcopal cousin could stand in this role and needing her priest to write a letter. is it opting out of god or opting out of religious rules? >> i think we really see, this might not be a christian nation anymore but still a high belief in god. there's still a high level of spirituality in the united states. so some people argue that young people are searching. some people argue that they're not searching at all, actually. they've actually they've found themselves. but i think we should caution the decline in religion as a good thing. a lot of times, religion blames
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the isms. consumerism, atheism but pope francis taugt the catholic church to look inside itself. the christian faith in the united states have lost the radical message of jesus. jesus is the most compelling thing about christianity, not the rules. and we lost the radical politics of jesus. sanitized over years and lost the compelling message and become a board wash with no attraction. >> the language of radical message of jesus, this is why i wanted you at the table. your book just come across my desk. you have various points. radical motion of christ and particularly, this context, around the idea of a black lives matter movement and pressing social question. does recognized religion in the u.s. have any meaningful to add or like myillennials. >> i think that is perhaps precisely the point. what we're saying in the
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millennial generation. and ethnically culturally, and in terms of gender identity and sexual orientation, we're also seeing that they're the most educated generation and we're also seeing that this is the first generation that has been completely raised on the internet. so they're the cyber generation. what this means in many respects is that, one, they are looking for more complex answers to complicated questions that they raise. they are living in a diverse world and diverse community even as they themselves are diverse and in as much as religious institutions do not respond to the very questions that they have and those religious institutions aren't even able to meet them where they are as ethnically culturally, sexually genderly diversed
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peoples, they are opting out of that institutions. >> part of what i found fascinating on the pew city, the one group of people who remained church are black folks in the protestant church and people of color in the world catholic communities. so it is mostly white american protestants and former european catholics who are now opting out. whereas the blacks and browns, we are with the god. >> the study is misleading manyin terms of the decline. social sociologists have maintained it's the decline of christianity with religion in general. that is not white, it's not important. white christianity dies religion dies. the reality is that in terms of the future studies have shown that immigrants to the united states become more religious here than in their homeland. meaning more religious people in this country perhaps in the
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future rather than the decline that the study suggests. >> stick with me. i promise we come back on all of this. i did send my producers to the field to ask the millennials about the faith and i find that when we come back. plus, continue this morning's breaking news. the u.s. raid inside syria that killed a top isis leader. the target, abu sayyaf, was the head of isis' oil and gas operations. military officials say 12 enemy fighters killed in the raid but no u.s. forces hurt in the operation. ♪ if you're looking for a car that drives you... ...and takes the wheel right from your very hands... ...this isn't that car. the first and only car with direct adaptive steering. ♪ the 328 horsepower q50 from infiniti.
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particularly from young adults. i sent a couple producers out with one specific question. >> what role does organized religion play in your life? >> what role was organized religion play in your life? >> what role does organized religion play a role in your life. >> every role. who i am, what i say how i dress. >> not much at all. >> organized religion actually helps me with moral support. it shows me right from wrong. when i'm tempted to do wrong it helps me do right. >> it doesn't play a role at all. >> i'm open with it. i wouldn't say i'm super religious but i definitely believe. >> organized religion doesn't play that much of a role in my life anymore. but it has set the basis for the way i am. >> i'm not religious, i'm not an atheist, but whatever. >> i went to church one time. and it was the day the girl wanted to meet me up in the church. >> i consider myself atheist.
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just try to be a nice person and to be other people. should be enough and certainly enough for me. >> i think the problem isn't so much the role it plays in our life but the role it's not filling. i think a lot of people feel as if organized religion doesn't take the time to address what's concerning people now. >> i think that a lot of the pillars that religions are built on, our generation doesn't agree with. >> for me personally, i feel like the more i stepped away from organized religion, the more i was at peace with myself. >> organized religion, institutionalized religion represents division divisiveness. >> i think, of course, what we see from the survey of the millennials on the street is precisely the point that those trying to address that it's organized religion institutionaled religion, as much as they don't see these institutions or religions responding to the questions and
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concerns that they have in the way they live their lives. they tend to live in more pluralistic settings. they talk about it being divisive. there's a difference between organized religion and the millennials describe themselves as spiritual but not religious. they reject institutionalized religion but i like to piggy back on something that reverend cruz said in terms of the black church and populations of color and relationship to organized religion. do you see the church playing a different role in the lives of people who find themselves socially politically, culturally marginalized? it has to be that institution which picks up other social institutions do not? so whether or not, for instance a black person may say i'm not churched, yet in times of
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crisis it is the church that they turn to. again, the church that steps in as we see is the case in baltimore? >> i would say, i love that package my producers did right here in new york. did in north carolina. if you ask the same in north carolina, you get a different set of answers even from young people and especially young people of color. some on their dates because it's part of where you go to find and make a family right? but it's also because it's playing these multiple roles. >> what do people mean by young affiliated also because you have the question, if you ask people in my congregation do they believe in institutional religion? 90% say no because they look the church not an institution but a family. union theological seminary has a lot of non-believing people in a seminary. what does that mean? it's a way of people distancing themselves from the corrupt
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aspects or the aspects of religion that don't work for them. >> i wonder the ways, when it is an actual institution how an institutional change can shift. i was saying, my husband is catholic. my daughter is catholic. this particular pope, this papacy makes me think i wonder if i have a tradition. because in an institution, any part of institutional change can feel so compelling. >> one thing about pope francis, he talks about his image of church. listen to this. he once said the church is dirty, bruised and broken because it's been in the ministry and closed its on small-minded rules. that's not the church young people see quite honestly. even as a young catholic, close eyes they imagine the priest, the bishop. they don't imagine themselves. young people don't imagine themselves within the church. that should be the reality of the catholic church. >> all is still different, i don't want to miss the claim though that, so for all various roles that the church is
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playing, it's also based fundamentally in a spiritual belief and a faith claim and one simply is not making the faith claim, even if it's institutionally valuable one would not necessarily need that institution. >> i don't know about that really. so i think that the question of why so many millennials leave institutional religion is an important question. i am glad we're wrestling with it today and it's very clear that the nuns are a complex group. they're a bunch of unaffiliated believers, atheists agnostic, it's hard to talk in a general way but the why question is important but i think the where question is much more important. where are these people going? where are they going in times of crisis, where are they going in times of need where are they going to organize? i worked in a church on the south side of chicago and i saw just how important religious institutions are in the communities.
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crisis missionary baptist church. when i was a young person, i turned to churches even though some might associate as well christian churches with harm to people actually turned to christian churches for my safe space in high school. i know firsthand how important these communities are and my concern about the nuns is where to go. >> just explain in 15 seconds. >> the religiously unaffiliated is where are they turning to? religious institutions are a powerful hub of social capital and it's how people organize. >> pause right there. we're going to take a break but i want to come back on that. social catholic yes, but political capital as well and what's happening with the nuns, the the nones. why presidential candidates may walk a fine line. difficult. if you have copd, ask your doctor about once-daily
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sf republican presidential candidates have a tight rope to walk. they have to appeal to early state primary voters to get the nomination all without alienating the other folks who they're going to need to convince if they do get the nomination. gop primarylectorateelectorate. ef ef ef. 65% of the gop primary voters in south carolina. one of the things we're finding in general is that the nones, those who are unaffiliated, less likely to belief but church is a place where you go and get your social capital and your get reminded to register and sometimes you get a rise to the polls. >> that's exactly right. before the break we were talking about some of the value of institutions and i think one of the valuable roles that religious institutions have
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played is that they're communities of accountability. they hold people accountable to their beliefs and remind them to be their best selves and create opportunity. american grace, talked about religious are more engaged than the non-religious. better neighbors but also found non-believing spouse of a religious person who participated in partner's community just sievically engaged and the correlation between being politically active and being religious has more to do with belonging than belief and they suggest that moral communities for non-religious people like humanist or other communities like that can provide opportunities inspiration and outlets for non-religious people like myself to act on our values and get organized. >> here's my one concern about acting on values. there are times i think of acting on values as being the sort of radical level that i see coming out of christianity but also has met often and this is part of the kind of republican
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primary piece, often a narrowing, less radical sometimes a conservative effect in our politics at least from some other perspective can be problematic or troubling. >> the history has either been an agent of oppression or liberation liberation. it depends what kind of message you're getting. that's why i think the, there's a changing face in christianity in the united states and a result of black and latino religiousty. it's more contextized. no denominations has over 2% people of color and you wonder why there is a decline. they're not relevant at this point. >> do you think that, for example, a supreme court decision, that affirms 50 states of marriage for marriage equality, we could see a reinvig
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ration that might result of social change that's moved in another direction? >> oh for sure. and i think first of all we've already seen that tilt right? because the evangelical, even though they don't make the large percentage of the population. for them much at stake because there seems to be a changing of the guard changing values. and so typically, they know what they stand for. right? that they're for or against marriage equality. for or against abortions. those millennials and those that are less conservative typically aren't that rigid in what they're for or against. they're more for open society. they're more for choice and these kind of things. so they don't see, on the one hand to have much at stake and
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doesn't drive them to the polls. >> right. >> in the way that which when we see rapid change of values and drives the more religiously fundamentalist or conservatives to the polls because they have something to protect. >> build the social capital and gets people to the polls. and presume. the polls. always precisely. >> kelly brown. reverend samuel cruze, all thinking through with me. next, we have more on the breaking news on the u.s. military mission from inside the borders of syria. estion: can you keep your lifestyle in retirement? i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. i try not to worry but you worry. what happens when your paychecks stop? because everyone has retirement questions.
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the volkswagen golf was just named motor trend's 2015 car of the year. so was the 100% electric e-golf. and the 45 highway mpg tdi clean diesel. and last but not least the high performance gti. looks like we're gonna need a bigger podium. the volkswagen golf family. motor trend's 2015 "cars" of the year. this morning after u.s. army delta force commandos conducted an overnight raid inside syria.
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u.s. military officials say the intent of the operation was to capture abu sayyaf but he was killed when he engaged u.s. forces. his wife was captured and now in detention in iraq. no u.s. forces were killed or injured during the operation. joining me now is aki peret, author of "find fix, and finish: inside the counterterrorism campaign that killed bin laden and devastated al qaeda." the national security council released a statement saying sayyaf's wife is being questioned. what kind of information are they likely trying to obtain? >> one of the things they're trying to get is information about his whereabouts, or sorry where the senior leaders abu baghdadi and his other folks. chances are abu sayyaf, since as a senior leader, had a relationship with other senior leaders and look to build targeting information to capture these other people.
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another thing that they're trying to get information from is actual economic and financial knowledge. supposedly, this individual was part of the whole oil and gas infrastructure that isis had build up. if she had information about who was funneling what money to whom, she would be extremely, extremely valuable. and finally, there was this idea that they might have some relationship with other hostages being held by isis. if she has any information on that issue obviously the united states would want to know that. >> a law has been made around the relationship with oil and gas. i presume in a complicated organization as large as isis that one individual is not the only lynch thing here. i wonder if we can understand how impactful this particular kill and then the capture of his spouse is. >> remember that the american forces were actually trying to
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capture, not kill him. so they wanted to just kill him, they would have sent an f-16 to the compound he was and put a bomb on him but they were willing to send multiple american special operations forces to capture him. didn't work out that way, unfortunately, but the fact this individual would have information intelligence he could actually use to break let's say the financial backbone of this organization would be important. so, for example, killing one fighter or one spiritual mirror in the organization would put the organization back a little bit. but capturing their head accountant. that person would want to know. it looks like this person, unfortunately, he's dead now. >> i wonder if there's other things we learned in the context of the u.s. official announcement of this raid about how the united states is in fact operating in iraq and syria. >> well, one of the issues that was actually quite interesting when you read the relatively terse statement was that the united states was working with
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the full consent and that's an exact quote of the iraqi leadership. so the iraqis knew this was going to happen. they had to bring these people to somewhere. they're operating a detention facility in iraq itself. the information did not say they turned it over to iraqi authorities. the united states has special operations troops now probably in a military base near the syrian border and is willing to sort of capture people in syria and bring them back for detention and interrogation. this is an interesting phenomenon that we haven't really seen since the time we pulled out of that country. >> thank you so much to aki aki peritz. we continue to follow this breaking news here on msnbc. up next i'm going to play for you a tape of a phone call and i'm going to warn you now, it's disturbing.
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this is a warning that some of what you are about to hear is disturbing but i do want to play a 9-1-1 call that took place in a small georgia town in january of 2011. the caller's name is norman neesmith. >> is there mr. neesmith? >> yeah. >> you and your daughter? >> uh-uh no no. a friend of hers that was over here. >> okay. >> daniel's okay. >> all right. well, that's good to hear. >> yes. i think i hurt one of them. >> what did you do, mr. norman?
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>> i hate to say it but i shot him. >> you think you shot him? >> yes. >> you don't know who it was mr. norman? >> it was just a black boy. >> it was a black boy? >> yeah. >> just a black boy. those were the words used to identify 22-year-old justin patterson, who lay dying just feet away from mr. neesmith's porch. >> just talk to me mr. norman, okay? >> oh, yeah. >> did you shoot him in the residence or outside the residence? >> in the house. >> in the house? >> when he slammed me into that wall busted the side of my head, my elbow and my knew. i wasn't going to let him hurt me. >> do you need an ambulance mr. norman? >> no no, it's just i'm all scraped up. >> what kind of gun did you shoot him with in?
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>> a .22. >> 22 pistol, right? >> yes. >> later in the call comes this. >> and you have put the gun up, right? >> yeah, i got it laying here on the floor beside me. >> all right. i'm going to let you know, yeah a blackmail male. do you know what he had on? >> some kind of dark jacket is what he finally put on. i got his hat. he left his hat in the yard when he went out the door. >> a dark jacket? >> yes and those baggy brichs. >> there's more to the story and how it connects to the small town that segregates its proms. ]when we make beyond natural dry dog and cat foods. we start with real meat as the first ingredient. we leave out corn,wheat and soy. and we own where our dry food is made-100 percent!
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500 residents. 52% are whiteia and 42% black. traditions run deep situated in the deep south. just in 2009, a phone toe journalist went to the tone to photograph montgomery county high school segregated crime.toe journalist went to the tone to photograph montgomery county high school segregated crime. once there she found a much digger story. >> i was commissioned to go down to georgia and photograph the segregated proms. >> i was so mistyystified how it could still be happying. little did i know, there will be so much more than just a story about seg gra gated proms but race in general. >> i thought i was making a story about a town coming together to have their first
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integrated prom. and then a tragedy happened. >> 911. >> i need a deputy to come out here. >> that voice that you heard, norman neesmith he shot a 2 #-year-old black man. and norman the center of the documentary film southern rites premiering on hbo this monday at 9:00 p.m. i'm joined now by the film's director. so people won't be confused, we should explain that john legend is not in the film but he helped bring the story to light. >> he was executive producer. he wrote and sang a song for the film. >> i had an opportunity to see it early and it is very complicated. talk to me first about the prom story that initiated much of the country's attention on this space. >> right. well, i learned about the town in 2002 because a really brave student at montgomery county
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high school wrote a letter to a magazine that she subscribed to spin magazine, and it was a really a cry for help, a plea, please come to my town. i can't take my boyfriend to the prom because he's black and i'm white. so prom season had passed abtsz the next segregated event was homecoming. so we went down to montgomery county in 2002 and i photographed the segregated homecomings. and i was so shocked about what i saw. this was something that i read about in history books. i didn't know it was still happening in our country. so i knew i wanted to return. and then in 2008, i thought there is no way that they're still segregated proms. obama is president this can't be happening. so i called the school. and i said just on a whim i was just wondering when your prom is. and they said which one. the white folks prom is this
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weekend and the black in a couple week. >> i want to pause and listen for a moment to this moment about the integrated rom which you thishly were returning to photograph when you found this other story. let's take a listen. >> i went to the prom and it was whites only, but it wasn't really as fun as when it was together. not to me. everybody should be together. we all go to the school together. i mean we grew up together. go to barack obama together. >> two years ago it was segregated. you had the white prom and black prom and that was that. after prom, you could get together, but you could not have gon to gone to the prom together. so it was great to finally come together. >> so this should have been the arc of the story. segregated prom, it changes. you go at that time photos. but instead it becomes a much more complicated story because
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of it shooting that we talked about in the last block. norman neesmith whose daughter is black an adopted daughter from his niece who shoots two young men -- who shoots at two young men who he finds in his home late at night. >> yes. doctor >> one of whom dies. >> yes. so i was trying to sell the story of change in this town. and the proms were coming together. one of the students that i met that i fell in love with, her father was running to be the first african-american sheriff. and years before there was no way he could run. he got death threats when he even threatened to run. and so now he was running with like a lot of support from the town and the community. so this was the story that i wanted to tell. and then in early 2011 kiki let me know that her high school
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love her prom date of 2007, was shot and killed. >> and i just want people to see it i want people to stop and to watch it but it's also not just like oh, this is such a clear obvious act of malicious terrible -- it is so much harder than that. >> so complicated. >> i come away feeling a bit like there is no clear villain. but it is also terribly tragedy. i want to play one more piece, this is the mother of the young man who was shot byneesmith. >> this man will never know what he has done to my family. no one will ever get me to understand why it was necessary to kill my son. this was a senseless death to me and it just didn't have to happen. >> it was senseless.
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>> it was. it's tragic. really, really tragic what happened. and i think everyone has suffered all around. >> tragic and deeply interwoven with race, but not in a clear way. so a film worth watching. thank you for making it and also coming to talk to us about it today. the hbo documentary film southern rites debuts on hbo monday, may 18. and that is our show for today. thanks to you at home for watch position. i'll see you tomorrow morning at fm sueyou supreme will be here. we'll tell you about the new development in the deadly train derailment in philadelphia. find out why the fbi has been brought into look at the train's windshield and also hear from a veteran engineer about what he
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thinks went wrong. thunder, lightning and hail and more on the way. plus off the grid a couple with ten kids living with no running water in a tiny home and today they're fighting to regain custody after authorities took their children from them. i'll be right back. ugh... ...heartburn. did someone say burn? try alka seltzer reliefchews. they work just as fast and taste better than tums smoothies assorted fruit. mmm... amazing. yeah, i get that a lot. alka seltzer heartburn reliefchews. enjoy the relief.
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could save you. the great train mystery, did a flying object cause that amtrak train cash? i'll talk to an expert on whether that alone could have triggered disaster.rash? i'll talk to an expert on whether that alone could have triggered disaster. frightening moments when a child is dragged by a school bus. hear how it happened. and beating the odds. a look at the people most likely to buy lottery tickets and some may surprise you. and mitt romney going toe to toe with kasie hunt? you'll see if anyone scored a knockout.
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