and it made me sad. >> i'm going to respectfully disagree. i think you're right, within the confines of the genre, the restraints, he did an excellent job today. mr. garfield, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for ruining another one of my friday nights. >> that is it for "all in." "the rachel maddow show" begins right now. >> we have not begun to ruin friday nights. there's a lot more rumination ahead. thanks for staying with us for the next hour. we're not going to ruin your friday night. in fact, happy friday. in today's news, we learned that yesterday was not an awesome day for the highest-ranking republican in washington, d.c. to decide to finally come out and endorse his party's nominee for president. whatever happened leading up to yesterday to make house speaker paul ryan suddenly decide that he was comfortable with donald trump as the republican party's leader and presidential

candidate, whatever donald trump did to make paul ryan comfortable enough as of yesterday, that as of yesterday he would give him his endorsement, whatever led to that level of being okay with him, this is how mr. trump has been comporting himself since then. >> i've been treated very unfairly by this judge. now, this judge is of mexican heritage. i'm building a wall. okay? i'm building a wall. >> that was cnn's jake tapper today asking donald trump about a judge overseeing one of the lawsuits against him. and mr. trump's insistence that that judge should be removed from the case because of his ethnic background. in case there was any doubt about whether the judge's race is what donald trump has a problem with, that is now very much cleared up. >> he's a mexican. we're building a wall between here and mexico. this judge is giving us unfair rulings. now i say why. well, i'm building a wall, okay?

and it's a wall between mexico. not another country. >> he's not from mexico. >> in my opinion -- >> he's from indiana. >> his mexican heritage and he's very proud of it. >> if you are saying he can't do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism? >> no. i don't think so at all. >> no? >> no, he's proud of his heritage, i respect him for that. >> you're saying he can't do his job because of it. >> he's proud of his heritage. i'm building a wall. >> no one with mexican heritage can be a judge, at least in a case involving donald trump, because of what donald trump as the republican party's presidential nominee wants to do to mexicans. so just to further that point, mr. trump as you know also says, you shouldn't even be allowed to visit this country if you're a muslim. so by extension, does that mean that no muslim should be allowed to be a judge? in donald trump's america? this is a remarkable strategy. if you could get your way on something like this.

right? if you run for president and you decided to just decree that no one would be allowed to deal with you in a professional capacity if they're a member of a group that you have racially stereotyped or attacked or insulted or scapegoated or even proposed criminalizing. what if you could just decree that nobody you had insulted could ever have any bearing on your life in the future? because of the fact that you'd insulted them. a professor at the ucla law school put it this way to buzzfreed.com. trump's theory is apparently that anybody -- excuse me. that anyone can get any judge disqualified for conflict of interest just by saying things that the judge finds offensive enough. so you don't like the jewish judge on your case? say things that are critical of jews and now the judge presumably has to step aside because of a conflict of interest. don't like the female judge in your case? well, say things that women tend to find offensive.

don't like the judge who was a republican activist? say nasty things about republicans. for obvious reasons, that is not the law. because it can't be the law. judges can't be disqualified from a case because of their ethnicity or because of their ideology or because you say things that are offensive to them or their ethnic group. true. sure. but. that's just the law! you put the law up against the republican nominee for president this year, and who's going to win? whose side are you on? paul ryan? whose side are you on? and congratulations on the timing of your endorsement this week. >> this judge is of mexican heritage. i'm building a wall. okay? i'm building a wall. >> after the republican candidate for president continued today on cnn and in multiple print interviews, continued to claim that no latino should legally be allowed

to judge -- to be a judge in a case involving him, after he continued with that today, multiple staffers on the trump campaign complained to nbc news' katy tur about what their own candidate was doing. more than one source from the trump campaign telling katy tonight, "these are the things that will defeat us." maybe. but in the long run, this is actually what's more likely to defeat you guys. because just as donald trump is stumbling out of the gate with the trump university lawsuit and these overtly racist repeated diatribes against the latino judge, which honestly at some point like i think supreme court chief justice john roberts or somebody is going to have to weigh in on and tell trump to cut that out as a matter of separation of powers and how the u.s. constitution works. right? i mean, with that continuing, with that trump insulting and attacking the nation's only latina governor, a republican, stumbling from thing to thing to

thing as the democratic primary comes to a close, hillary clinton simultaneously appears to be hitting her stride. and yesterday she just gutted donald trump in a foreign policy speech that apparently has left the trump campaign and the whole republican party too shell shocked to respond. >> donald trump's ideas aren't just different. they are dangerously incoherent. they're not even really ideas. just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies. [ cheers and applause ] he is not just unprepared. he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability, and immense responsibility.

he praises dictators like vladimir putin and picks fights with our friends. including the british prime minister, the mayor of london, the german chancellor, the president of mexico, and the pope. he says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the miss universe pageant in russia. there's no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf course deal. he says he doesn't have to listen to our generals or admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials, because he has "a very good brain." he also said, "i know more about isis than the generals do, believe me." you know what? i don't believe him. >> hillary clinton's fuse llade against donald trump.

as far as being on offense, i think that's why it's viewed as the strongest moment yet of hillary clinton's presidential campaign. then what? exciting prospect, right? she throws all of that at trump yesterday. the trump campaign, of course, loves to brag on how good they are at hitting back when they're hit. right? they call it counterpunching. >> you know i'm a counterpuncher. remember, one thing everybody has said, i'm a counterpuncher. >> mr. trump is a counterpuncher. >> hit me, i hit him back. i'm a counterpuncher. >> that's is promise and the threat. you hit me? i'll hit you back bigly, i'll hit you back so hard. hillary clinton hit him over and over and over and over and over and over and over again yesterday. and ever since, more than 24 hours now, we've been waiting for the promised counterpunch.

and i'm starting to think that maybe there is no counterpunch. i mean, this is all he's got so far. >> she does not look presidential. that i can tell you. she does not. this is not a president. it was like -- it's like taking somanex, to watch her. sleep all night. it's hard to stay awake. i'm not a big sleeper. i think she could make more money if she made speeches and sold them for people that can't sleep. lying hillary. lying. she is a liar. no. ted cruz is no longer a liar, we don't say lyin' ted anymore. we love ted, we love ted, right? we love him. now, we don't want to say lyin' ted. i'd love to pull it out and just use it on lying, crooked hillary.

because she is a liar. she made up my foreign policy. donald trump is going to do this. i said, i never said that. >> that's what you got? that's the big -- that's the big counterpunch? it's amazing too. because not only has there been that pathetic response, basically no substantive response from donald trump himself to what hillary clinton just did to him. but even more interesting to me that there has been no response at all from the republican party. i mean, he is their presidential nominee. but after hillary clinton just flattened him yesterday, there has been no defense of donald trump from the republican party. there have been no republican party surrogates on tv vouching for him, defending him on foreign policy. there's been no point by point rebuttal like they like to do at

the republican party. they're just not responding. they're just letting it lie. which means the last thing standing from the news cycle on the democratic side is this. >> do we want his finger anywhere near the button? >> that's the last thing from the news cycle on the democratic side. the only thing they've replaced it with on the republican side is this. >> i've been treated very unfairly by this judge. now, this judge is of mexican heritage. >> so that's where we are politically right now. that's how they're squaring off right now. chapter and verse denunciation. and gutting of donald trump on foreign policy and national security at length on national television yesterday. donald trump saying, anybody who has mexican heritage can't be a judge. on the other side. which party would you rather be in? in that equation, heading into a general election in this country?

so that's where we are politically right now. but logistically we are about to be in a really, really interesting place. where things are about to move fast. including over this weekend. and there's a lot of attention to what's happening i think with this big clinton speech and with the mess that i think trump has gotten them into on this judiciary matter. i do think we should anticipate there will be a response, some sort of formal response from the judiciary with trump waging this war, this overtly racist war against a federal judge. i think that is going to get worse but not better. so deservedly there's been a lot of attention to those two lanes right now in the democratic and republican races. but there is something very specific that's not getting a lot of advance attention and i think it is going to happen fairly quickly over the next couple of days and you should know this is coming. toward contests in the democratic primary this weekend. u.s. virgin islands tomorrow, a convention where they will pick their delegates. puerto rico votes on sunday. so these are both democratic

contests. collectively these two places will be awarding 79 delegates to the democratic national convention. now the nbc news count on delegates overall right now says that hillary clinton is 65 delegates away from numerically getting the nomination. so there's 79 delegates from these two places this weekend, she needs 65 to clinch, theoretically she could get there this weekend. there are more delegates at stake this weekend than the total number she needs to clinch the nomination. mathematically, theoretically, it's possible. it's prohibtively unlikely i think in those terms. she'd have to basically run the table in both places in order to get that many delegates. but it is getting to be very, very, very, very close numerically. here's the thing to keep an eye on. remember when donald trump numerically clinched the nomination for the republican party? not after ted cruz and john kasich dropped out but when he actually hit 1237? remember that date?

it was may 26th, it was a thursday, it was a weird day for it to happen because there wasn't a state or a territory that was voting on that day. nothing happened that day in terms of a vote that put donald trump over the top. what happened on may 26th, that thursday, that caused the associated press to numerically call the race for donald trump to say he had numerically clinched, what happened to make that happen is that the ap called delegates. they called delegates who were unbound, delegates who could vote however they want at the republican convention this summer, and on the phone those unbound delegates just told the ap that they now intended to support donald trump at the republican convention in cleveland. and that was it. those verbal commitments from those unbound delegates. that's why trump ended up doing his announcement in that dark room in north dakota that day because the delegates who talked to the ap that day were from north dakota. that's how he knew hercally clinched. not because of a vote, but because delegates who hadn't previously made their intentions

known told reporters how they intended to vote when they go to the convention this summer, a statement of intention. think of that in parallel right now with what's going on in the democratic race. hillary clinton this weekend is going to get very, very, very close to the democratic nomination. with these two contests that happen this weekend in the virgin islands and puerto rico, she's going to get close. the sanders campaign really doesn't want delegates to be counted this way. sanders campaign doesn't want superdelegates to be counted by the networks when they do their delegate totals. but honestly, superdelegates are delegates. they're real delegates. their votes really do count toward the nomination. and we don't know right now if anybody is surveying the democratic unbound superdelegates. but that is what the ap did when donald trump got very close to the nomination and that is how the ap ultimately ended up calling it for trump on that thursday in may. it was because of phone calls

with delegates saying who they were going to vote for at the convention. so as these pledged delegate counts come in over the weekend from the virgin islands and puerto rico, as pledged delegate numbers come in and if superdelegates start saying on the record what they plan to do at the democratic convention this summer, it is possible that there could be some kind of call soon. and it could be independent of the vote in any one particular state. that is how the race was called on that random thursday last month for donald trump. and that is starting to approach the realm of the possible in the democratic primary right now as well. it's that close. nobody knows until it happens.

and life really did pay him back. he -- he finally lived the image of his own making, his own design. >> well, you know what, brian, you just said something that struck me about you're judged by the power of your deeds. here's a guy who became so unbelievably famous. and what did he decide to do with that fame, knowing that cameras would follow him whenever he went. he set out and explored the world and took those cameras with him. and he took

go ahead, matt. >> i was just going to say -- and please, my thoughts go out to loni, his extraordinary wife and partner of so many years, and his children. and loni has done so much for the champ to protect him and his legacy. and i'm praying for her tonight. >> yeah. let's hear it for the caregivers. loni chief among them. that really became her calling, her job, her task, her entire life these past few decades. indeed, we have a statement now. and the headline on the official statement is "the greatest of all time. muhammad ali dies at 74. three-time world heavyweight champion dies after a 32-year

battle with parkinson's disease. dateline phoenix, arizona. after a 32-year battle with parkinson's disease muhammad ali has passed away at the age of 74. died simply, they say, this evening. also joining us by telephone, bob costas of nbc sports. bob, we're thinking of you. we're thinking of a whole lot of people who crossed his path and vice versa. and covered this incredible career. here you are. you just called the game tonight. giants-cardinals in st. louis. and i'm curious where your thoughts are right now. >> well, i was just listening to you finishing up with matt. and as much as any of his fights, as memorable as so many of those fights were, i too think of that evening in atlanta. i was on the air with dick enbe enberg. and it was amazing how they managed to keep his identity, the identity of the final torch bearer a secret. they rehearsed it one time at

3:00 in the morning. and if you recall scene, janet evans, the gold medal winning swimmer was second to last. and as she ascended the steps and got to the top, ali literally stepped out of the shadows, out of darkness into the spotlight. and you hear a lot of sounds in a stadium. you seldom hear an audible gasp. 60,000, 70,000 people processing it. and it was two or three seconds before that gasp or that silence turned into thunderous sustained applause. and it was a moment of reconciliation. he had been as popular as he was and as extraordinary as he was as a prize fighter, he had been a polarizing figure for reasons i'm sure you've already detailed and many of us recall. but toward the end of his life it all came together and he was seen as a person who even if some disagreed with at the time stood on principle. he didn't just mouth off. he paid a real price. he didn't know if he would give up his entire career.

and as it was he gave up three years and who knows how many millions at his very peak to tack a stand on principle. and although only a tiny number of americans would ally themselves with the nation of islam, eventually he moved away from the most strident teachings of the nation of islam and embraced a much more peaceful version of the faith and became a symbol of peace and reconciliation and tolerance. so he went from becoming a divisive figure to a unifying figure and a nearly universally beloved figure. and like matt, when i think of that moment in atlanta i still get goosebumps. >> bob, don't go anywhere for just one moment. we've been able to reach by phone the ali family spokesman. the person who made the official announcement tonight. out of phoenix, arizona. bob gunnel is on the phone with us. bob, not to pry into what is a

sad and private family matter. but -- i'm just told his cell phone has dropped out. we've lost bob gunnel. bob costas, i want to bring a friend of yours into this conversation by way of reading another quote. "muhammad ali, as big a sports star as this country has ever produced. the biggest sports star anywhere over the past 50 years." that was written by our friend mike lupica, who so many people know as a journalist and author. a frequent guest on espn. a frequent guest we're happy to say here. a columnist of course for the "new york daily news." mike, knowing your friend bob is on the phone with us, your thoughts. >> well, brian, what's interesting is ali was the first modern sports hero. i mean, every controversial -- every guy who's done all this branding ever since is a child of muhammad ali. but i don't think that he thought of it that way.

this was the power of a dazzling talent and a dazzling personality, whomate world pay attention to him. and think of the run he had. he wins the title for the first time in 1964. he wins it for the third time in 1978. >> pretty incredible. i'm told we've re-established contact with bob gunnel. bob, forgive us for logs the contact with you. i don't want to pry, but can you tell us about the surroundings, the environment out there in arizona? >> yes. so muhammad passed with his family at his side. so just moments ago. and it was a very peaceful passing. and they are with him as we speak. you know, we've lost a great person in this world tonight. >> bob, was not calling for a

medical judgment by you but after a three-decade, 32-year, very brave fight with parkinson's, was this just the kind of degradation -- he'd had some other hospital visits in recent years. this one, though, worried all of us fans so much. >> yes. we don't have an official cause of death yet. it has to be from complications of parkinson's. >> and bob, how is everyone, a large extended family, large immediate family, nine children, seven girls, two boys, three ex-wives along with his current wife, how is everyone holding up? >> devastated. as you can expect at this point. >> bob gunnell, spokesman for the ali family-s on the phone with us. matt lauer is with us by telephone. bob costas is with us. and of course mike lupica here in our new york studios. everyone reacting to this news

just a few moments ago, as you heard the family spokesman say from arizona. the death of the champ at age 74. matt lauer, you and bob gunnell know each other. and i wanted to open this up to you as well. >> we do. and bob and i have spoken throughout the day. and i had the chance to speak to lonnie earlier and yesterday, and it's obvious that without giving anything away, and i think you've been honest with the family, knew that this was different from the previous hospitalizations for respiratory problems. and that's why so many members of the family came in. and i think it's heartening to know that they could all be there with him in the end. >> it was so nice that the entire family made it in and could be with him and spend their time with him. and honor him in the traditions

that he requested. >> and brian, i just want to say something else. i was listening to mike and bob talk and talk about one of the first modern sports stars. and one of the things we all have experienced, i think a good way to judge the wattage of a superstar is to put that superstar in the room with other superstars. and i've been at dinners with muhammad ali where other legends from the world of sports were present as well, those dinners where they honor several people at one time. and what would happen invariably on those occasions is the other superstars would be drawn to muhammad ali. >> oh, i think everyone would agree he had -- he had no peer. to mike lupica's point, and mike's here with me, over the past -- easily the past half a century. >> yeah. and he makes you remember -- jimmy cantor once had a quote

about joe louis, he was a credit toys his race, the human race. ali became that times ten or 100 or 1,000. you look back over the last half century not just in this country but in this world, brian, ali was our gift to the world. and i'm not saying he wasn't flawed and obviously there was meanness in him toward joe frazier. but over the last half century he was ruth plus jordan plus namath. make any list you want. and still he was the biggest star that we had. >> bob gunnell, i do want to let you go back to the family. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> but bob, just before i lose you for one second, i know there's a media briefing tomorrow. what is known, what can you share with us about plans coming up in the days ahead? >> only that the funeral will take place in louisville and i will -- and we'll give you more details tomorrow at noon. >> bob, our condolences.

please pass them along. thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you so much. >> bob gunnell from arizona, where the champ died tonight at age 74. matt lauer, part of the conversation over the next few days as we all come to grips with this has to be a word i used in conversation earlier tonight. the physical beauty of this fighter. if da vinci sat down with a piece of paper, the drawing of man as intended, as designed could kind of start and end with muhammad ali. he was an extraordinary example of a human being. >> i have a son who's now 14, about to turn 15. and i tried to share my love and admiration of muhammad ali with him. and so i've gone back and we've played a lot of the tapes and we've looked at a lot of the documentaries and a lot of the

movies. this is a kid who's grown up on espn watching the legends like jordan and lebron and people like that. and on a couple of occasions when video of muhammad in the ring in his prime in some of his great fights, and i'm watching, i'm looking at some of the stills on the screen right now, would come up, my son jack would simply go "oh, my." "oh, my." and he was simply reacting to this perfect specimen and the skill and the way he baffled other fighters. the way he simply -- he made great fighters look bad because of his skill set. and i know mike and bob can speak better to that than i can. but i was in awe. i was a fight fan when i was of the age when ali was in his later prime, i would say. and i was always in awe of him when he stepped through the ropes. >> and bob costas, i know we're about to lose you as you're trying to make your way out of a separate arena. perhaps i'll ask you about this.

the fact that this was another era. mike lupica and i have kitds the same age. we're sitting here kind of realizing that if you're a kid and -- kid. if you're a young adult in your mid 20s, late 20s, perhaps 30 years old, in your lifetime you never got to hear muhammad ali speak in real time. >> no. >> the folks our age remember him -- remember him best because he meant so much to us come coming up. >> when you think about it, had the parkinson's syndrome, whatever you want to call, it which obviously is a result of the punishment he took in the ring, had that not afflicted him, we would have spent the last few decades seeing him pop up first with johnny carson and then with david letterman and jay leno and now with jimmy fallon still only in his 70s being muhammad ali, being a

fixture, a national treasure, which he still was but in a different way because he was encased within this parkinson's syndrome. and when you go back to that night in atlanta, think about this. this was a man obviously of considerable vanity declaring himself the greatest, too pretty to be a fighter, et cetera, et cetera. and somehow he was able to figure out a way, even with that ego and vanity, to put himself back on the world stage in meaningful ways. but at his peak as an athlete he made a brutal sport beautiful. even people who had no use for boxing generally speaking found him compelling. mike is right when he said he was just simply dazzling. and matt's point is 100% correct. like matt, i've seen it many times myself. the biggest stars, gigantic legends of sports and other walks of life would be drawn to muhammad ali. he was always the biggest person in the world. >> bob costas, thank you very much, pal. it's good to talk to you even

though we're talking about what is truly, and i have to keep saying, especially for guys like us, our age, who came up worshiping this guy, a giant among athletes, a giant among sports figures, this is truly the end of an age, the end of an era. bob costas having just called tonight's giants-cardinals game in st. louis. bob costas of nbc sports reacting to this news. matt lauer, don't go anywhere. i just want to say to mike lupica, a point you made tonight. i've always wondered what it would be like to have jack kennedy in his late 90s still a part of american life. what a guy. what a guy it would be to have muhammad ali around. in his 70s. >> if parkinson's hadn't stolen his grace and his voice, can you imagine what an unbelievable 70-year-old character muhammad ali would have been and how much fun it would have -- and then we

wouldn't have felt as if -- and i know, matt agrees with us. incumbent upon ourselves to pass this on. sometimes you worry in sports that you're like an elder sitting around the fire, telling the kids the way things used to be. because we all have sons and they all think the good old days are now, brian. okay? but it's our duty to explain to another generation who this man was and what he meant. >> yeah. that there was a man this beautiful, this much power, raw physical force. but take those physical gifts and then combine them with a kind of they now call it eq. a freakishly talented personality, vocabulary, public persona, ability to rhyme, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. it's all going to come back to us. he invented so much of it and back when the word brand would

never be applied to a human being, you walk into an under armour retailer today, what's the new line of clothing for summer? it's called the greatest. it bears the name and the iconography of muhammad ali. he ended up being the biggest brand there was. >> and this will be for the next 24, 48, 72 hours, this is going to be like a tutorial. they are now going to get a chance to learn what has been such a huge part of our lives from the time this guy burst on the stage. >> we're joined on the telephone by dave ziron, hoge of the edge of sports podcast, winner of the 2015 new york press club award for sports journalism. and dave, you just said this evening on twitter muhammad ali made me believe i could. oh, we actually see you. i thought mistakenly you were joining us by telephone. talk about the man whose death we mourn tonight. >> well, i think this tutorial

that mike said we're going to be having over the next 72 hours is really a tutorial of american history and particularly the 1960s because we speak of the '60s in these kinds of hushed tones, but one could make a very compelling case that the '60s do not happen without muhammad ali. because you're talking about in the 1960s being dominated by these two parallel movements, the movement against the war in vietnam and the black freedom struggle. and in the early '60s they were parallel movements there, was very little crossover. then all of a sudden you had the heavyweight champion of the world with one foot in each of those movements. somebody who could be claimed by both the young civil rights workers in the south like julian bond and people like bryant g gumbel who once said muhammad ali's greatest gift to us was he made us feel less afraid. and then huh people in the vietnam war movement like the late father berrigan, who just passed away himself a couple of

weeks ago, who said that when the heavyweight champion came out against the war no one could call us anti-war protesters cowardly anymore. and then the reverberations are even more than that. 1967, when martin luther king famously came out against the war in vietnam, he was asked why are you doing this, your advisers say you should stick to policy -- domestic policy, you shouldn't be talking about war, what martin luther king said was he said, well, it's like muhammad ali teaches us, these issues are connected. nelson mandela, when he spoke about being in robben island, what he said was the walls in robben island felt like they were going to come down every time i heard stories about muhammad ali, and sure enough, when nelson mandela came to the united states for the first time he made sure ali was his first stop. and the pictures of them together, people should search them. they're remarkable. tommy smith and john carlos, when they raised their fists in 1968, said they were doing it for muhammad ali because he was the warrior saint of the black athletes' revoeltd. billie jean king said when she

fought for women's rights she felt confident because muhammad ali whispered in her ear "i may be the king but you're the queen. you're the queen, billie jean. you're the queen." so there is no way we can speak about this -- i mean, of course muhammad ali doesn't happen without the 1960s. but i could make a very strong case that the 1960s don't happen without muhammad ali. >> and dave of course, the remembrances are just beginning. luckily, we have the gift of a lot of film and videotape, a lot of his own recorded words. but a lot of us who came up in that era remember him saying cassius clay was my slave name and insisting on his new name and the almost universally white news and sports media took a long time to climb on board that bandwagon and fall in with the program. and if you were a kid my age, the first time you ever heard the expression conscientious

objector was when ali said he wouldn't go to vietnam. i just want to hear his voice for a moment on that incident particularly. >> there haven't been very many negroes in this country who have protested the draft in the sense that they have gone in and fought. do you think that you are setting some kind of an example that perhaps some of them may even -- >> i'm not out to set no example for nobody to follow. i'm a muslim. i'm with 600 more million who believe the same as me. i'm just sticking to my religious beliefs and the holy koran, which was there before, long before i was thought about coming into this world. i'm just following my religious beliefs. i'm not advising them or telling them nothing to do. i'm just following my religious beliefs to the death right now, where i die right now. whatever happens will be the will of allah. many parts of the world, people

protesting. but still i don't rely on that. i rely totally on allah, the lord of the worlds. >> just how far would you go to keep from taking up arms? >> i'll die. anything that's against my religious beliefs. i'd rather face machine gun fire but i deviate from the teachings of almighty god and the religion of islam. i would die. >> well, in this situation you wouldn't have to die. it would mean you'd go to jail if you -- >> i'm not saying where i would go. i'm just letting you know that i'm going to stick 1,000% to my religious beliefs, even if it means die. you figure out the rest. >> 1967. we were a different country then. the evening newscasts were full of pictures of this escalating conflict in southeast asia. life and look and "time" magazine, color photography of our then young boys fighting and

dying in southeast asia. those words were very controversial. especially those of us who grew up in military families. and that began kind of a journey. fans of muhammad ali getting there. later in life they had their problems with his position on the war. conscientious objector status. later borne out, a vote by the supreme court, unanimous, years later, on his side. dave, thank you. matt lauer, thank you. joining us on the phone right now, evander holyfield, former professional boxer, five-time champ. and evander, i want to get your thoughts. my condolences as we've been offering to all friends and family of the champ. >> well, you know, i'm glad to have known ali because when i was that kid at 8 years old i

was told i could be like ali. but it took 1996 for me to come to a complete understanding who ali was. first i looked at him as a boxer. all his work that he had done was so big i realized i didn't know the man because i never knew that he did so many things for people and pretty much changed -- pretty much a big part of people -- he stood up for something that he believed in. >> evander, how do you explain to civilians what it's like to get in the ring? heavyweight bout, heavyweight title bout. what the attention is like. what the physical energy is like. what the power and velocity are like. >> well, it's a lot bigger than

what a lot of people think. because to take a punch -- take upon yourself to say i'm the greatest, you put yourself in a position for people to take pot shots at you. and this is what ali did. it's amazing to him becoming three-time heavyweight champ of the world. and at that time people -- people felt that who could -- you know, who could be three. i mean, you know, he did it three. and it was a great accomplishment. and i wanted to be like ali. i remember in '84 someone asked me do you want to break his record? i said, well, no. they said why? i said because that means that i have to lose. i'm not planning on losing. you know, i'm hoping that i

never lose. but you find out that people who have -- you have to be stronger to get up from a loss to go on. and that's what ali proved. proved to be. >> evander, with me here in the studio is our friend, long-time writer and sportswriter mike lupica, who i imagine may have a question for you as well. >> evander, you just spoke to what i wanted to ask you about. we talk about how fast he was and how great his jab was and how great his footwork was. but i was saying to brian before we came on the air tonight you know what i remember? he could take a punch. and joe frazier hit him about as beautiful a left hook as any fighter has ever thrown in the last round of that fight in new york city, the first ali-frazier fight. and you know what? he got back up. >> that's what people don't understand.

what type of attitude do you have when you've been beat enby somebody who just happened to be better that day. you know, you don't quit. you come back. and ali proved to be that. >> evander holyfield, we realize your time is finite. as one of the few people in a very, very select community of athlet athletes, you're in a special place in life, especially to us sports fans. thank you very much for allowing us to talk to you by phone tonight. and again, as we're saying to muhammad ali's circle of family and friends, and that includes a whole lot of people, our condolences on the loss of this spectacular athlete. >> thank you. >> all right. evander holyfield with us by telephone tonight. mike, one of the points we're going to end up coming back to is the differenc in eras

between ously when you and i were coming up and today. i call it a jentdler era. in many ways it isn't but in many ways it is. our parenting, how hyperaware we are of injury avoidance. there are people predicting the end of the nfl. which is as vital in my life as an adult as it was when i was a kid. people predicting we will see the end of boxing someday in the foreseeable future. i look back at these pictures. it loomed so large in our lives. families gathered in the television to watch these major prize fights, as we called them, in a way that it just isn't today. >> brian, i remember listening to the first cassius clay-sonny liston fight on the radio. >> was that the one in lewiston, maine? >> yeah. no, no. this is one in miami. >> the second one was in lewiston.

>> yeah. the most unremarkable of the frazier fights was the second one, which ali won by decision. and when you walked into the garden that night and into an ali crowd, the air was different. the sound was different. when they began to chant his name, it was one of the most exciting things i'd ever heard. i was in a theater in boston for the rumble in the jungle with george foreman. and here we are, we're sitting in this darkened theater and we're watching him lay back on the ropes and we don't know what's happening. and when he finally came off the ropes in about the fourth round, you felt like you were there. and you felt the air in that room change. and it was one of the most thrilling things i've ever seen in sports. >> and it's hard to go a week in the business community and life without someone using the expression doing the rope-a-dope. taking a few punches. i'm laying back. i've got a lot left in me. but don't tell anybody, this is all intentional. we've talked about his athletic

prowess. we'll continue to. we've talked about his -- we've just touched on his verbal prowess. his poetry. made up on the spot. it's been given many names over the years. here's a sampling, however, dating back to when muhammad ali was still going under his birth name of cassius clay. >> he might be great but if he want to go to heaven i'll get him in seven. he'll be in a worst fix if i cut it to six. if he keeps talking jive he'll go to n. five. if he make me sore he'll go in four. if he keeps talking about me i'll get him in three. if that don't do he'll fall in two. and if he run he'll go in one. and if he don't want to fight he should keep himself home that night. >> if he came along today he might be mt broin the broadway f "hamilton." he was that good. and for back then that was an unheard of performance. without a visible teleprompter or a book of lines in front of

him. no one had ever seen anyone like him. and that's what leads to us say he really was a solitary, unique figure. >> you know, when we were talking before, he was a child of the '60s. but even being a child of the '60s, he was a complete american original. we live in a world where make america great again. this was a light of possibilities in this country. this kid from louisville, okay? who then made his mark in the olympics. and then won the title in '64. became a face and a name. and brine, you heard it. a voice that the world knew. >> dave zirin, same question. your opinion. >> he instinctively understood mass culture like nobody save perhaps the beatles. and it would take all four beatles to equal i think one half of muhammad ali. and the thing about ali that was so fascinating about what he did is he turned notions of

masculinity on their heads. like no one had ever seen that before. or i should be clear about this because this was something that was part of the black community but white america had never seen this before. the idea that a straight man would proudly call themselves beautiful or pretty. that was new to white america. not new to black america. but that was new to white america. another thing is rhyming. long tradition in the black community of toasting. and that's what ali was doing. he was toasting. but he was bringing it to a white audience and in front of cameras and reporters whose jaws were on the floor. and what's so fascinating about it is i've interviewed tons of reporters who covered ali. what's fascinating is how generational it is. so older black reporters with the black press weren't very fond of him just like older white reporters, like jimmy cannon weren't very fond of him. but young reporters like bob lipsite of the "new york times" who was on the ali beat because the boxing writer didn't want to be because he thought cassius clay was just a blowhard who would never amount to anything. so this young cub reporter bob

lipsite was sent to miami to cover the liston fight. he got it. bob lipsite got. young reporters got it. because there was a generational connection and an electricity. just a whole generation of americans who were the first teenagers. and they got who muhammad ali was in a way that the older generation didn't. in a way he kind of dragged america out of the '50s in addition to everything else. >> and mike lupica, we might as well mention this up top. watching ali fights with my dad as i did meant being highly entertained by ali's kind of partner in crime and his foil, the most unlikely duo in the world, a boxer from the south combined with a trained new york attorney turned sportscaster named howard cosell. >> and you know, howard changed the narrative. he did. he made people look at muhammad

ali in a different way. >> he surely did. >> because there were so many people in our business who refused to call him muhammad ali. it was like -- >> that's right. >> it was like this insane -- >> like a badge of honor to them to keep calling him cassius. >> this insane line that they drew that they wouldn't cross. and then not only did cosell help him present himself in the best possible light, you could see that howard got it. you could see that howard not only got that this was a once in a lifetime personal and talent but that this was a sports, religious, political, show business figure the likes of which we'd never seen before. >> and dave, the cosell component in muhammad ali's career. some people, as we look at muhammad, who went after cosell for wearing a hairpiece back when they were unmentionables. howard's hairpiece was

notorious. it was so bad you kind of half expected a german shepherd walking around new york to have a bald spot. but they were almost made for each other, these two unlikely partners. >> you're a big phony and that hair on your head comes from the tail of a pony i believe was how ali put it. and i keep thinking of this terrific book by dave kindred called "the sound and the fury." >> yeah, i read it. >> about their relationship. which is just fantastic. and it's absolutely right that cosell got ali because cosell got that absolute mixture of both mass culture and the political moment. and it is so fascinating looking back now because now of course he is such a universally beloved figure. we will have days of mourning. and it is worth remembering just how despised he was by the overwhelming majority of the media in the 1960s. and when you look back on it, why was he despised? he was despised because really he got what was wrong with this

country and told very tough truths that people didn't want to hear. so it's amazing that when richard nixon is president and lyndon johnson as well muhammad ali's phone is bugged by federal authorities. yet by the time gerald ford is president he's at the white house visiting. >> it's kind of a -- looking at the list of people who were bugged by their government back then has turned into a badge of honor in modern times. if you're a fighter from louisville who plays your cards right, someday they will invite you to harvard to talk to the students. listen to a bit of this, muhammad ali in 1975. >> people look for miracles. people look for surprises of all kinds. yet the greatest wonder, the greatest miracle, the greatest surprise is to be found in one's heart. >> we are covering the death of

the champ, announced tonight, surrounded by his family in arizona. the end of the journey for muhammad ali. death came at the age of 74 for a man who as we've been and his largeness of a human made that title come true. born cascius clay. what a journey for a man that was easily the most famous map in the