you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. good morning and welcome to "politics nation." i went to a pennsylvania prison this week to meet with rapper leak mill who was put behind bars earlier this month for violating probation. later in the show i'll tell you why mill is a symbol of someone victimized by the system. also on the show, if candidate donald trump ran a campaign with a racist platform,

why are we all surprised when president trump is again and again reviving his fight with black people, athletes, journalists and politicians? and later, migrants in libya are being sold to slavery. you heard it. you heard it right. slavery in the year 2017. i've decided to try to travel to libya this month to see things firsthand. and i'll tell you why it's important to educate those who say that slavery only exists in the history books. but we start with the latest on former trump national security adviser michael flynn who pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi and who is now cooperating with the special counsel's investigation into the russian meddling with the u.s. election. earlier this morning, the president tweeted, quote, i

never asked comey to stop investigating flynn. just more fake news covering another comey lie! joining me now, minneapolsnbc t analyst malcolm nance. malcolm, the president's tweet doesn't exactly go or correspond with the truth, does it? >> well, it depends on whether he believes what he tweeted or not. as i understand it, he may be in some legal jeopardy on the basis of that tweet. as the story unfolded, it was supposedly that general flynn made a series of phone calls to the russians without authorization and then lied to vice president pence about what those phone calls were about. he then resigned a few weeks into the administration on the basis of that lie. now, we're finding out that general flynn said he was directed to make that phone

call. and donald trump's tweet says that he was fired, which is not technically true, because he made the phone call and donald trump knew he lied to the fbi. so one of these two things is true. either president trump knew about this realtime or knew about it later and then all of his operative statements after that about lying to vice president pence themselves could be a lie. >> yeah, that's what i'm saying, it's kind of difficult to correspond with the truth as we have been told. what are the real implications here when we talk about the president? you have his national security adviser pleading guilty to lying, clearly there's a cooperation agreement they are going for bigger fish. if flynn was the big fish, you wouldn't cut a deal with him. so we would assume the investigation is looking at the president, whether it gets there or not, we don't know, or

someone close to the president. what are the implications from what we know from these tweets and from what we have seen as of friday's plea from mr. flynn? >> well, the implications are stupendous for the president. i recall being on "hardball" that very night when it was learned that mike flynn made those five telephone calls to the russians. now, my background in up intelligence, five telephone calls is a negotiation. you don't even need to know what the content of those calls are. it's back and forth. and then by the final call, you have an agreement of some type. and it turns out four days later, russia decides to lay low and not retaliation against the united states. mike flynn would not have been able at that level to have carried out negotiations without orders from above. and now we're finding out he himself says someone who was a very senior administration, i'm

sorry, transition team member ordered him to make the telephone calls. that could only be one of two or three people. we know jared kushner did that at one time, in one incident with regards to resolution against israel, but he was referred to as a senior transition team member. so that leaves essentially mike pence and donald trump. >> and that's where there's possibly could go. because he couldn't be negotiating without knowledge and direction from somebody. he he wasn't negotiating for himself. >> you're exactly right. and not only that, he couldn't negotiate for himself. he was violating at that time u.s. laws because there was an administration in power, but where this all really goes is the cover-up that he had, that he implemented by firing sally yates, the acting attorney general, firing comey, the director of the fbi, all to

cover-up this particular circle of mistruths. >> that is where we get into very, very serious and dangerous waters. thank you, malcolm. please stay with us for another topic after the break. but first, let's bring in congress greg meeks, democrat from new york. congressman, on friday while we were all watching what happened with flynn, there was something else that i think has huge ramifications. and that is the senate passed in their first stages, the tax plan. which has serious implications for working class, middle-class and low-income people in this country. your reaction to this plan being passed? >> it is devastating to middle-class and poor people also. because their tax rates will go up. clearly, in every analysis,

every nonpartisan and bipartisan analysis says that the winners, this is and huge tax break for one group of people, the top 1% of americans and the top and the biggest corporations in america. >> let me stop you there, if i'm home drinking my sunday morning coffee or getting ready to go to worship or whatever i do on sung sunday, why do you say this is a devastating blow to poor people and working-class people? what does this mean to me directly? because most people don't understand all of the economic language, what does this mean? what is it going to do to my pocketbook? >> let me say first based upon the senate's proposal. now they have to go to congress on monday before we get to know what the final bill is going to look like. but as of the senate bill passed yesterday, the tax rate for individuals who are poor, they now pay a 10% tax rate. it immediately goes up to 12%. >> so i go up 2% or more. >> that's right.

>> and if you are rich, it goes down about 2%. also, if you look at the senate piece, many lose health care because they get rid of the mandate that gives people the breaks and the tax deductibles so they can move forward. so it hurts them there. secondly, because this is a trickle-down analysis that the republicans believe in, so if the economy does not move up 4% to 5%, and most economists say it will not, then the government goes broke. when the government goes broke, we have to reduce entitlements. so you have to worry about your social security, your medicare, and your medicaid directly. so these are all direct effects that you have. and then if you are middle class, all of those deductions. and you did an itemized deduction, all those are wiped

out. they're gone. >> before you go up 22%, your health and benefits increase. milds class, all your itemized are gone. i want people to understand what this means so it is not judged. you have to go back to the house bill and the senate bill and they have to come together because neither bill on its own, i mean, they have to actually have a language that's different. the bills can't be the same. >> no, the bills are different now. and they've got to be exactly the same. >> exactly the same. >> to get to the president. >> now, he can't sign them without them being exactly the same. >> that's right. >> you're going to have members of congress, your colleagues, some that have been there that in 2009 voted against a stimulus bill, which was only adding, i

think it was $787 billion. but now they're going to vote to add a $1.5 trillion debt? i mean, how do they rationalize? they didn't want to bail a country out on the verge of a depression. and suddenly a recession with $787 billion. but the bill they would now put on us $1.5 trillion in the name of what? i mean, the economy is supposed to be doing well. why don't they worry about the debt now. and they have no former way to pay for it? >> it makes no sense. that's why the american people should be joutz raged. here are the same individuals who are talking about, as you're correct, we talked about fixing the economy, which hasn't been fixed by the obama administration, of which we are in now. >> that's why they are trying to round up on the present. >> without, that we wouldn't be who we are today.

this will devastate our economy by my observation. when you look at the corporate, the corporate rates at 35%, it is 35%, but nobody pays that 35%. but the loophole is for the corporate america. many companies pay less than, don't pay any at all, like 10%. they have fixed the loopholes. so to pay for that, the middle class and the poor folks are asked to do it, claiming they will create jobs for others. when you talk to the ceos, they will say their responsibility is to our shareholder, not to our employees. so what money they will get goes back to the shareholders, not raising salaries, and that will cause the economy to begin to go into the hole. >> it will trickle down and there's no evidence trickling down it will work. let gho to congressman john

yonk conye conyers, you have encouraged him to step down, correct? >> i have asked him to step down from the ranking position. >> okay. not necessarily from his seat. >> that's correct. >> some have asked him to resign from congress. and my question is, since you are not part of that, is that we have seen reports now that republican congressman of texas also used the same fund to settle a sexual harassment suit for over $80,000. is the congressional leaders, ms. pelosi and others who called on conyers to resign, are they going to call on him to resign? what's the standard here? there are different standards for different people. if that's the basis, are they going to ask the president of

the united states to step aside? >> that's why my position is clear. if you took the position that conyers should step down, you have to take the position that any member that has been allegedly involved in sexual harassment, that they have to resign. my position is that -- i'm a lawyer. you do have due process. and if someone wants to go through the ethics committee and submit themselves -- they have the right to do that. if one feels that they know they are guilty, that's their choice. my opinion, it is conyers' choice. but if he has to step down, anyone else in the same situation should also be asked to step down. >> thank you, congressman meeks. great to have you with us this morning. coming up, uncovering something you never would expect

in today's world. a slave auction of human beings. and the action unprecedently being taken to stop it. this is "politics nation" on msnbc. ♪ and how, i can't explain ♪ ♪ oh yeah, well well well youuuu ♪ ♪ you make my dreams come true ♪ ♪ well, well, well youuuu ♪ topped steak & twisted potatoes at applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. more people shop online for the holidays than ever before. and the united states postal service delivers more of those purchases to homes than anyone else in the country. because we know, even the smallest things are sometimes the biggest.

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smugglers in libya, the video coming from a now viral cnn report on the modern day slave trade that has flourish in the country since the gadhafi regime was toppled by the obama administration in 2011. that's why i've decided to go myself to libya sometime this month and help lead a delegation of prominent clergy on a fact-finding mission to explore this morally reprehensible idea of slavery in the year 2017. joining me now is malcolm nance, msnbc terrorism analyst and executive director of terror. malcolm, you know, it is an outrage to me when i saw this footage and started talking to people. in 2017 we're look at slavery. i remember a few years ago when we heard about it in the sudan,

i went over to sudan and saw firsthand, there's a photo of me in sudan, i believe in april of 2001, and here we have it now in the nation of libya. and people are either running around denying, i don't even know if president trump brought this up to the prime minister, so that is why we might heighten this and bring more public awareness with it. i was in chicago yesterday with reverend jesse jackson who said he would help go. i'm reaching out to others. i mean, how can we have such silence when people are being auctioned off, human beings? >> well, you know, there are three libyas right now as far as most people understand. there's a government in the eastern side of libya, there's a government of national unity in the western side of libya, and then there's the real libya, a tribal society that was suppressed under moammar gadhafi.

i worked with the libyan mission for years and even speak arabic. what you find is when the government collapsed, when the gadhafi regime went away, the country reverted back to tribes and malitias. at that point, you saw the great migration come up from subsaharan africa to use it as a springboard to get to yumplt that's why all the traffickers manifested themselves. but it's the tribes in those regions that now take these people, use them, sell them for labor, you know, there's hundreds of thousands of people waiting in libya trying to get to italy. and when they can't, you know, take all the funds away from them through markets, then they take them and sell them. >> now, but would even the breakdown of the regime, which is a policy we can debate and have, but beyond that, the u.n., something aught to come forward and deal with the fact that human beings are being sold

today in 2017. there must be some kind of way to address it. and you aught to go with us, but our addressing it must put the spotlight on it because it needs to be stopped. >> well, it absolutely needs to be stopped. but the problem we have here is one of not just human trafficking, it's a trafficking migration issue that come together that creates financial opportunities for people to exploit. you know, there are libyans and italians and other people of interest who are making and selling these rubber boats and putting them behind the mother ship trawlers to take them out to the middle of the ocean and abandon them there. that's a money-making opportunity for these people. and so long as there's no real government that can stop them, that can stop people from coming into the country, yesterday i

believe the first deportations back to nigeria were being carried out. but people will literally jump on a truck 200 to 300 at a time and come across the is a hasaha desert to spend their life savings to get to the libyan coast and that is where they are exploited. >> well, we'll put a real spotlight on this. we can't tolerate this on the globe on our watch. thank you, malcolm nance. >> it's my pleasure. up next, whether it's a song, on a screen or in the street, it's time to protest. i'll explain after the break. your brain is an amazing thing. but as you get older, it naturally begins to change,

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how many cases do you have to hear? how many times are you going to tell us it was misunderstood? it was based on fear? colin kaepernick took a knee protesting hatred. we lose the right to protest. >> i can't do this anymore. history is proof that protesting and standing for our rights is not a choice, it's a necessity.

>> every now and then i'm fortunate enough to use my name and civil rights experience to bring some real world gravitas to the big screen big and small. and this week i was bridged as you saw here on my friend lee daniels musical drama "star." this is from earlier this season when a young black man, a friend of a prominent character, is shot and killed by a rookie police officer who thought he was reaching for a gun setting up for this scene in which i play, playing myself, get to connect historical dots for the young man's grieving friends, bridging the gap between generation sit-in and generation take a knee. it was a tiny episode for the trump era, but particularly this week in which we saw our president insult minority group

after minority group online and in person. we have already touched on the president's implicit beef with black and brown folks, but before we do so again, i just want to celebrate "star" and "empire" and others that deal with the realities of discrimination in their own dramatized way. i also want to commend those recording artist that is have been nominated for top grammy awards. while taking on president trump to task, artists like donald glover, kendrick lamar and jay-z, whose label i met with earlier this week, still managed to give turkeys to poor philadelphians this week despite doing so from inside a jail cell. and that is the point, whether it is in a song, on a screen or

in the streets, it's about protest. everybody, everywhere, doing what they can to push back against the negativity. and as 2017 draws to a close, i'm proud to say this year alone we marched on washington, d.c. in honor of martin luther king demanding accountability from president-elect at that time, donald trump. reminding him the fight for equality and justice will not cease. later we counted the moral ambiguity of this administration with 5,000 ministers and rabbis marching for justice. so i said and i said it on "star," standing up for our rights is not a choice, it's a necessity. and as we stand down a second year of this president, here's the problem of justice, his courts and allies in congress and yes, his supporters, that

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meek represents thousands of people in pennsylvania, and even tens of thousands around the

country that have been victimized by abusive probationary and paroled systems that give room for judges to act way beyond what is necessary, what is palpable, and in my judgment, what is ethical. to throw people's lives away for this young man. >> my message monday from chester state correctional institution in pennsylvania, that's where rap per meek mills sits in jail for a probation violation. the case where all charges against him were dropped for about an hour and a half in the criminal justice system. fournlg unfortunately, this is not the first time a public figure's story has brought about the need

to change. i have a civil rights attorney here feature in the documentary "who killed tupac in" in it, he conducts an investigation into the murder of rapper tupac shakur back in 1996. also with me, adam, senior editor of "the atlantic." danielle moody mills who is a contributor to nbc black, and phil whose 2014 film is investigating how americans identify as white experience their ethnicity. let me start with you, years ago i went and visited tupac in jail, and the highlighting of celebrity is putting a spotlight on really what happens every day

in the criminal justice system. tupac had been sentenced. and meek mill has violated probation and having to do two our or four years on cases that were not charged. the whole criminal justice system and the unfairness in how it deals with men and women of color in general, young black men, in particular, and brown people, is something you have fought for. and i think when celebrities get caught, we get into the celebrity, but to meek mills' credit and tupac several years ago, they said, it is more than me. we have to deal with a broken criminal justice system. >> yes, sir. reverend al, you visited meek mill and that certainly helps highlight the fact that we have a basis for overrepresentation

of this complex by people of color, this for-profit probation syst system. this is a system of discrimination of the arbitrary sentences by judges all over america. so we get to see meek, but we don't get to see the thousands and thousands of meek mills that are sentenced unjustly in courtrooms all over america every day. >> adam, isn't the point that we are feeding this prison industrial complex, that we are really involved in something that has become industry in this country and that is permitted in this country and people don't want to stand up and consistently fight? >> yeah, i mean, it's remarkable how common it is. when you think about it, meek

mill has a nontraditional job. if you are someone coming out of prison and avoiding the prison sentence of probation and add a regular job and have to go into prison for a week because of a violation based on a case that was not charged, you would probably lose your job, which means you would lose your livelihood and may have to go back to jail again. it's sort of a -- >> the average person couldn't take off a week and that's the point. people talk about, well, his career can recover with a record, but the guy who can't recover a job if he misses five days on a minor offense. when you look at this, whites don't get treated the same way by and large. when you look at the data, we're not asking people for a break, we're asking for one standard. there's a difference in how whites accused and whites on probation and the data we see about blacks. >> well, look, whites and blacks

are not treated equalfully many, many facets of american life. i think what is really most striking about this particular system is the probation system, that it doesn't have to be this way. if you look, i spent some time in arizona last year about making a program with the conservative christian prosecutor whose job was to keep people out of jail who were on probation. by creating systems with operation hope in hawaii that says we are going to have a structure not to put you in jail. it costs $4 to $5 a day to -- it costs $100 to $200 a day to have them in jail. it doesn't make sense.

>> it is like running an industry that is at full occupancy if everyone gets what they want. danielle is a young black woman, what speaks to you about this issue when you see, what speaks to you in every day life? you're on the ground passionate about it. this tears up family. this isn't just minor offenses, we are talking about the most minor offenses. >> this is the conversation we're having in ferguson when we were seeing how the system was created there with parking tickets, violations that were throwing people in jail for months at a time, for minor infractions. so this is not a conversation about whether or not these people have broken the law, it's about whether or not the law is fixed in a way that actually lifts people up, that is looking

at a system that is trying to say, are we trying to keep people out of prison? are we trying to rehabilitate people? are we trying to better they are a lives? or are we about churning and burning black peoples' lives? we are talking about meeks, he'll go and make a new record and be fine. but there are thousands of black and brown people who will never be able to vote, that means they have no voice in their system, right? they will not be able to get a job because they'll have to put down that they have been in prison. so they are constantly going to be on a leash. who is that beneficial for? not the country, not beneficial for their families or the community. >> ben, we had our experiences in ferguson as well, and actually see systems set up to build up these tickets and other

things so they could couple some of the budget of the city by criminalizing people. that's what we saw there. and it is a blaring example about what we're talking about, a system set up that really wants to be in total disarray just to support themselves financially. we are talking about an administration now, ben, that is going back to supporting privatizing federal prisons. >> absolutely, reverend al. and it's one of the things that is as ni is asenine when you think about it, putting people in prison, you make profit off putting people in prison on probation. so it is very important -- tupac shakur in 1994, so people can

see this. this is real and it can happen, not just to tupac and meek mills, it can happen to your nephews and nieces, it can happen to anybody. >> not only can it happen, it has happened. i'm trying to say, it is happening. and people need to understand th that. and we have to let the judges know that we care about people in our community because you can't have the arbitrary sentences to al sharpton and have nobody speak to truth of power. so thank you for making that visit and standing up. we need more people to stand up. >> my panel is sticking around. up next, the connection between this year's grammy nominations and the president's disturbing issues with race. ♪ spread a little love my-y way ♪ ♪ spread a little something to remember ♪ philadelphia cream cheese.

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grammy nominations were announced this past week. black and latino artists dominated the top four categories giving rap and r&b

music a strong chance at taking home the top awards. this is a daily occurrence, president trump using his bully pulpit to attack others. and one time help consistently attacked has me worried as people of color. my panel is back with me. let me ask you, when you see the president continuing to make these attacks, danielle, whether they are calculated for politics to his base or not, how does it impact the culture? and how does it, in many ways, put people in jeopardy from the criminal justice system to jobs to create a climate that we have to worry in premature of everything to be seen from criminals to getting handouts, it sets a whole different culture. >> yeah, he doesn't use, look, we don't use a dog whistle

anymore. trump doesn't use a dog whistle. it is a bullhorn, right? he is a racist, right? so everything that he tweets and talks about is always directed at people of color. and it is terrifying to me that he can shine his spotlight on people of color who all they are asking for, he goes after the nfl players saying, you know what? there's a criminal justice system that if i weren't on this field, i would probably be in prison, right? i'm using the platform to stand up to say there's something wrong. he doesn't like free black people. he does not. so he uses us as red meat to his base to be able to signal to them, look, we have to keep these people in check. this is why your life is the way it is. these people are speaking out of turn and should be grateful for the ability to walk free. that's his attitude. >> wendy, when we talk about cases like, we started the last segment on meek mill, the

institutional unfairness as you raised in cameron, pennsylvania. when you have the president making these appearances that are flipping, institutional thi that have been permitted to go forward. >> i think what we were talking about at the break was pennsylvania has been sort of ground zero for some of the stuff, the cash for kids program was just this incredible example of having a judge, cerebella, i think, who was taking kickbacks to send kids to prison. a kid who might put up a my space page about his vice president pal, would find himself in prison. he was getting paid. >> getting paid in pennsylvania. >> he got a $2.2 million kickback from a private prison company. he said, you know, we need a

bigger prison. he ultimately went to jail for it. that's one of the things we've seen in the meek mill case is the judge had these wide latitudes to use it. you get in front of a judge who is having a bad day or a judge who doesn't like you, and it's not a jury of your peers. it's a judge keeping you on the hook for 10, 12 years on probation where you can't leave your home. >> we're not saying one judge getting a kickback is every judge. we're saying they have, as in the state of pennsylvania, such power, and they use that power in a way that's really not really checked and it disproportionately deals with blacks and browns. this needs to be challenged and changed. when you have the president setting a climate against blacks and browns, it only reenforces this problem. >> right. i think it's pretty clear the

president, he perceives his base as enjoying these fluids that he gets into with black public figures. but the other thing is that the president has in some sense encouraged some of those systemic abuses. there was the speech he gave in front of police officers encouraging them to rough up suspects. now his attorney general has pulled back from policing police departments using the power of the federal government to make sure police are following the constitution. it's not just a matter of intemperate remarks or off-colored jokes. it's about policies and systemic issues that the president is involved in. >> you know, ben croft, you have fought all your career, probably more than anyone in this generation ability thesis tehes /* systemic problems on and on. when you headed the national bar soerks, you have jeff sessions

that comes in and says that not only are we not going to continue questioning policing with you and i and others involved in the obama registration had at least began that process, but we're even going to bring back military kinds of equipment and militarize local policing. >> it is extremely troubling, reverend al, when you think not only of attorney general jeff sessions and the policies that are now coming out from the justice department rolling back all the achievements we have made and to getting a more equal society, a more pluralistic justice system, but now you have to remember this president, donald trump, has appointed more federal judges in just one year than president obama got through

almost his whole administration. >> lifetime appointments. >> we're going to have to live with these judges beyond this president. >> these are lifetime appointments, and the reason president obama couldn't appoint more is they would not clear them in the senate. they would not confirm them. they're rushing them through. well, we're out of time. thank you ben crump, adam and danielle and whitney. thank you so much. up next, my final thoughts, 62 years after rosa parks refused to move to the back of the bus. be right back.

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earlier this week we marked the 62nd anniversary of the day that rosa parks refused to give up her seat in the front of a bus in montgomery, alabama, violating the segregation laws at that time. now, in these times it looks like a big thing, but not the huge thing it was. she was breaking the law. she was handcuffed and arrested. this woman of small stature, not knowing whether she'd be beaten or abused, as blacks were in cases all over the south. she was not a great orator, not a great mobilizer, she was not a celebrity or star. she was an average, ordinary black seamstress that decided, i

will do something, and she did it. i led to dr. martin luther king and others organizing a boy scott and sparked what literally changed the segregation laws of the south. my point is that rosa parks was an ordinary person doing something extraordinary. it's a challenge to you and i. one of the greatest honors i had in my life, i spoke at her funeral in detroit. even though i was only 1 years old when she took that seat, i understand she changed american life forever. i said in my message at her funeral, we all out to make a rosa resolution that we need to, if it's on our job, whether we have our downtime, we need to speak out. if you can't speak out, you need to stand up. if you can't stand up, take a knee. if you can't fake a knee, take a

seat like rosa. but do something to break through what is wrong. that does it for me. thanks for watching. i'll see you back here next sunday. and now tho my colleague alex witt. >> good morning to all of you. i'm alex witt and msnbc world headquarters. 9:00 a.m. on the nose in the east. 6:00 a.m. out west. here is what's happening. early morning tweet storm, the president with a relentless stream of attacks today against, among others, james comey, the media, hillary clinton. what does it all add up to? plus -- >> what has been shown is no collusion, no collusion. there's been absolutely no collusion. >> the president keeps saying it, no collusion. but could the robert mueller probe be shifting to a question that puts the president in even more peril? >> i was in washington, d.c. watching