hey there. i'm joshua johnson. good to be with you tonight from next news world headquarters in new york. let us begin this hour on the ground in tulsa, where supporters of president trump and supporters of the black lives matter movement are filling the streets after the president's rally earlier tonight. let's start with nbc's cal perry and morgan chesky. both are on the ground for us. cal, let's start with you. where are you, and what do you see? >> reporter: hey, joshua. we're just sort of outside that outer perimeter of the bok arena. as you said, that black lives matter group has been sort of circling the arena for the last four to five hours. they have finally pushed off to greenwood.

that is of course the area that saw that horrible race massacre 99 years ago in about three weeks. they're headed back there which is frankly good news. it's taken the temperature down a lot here. we were concerned about those two groups meeting after the president's rally. it happened very briefly. there was about a ten-minute moment where they sort of clashed. i know my colleague and friend morgan chesky is going to talk a little bit more about this. there was a very, very brief moment where the police went in and sort of broke up that group and tried to separate those two groups out. i do think we caught a break with that black lives matter group having left the area. it is important to note that yesterday on juneteenth a celebration that was supposed to be canceled because of covid wept ahead anyway. local leaders said they felt like they had to counterprogram the president. they said he intention al piley picked that date to drive a wedge.

he moved the rally to today, but that wedge still exists. people felt like they needed to come out here today in force. >> i just want to emphasize from what you've been telling us earlier today, the interactions between the two sides have pretty much been intense but not physical. >> reporter: that's right. and there was a very brief moment at about 4:00 p.m. local where they had to shut one of the three entrances to the arena where people were just trying to physically sort of block it. now, understand that the trump supporters who were getting into the arena were escorted in and behind the police lines. police were helping to facilitate the event. the other thing worth noting because i know the trump campaign has sort of blamed protesters and blamed the media for some of the numbers. look at the tulsa p.d. twitter act. they have tweeted while the protesters are causing a traffic jam in certain parts of the city, this he are protesting peacefully. those are the facts, joshua. >> all right, cal. thank you. let's head over to morgan chesky. morgan, where are you, and what do you see? i'm not sure morgan can hear me. we'll get back to morgan in just a minute.

that's nbc's morgan chesky. morgan, let's try you one more time. can you hear me? >> reporter: yeah, i can hear you now. i'm just fine. i'm going to take a few steps. we're getting some shouting over my shoulder, joshua. cal touched on one side of what we've seen tonight. that's the black lives matter protest. i've had several conversations with supporters for president trump who made in some cases drives of several hundred miles in order to be here tonight, sit inside that arena and hear what he had to say. time and time again, the one thing that rings true for all of them is everyone is acknowledging this is a very divisive time in our nation. they say it's incredibly polarizing. so for a lot of the folks who made the drive here today to hear the president, they acknowledge the fact that it was comforting to be in a shared space inside or out with people that they said that they often feel, you know, under attack when they're not, i guess, in the same area as a lot of the

folks that gathered here today. so we do know that when i asked specifically, you know, what part of the president's message tonight really spoke to you, we did hear the economy, trying to rebuild the economy back up. one woman telling me that the president was self-deprecating whenever he was talking about his incident at west point, when he was walking down that ramp. when i pressed on specifics policy-wise, it was typically economy-related. but more than anything, i think that a lot of these people were first-time rally visitors, joshua, and it was all kind of part of the experience that they wanted to feel for themselves. they made the trip here. they made a weekend out of it, coming from missouri, kansas, arkansas, even as far as boston, san diego, in order to come here today because a lot of these people know that there's not going to be too many of these rallies, at least before election season. and so, you know, as this kind of regains momentum, as the president tries to get the campaign back on track post-pandemic, that's why for these people, it added significance.

that's why we're seeing at least for the ones who didn't make it here, because we did see those empty bleachers inside the arena, joshua, but for the people that made it here, they heard what they wanted to hear. and i will say that upon leaving when they did come into contact with some of the protesters here, it was a bit uncomfortable, that they did acknowledge that, you know, they were within an arena with everyone like-minded and they kind of see the other side of the coin when they walk outside. for that reason, though, the streets are starting to clear out relatively quickly. so we can only hope there aren't any violent clashes that we've seen in prior protests where two sides face off, and it's a relatively quiet night here in tulsa with the presence of the tulsa police and the national guard, which while you can't see any in this shot, i can assure you there's a significant presence in the nearby blocks. joshua. >> thank you, morgan. that's nbc's morgan chesky and cal perry both for us on the ground in tulsa. the events of this evening have given us plenty to talk about with our panel this hour.

christina grier is an associate professor of political science at fordham university and the author of the black ethnics. basil smikle is a democratic strategist and former executive director of the new york state democratic party. maria hinojosa. and dr. lipi roy, an internal medicine physician, an msnbc medical contributor. good to have all of you with us tonight. dr. roy, i'm going to start with you on the medical implications of tonight's event. the event was not sold out. there were still thousands of people bunched together, few of them wearing masks. it's been described by tulsa's health -- the head of the department of health in tulsa as a possible super-spreader event. how do you see it? >> good evening, joshua. yeah, got news is that it wasn't at capacity. i'm sure there was well less than 20,000 people, so that's the good news. here's the bad news and unfortunately we're going to have to unpack a lot of it. i think back to when i was in first-year university.

i took calculus 101. you might have taken journalism 101. well, let me tell you, our current elected officials are failing infectious disease 101. the only two measures that we know that reduce the transmission of the virus are six-feet distance and masks. and most of the rally attendings, very few of them were practicing either measure. in fact, they were standing shoulder to shoulder, shouting and cheering, which we know spreads the virus even further. i mean these are the dynamics of the disease, joshua, and i'm just really concerned that we're going to see a rise in cases again. >> basil the crowd size was one of the things the president alluded to earlier this week. here's part of what he said. >> and we expect to have, you know, it's like a record-setting crowd. we've never had an empty seat, and we certainly won't in oklahoma. >> so he said that was what was going to happen, basil. that is not what happened at all. what do you read into the

turnout? >> it's a few things. one, i do think that owing to some of your correspondents' reporting, there are people in this country that do feel that we are really divided right now. and while i do still think that the president has a lot of sort of core supporters, there are a lot of folks that used to support the president that are now taking a second look at him. we've seen that from some of the polling, some of the folks that endorsed him or had voted for him before are now taking a step back because they feel at this moment in time, he has not done a lot to lead the nation. but i think one of the other things that is interesting about the crowd size is that i imagine there are a lot of people that are concerned about the virus and the ability to spread that virus at an event such as this. if you look at the fact that major league sports is still trying to wrestle with this, right? they're trying to set up a bubble where it's just the

players. they still haven't figured this out yet. the president of the united states is putting all these folks into one confined space and some earlier reporting suggests that a vast majority of people in that arena did not wear a mask. and so i also think that there are folks that are still concerned about the virus, about getting exposed to it despite the fact that the president is trying to go back to business as usual. >> you can see quite a few people in the upper bowl of the bok center where the seats were very, very sparsely populated tonight. professor greer, mr. trump won oklahoma in 2016 by a landslide. here's that statement from the campaign regarding tonight's attendance. it reads in part, quote, sadly protesters interfered with supporters, even blocking access to the metal detectors, which prevented people from entering the rally. radical protesters coupled with a relentless onslaught from the media attempted to frighten off the president's supporters, unquote.

professor greer, even if that was true, which we have no evidence of, but even if it was, i'm wondering how much that even matters. i mean the president was on his political turf, so even if this rally was not well attended, how much does that actually portend for november? >> hi, josh. well, we know that the president is on the defensive right now. i mean the backdrop as my newly minted ph.d. colleague basil smikle just said, the backdrop is covid. we have over 120,000 americans who have died from this virus. we have over 40 million americans who have filed for unemployment, not even including those who aren't eligible for unemployment. so the president definitely can't run on his record the way he possibly wanted to or assumed that he could, so he has to distract. he has to use racist, divisive language. he has to make it such that the media is the enemy of the public

and that everything is even deeper than fake news, that people in the media are actively going out against him to stir up some sort of political violence, which is not proven and is not true. and so i think this is the first time that a lot of folks are really seeing this president losing a grasp because he's overplaying his hand. sadly we still have far too much silence from his republican colleagues in the senate and the house, but he is losing a lot of ground largely because some of his supporters are recognizing where are those tax cuts that were promised. you know, tax season has passed and many of them are not seeing the benefits that they were promised by the president. and they are very concerned about his racist rhetoric. he's actually poisoning a lot of the soil in america and they're seeing that there's possibly a more productive way to have some of these really hard conversations about race and racism in this country. that might explain not just some of the absences we saw this

evening but also this idea that the way he's been able to try to frame his leftist enemies and the media isn't working the way it has in the past few years. >> yeah, he did reel against the media quite a bit. he did also mention the tax cuts, that they were the largest in american history, which adjusted dollar for dollar for inflation is a debatable point, but we'll set that aside. maria -- >> it may be the largest in american history but just only for a very, very, very small percentage of wealthy americans. >> right. >> so there's truth in that just for the rich. >> maria, president trump has said that his administration plans to try again to get rid of daca after losing that case before the supreme court this week. we'll talk more about that case in a minute. but there was a poll from politico this week that found most voters support protecting dreamers from deportation, including people who voted for donald trump in 2016. he did not mention that a lot during the rally.

he mentioned mexico kind of obliquely but didn't say a ton about it. how might the daca strategy fit into his overall strategy for 2020? >> well, it was a big loss for him, joshua, as you know. and for those people who are part of the program, it was the first time in many, many years that they were able to exhale. people don't really understand the kind of mental health pressure and stress they were under. but, you know, thinking about that question within the context of what's being shown on-screen right now, this rally, i can't forget how donald trump actually began his campaign. so not the re-election now but his campaign was begun by insulting people like me because i was born in mexico and creating an image that was false and using hate speech, which has now become really quite normalized. and so it's very strange when i'm thinking about this particular crowd and the fact

that they're going there in support of that major policy, which is to build a wall, but at the same time might have some comprehension about their neighbors or the fact that their kids are friends with daca recipients. it's really quite confusing, but that's actually quite typical of the american electorate. but, you know, i have to say, joshua, as somebody who is a survivor of covid and so i'm really happy that you have a doctor on this episode right now. as a survivor of covid, i'm looking at these people and i'm thinking that they are never -- they're going to go into denial. they'll get sick in about, you know, five to ten days. they'll start feeling achy, and they'll want to deny that they're feeling sick because that's what happens with this illness. you don't want to believe it. they might not get tested, and that's where it gets really scary. so i actually feel for them. i feel a lot for them, and i'm sorry that that's what they're being exposed to. >> very briefly, dr. roy, before we pause, for people who attended this rally tonight, what would you recommend that

they do? >> yeah, i mean i'm so concerned that there are going to be people there who are probably super-spreaders, who are not just spreading the virus to one or two people but to 20, 30, 40 people. people really should get tested but look out for symptoms. self-quarantine. i seriously doubt people are going to do that because they went to this rally without wearing masks and without the physical distancing. but keep an eye out for symptoms and try to wear a mask when you get back home so you don't infect the people who wisely stayed back home. >> the mask is to protect others, not just to protect yourself. dr. lipi roy, thank you for making time for us. the rest of the panel is going to stick around because there's much more to come tonight. attorney general william barr says president trump has officially fired manhattan's top federal prosecutor at barr's request. geoffrey berman refused to resign last night. we'll have more on that back-and-forth and the investigations that berman oversaw into some of the president's top allies next. when we started our business

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tonight the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york is out of a job. geoffrey berman announced tonight that he is stepping down immediately. that ends his standoff with attorney general william barr. berman made that announcement hours after barr said he had been fired. berman refused to resign last night after barr released a statement claiming that the u.s. attorney had resigned. in announcing the firing, barr said that the president had approved the request after berman had, quote, chosen public spectacle over public service, unquote. before he left for tulsa, president trump said that he was not involved in that decision. berman's office oversaw investigations into several trump allies including michael cohen and rudy giuliani. let's get back to our panel. professor christina greer, basil smikle, and maria hinojosa. joining the conversation is msnbc justice and security

analyst matt miller. he served as the director of the office of public affairs for the department of justice under attorney general eric holder. matt, let me start with your thoughts on everything that has transpired in the past 24 hours or so. i know that it's a lot, but what is top of mind for you right now? >> look, i think what's happened is that the attorney general bill barr was trying to do in the southern district of new york what he successfully did in d.c., which is to move the independent prosecutor out of the job, out of u.s. attorney, and replace him with someone who would be less independent and be more kind of obedient to what bill barr wants to do, which i assume has to do something with some of the investigations maybe into rudy giuliani. it may be more a general threat, that he just didn't want someone who is so independent with five months to go before the presidential election. i think the significant thing that happened overnight, though, is number one, geoff berman wasn't willing to go along with it. he wouldn't step aside quietly. he made clear he was going to fight.

that forced bill barr to make a very important concession today. yes, people will look at the top line and say that geoff berman was still fired, and he did leave the job. but the important thing is bill barr wasn't able to replace him with an acting u.s. attorney, the person he intended to, the sitting u.s. attorney in new jersey, someone who is a chris christie protege, someone whose independence had been questioned. but the person who is going to run that office is the number two, someone who has been longtime respected for her independence, her integrity. i think it's a big step forward for the justice department, and i think a crucial concession that barr had to make in the face of this controversy. >> professor greer, what is congress' role here. the house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler says he will invite mr. berman to testify in a hearing about this on wednesday. the president can hire and fire u.s. attorneys as he sees fit. where does congress fit into this other than the senate being able to confirm or reject the president's next nominee?

>> well, i think that the confirmation and rejection is an important key, but also congressman nadler has already said that he wants to hear from berman just to make sure that everything's on the record. i mean this is how we save a democracy. we need american citizens who serve at the pleasure of the president to also recognize that they represent the constitution before they represent an individual in any capacity. so congressman nadler wants to have a discussion with the late sdny attorney general just to see how this process played out. per usual, the president has tried to hide behind barr, which forced him to make concessions as was previously said. but i think this is, as we've seen so much, an erosion of our democracy under this particular president and his administration. it's incredibly important that members of congress, especially

democrats, who want to save the democracy, have this on record so that even their republican colleagues are put on notice that it is up to them to uphold their duty as representatives of the american people and not the president just because he shares a party with them and demands their specific loyalty just to him. >> basil, preet bharara preceded mr. berman. he was fired early on in the trump administration. regarding this, he tweeted, quote, why does a president get rid of his own handpicked u.s. attorney in sdny, the southern district of new york, on a friday night less than five months before the election, unquote? basil, how would you answer that? >> well, what i tell my students sometimes is that people do things on friday nights so that much of the media doesn't get a hold of it and people are out doing what they normally do on a friday night. that clearly is not the case during a covid crisis where people are actually for the most

part at home watching the news. and so the attempt to do it and escape some kind of transparency and some kind of ability to sort of get all the information and escape notice fell very flat. and actually there's an interesting point that was made earlier in that barr is alleging that berman is too much of a showboat. what's interesting to me is that the person -- one of the persons that he's investigating -- that's rudy giuliani, made his bones doing exactly the same thing, being this sort of larger than life figure as a u.s. attorney, which is the platform that he used to become mayor. so to me, the issue of being a very prominent voice in the department because that seat is a very, very important seat and it attracts a tremendous amount of attention among all of them throughout the country maybe

with the exception of d.c. but it's much more clear at that point that this was an opportunity that the president used to get rid of somebody who was getting a little too close, who was investigating friends of his that he felt might come back and hurt him so close to the election. that's really what's at stake here, and it is very transparent from this action. >> basil, christina, maria, stick around. we've got more to discuss. matt miller, we appreciate you making time for us. thanks very much. we're continuing to monitor what's going on in tulsa. what you're looking at is in the greenwood district about a mile and a quarter as the crow flies away from the bok center where tonight's rally was held. we'll have another live report from tulsa after the president's first rally in three months. sit tight. prices of the season on

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back now to our coverage on the streets of tulsa after the rally that the president held earlier tonight.

you are looking at the greenwood district, which is about a mile or so away from the bok center where the rally took place. nbc's cal perry had been a little bit closer to the center, a few blocks east of the bok center, and he joins us again now. cal, what are you seeing where you are? >> reporter: you know, it's quiet now. we've had that black lives matter protest leave. we've been talking to trump supporters as they've been heading home, but it is all quiet now. as we look at those pictures earlier and i've been hearing a lot of this on twitter, it looked like you had white america facing off sort of against black america here in tulsa. i don't think that's fair. in especially the last couple weeks, we've seen this massive movement on the streets of america, and it has been the next generation, and it has been multiracial. i think what we saw tonight was a very small slice of sort of trump america. when you compare this to four years ago, joshua, i remember four years ago being at these rallies. this is only the president's first rally in this season, but when you look at sort of four years ago from now, there was a buzz four years ago. there was a momentum.

things were building. this rally felt different. it felt like the air was coming a little bit out of the balloon. it felt like people when they left, they said the president was a little bit rusty. they still liked the message. but it just has a different feel to it. it does not have that growing momentum feel to it, joshua. >> thank you, cal. that's nbc's cal perry in downtown tulsa. we'll check in with you later on. tonight president trump slammed progressives for wanting to tear down confederate statues. it is another effect of the protests following the killing of george floyd. lower tolerance for the symbols of america's inequities and those who benefited from them. but confederate statues are not the only things changing as we grapple with the legacy of slavery. american staples including aunt jemima pancake mix and uncle ben's rice are in for some big changes after they perpetuated cultural stereotypes for generations. joining us now is rich benjamin, a political analyst and the author of "searching for

whitopia: an improbable journey to the heart of white america." good evening, rich. thanks for making time for us tonight. president trump said this evening they want to demolish our heritage so they can impose their new oppressive regime in its place. what do you make of that in comparison to not only what black lives matter protesters have been calling for but also some of the efforts around the country to just rip down some of these statues with people's bare hands basically? >> i think it's going to be a failed, perverted talking point where you take people's concerns and you try and use it as a campaign rally for white resentment towards your supporters. but in effect, as you pointed out, aunt gentlemen my ma, uncle ben's, the confederate flags, they're coming down. and in and of itself, each of these symbols might not been a big ideal, but together they present a backwards-looking,

irrelevant picture of this country, and people are fed up. and in addition to these symbols, people are going to start confronting trump on the actual policies that constitute racial equality in this country from policing reform to a fair, equitable, transparent distribution of the covid recovery resources and a whole bunch of other policy issues. so we'll see if it works for him but not likely. >> can you empathize, though, rich, with the people who see all of the sudden seismic cultural change and think the whole world that i thought i knew is changing, and i don't know which way is up right now? these symbols were fine, and then they weren't. the statue was no problem, and now it's a problem. are you empathetic to that perspective, that kind of shock to the system? >> no, i'm not, joshua. and the reason i'm not is because i traveled this country for my research and for my reporting. ohio and indiana and oregon, and i'd see these young white kids

with confederate flags all over their paraphernalia. and nary a one of them had any ties to the confederate generals. nary a one of them were southerners. so they've adopted this symbol to their own current white racial resentment. so for them to call it a shock to the system is really cuckoo and a bit disingenuous given that they have no ties to the civil war themselves. they probably couldn't even name you any of the battles that the confederate soldiers won during that time. i mean what's their tie? so this idea that it's a shock to the system or that it represents something that they truly understand is kind of ludicrous. i've seen it with my own eyes. i've seen people fly these flags, have these flags all over, and if you ask them, you know, what battle did your grandfather fight in, they couldn't tell you because they have no relationship truly to the confederate south.

>> we mentioned that the president focused on confederate statues in his speech. that's not all that's changing. we mentioned aunt jemima, uncle ben's rice. they're looking to evolve their brands. they in particular have been called out for the way that they've used black characters or rather caricatures. why did it take so long for big businesses to come around on these stereotypical brands? >> i think it probably took so long because these stereotypes were seen as profitable and beneficial to these corporations. and i think with all these multiracial protests in more than 75 cities across the country, i think corporations have realized the tipping point and that it no longer serves them well. i think in many cases, there's been an ethical change of mind where they said, aha, we regret having, you know, contributed to this cultural or symbolic racism. >> i think it's important to note also that, you know, if i

saw, you know, ms. jemima coming down the street, i wouldn't call her aunt. i would call her ma'am or miss, and that that term "aunt" is a kind of a forced, unearned familiarity that was used as a diminutive to prevent black men and women from being treated like a mister or missus, like a sir or a ma'am. you don't call a grown-up, you know, out of his first name. you say sir, mr. smith or whatever. so it's an inherently pejorative, diminutive use of language. you kind of refer to this idea of whiteness in an op-ed that you wrote for the "l.a. times." in part it reads, quote, acting white in the true republican sense means treating all people with tact and humility. you don't grovel before anyone. you don't tear them down. your self-respect derives from honoring other people's. a republican society is in service to all citizens, so a leader in the people's conduct is meant to be mutually uplifting. corrupt, self-aggrandizing,

selfish trump is the opposite of republican white acting. if whiteness were a brand, trump is doing it severe, lasting damage, unquote. president trump is damaging the brand of whiteness? was it really riding so high before he showed up? >> by the way, that republican you're reading is a small "r" republican. >> i was going to ask you that. thank you. >> -- of the republic and of the people. so if you consider that sense of whiteness, then indeed trump is doing it damage. and we see this. we see this seething resentment among the lincoln project, the never-trumpers who say this is not america. this is not our party. and this is not what it means to be white. but he has this kind of rowdy, self-adprand grandizing, corrupt, vulgar, self-representation.

it's a performance of a certain type of whiteness that makes many white people's skin crawl. >> i would love to have a longer conversation with you another day about that notion, that this is not what white people see in themselves. if that's the case, how did we get to this point? conversation for another night. rich benjamin is the author of "searching for whitopia." rich, thanks very much. >> thanks, joshua. thank you. coming up, the university of california votes to restore affirmative action nearly 25 years after it was banned. we'll explain why just ahead. stay close.

next month makes 25 years since the university of california became the first system in the nation to ban preferential treatment based on race, ethnicity, or sex. the "los angeles times" summed it up as a turning point in the uc system's national leadership in education equity. the reverend jesse jackson said at the time it would cast a long shadow.

the following year california passed proposition 209. that banned affirmative action statewide. it covered public education, government contracting, and employment. last week, uc's top governing board, the regents, voted unanimously to roll back that legislation in hopes of bringing back affirmative action. the california state senate has has until this thursday, june 25th, to ratify that measure and get it on the november ballot. christina greer, basil smikle and maria hinojosa are back to discuss with us. in the full interest of disclosure, i have served on uc berkeley's faculty in the past, i taught briefly at its graduate school of journalism, but i'm no longer connected to the university. professor greer, what message does this action by the uc regents send to prospective students? >> well, i think it's a positive step.

joshua, we don't live in a color blind society, and we should not strive for that to be the goal. i think it's important that universities understand, highlight and uplift all the incredible diversity of their students and that goes from daca students to first-generation immigrant students to 15th-generation students such as myself. so i think that, you know, what i'm really taking away from this entire messaging from the california system is that this is why voting on november 3rd will be so important. for people who want to have a say in higher education in the state of california, not only will their legislators decide on june 25th, that means there's a ballot measure that goes on the california ballot in november, with i makes down-ballot races incredibly important. so much attention has been paid to the president and possibly removing president trump and inserting joe biden as the next president of the united states. but we can't get caught up just at the top of the ticket.

we have to recognize that so many governors, senators, every single member of the house of representatives, and statehouses of representatives and state senators across all 50 states are on the ballot. those are incredible positions because they hold so much control over not just the finances of someone's state but many policy positions ranging from environmental protections to lgbtq+ provisions to educational funding as well. >> maria, this was the first university system to ban affirmative action in the nation. how do you view this unanimous vote in a larger context? this is not an issue that is unique to the uc system, especially not after it decided to enact that ban. >> you know, one of the great things about this moment in history that we're all living through, it's quite painful, but it's also a moment when you really are witnessing people kind of understanding history, just trying to consume history and really understanding the role of white privilege in all of this.

so, for example, i think we have to look into history. you know, the first people who were excluded from this country were actually asian women, and this was in the west, right? then the chinese exclusion act. particularly in california in the 1930s, there was something known as the great repatriation. it was a massive deportation of mexican and mexican-american american citizens. there was a loss of wealth. there was destabilization. so affirmative action is really trying to put things back into a more equal tone. let's just think about the california of 25 years ago that banned affirmative action compared to this california. this california is more like what the future demographics and political tendencies of this country looks like. so it's a big deal. >> basil, uc has struggled to become more broadly diverse. i remember when i taught there, i had black students in my class at the graduate school of journalism. there was more of an effort to

try to provide support for african-american students, but black freshman enrollment is barely 4%. talk about the impact this kind of change might have especially since there is still some desire to find ways of creating educational equity that don't force university systems to focus this squarely on race. i think a lot of university systems would rather not have to focus so squarely on race and still be able to meet the same need. >> yeah, and the problem is that they don't generally do a very good job of it. and, look, our society for the past, actually, i would say 300 to 40 years has actually been pushing kids, young people, to go to college. yet their ability to not just get into college but to stay in college is often determined by a lot of factors, and race and class are heavily correlated with that. you talked about teaching. i teach at columbia, and i know

that professor greer and maria can attest to this. when i walk into a classroom, invariably i have students come up to me and say, i'm glad to see you. what does that mean? they're glad to see me, a black man, walk into that class and be at the front of the room. similarly, i'm glad to see when i go into rooms and there is a tremendous gert -- diversity there. so i reflect on, for example, the college admissions scandal when you had these very wealthy people paying a tremendous amount of money and faking, you know, resumes to get their kids into college. my first thought is how many african-american, latino kids did they replace because they didn't play fair with the system that we have? so what i say and what i think about all the time is that i hope that people that have these positions use the platforms they have to advocate for diversity because as a society, we talk so much about wanting to make sure that folks go to college and get

a good education, and yet there are colleges that we can go to that we have the ability to apply to, and then just don't get in. and that actually starts in high school when you talk about even the role that counselors have in dissuading some students from going to some of the more competitive colleges. it's a systemic problem that just doesn't occur at the college admissions process. it actually goes a bit further back than that. but every step of the process is important. >> basil smikle, professor christina greer, maria hinojosa, glad to have you with us. stay safe. thanks for making time for us. just ahead, sometimes 2020 feels like a horror movie, but that may turn out to make all the difference.

this year has brought its share of horrors, including the homicides of george floyd and rayshard brooks at the hands of police officers. why did these deaths affect so many people when others did not? we might learn part of the answer from an actual horror film released 45 years ago today. on this date in 1975, "jaws" debuted in theaters. the steven spielberg blockbuster gripped up with those shark attacks in excruciating real time, punctuated by that brilliant theme by john williams. but the movie also worked because of what it did not show.

a deleted scene from "jaws" shows the shark attack a man in gory detail. but what makes the film so unnerving is you almost never see the shark bite. you're there for it with the victim, but the limited perspective makes it not just horrifying. it's haunting. kind of like the video of george floyd's death. i'll admit it has been impossible for me to watch this video in full. maybe it has for you too. the footage is a real-time horror show, partly showing the officers, clearly showing mr. floyd's face as he begs to breathe. body cameras were supposed to revolutionize law enforcement, instantly increasing accountability. but we often get that footage in carefully curated clips intended to inform but not inflame. if only it did not take such visceral images to bring about social change, but that's what

affects us most. that's why this movement is pulling so many people together. we have all seen the same haunting images in real time. we cannot unsee it or unfeel it because we were there. black americans have been trying to tell people for decades how inequitable law enforcement is. hopefully the next time we gather to right a social wrong, we won't need so much proof for so many years. that last film was scary enough. you really want a sequel? the story of tonight's rally in tulsa and the protests against it continues after this break. we will break down what the president had to say and the situation on the ground right now as our coverage continues on msnbc.

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good evening in the west. good morning in the east. i'm joshua johnson. good to be with you from nbc news world headquarters in new york. tonight president trump held his first campaign rally since early march inside an arena in tulsa. he did so during a tense time in our nation with anti-racism protests and a pandemic that has killed more than 120,000 americans. protesters remain on some of the streets of tulsa at this hour, but as you can see, some of them are quite quiet right now. very few in the crowd tonight wore face masks for the safety

of others. health experts feared that the event could turn into a sort of super-spreader event. and today we learned that six trump campaign staffers tested positive for covid-19, two of whom are secret the campaign claimed that nearly 1 million people wanted tickets to the rally. tonight, the arena with capacity for 19,000, had plenty of empty seats especially in the upper bowl. the trump campaign blamed the smaller than expected crowds on protesters and on the media. mr. trump claimed what we described as a bunch of maniacs came to attack tulsa tonight, presumably he was referring to the counterprotesters. maybe the black lives matter protesters. but as he put it, it could have gotten worse. >> and our people are not nearly as violent, but if they ever were it would be a terrible, terrible day for the other side. >> meanwhile, just breaking in