tv MSNBC Live MSNBC July 4, 2020 1:00pm-2:00pm PDT
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weeks in the polls. most of which showed joe biden in the lead as the country recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases for a straight day, there was little social distancing in the crowd and even fewer masks. about 7,000 people gathered to listen to a dark and divisive speech from the president. >> angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. they think the american people are weak. and soft. and submissive. but no, the american people are strong and proud. they will not allow our country and all of its values, history and culture to be taken from them. tonight's festivities in our nation's capitol, however, may
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pro prove to be a little different as they will attempt social distancing measures and even hand out to masks to those who want them. we have a great panel to break this all down for us. haze brown, the host news:00. jacqulynn is the author of "the washington post" power up newsletter and dr. adalja senior scholars at the johns hopkins center for health security. haze, dark, divisive. we have become accustom to hearing this type of messaging from the president. at the same time, we're hearing this messaging as poll after poll shows that he is on the opposite side of the american electorate when it comes to these issues. how do you square those two realities? >> because for the last four years it's been 2016 for donald trump. and it's been clear as he moves into re-election, as we move toward the general election and as jared kushner and others around him try to encourage this in him, he wants to run the same
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play book even though he's the incumbent now. as he's trying to figure out what was it that worked last time, what was the magic that got me into the white house, he is leaning more and more heavily on the divisive, extremely dog whistle, white nationalist sort of rhetoric that did help him get into the white house, but this time around he is the president. he has the microphone. he is not just tweeting out these things on twitter where he's saying the quiet. no, he is standing up there at mount rushmore and implying that the protesters out on the streets the ones who are demanding more equality and justice are trying to break americans and americans which he is clearly referring to white americans will not let this stand. >> jacqulynn, there's also clearly a contrast here with former vice president biden, former vice president putting out a video message today. also this nbc news think piece in which joe biden writes, quote that pursuit of a more perfect union has been thrown off course in recent years and no one bears
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more responsibility than president donald trump. what is the biden's campaign thinking about how they respond to the messaging that we are now hearing from the president? >> well, look, i think that what we've seen by former vice president joe biden doing over the past several months really since the pandemic has started is lay low and offer as much as a contrast as possible. at the end of the day, elections are about contrast. and even with biden for as much as the president likes to m -- former vice president hiding out in his basement, president trump would actually probably be -- been in better shape with higher approval ratings if he had done the same and hung out in his bunker. with the president sort of denying the pandemic is still in existence, even as killed nearly 120,000 americans and now having the exact opposite reaction that most americans are having to the george floyd protests, what
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biden is doing is putting the pieces together in his campaign, making a bunch of hires, laying low and gearing up for the last stretch of the election which is really going to start again probably after labor day. he's not going to be hosting in-person events, basically every single thing that he's doing is a contrast to what the president is doing. >> doctor, you saw the same images that i saw coming out of south dakota. people standing shoulder to shoulder, not a lot of social distancing. so while south dakota not a hot spot right now, what are the chances that an event like that creates a spike or rise in cases after you have people standing that close in such close proximity, especially when we know there are members of the president's inner circle who have tested positive for this virus? >> this virus has established itself in the human population, so any time you have a mass gathering you can just assume there are going to be some
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transmission events that occur. will they be sustained transmission events that put people into the hospital or are they going to be more manageable? hopefully because the event was outdoor you'll see some limit of transmission. we have to be prepared any time we have new mass gathering we'll have exposures and have health departments having to do contact tracing because there's invariably going to be some chain of transmission started off, hopefully small in this case, but we have to prepare for it. >> hayes, i want to go back to part of what we were talking about when it comes to the language that we heard from the president, right? some of that divisive language. far left fascism, a straw man version of the left that he depicts as 3450 depicts. there is what this means for november, right? we already talked about that. what does it mean for the country in this moment when you would ordinarily have a president standing before mount rushmore and trying to unify the country, to instead have this being the message that is
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broadcast to americans? >> i think that we're at a moment right now when it is more acceptable than it has been for a very long time to actually look back at our history and say, what did it take for us to get to this point? america? and who did the work, whose backs was it built on top of? and who is still not reaping the benefits of that? the president in his speech is trying to say that those conversations should not be happening. he's trying to say that those reckonings should not exist. he's trying to say that when i stand before these former presidents who are carved here into the black hills of south dakota, you should be looking forward and be grateful for what has been given to you. in his speech he doesn't outright say a lot of things but there's a lot of sub text. people can read between the lines. it's notable when he's speaking about our history, heritage, culture, he is referring to what white america built. when he does mention people of
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color, martin luther king jr. and his more acceptable statement that more palatable to people today and it's other black americans who have been raised up without mentioning why it's so amazing that they got to the point that they did when he hasn't mentioned the ill that slavery and what actually happened except it was a throw away line that lincoln fixed it. he ended slavery and helped pass 13th amendment and that's it. >> doctor, you know tonight there will be fireworks over washington, d.c. there are going to be masks that are going to be handed out. as a health expert, what would you like to see in place in order to keep people safe? >> i would like to see people behaving as if we're not the middle of a pandemic. that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the fes tiffties. you need to do so that follow the common sense recommendations we have been saying from the beginning. try to stay six feet apart. try to avoid highly dense
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gatherings. wear a face mask. wash your hands a lot. don't touch your face. and realize every activity you do the virus is going to be out there and you cannot avoid it. the question will be trying to reduce the harm that this virus causes. we have to follow these common sense principles in order to be able to move forward and at the same time enjoy our lives without putting our hospitals at risk of being inundated again. >> jacqulynn, we're hearing that the white house is taking a slightly different tact when it comes to messaging on coronavirus, that they're now saying this is something that we are going to need to live with. are you hearing anything from the administration, from the jump re-election campaign about whether or not they are going to be rethinking some of the rallies and the type of nonsocially distanced events that we have seen to date? >> that is currently under deliberation. you know, i think that the administration and the campaign both realize that they can't have another situation like tulsa where the headlines
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following that rally and even really proceeding that rally was that majority of the staffers who worked on it who did advance for it tested positive for the virus and that it was held in a city that was currently experiencing a surge in cases. there is a recognition that this is not only not good optics wise but also pretty detrimental to the health of the country as cases are surging, specifically in sun belt areas and areas that the president needs to be campaigning in. that being said, as much as the campaign wants to deliberate and come up with a change in tone or strategy or messaging, this is on the president. and so as long as the president is not taking the president seriously as was evidenced in very public view last night, there were no masks being warn, the native american tribes who actually lived in the area in the black hills around mount rushmore told him not to come because it was a health hazard, so long as the president is doing as he so pleases and is
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messaging that from the very highest level of power in our government, that messaging and those changes in messaging aren't really going to make that much of a difference. >> hayes, jacqulynn and doctor, thank you all so much. throughout his tenure in office the president has had a fraught relationship with the native american community. it was on display last night at mount rushmore where protesters came out in force against the president. it comes in the leadup to a national election that could see native american voters play a key role in several battleground states. and as some professional sports team are finally forced to rethink team names that indigenous americans have called insensitive for years. i would like to welcome the executive director of alum native. thank you so much for joining us, crystal. first, i want to get your response, not to the substance of the speech. we'll get to that in a second, but the decision to give that speech in that location? what is the message that sends?
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>> that message what it sends right now is that the highest office in the land is a symbol for white supremacy. the president is leaning into a message of hate and racism and, you know, that mount rushmore stands on lands that are sacred to the lakota people. it was disturbing to see the messaging in that speech. >> so when you hear about the president talk about history, what does that mean to you? >> native americans have been erased from this history of this country. i think there's a deep, deep discomfort with the fact that the country needs to reconcile itself with the fact that it's a country built on genocide and the fact -- according to the research we have done, nearly 80% of americans know little to nothing about native peoples. nearly 90% of the schools in this country don't teach about natives people past 1900 and
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complete erase of the true history of genocide and theft of indigenous lands. >> there's the affront of the location. there's the affront of the actual message. then on top of that is there is the reality that there's a pandemic raging in this country of which your community has been particularly hard hit, right? and so what does it mean to you not just where it was or what you heard but the reality of having an event of that scale with no social distancing in place amidst a community that may be more vulnerable to this virus? >> it's absolutely unacceptable. i mean, we have two raging pandemics of both covid-19 and racism in this country. and you know, tribal leaders pleaded with the president, please do not come to this state. native americans are disproportionately impacted by covid-19 because of health disparities exist but also the chronic underfunding of the
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indian health care system. but we have seen time and time again that this administration is ignoring the calls of whether it's indigenous peoples or african-americans down the line. i mean, we are head quartered in tulsa. we went through this two weeks ago in tulsa as well when city leaders, the public in tulsa asked the president not to come because of covid-19 and the surge that we were going through there. again, we see this pattern of total disregard for americans in those communities that are being deeply impacted by covid-19. >> we've talked about politics. we've talked about policy. all of this, of course, happening against a cultural backdrop. we are now having conversations that have been years in the making, right? washington's nfl team rethinking its name. what is the significance of that to you, to your community, and how do you tie it to this larger cultural moment that we are in?
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>> when we look at this larger cultural moment, first this acknowledgment and recognition of the black lives matter movement. this is the largest social movement in history and it's unfortunate it took the murders of breonna taylor, george floyd. this fight around the mascots, around the washington football team name which is a racial slur has been going on for decades. indian leaders have been fighting for this name change that we have all as natives people been calling that there needs to be an end to these racist sports mascots. it's been documented through scientific studies that these cause psychological harm to native americans, particularly native children and also fuels biases and racism by non-natives. we're not there yet. you know, the team says it's
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under review, but there should be only conclusion -- one conclusion from that review and that the racist team name needs to go. the logo needs to go and that the league needs to embrace and understand there needs be a complete ban on all native mascots in the league. >> crystal echo hawk, thank you for your time. up next the president says he doesn't trust vote by mail, but is that doing more harm than good to his own voters? i'll talk to a democratic official in florida about how they're gaining the upper hand on republicans when it comes to mail-in ballots. plus, the debate over confederate monuments is not going away. we'll talk about the country's shifting opinion.
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with 121 days until the presidential election, the partisan divide over mail-in voting continues. but one state could offer a lens into the effectiveness of the mail-in ballots as voters face growing concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. in florida, registered voters have had the option of no excuse
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voting by mail for nearly two decades. a method that republicans have long used to their advantage. but now democrats in the state are outpacing republicans in applying for mail-in ballots. according to an analysis of election data released in june. with me is the executive director of the florida democratic party. all right, juan, what is driving these numbers? when i look at this memo and your vote by mail-in data you noted since the march primary democrats have over 300,000 voter lead in vote by mail. why is this shift happening? >> yeah. you said at it at the top flori has ban vote for 30 years. election after election over the past few decades. what we as florida democrats decided to do this time around
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was really invest in vote by mail and create a program around it. so we can blunt some of that advantage that republicans have year after year. i'm excited to say that, you know, last time i was on your show our vote by mail efforts and in this memo we published you can see the benefit of it. due to some really amazing organizing by a lot of democrats across the state, we have grown our advantage to over 300,000 democrats in the past six months. >> i want to go back to your point which is this used to be an advantage that republicans in the state had. why seed that advantage to democrats? >> you know, your guess is as good as mine. this president is extremely unpredictable and what he's done in recent days has definitely a war on tried and truth method for winning the state of
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florida. so the president since taking office has done his level best to alienate every single great of voters in florida, be it hispanics or immigrants and now it's vote by mail voter. i think at the end of the day florida democrats were well positioned to take advantage of this mis-step for the president because we had started organizing around vote by mail about a year and a half ago. >> i feel like florida is one of those states where you always hear described politically in very different terms, right? is it a purple state? is it trending red? when you look at the elections there's high turnout on both sides. it's a slim margin deciding most of these elections. what is a 300,000 mail-in ballot advantage really mean when you look at the top of the ticket, the presidential race that's going to take place and also when you look at these down ballot races in the state? >> yeah. so, it means the difference between, you know, win and a loss. so in 2018 we lost top of the
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ticket races by 10,000 votes, our senate race by 10,000 voters our u.s. governor's race by 30,000 votes. when you grow a margin of 300,000 voters, over republicans, that essentially creates -- it negates any margin that republicans have on top of the fact that republicans are actually now going against what has won them elections in the past. they're now rebelling against vote by mail and this tactic. so they're going to have more people that will be required to turn up at election day. as someone who has had to do that historically, that's really difficult to do. it has a lot of complications for republicans. and as far as down ballot -- >> i'm -- >> what we have seen -- >> sorry. go ahead. >> no, you go ahead, juan. >> yeah. so down ballot what you see is that when voters have time to evaluate their ballot, when they
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have a month to sit with their ballot, do the research, they actually cast more ballots. we launched this effort in 2018, what we found out is that we would decrease down ballot dropoff for democrats just voting by as much as 10 prgs. so, when you are -- and you have local elected races or local municipal races, mayor's races, et cetera, being divide ddsed by 200 votes, having more vote by mail voters means you'll have more people vote cast ballot as well. >> juan, i am obsessed with this question of how we are going to vote in november. and i wish we spent as much time talking about this as we spend about the polls because the polls don't matter if everybody who wants to vote can't vote and it's a lot of doom and gloom. it's a lot of talking about how people won't be able to get to their polling place. we need to ring all of those alarms. at the same time, you have found
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something that is working, right? you look at it through a partisan lens. it is probably good for democracy for people who want to be able to vote to be able to vote. it is. i will take away the qualifier. so my question is, what is your advice for other states who are looking at this same question, this same challenge in the leadup to november and election that is going to be because of this pandemic unlike any other? >> yeah. first up, meet people where they are. secondly, to really invest heavily in voter education. so right now people are scared. they're scared of getting covid. they are afraid of what's to come. and they want a safe and secure election. secondly, you know, people want more access to democracy. they understand now more than ever that the decisions that affect our lives get policing or environmental regulations or affordable housing, those are largely the result of local
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election. so, it's not just the top of the ticket but what florida democratic party has done is we have recruited quality democrats to run in every single legislative congressional seat for the first time in the history of the state. we have trained and recruited over 400 local democrats to run in municipal and mayor's races, county commissions because that's where many of the decisions that affect our daily lives are met. and so, it is great to have an amazing candidate like joe biden at the top of the ticket. but when you have more democrats running at local levels, you're going to have more democrats vote, not just for the mayor's race but also for joe biden and the top of the ticket. so i think that the vote by mail numbers as well as the quality candidates in state are going to do -- speak volumes in november. >> juan, thank you. up next, it's an image that's getting a lot of backlash online a st. louis couple
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the st. louis city prosecutor is now investigating a couple whose armed response to protesters passing their mansion this week has earned both widespread criticism and support. mark and patricia mcclosky have gone viral while brandishing guns in front of their home while protesters walk by en route to the mayor's home. with me now is danielle belten, the editor in chief for the root and paul butler is a former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. their attorney defended their action saying, quote, my clients are completely behind and endorse the message of black lives matter. what they are not capable of doing is em braszing the abject
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utilization of that noble message we all need to hear over and over and over again as a license to rape, rob, pillage, bowl over all our rights. so danielle, can you support black lives matter and brandish a gun like this at protesters? and can you use this type of language in your own defense? >> i just think this language is absolutely atrocious. i'm from st. louis, missouri. i'm familiar with the area where this incident took place and it's an absolute disaster the fact that he would conflate these two things. the fact that he would compare peaceful protesters to rapist and murders and think that you need to have a semiautomatic rifle and a gun pointed at peaceful protesters who came to this neighborhood. the reality is they are in a neighborhood where you're looking at $1.4 million homes, very expensive homes right next door is the del mar divide where homes are going for less than $60,000 in some cases.
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it's just rampant poverty, much higher rates of mortality. it's just a huge chasm. so there's this whole fantasy that exists in the head of quite a few wealthy people i feel like often in this area that somehow the poor people from the other side of del mar are going to invied their community. this was not an invasion. this was a protest against the mayor of st. louis who read the names of protesters and their addresses like on tv. like this was a peaceful protest against a heinous act. so this is to me this is just disgusting. >> paul, one of the things in question is whether or not this is private property and how that complicates the picture. what i want to hear from you is as the city prosecutor looks to do an investigation, what are the questions that are at the heart of that investigation? what are the things that need to be answered? >> missouri has an extremely permissive gun laws. it's a stand your ground state, open carry state and people are
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allowed to use weapons. not just to defend their lives but also their personal property. still, before you point a gun at someone, there has to be an imminent deathly threat. the mccloskys claim that the protesters had weapons. they've denied that. the prosecutor will investigate to see whether there was, in fact, a threat to the mccloskys. there's a crime law called brandishing in missouri. it sounds like it's from the old west, but it makes it unlawful to brandish a weapon, to display a weapon in an angry or intimidating way without just cause. and so that will be the focus of the prosecutor's investigation. >> danielle, many people were quick to draw comparison between what we saw coming out of st. louis and the case of tamir rice, who was just 12 years old when he was shot with a toy gun.
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the image of this, the message that this sends is so much bigger than just the mccloskys right? there is common tear here on wealth, on privilege, on race. how do you factor this image and what we saw this experience into the larger moment that we are witnessing? >> well, this is just an amazing privilege the fact that you can confront a group of protesters who, in their view, as far as the mccloskys are concerned their blackness is basically the weapon. there are no weapons among these protesters. they weren't attacking them. they weren't seeking to harm them. so the fact that they were able to brandish these weapons publicly and essentially threaten their neighbors. these are people who live in st. louis. these are their neighbors who they are threatening their lives with these weapons. when you pull out a gun, you better be prepared to use it. that's a terrifying thing. and in the case of tamir rice, we have an innocent child who was just playing with a toy who was massacred by the police,
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callously where his only crime was being a young black boy. and the fact that a black child playing with a toy gun is a target is seen as dangerous, is seen as the enemy, but this couple who just happens to be wealthy and white and lives in a gated community, you know, they're just defending themselves, they're just defending their property, but against what? against a peaceful protest? against black people, white people, people of all races expressing their right to peacefully protest and assemble against their government? it's just -- i can't express the fact that these two people decided to cos play scar face on their lawn. it's beyond for me. it's just beyond. >> paul, i give you the final word. what does this say to you about the moment we are in and about the fact that in as much as there has been a lot of criticism of this, there has also been some support of this
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as well. >> it says that progress is possible. so, the dynamic regarding this prosecutor is really interesting. she represents st. louis right next to ferguson where michael brown was killed as a result of that uprising there was this movement to elect progressive prosecutors. and the black lives movement actually supported the election. she said she will take any attempt to intimidate or threaten any protesters, including these people in the movement for black lives, she'll take that with the utmost seriousness. and so this was a reform electing district attorneys who are accountable to their constituents, that has resulted in an investigation of this couple that probably wouldn't happen if this prosecutor hadn't been elected again as a result of this movement for black
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lives. >> paul butler, thank you for your time. danielle, you're staying with me. up next, the president says he's defending american history. we'll talk about how that fits into the debate over confederate monuments across the south. time. they will, but with accident forgiveness allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident, even if it's your fault. cut! sonny. was that good? line! the desert never lies. isn't that what i said? no you were talking about allstate and insurance. i just... when i... let's try again. everybody back to one. accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today.
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way more ways to rule your renovation. nice! on any budget, with free shipping. wayfair. way more than furniture. ♪ this holiday weekend president trump spent friday night at mount rushmore, the background to his latest attempt to protect statues and monuments from being removed or vandalized. on twitter the president said he
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authorized prison sentences for those who deface memorials and statues. according to an a.p. fact check the president's executive order only serves as reminder to law enforcement that defacing federal property is a punishable defense. this comes as the conversation has been sparked among americans how to reconcile the country's long history of racism that some of the statues that represent it. joining me now danielle belten, is back with me. we're also joined by alexa co, historian and author of "you never forget your first biography of george washington." alexis, i want to go really big picture here. i mean, what do you see as the connection between grappling with the history and the reality that our forefathers, so many of our forefathers were enslavers and this moment of reckoning we now find ourselves in. >> it's not just that so many of the founders were slave holders. it's that it defined their world view in many ways. when i talk about george
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washington and the things that he thought about on any given day, yes, he thought about the war when it was happening and he thought about the presidency when he was serving as the president for two terms, but he also thought of the hundreds of people who he enslaved at mount vernon who made his life possible, who enabled him to do all the things that he's being celebrated for today. and so, when we talk about there is no country without george washington, we have to talk about there's no george washington without the people he enslaved. they are one in the same and until we understand that, we will not understand what is going on right now in our country and we won't understand what is going on in the white house at this moment and how it got there. >> danielle, i would love for you to respond to what alexis just said, but i also want to play you some sound. the president spoke last night at mount rushmore and said this about the removals of statues and memorials. take a listen. >> our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heros,
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erase our values and indoctrinate our children. angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. >> danielle, it runs completely counter to what alexis just said, right? it's not about wiping out our history. it's about really re-examining our history with an eye towards the nuance and the reality of all howe it is all connected. what do you make of the president's remarks? >> you know, i always find it very interesting that the president has chosen to be on the side of the confederacy considering how president trump is so obsessed with winning and winners. like the confederacy is one of america's biggest losers. they lost the civil war. their cause was all but forgotten in most of the south until 1957 when eisenhower
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passed the civil rights act of 1957 and you had african-americans pushing for an end of segregation jim crow in the south. not very old statues that from the 1950s and '60s that were in response to black people protesting for their rights. the same rights that our founding fathers created specifically just for apparently themselves and other white people. they hadn't imagined a world yet where these rights would be extended to enslaved people, people of color, to black people in this country. so, that's my response every time to trump on this. why he's chose on the align himself with history's biggest losers is preposterous to me considering his always winning rhetoric. >> alexis, earlier today my colleague ally value shi sat down with robert w., iv.
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>> these statues need to come down, but it's because i've talked to people of color who have to walk by these statues in my hometown every time they go to vote. >> alexis, you have a descendant, someone who shares the same name as this person, willing to reckon with it, what does it tell you about the fact that it has taken america as a country this long to really come to this moment of reckoning? >> it's not at all surprising to me that it's at odds with what happened and also how the founders treated it. descendant of lee, there are plenty of black descendants of lee because he married washington, george washington's grandson's daughter. so his great granddaughter. and made sure that he kept many of the slaves as property. i think what's really interesting is that we have an example from the founders of
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what to do when, as has been mentioned many times, how you deal with traitors. when benedict arnold tried to sell west point to the british and there would have been no country if he had been successful, fort arnold around all of the places named after him were renamed immediately. within weeks. we're talking a couple weeks. so if we are really going to talk about the founders and how we should follow their examples, here is a perfect time to do so. >> danielle, this isn't really, really about the statues, right? it's really about an undercurrent of how comfortable americans are with change, with a changing country and all of this is happening in the run-up to november. so what do you see as who the president is trying to reach with this message about the statues and about a resistance to a changing america? >> he still thinks -- >> i feel like the president --
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>> sorry. >> danielle first and then alexis. danielle, you go. >> you know, i think he's trying to directly appeal to the type of people who are still in love with the confederacy. the type of people who look back to the 1950s and think, oh, that was a great time. sure. women were oppressed, black people were oppressed, it was ideal, you know. those are the people that he's going for. he's going for people who are afraid of the fact that america's rapidly becoming browner, blacker, more diverse, the fact that this scares them because it scares this idea of white supremacy, this cult of white supremacy that our country has been in the grips of pretty much since its founding. so, he's trying to directly appeal to that paranoia, that fear that white people will no longer be in charge, they'll no longer be rulers and will have to compete with everybody else. >> alexis, you wanted to jump
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in? >> absolutely agree. i think that we're saying the same thing which is that, you know, he still thinks this is 2016. and what we're seeing is sort of the opposite of fdr's 100 days in which he's throwing all these policies at the wall to see what sticks after the great depression, after, you know -- it's basically trump is just seeing what played well for me in 2016 without taking stock of what's going on in the country or taking into account there's been a pandemic. we hear a lot less about the pandemic from trump than we do about these statues. and i think this also highlights the fact that this isn't nostalgia, this isn't history. what we should be talking about is investing in history because these monuments have less than a paragraph on them and don't say anything that makes sense. let's build our education system up, but this is just a side
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show. >> all right, danielle and alexis, thank you both. up next the mayor of new york stopped to paint black lives matter on the street outside of the trump tower but the idea is not dead yet. we'll tell you where it goes from here. frustrated that clean clothes you want to wear always seem to need an iron? try bounce wrinkle guard dryer sheets. the bounce wrinkle guard shorts have fewer wrinkles and static, and more softness. it's the world's first mega sheet that does the job of three dryer sheets! bounce out wrinkles.
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activists are painting a black lives matter mural on the streets of new york city right now. and another one is planned for 5th avenue in front of trump towerga tower. gary, the one planned for 5th avenue drew outrage from the president but similar displays are being painted all over the city. tell us more. >> there are displays being painted all over the city. we were at the one in harlem and they're painting it two city blocks long. these are artists, these are
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volunteers, these are community activists. i spoke to one of the artist who told me this is some of the most important work he's done in his entire life. >> these five sets are numbers are numbers that start a revolution. you know, about these four officers, about the time of 8:46, it would have been status quo all over again. this was literally the perfect storm. we have a president that's dividing the country, we have covid here, we have people losing their jobs. and the whole world watched a man take his last breath. >> this is great to look at. people that were marching in the streets all over the country, they are looking for substantial change. and in the northeast, in new york alone there were ten bills passed by the legislature in a matter of three days. it's really starting to move all across the country. alicea. >> all right, thanks, gary.
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i will be back at 2 p.m. eastern tomorrow. the reverend al sharpton takes over at the top of the hour. he'll talk with california congresswoman barbara lee and valerie jarrett. that's coming up next on "politicsnation." [♪] are you currently using a whitening toothpaste, but not seeing results? try crest 3d whitestrips. its enamel-safe formula lifts and removes stains to provide 100% noticeably whiter teeth or your money back.
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good evening and welcome to "politicsnation" on this independence day. tonight's lead, american de-evolution. we're looking at pictures of washington where president trump will continue his holiday campaign weekend. tonight at his big 4th of july rally, protesters already in the street for the program, which
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