four months after first saying coronavirus will miraculously go away, president trump finally dons his fisk mask in public. >> it's a great thing to wear a mask. i've never been against masks but i do believe they have a time and a place. meanwhile, more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases in texas on saturday alone. this as south carolina reports losing its first child to the disease. the numbers across america are getting worse and fast. an estimated 1 million international college students are at rick of being sent home by a new trump directive. a move that will stop the u.s. from getting the world's best and brightest. "velshi" starts now. good morning. it is sunday, july the 12th. i'm ali velshi.

overnight former special counsel robert mueller breaking silence. roger stone, part of the investigation is into russian election interference and the 2016 trump campaign. writing a sharp 700-word op-ed in the "washington post" after the president grant the clemency to his longtime confidant convicted felon roger stone. we'll get to that in a moment. first a look at a rare and unusual occurrence as the country has been rocked by the coronavirus pandemic. president trump in a made-for-tv moment following national health recommendations and cdc suggested guidelines on saturday by donning a mask in public for the first time. the event captured on video. it took place during a visit to walter reed medical center where masks are required. there he met with wounded soldiers as well as medical staffers. here's trump, who's been adverse to the concept talking how he's got no problem with masks when needed. >> i think when you're in a hospital, especially in that

particular setting where you're talking to a lot of soldiers and people that in some cases just got off the operating tables, i think it's a great thing to wear a mask. i've never been against masks, but i do believe they have a time and a pla is. a place. >> trump's mask revelation comes as the "washington post" reports the president's been incommunicado with the country's top infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci since early june. nonetheless, the well-respected scientist has been blunt and outspoken expressing concern over the growing of the coronavirus pandemic. >> when you compare us to other countries i don't think you can say we're doing great. we're just not. >> nationally more than 3.25 million confirmed infections in the united states. the death toll stands at well over 135,000. in louisiana on saturday,

governor john bel edwards announcing new proceed calls as cases continue to surge in other states. >> masks are mandated state-wide for everyone age 8 and older, unless they have a major health condition. >> saturday also marked the highest number of reported positive cases in south carolina. 2,239 bringing the total in that state to 54,699. the percent positive for testing climbed to a record high of more than 22%. the state also reporting its first death of a child from covid-19. the victim was under the age of 5. this driving fears and concerns over the way this virus is spreading. >> people aren't taking it serious. i mean, i'm walking out and i see at least ten people going in, and they don't have masks on. >> joining me now, dr. carlos del rio, executive associate dean at emory university school

of medicine and professor of medicine global health and epidemiology. doctor, thank you for being with us. i have to ask, what you do you believe is going on now? why are we seeing the surge in cases? we know we're seeing a surge in deaths, because they typically follow the increase in cases. what do you think is happening? >> well, ali, good morning. what happened is, we were doing the right thing. we were sheltering in place. we were staying at home. we were going out a little. what happened is, around memorial day, weather was nice, people pretty much said we've had it. it's beautiful out there. cases are down. we should not be worried anymore and forgot the virus was still out there. so people started getting infected. what we know about this virus, if one person gets infected, there's no precautions are taken, that one person end of five days, infects 2.5 more people. 2.5 to 3 people. end of 30 days, that one

infection leads to 406 infections. a month after that one person got infected you got 400 infections. think about that one weekend, you got x number of people infected. multiply that by 400. that's where we are now. what you have is transition rapidly happening and currently in an exponential spread. >> that spread you just explained, one person becomes 2.5 to 3 becomes 400, that it's how this is different than the flu. for all of these people who say you don't need a mask with the flu. the flu, we don't think about the flu this way. the flu, you get your symptoms quickly after contracting the infection. with coronavirus, you've got yourself a few days you're asymptomat asymptomatic, spreading the disease. some are asymptomatic the whole time. >> exactly. that i think is one of the biggest challenges with this virus. that a large percentage of people who get infected with the virus are either asymptomatic or

we are transmitting what we call the pre-symptomatic phase, two to three days before you develop symptoms you're already transmitting and that makes wearing a mask really important. you wear a mask not to protect yourselves but to protect others. in case you're symptomatic, in the pre-symptomatic phase you prevent infecting others. i wear my mask to protect you and you wear your mask to protect me. that's why it's so critical we all wear a mask. >> wow. that's good. we should see that on t-shirts. we don't want to politicize the mask thing. i'm puzzled how it's becomed politicized. we're emphasize the president wore it in public first time yesterday is because not wearing it, despite the science you just quoted, sort of conveys a cavalier attitude that this thing's not really going to get me. that's what a lot of people are critical of. the idea we need to take this seriously. if you think it doesn't affect you or you can't spread it, that's where the danger comes in. >> absolutely.

i think what's really important, what i really an happy to see the president wearing a mask in public with so many other people is leadership is important. images are important. the fact the president is wearing a mask sends a message to the country that this is important. so we need more of that. we need religion out leaders, political leaders, artists, preachers, everybody, to wear a mask in public and tell others. influencers make a big difference. >> thank you for joining us. executive associate dean of emory university school of medicine and professor of medicine global health and epidemiology. go to texas now. it's been wuk one of the countr most troubling hot spots. yesterday more than 10,000 new cases, highest total since the coronavirus began. text now has more than 256,000 confirmed cases of covid-19. more than 3,000 deaths. in a frightening glimpse of

reality, refrigerator trucks called in to several counties to deal with the overflow at local morgues. bring in dr. dart on the front lines as an e.r. doctor in huch houston. thank you for being with us. i want to emphasize to people that houston, and its environs, one of the greatest medical centers in this country. the biggest hospital complex in the country. why are we reporting an seeing things in texas that we were reporting and seeing in new york close to three months ago? >> well, the texas medical center is one of the biggest medical centers in the world, ali. thanks for having me on. one of the reasons we're seeing this go on in texas right now, is because we let our foot off the gas when we actually had troll of this virus early on, end of march and april. we issued a stay-at-home order, a masking order locally here in

houston, and things were actually under control in the tmc. our turn flattened. the governor reversed a lot of the actions that were put in place for our local leadership, preempting their authority, and since then we've seen what's happened when things have gotten out of control. >> and you, for instance, as somebody who works in this, you understand this closely. you've employed a mask protocol in your own family. a young son you asked to wear a mask when he visits his grandparents because you live in different households. some taking the mask thing very seriously and others in your state still not fully believing that you should do it thinking this is a civil liberties issue? >> well, i want to mention, wearing a mask around his grandparents, when his grandparents are watching him they will wear a mask around him, if at all possible. it's a very difficult thing to do and very difficulty, like if you're living a single generation the housing as well

for people to implement that. biggest and most important, stay socially distant from people not living inside your household. when you are going out in public, putting a mask on, because if you are interacting with other people you want to prevent the spread. especially asymptomatic spread to other individuals. also it does help protect yourselves a little as well. the main thing, we make sure everyone takes this seriously. this isn't a game. this is a very deadly disease. friday was texas' deadliest day. e were saw over 100 deaths in the state of texas. you mentioned beginning of this segment, refrigerated trucks are coming to texas to handle bodies that cannot be stored in morgues in hospitals. it's similar to what i experienced and witnessed in until until. 9/11. i remember looking down from my floor apartment down on the office of the chief medical examiner which was on the corner and tons of refrigerated trucks,

white tarps covering them all contains remains of people killed in 9/11, but covid-19 in texas killed more people than all the people that died in 9/11 to this point. >> doctor, thank you for joining us this morning. we wish you continued good fortune in the things you have to deal with in texas. it is a really serious matter. an emergency medical physician and assistant professor at baylor college of medicine. switching gears now. robert mueller breaking his silence. penned and op-ed in the "washington post" titled "roger stone remain as convicted felon and rightly so." mueller, you recall served at special counsel overseeing the two-year russian investigation ending in conviction of eight individuals. because of the sentence is commuted he will not go to prison but his conviction

stands. my old friend nbc kelly o'donnell joins me from the white house now. kelly good to see you. quite a departure. robert mueller doesn't come out and talk, publish op-eds all that often? >> reporter: very rare and certainly during a time serving as special counsel he was silent as is the normal state of things. he testified on capitol hill and has mostly moved into a quiet life. this response is going right at the president's action, because this is the first time that he's used his clemency power against a figure in the russia investigation by erasing the prison sentence of roger stone, his longtime friend and political operative. robert mueller here goes through a very detailed explanation of the roots of the russia investigation what it found, takes to task roger stone for his offenses determined by a jury he repeatedly lied to congress, obstructed the investigation, witness tampering

and all of those things that robert mueller says were properly prosecuted and he supports those individuals who were part of the investigation often maligned by the president and white house saying they did act with integrity. this is robert mueller directly responding to the president who has this unfettered power to use the power to pardon or clemency. i asked the president about his use of that power yesterday. in addition to talking to him about the masks, which you already played. he talked about the fact he used this to commute the sentence, this allows roger stone to then continue his appeals process. stone had said he was happy with commutation as opposed to pardon because he wants to clear his name. that could also be the case that the president felt commutation would not nullify the work of a jury, which in this case did find him guilty on seven felony counts, but would relieve him of the prison sentence at a time when covid-19 is in some rare

cases allowing some prisoners to not have to serve their time. this is much more dramatic than that, allowing him to not have any prison sentence at all and the president getting criticism because it's a personal friend, arguably he was guilty of crimes to benefit the president, if he lied to present the president, which is what prosecutors allege. this is a stunning set of circumstances that had long been telegraphed by the president and now one of the big questions will be, will other figures from the russia investigation, whether a paul manafort or george papadopoulos or a michael flynn receive clemency from the president as well? ali? >> kelly good to see you as always. thank you, my friend. nbc news white house correspondent kelly o'donnell. coming up, speaking with congressman eric swalwell, a member of the intelligence and judiciary committees to get his take on roger stone's commutation, and it's only taken 155 years but the country's dedication to honoring figures of the confederacy is finally

winding down. my next guest, the great-gre great-great-granddaughter of edmund pettus. why she feels this is long overdue. more "velshi" after a quick break. a quick break. ask about xeljanz a pill for adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis when methotrexate has not helped enough. xeljanz can reduce pain, swelling, and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections like tb and do blood tests. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms, or are prone to infections. serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra may increase risk of death. tears in the stomach or intestines and serious allergic reactions have happened. don't let another morning go by without asking your doctor

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for the past five years, the numbers have been getting smaller and smaller and smaller. so that let's you know that america itself is starting to progress and move forward. >> you have to understand that you can't free the confederate flag and heritage of the confederacy without putting it in the same category as racism, know what i'm saying? or oppression, the things we've been dealing with today. >> other organizations after the war, after the war, take that banner up and use it for their own purposes. >> friday marked five years since removal of the confederate

flag from the state house. done every year since taken down supporters temporarily raced it. numbers in favor of the flag continue to shrink every year and numbers protesting grow larger, and it comes amid country-wide declining support for confederate monuments and relics and one of the largest racial inequality moves continue. that hasn't stopped president trump from making race and culture wars the main theme of his re-election strategy. joining me, writer and residents, carol randall williams. her piece in the "new york times" goes to the heart of the matter. "you want a confederate monument? my body is a confederate monument." also with me, kimberly crenshaw, executive director of the african-american policy forum. good morning to you both. thank you for being with us. caroline, your op-ed has one of the most striking and provocative titles i've ever read. ask you explain what you mean

when you say your body is a confederate monument? >> thank you for having me on this morning. when i wrote, when the title came up, the idea behind it was this idea that a monument is a tangible truth to commemorate the past, to show who the people past were and to make sure that their memory is not forgotten, and so when i wrote that my body was a confederate monument, what i meant by that was, my body is one of the outcomes of the beliefs and practices of the confederacy. i am genetically a mixed race person but i am culturally fully a black person, and all of the black people -- excuse me, all of the white people in my family that i'm related to, all of the whiteness came through plantation rape, pre or

post-civil war. >> i want to read an excerpt. i have rape colored skin. my blackness is the causes of the old south. those who want to remember the legacy of the confederacy and want monument then my body is a monument. my skin is a monument. tell me how you think -- how you think the best way is for, for people to come to terms with the idea we have, for so long, honored these, he's symbols of the confederacy and this is the time for it to change? >> i think that the best way is to put them into context. i think if people feel that they need to not be destroyed, which is a separate conversation from having them out in the public where they remain unexamined and in these positions of honor, and they need to be put in museums. we need to have discussion

forums about their preservation or disposal, but what they need to not do is claim to represent some dignified part of america in public spaces. >> kimberly crenshaw, you talk a lot about racial stereotypes in particular as they relate to women, but what caroline is saying is remarkably powerful that it sort of informs the discussion. i'm curious to know how you process that part of it? because you write about that a lot. you write about rape in slavery and the effects it's had. >> yes. well, ali, on our episode of intersectionality matters, the sixth episode with dorothy roberts we talked about the stereotypes about black women and where they came from. so the essay is actually brilliant. it points out there were practices that created the most valuable form of property that

the united states was built on, outside of real estate. that was african-american slaves. after 1790 there were only -- there were 700,000 slaves. after the creation of the cotton gin and the elimination of importation of slaves, slaves grew to over 3 million by 1850. now, let's think about that. how did that happen? how did we develop the most valuable form of property in slaves? through the institutionalized rape of black women. how did that make sense? how could one justify and rationalize that, particularly during a time of culture dome na -- dominanticity. women seen at any kind of ex-wohl exploitation, seen as delicate. black women were the opposite. you can do anything to them basically assaulting them wasn't

even against the law and to top it off, they were separated from their children. so what kind of stereotypes, race and gender stereotypes had to be created to justify this industrialization of rape? that is part of our legacy and it's a legacy that's never been contested. we've never had an end to that. there's no juneteenth for black women and the particular way that they were treated, and we can see it today in the way black women are disrespected. the way their families are torn apart. this is still very much a part of our legacy. >> caroline, do you think that we are making strides in a way you haven't seen before? because it does look like this moment and this movement is having an effect that we haven't been able to have even five years ago in south carolina because of the killing of people at a church, that triggered removal of the confederate flag, but this seems to be faster and bigger? >> i hope so. i think that there is a lot of

promise for this moment, and i do know that for me the biggest part, the biggest change is that whether or not the enthusiasm and the energy broadly dies down, i don't feel gastlet in the same way, because at least everyone for one moment has said, yeah. this is real. this is happening. nobody is sitting here saying, i mean, a few people still, but i have the gratification of a meaningful majority of voices i'm hearing, at least acknowledging that up is up and down is down. so whether or not the energy dies down, i at least have the comfort and the fortitude now to know that i can keep in the fight without feeling gastlet. that to me is a profound change, and for the rest of it, i'm still sort of staggered -- you

know, we watched george floyd essentially get lynched on television, and it's kind of wild to me that it took a pandemic a global pandemic, to slow the world down long enough to see a black man get lynched and then decide to change something. and i think we're going to have to examine 2020 for a very, very, very long time to come that that is true. i am grateful that his death has precipitated this shift in conversation that does feel seismic but it's kind of wild that it took getting everybody stuck in their houses for months to sit still long enough with their thoughts, with the news, with the truth. to get that moving. >> it's an amazing, an amazing way to look at it. kimberly, if, as caroline says, people are saying this is real.

this is really happening. up is up and down is down, i would guess, i don't want to put words in your mouth. i guess your message is, a lot more is happening. if we're going to fix it, let's fix a lot of it? >> there is a lot. and, ali, it's one of the things we're going to talk about on our episode on wednesday at 8:00 on zoom. having congressman pressley to come in and talk what else needs to be a part of the conversation? frankly, the moment of racial reckoning seems to almost be over as we're seeing with the covid conversation again. we're not really talking about the racial disparities like we were before. we're not talking about the race engendered vulnerabilities of certain women to covid, black women in particular. where they are located in the workforce that makes them more vulnerable to infection and disease, and we're clearly still not talking about black women who are killed by the police as

we do in "say her name." it's important this moment has opened up, that lynching allowed us to see it, but there's so much more to the legacy of racism we still have not dealt with. more than 50% of black children are in some way under court jurisdictions because they're families have been torn apart. this is one of dozens of the legacies and we're hoping that this is a moment where we can really address them in their full inclusive way. >> uh-huh. >> and at a moment for us to understand that term you coined, intersectionality. so many ways in which these prejudices affect us. we had congresswoman pressley on the show last night. she's terrific and until recently i was proudest bald person on tv. but she wears it better than i do. enjoy that conversation. kimberly crenshaw, thanks for joining us, and caroline, director of african-american policy forum and started, with the organization started the

"say her name" campaign. a writer in residency at vanderbilt university. you want a confederate monument? my body is a confederate monument. thank you to you both. tragic news out of texas. last night two police officers in the city of mccallon shot and killed in the line of duty responding to a domestic violence call. when the officers arrived, the situation turned violent. the 23-year-old opened fire killing both cops and then turned the gun on himself. the officers identified and spent two and a half years and nine yees on the force respectively. president trump is using the pandemic as a reason to force students to go home to their own countries. why that's a terrible idea and keep the world from its brightest minds. from its brightest minds. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%!

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the trump administration made an effort to close out of america to immigrants and refugees. america's implemented draconian laws enacted executive orders and now using the pandemic as a guise for keeping out those from other countries. this is based oather on seine phobia or a flawed notion immigrants reduce wages and harm american workers. the fact while unemployment is high now its normal state is usu unusually low and those working for low wages have trade policy to blame. no immigrants. the hard to fathom, america needs immigrants. we not only have an aging workforce we have something called negative replacement rate. we, like most developed nations, don't have enough children to replace those who pass away. we're short of people. donald trump talked about increasing america's gdp, doubling or tripling. gdp is how many people are working and how much you create.

we are strained on that side of that equation and have been for decades. the latest anti-immigration move from trump, force foreign students whose colleges only offer online classes to return to their home countries. for decades the united states has been a beacon of innovation, creativity and ingenuity. american universities are considered some of the best in the world with huge endowments, state-of-the-art research facility, top tier professors and freedom to study anything. because of this the best and brightest from around the world compete really hard to attend u.s. schools and often end up among america's brightest minds creating companies, running businesses, developing research that further the u.s.' role on the world stage. companies like google, ebay, apple, yahoo! amazon and tesla all founded by immigrants or children of immigrants according to a new study. 45% of fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children.

companies synonymous with the united states and represent the peak of innovation and have literally changed the world. but that innovation gap between the u.s. and other countries is closing as america shuts down to foreign students and other countries opened their doors wider to them. there are now great schools and programs across canada, the united kingdom, the eu and asia. so the very best and brightest are looking elsewhere for places where their hard work and innovative spirit will be rewarded. as a nation we should want the smartest, most hard-working people in america. full stock. without regard to where they come from. it's not time to shun those who have excelled in their field simply because they're not american born. that is not who we are. i'll take a closer look at this is issue next when harvard law school the labor distinguished fellow joins me. you're watching "velshi" on msnbc. [ thunder rumbles ]

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as i said moments ago president trump is once again used the pandemic as way to curtail immigration. nobel jeopardizing lives of hundreds of thousands of international students who come to the united states but also potentially causing long-term damage to our economy. joining me now, a distinguished fellow at harvard the work life program. good to see you. thank you for being with us, my friend. this has been your clarion call a long time. the best thing that happens to america is immigration, particularly as it relates to immigrants coming here to study? >> let me go back in time. when we first started talking about it, i had warned, you had warned, if we kept the policies the way they were we would be harming and the u.s. would lose competitiveness. the talk about 5g, pandemic,

stopping china, because china was able to build a capacity to innovate like no one else could and now have become a threat to us. what we've done with the latest move is, what donald trump has done with this latest move is to take a wrecking ball and demolish what was left of u.s. competitiveness. this is the worst thing he could possibly do. i don't know what's wrong with his people. he and his, steve miller what is wrong with these people? these are our greatest as they come. >> you wrote recently, said the fact of pushing them out, these students, with this exodus the u.s. could experience a generational loss of talent and expertise and long-term economic ramifications. tesla, stripe and our unicorns founded elsewhere. nobel rise to institutions in our countries. we both live in bubbles?

right, we live and work with people who think immigrants are good, beneficial. do you ever get confronted with people who tell you immigrants drive warges down and are bad fr our economy? what do you say to them? >> are you kidding? i get attacked on twitter all the time, wherever i go by people who say you're taking american jobs away. the fact is that there are some flaws in the immigration system and there is, but it's tiny. every system is abused. the fact is, when you explain to them that immigrants create jobs they back off, say we meant the unskilled laborers. the one who cause the damage. these people aren't rational. listening to the noise and propaganda, and reacting to it. there's no rational reason obscuring the people we're talking about. the students are the ones we want, came to america to study, love the kcountry. want to stay here, make its their home and build

competitiveness. these are the people we want. not going on social welfare. they're going to create job, boosting competitiveness making sure the next 5g technology is made in the usa not in china. >> you've argued for the opposite of what this administration is doing. we educate people, let them have and then have great struggles to stick around. working on restricted vise sas. you say we should promise them, you can say? those who come? >> yeah. not, this is where the abuse is. the paper mills abusing the system. leerch those aside. put those people in jail who run those institutions. i'm talking about the carnegie mellons, howards, the dukes. all of these graduates who's a foreigner to be given a green card without hesitating. the fact they could get admitted to these colleges means they've passed some tests and likely to be intellectually competent.

young, bright, eager, motivated. what more does america want? the greatest gift the world could give america is to send people like that. >> good to see you, as always. a distinguished fellow at harvard law school's labor and work fair program. and those with racial inequality are actually led by democrats. my next guest, a former minneapolis mayor xplarn expla. that's next on "velshi." (vo) then you give people more plans to mix and match so you only pay for what you need verizon unlimited plan is so reasonable, they can stay on for the rest of their lives. awww... (vo) you include the best in entertainment and you offer it all starting at $35. because everyone deserves the best. this is unlimited built right. only on verizon.

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those of you who watch the show regularly know we often have eddie glaude, princeton professor on the show who ra written a book about james baldwin. during the civil rights movement he saw them at co-conspirators in the fight for racial justice and now the subject of a new op-ed by the former mayor of minneapolis. betsy hodges writes even why

democrats led the country's largest cities, "the gaps in socioeconomic outcomes between white people and people of color are by several measures at their worst in the richest, bluest cities of the united states." how couldstates. how could this be, she asks? quote, because high profile cultural conservatives ask this question so disingenuously, white liberals have generally brushed it aside. she continues, there is a danger that sidestepping will continue even after a national evaluation of racism. joining me is the author of that piece, betsy hodges, former mayor of minneapolis. mayor hodges, it's controversial topic that has poked some bears. people are reading "white fragility," people are reading eddie glaude's book about james baldwin, they're saying white liberals say the right thing then go back to their

comfortable existence, not realizing the benefit they enjoy to the detriment of people of color in their own cities. >> good morning and thank you for having me on the show. as you were reading the piece alau alo aloud, i thought, i really did say it, i said it aloud. yes, i don't say it without understanding that these are my people, that i am a white liberal myself. and it is part of the system that makes -- you know, we all have our role to play in the system and we're all trained into our part of the system. but for white liberals indeed, understanding that these systems have been set up for us, for our outcomes, for our convenience, for our comfort, and that until we change the systems to get other outcomes, they will continue to get the same outcomes. that's the big takeaway for me. >> i want to quote from your article about policing where you write, whether we know it or not, white liberal people in blue cities implicitly ask

police officers to politely stand guard in predominantly white parts of town, while the downside of policing is inconvenience, and to aggressively procedural the parts of town where people of color live wehere the consequences are fear, mass incarceration, and far too often, death. mayor hodges, why do you think that happens? is it because people on one side of the line don't know how people live on the other side of the line? >> i think it's a combination of factors. policing was created to protect white people. our lives, our convenience, our comfort. it comes out of slavery, the patrols out of slavery. so policing was designed to get the results that it's getting, to protect white people's convenience and comfort at the expense of people of color. and until we decide that public safety is about something else, that it's not just about law enforcement and that it's just not just about white people's

lives, we're going to keep getting the same results and the same bad, dangerous, deadly outcomes for people of color and indigenous people. >> you write about this issue, police officers understand the dynamic well. we give them the lethal tools and a lot of leeway to keep our parts of town, quote, safe from people of color. this gets to the heart of what the problem is in policing. are we signaling to people who are police or potentially police that your job is to be security people for white people in our cities? >> i don't know that that's ever explicitly stated anywhere. but the whole system of policing was created in order to support the lives of white people and the systems that get better outcomes for us. i think it's implicitly understood by many.

and i witnessed that firsthand as mayor. it's implicitly understood by officers, look, you're asking us to do this over here and this over here without saying it's on purpose, then we turn around and criticize them for it. this is a moment, this is a big moment for white people. this is a big moment for our country. there is much that has been revealed between the outcomes from covid that are so much more deadly for people of color, particularly african-american people and white people, that difference there. and the uprisings in the wake of the murder of george floyd, that this moment reveals something for many white people that we don't often see behind the veil of our whiteness. and it gives us the opportunity to make new choices. and the invitation i offer to white people is to take this moment up on its offer to create a world that is better for us as well as for people of color and indigenous people, that we as

white people often, when we talk to each other about whiteness and racial equity, we talk as though it's charity work that we do for people of color as opposed to something we do for ourselves as well as our entire community. there's something in it for us. the world is better for us as well as for everybody in the world that has racial equity in it, in a world where we are pursuing antiracist policy. that is important for us. and we get something out of it, and that is an important message for white people to give one another. >> it's a thoughtful and provocative piece. thank you for joining me. betsy hodges is the former democratic mayor of minneapolis. her new opinion piece, "as a mayor of minneapolis i saw how white liberals block change," it's a worthwhile read, provocative, it will make you uncomfortable, but i guess what's the fun if it didn't make you uncomfortable? coming up, congressman eric

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good morning. it is sunday, july 12. i'm ali velshi. every once in a while, a person sums up an idea so simply and succinctly, nothing else needs to be said. that's the case with republican

senator mitt romney who treated, quote, unprecedented, historic corruption, an american president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president. and that there says it all, folks. nbc news has learned that some administration officials, including attorney general william barr and chief of staff mark meadows advised trump against commuting stone's sentence. that advice obviously fell on deaf ears and lends more credence to the belief that trump will do what trump wants to do and anyone else be damned. nonetheless, as former special counsel robert mueller writes in a new op-ed in "the washington post," stone remains a convicted felon and rightly so, end quote. as the nation doigests the latet controversy and watches the coronavirus cases rise, trump played golf. and after his