good evening and welcome to "politicsnation." we come to you tonight still reeling with the very solemn news that activist and statesman, civil rights luminary john lewis passed away friday at the age of 80. the congressman from georgia was battling late stage pancreatic cancer after being diagnosed late last year. lewis's name is of course synonymous with the push for civil and human rights in the late 20th century america. his entrance into the national stage beginning with his leadership and the physical sacrifice in the 1965 selma marches for black voting rights. his death friday marking the end of an era for us in the civil rights movement, as he was the last of the so-called big six,

the leaders of the movement's most prominent organizations, who planned the historic march for washington, march on washington for jobs and freedom. but lewis was also an institution unto himself in the u.s. congress. his nearly 34 years of service to his atlanta district stretching from its integration to the inauguration of the first black president, who joined him in 2015 to commemorate his courage and that of others in selma, alabama 55 years ago. i was there that day in selma in 2015 with the congressman and president obama. before we proceed, i just want to say this as the secret service put me right behind president obama and john lewis, i thought as i looked at both of them marching right ahead of me how john lewis fought to open

voting for everyone and one of the results was the first black president of the united states. i was also there this march right before the pandemic you just saw in that shot, as john lewis surprised us in the annual march that we commemorate that day going across the edmund pettis bridge and he surprised us showing up even though he was in pain and suffering from the cancer, he showed up and spoke. i was one of those holding the ladder for him to stand above the crowd. he told us to keep getting in good trouble, and that's what we must do. but as a nation grieves this historic loss, the first wave of coronavirus continues to crest over the country. now totaling more than 3.5 million cases, more than 140,000 deaths. in a moment we'll bring in california senator kamala harris and then the chair of the

congressional black caucus, representative karen bass. but first, joining me now, is civil rights activist martin luther king iii. he is an international human rights activist. he's also the eldest son and heir to civil rights leader dr. martin luther king jr. martin, thank you for being with us tonight. you know, knew john lewis from just about your birth. he was an admirer, student and co-worker with your father. give us some of your memories of congressman lewis. >> thank you, rev. john lewis, counselingmngressma was in and out of our home throughout this entire period, throughout his evolution in a real sense. he was of course our city council member.

i think what i would like to do, rev, if you don't mind is share some memories i have of john lewis. we attended together, i led a delegation to india in 2009 and my wife andrea and i went to india to retrace the steps of my father and mother 50 years ago, and congressman lewis and a delegation accompanied us. so i have very fond memories. but most importantly, i remember him always having time for children and young people. no matter what he was doing, where he was going, he always stopped and encouraged young people to be engaged. so just as he was inspired by the leadership of my dad, i have been inspired and millions across our nation and world by his leadership, what he personifies as the conscience of the congress and maybe even the conscience of our nation. >> you know, as you say that,

i've been saying all day that john lewis and julian bond and jesse jackson, that generation was the young folks to dr. king and dr. abernathy, your father of course mentoring many of them. and you and i came like 15 years or so after them and in many ways were taught and mentored by them or had them as role models and we now have gotten old enough to where we are trying to do that to those coming behind us. we talked about the march on washington with john lewis. you and i have called for one in august 28th of this year. when you and i did it for the 50th anniversary, john lewis and c.t. vivian, both who passed within 36 hours of each other, both of them were there. you and i are going to have to lead that with today's civil rights organization heads and

today's brutality without two of the titans there. it's incumbent on americans to not just mourn them but continue their work, otherwise they would not be least. the human rights struggle continues now and we must mourn but we must move as we mourn. >> rev, absolutely. but what i think about is the fact that they both transitioned on the same day, within hours apart. perhaps they wanted to take their last march together. and that's how i want to remember it, that these two giants took their last march together on the exact same day and transitioned to another level. and they be having a glorious time with all those who came before them, including my mother and father and joseph lowrie and the list goes on and on.

but you're right, we've got to ten. -- continue. if we want to do a real tribute to john lewis, then what we need to be doing is for this election and elections from now on, we ought to all be participating. i'm so excited about the young people and the leadership that they are providing across this nation and the world. we are seeing the largest civil rights demonstrations ever on the planet as a result of the tragic death of george floyd but others before him, breonna taylor and ahmaud arbery. this is an incredible time. we got to ten to say thank you but also we got to lift up the legacy of these women and men. i hope these congress people are making these tributes, particularly those who would be on the right side of the aisle, i hope they engage in action to say we're going to renew the voting rights act. that's what we need to be

talking about and doing something about. not just saying he was a great man, he was the conscience of the nation. no, john lewis would want us to act and now is the time. >> now is the tilme. voting rights is one of the things we're going to be highlighting all year because voting suppression is real and policing is real and we cannot commemorate john lewis without emulating hill. martin luther king, iii, thank you for joining me this evening. >> thank you, reverend. >> joining me, senator kamala harris, john lewis would always say about the movement coming behind him is that we also got to make sure we extoll and make ourselves clear about women in leadership. i remember when i was a

youngster with shirley chism and her campaign. what do you remember about john lewis fighting for gender equality, even inside of movement or progressive circles? >> yeah, rev. i mean, he was a living saint and now he will be obviously among our most honored ancestors. you know, i would sit and talk with john and he was, you know, the quiet conversations that we would have. he was always so encouraginenco. he encouraged ambition in women. he enjoyed seeing ambition in women. there is so much to applaud him

for, as everyone has said, how he lived his truth, how he lived his faith, how he put that faith into action. and we have to remember, yes, it was about bloody sunday and you and i and others were there. that was my last big event before the pandemic was to be there with john and with you and so many others to walk across the edmund pettis bridge in march. but let's also remember that john lewis was the first person to testify in the senate hearings to get rid of doma and talk about the lgbtq movement and he was front and center for the fight of immigrant rights where he talked about immigrant rights are civil rights. john lewis was part of the creation of the george floyd

justice and policing act. and by the way, mcconnell needs to put hr-4 on the floor for a vote and name it the john lewis voting rights act. >> you are calling on mr. mcconnell, the majority leader of the senate to name the bill after john lewis and to put the bill on the floor -- >> yes, i am. >> and don't just give empty words but do some john lewis action. >> right. because as we like to say, i'm too busy watching what you're doing to hear what you're saying. so if he wants to make clear his honor for the life, the legacy, the sacrifice, the heroism of john lewis, put that on the floor for a vote and let's name it the john lewis voting rights act of 2020. >> president obama wrote yesterday that, quote, john lewis loved this country so much that he risked his life and his

blood so that it might live up to its promise and through the technical aids he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice but inspired generation that followed to try to live up to his example. >> that's right. >> what do you think john lewis would expect of us? yes, we will do the mourning and the services. what would he expect of us with all the sacrifices he made? >> you know, rev, i think that john lewis, as we all know, he has always been present, right? his legacy is not the legacy of the 1950s and 60s. his legacy continues today and forward. one of the things that i do believe is when john lewis would look out and participate even in the most recent marches in the streets, being the black lives matter and so many other young

leaders, i do believe when he looked at those groups, he saw the john lewises, he saw that he being the youngest speaker at that march on washington, which by the way was for jobs and freedom, which he also fought for, which was economic justice, i believe he understood that there were the john lewises among them and that we must pave a path for them to follow in his foot steps. that's how he lived his life. my mother used to say you may be the first to do many things, make sure you're not the last. that's how john lewis lived his life. >> when we think of even gun control, he literally let us sit in on the floor of the house of representatives around gun control. when we see the spike in violence in our communities, john lewis did that and saw it as a civil rights act facing those gun lobbyists that do not allow even background checks to pass in the congress.

>> no. and he led that sit-in in the united states house of representatives. because, again, he also understood that these are all extensions of his longstanding fight for civil rights. part of the fight for civil rights is the fight for healthy communities and safe communities. and that was part of his fight and that's why he stood there always with courage to speak truth to power, but to do it in a way that was always about doing it with love and doing it with a sense of optimism about what would be possible if we can appeal to people's sense of what's morally right. you know, that was such a big part of who john was. he believed that the majority of people would hear the call for moral righteousness and that is, i believe, why he has inspired so many of us. it is that optimism combined with the fight that truly has made the progress that we have seen but we have a long way to

go. because he fought for something. he never fought against something. he fought for a better america. he fought for the ideals of america. he knew the fight was so much bigger than those who would spew hate and division. he knew the fight was for an elevation of the people and who we can be. that's the life of john lewis. he challenged us to be our best. >> and our best is what he challenged us to be. senator harris, certainly thank you for sharing your thoughts on john lewis. i won't bring up the vice presidential sweepstakes tonight out of respect to what we were talking about, but i had to mention it. >> yeah. >> because that's just how i am. thank you again, senator harris. joining me now is california congresswoman and cheer of congressional black caucus, karen bass. congresswoman, madam chairperson, you worked with john lewis, you were the chair of the congressional black

caucus, you worked side by side with him. he was called the conscience of the congress. we say that quickly on newscasts, but explain why he was called that and how he played that role. >> absolutely. well, you know, when he was in a hearing, when he was on the floor, when he would get up to speak, it was the moral authority that he kmaded always. i want to share a funny story with you because one time there was one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle submitted an amendment that was going to cut the funding to help with voting rights enforcement. i guess mr. lewis must have been in his office and heard about this amendment and he comes rushing down on the floor of the house and he gave one of his, you know, roaring speeches. my republican colleague went back on the floor, apologized

publicly and withdrew the amendment. it was the moral authority with which he always spoke that i don't care what was going on, everybody would stop and listen to him. i think he was the most respected person on the hill, in the house, in the senate, democrat, republican, everyone respected him. and it's a ritual that many of us would experience every year going and going across the bridge. and every time we would do that, it was always a bipartisan group of people that would go. it lasted over three days. you know, you've been many times before. it was the collective experience that he would lead that was life changing for so many of my colleagues and it certainly was for me as well when i went. >> now, you wrote on twitter this morning urging the president that, quote, while the nation mourns the passing of a national hero, please say nothing. please don't comment on the life of congressman lewis.

please let us mourn in peace. of course the president didn't listen to you or human decency, alleged li allegedly tweeting this afternoon, quote, saddened to hear the news of civil rights passing, melania and i send our prayers to he and his family. he said nothing about the civil rights act that john lewis helped to get passed the first time and wanted desperately to see it upheld, said nothing about the george floyd policing justice bill that you helped engineer through congress, which john lewis was a big advocate for. i think that john lewis would not want a tweet, he would want to see the congress act on the things that made john lewis known and respected all over the world. >> right. but, rev, the reason why i did that tweet was because -- and i feel very strongly about it -- i

didn't want him to say anything because you and i know if he opened up his mouth to say something about john lewis, it would be offensive and we don't need that right now. he can't say anything about any issue without bringing it back to himself. and i know that he would have been critical in some negative way. we just didn't need his negativity today. i don't mind what he tweeted. maybe what i tweeted helped him say minimum about him, but i hope he leaves it as that. we don't need to engage him in a conversation we don't need that right now. the nation is mourning the loss of an icon. people around the world know the difference that mr. lewis made in this country, and we need to leave it at that. now, he's lowering flags for a day. i hope that the flags are lowered until mr. lewis is put to rest. it needs to be for more than a day. but, you know, let's just keep

him out of it for right now. he can stay on the golf course. >> and i think also we don't forget some of the ugly things he tweeted about john lewis when john lewis was among us physically, the same president donald trump denigrated him on twitter many times. let me ask you what is the plans that you and the congressional black caucus and congress has to fight for the things that john lewis fought for? where are we now with the legislation that he supported in such an energetic and committed way all the way to the end, even when he was suffering with pancreatic cancer, he never stopped fighting. >> absolutely. well, first of all, i think senator harris has it exactly right. naming the voting rights act after mr. lewis and getting that done in the senate, i think that's exactly what should happen. and for that matter, she also mentioned the george floyd

justice and policing act. we passed it out of the house, it is languishing in the senate. now, it's on top of a big stack of bills right now because you know there's over 200 bipartisan bills that mitch mcconnell has not moved on, but what he needs to move on immediately is the heroes act. he needs to move on the heroes act because our people are dying. you saw that we hit 140,000 americans are dead over the last few months and you know what a percentage of those americans are african-american, latino, asian-pacific islander and native american. the fact that 140,000 americans are dead is because of the way he has mismanaged the pandemic from the beginning. so the first thing that needs to happen is the heroes act needs to pass, the justice and policing act needs to pass, the voting right act needs to pass. the senate needs to go to work, that's the bottom line. the only thing mitch mcconnell

wants to do is confirm conservative judges that have the potential to be there for the next four years. >> congresswoman chair lady karen bass, thank you for being with us this afternoon. >> after the break, president donald trump claims mail-in voting will lead to fraudulent elections, but he hasn't said anything about the co-chair of his campaign in kansas, who was just charged with unlawful voting. my memo to the president next. but first, my colleague richard lui with today's top news stories. richard. richard lui at msnbc headquarters. another single day record for new coronavirus cases. the total is close to 3.7 million cases, more than 140,000 people have died from the virus. one of the top doctors on the task force doubling down on his call for masks. dr. anthony fauci says everyone

should wear face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and urge local leaders to require that. formal requirements have been implemented in more than half of the countries in the united states. in arizona infections surge. as many as 5,000 tests will be conducted daily at two sites serving around 60,000 residents. >> and in new york city, they will enter phase four on monday. theaters, malls and gyms will remain closed for now. i'm richard lui. "politics thereto nation "politi "politicsnation" continues after the break. ation" continues after the break. perfect. -you're welcome. i love it. how'd you do all this?

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zr today as we remember john lewis, let's talk about voting rights, a cause he championed throughout his life.

for this week's memo to trump, i want to call you, mr. president, not just for suppressing the votes of many black and brown americans, but for outright cheating. you see, john lewis was on to your game the whole time. it's why he didn't attend your inauguration, arguing that your russia-assisted election wasn't legitimate in the first place. and it hasn't gotten any better since then. for all your blust and concern about election rigging and railing about the possibility of fraudulent voting by mail both in 2016 and this year's contest, well it seems pretty obvious to me, mr. president, that the call is coming from inside the house. that's right. the biggest cheaters in the game continue to be republicans. in the most recent example, your own kansas campaign co-chair has been charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor for voting

from a fraudulent address. he claims it was an honest mistake, but a texas woman who unknowingly violated parole by casting an uncounted provisional ballot in 2016 is facing up to five years in prison for her honest mistake. and it's not just isolated incidents. for all your online whining and fear mongering about foreign countries or your opponents cheating via vote by mail, the biggest recent example at election fraud via mail was during a 2018 congressional race in north carolina in which a republican operative illegally harvested and even filled in absentee ballots resulting in a rerun of the entire election. but, mr. president, republicans like you have known for a long time that these piecemeal cheats

aren't enough to keep you in power. you require much bigger ways to put your feet on the scale, like widespread voter suppression. it's why you resist voting reforms at every turn. >> they're crazy. they had things, levels of votings if you ever agreed to it, you'd never have a republican elected in this country again. >> and you're not the only one saying the quiet part out loud. in mississippi, a county commissioner said, quote, the blacks are having lots of events for voter registration. people in mississippi have got to get involved, too. end of quote. republicans just don't see black voters who often but not always vote for democrats as actual people with a legitimate right for our voices to be heard, and that rot continues all the way to the top of our government. just this week the conservative wing of the supreme court voted

to keep thousands of floridians from voting in november, despite two-thirds of the state electorate acting to restore those rights. this after republicans in the florida legislature passed a law requiring ex-felons to pay all fines and fees before they could vote without any way to ascertain how much was even owed. i don't know about you but that sure sounds like unconstitutional poll tax to me. not content with legalizing voter suppression from on high, your party is ready to take intimidation to the streets with plans to scare off minority voters in 2020 just as you did in 1982, 1986, 1992 and 2004. but, mr. president, i have some bad news for you. all your fear mongering, projection and cheating won't save you this time.

too many brave men and women bled and fought and died to ensure our right to vote, including the late great john lewis and we will not let your cheating stand. representative lewis led by example his entire life and we're ready to get into good trouble in his honor to protect our votes. you can rail against vote by mail in the midst of a pandemic and we will put on our masks and head to the voting booth. you can close polling locations and force us into long lines and we will bring our lawn chairs and settle in to wait. you can use every loophole and exploit every inch of ground your court stacking has gotten you, but we will show up in droves from florida to mississippi to wisconsin to vote you out and no amount of republican cheating is going to stop us. be right back. us. be right back.

we are our brother's kebro and we can't do something about keeping our brothers until we do something about violence in our community. the way to teach america that black lives matter is to make it matter to each other first. >> earlier this week i spoke at the funeral of another young black man taken from us too soon, but while you may be more used to seeing me speak at memorials of those killed by police, brandon hendrix ellison's life was taken by the scourge of intra community gun violence. make no mistake, it's a scourge. shootings are spiking up in cities around the country, up

53% from this time last year in new york, 23% in atlanta and in chicago shootings have increased 46% from this time last year. joining me now is reverend dr. marshal hatch sr. of new pilgrim missionary baptist church and dwight mckee, dean of the miafa redemption project. we have known each other for years in the civil rights movement. you built a program around gun violence. i've come and stayed in an apartment across from your church to help highlight what you were doing and highlight our concern about gun violence. and i said in that eulogy, those youngsters don't have a gun manufacturing plant, they don't make bullets. our job is to legislate the guns out of the community but to build the self-esteem of those young men and women so they won't pick them up no matter how

many is there. it's both and. tell us what you're doing there in chicago and where we are trying to rebuild our self-es statement self-esteem so that we can also deal with the young people not being seduced into settling their differences by shooting and killing one another. >> thank you, reverend sharpton, and thank you so much for having us on and for the work you do all across the country. of course the young men that we work with here on the west side of chicago, our project is called the maafa redemption project and we work with young men age 18 to 30. during normal times they will live on campus and some will jump in.

they will get their life on track with coaching and counseling services and other life enrichment. it's an employment project as well. we give them a job from day one, help build their sense of self-esteem and identity and being a productive part of the community. that's the work that we do. >> one of the things i also said in the sermon is i don't understand why budgets are being cuts, school programs cut, summer jobs being cut and this is what's being done to these young people, putting them in desperate situations and when they operate this way, we act surprised when we don't invest in other behavior. so while we challenge them, and we should because all of us come out of the same background and people had to challenge us, we still must make the system work and build environments that's conducive for those young people to have options in life and not feel that the way to deal with

things is to shoot it out rather than think it out and deal with it. >> absolutely. we're dealing with devastated communities, with communities where -- that have been disinvested in. here on the west side of chicago when they closed 50 schools by the previous mayor, five of those were in walking distance of this church. it did create this context of d desperation where they live. when we talking about reparations, we're not only talking about the slavery, with you we're also talking about the kind of situation where the young people were caught up in the war on drugs, and that war

on drawings literally devastated families, devastated communities and we need repair from that immediately travesty of justice that's ongoing. >> dwight mckee, we grew up together and the litany that jesse jackson taught was i am somebody and that self-esteem helped save a lot of us and that's what the program is doing and that's what i've been challenging the young people at the funeral about. we put focus on programs like that as we major in other things. everybody can't do everything but we can support each other. what in the program do you as dean try to instill in these young people and what is the challenge that we must do to society, to the system that has

broken down the communities that they're growing in? >> i see three deficits. one is the deficit of resources. they're not the average resources that non-black kids have of age. they are operating in an almost desperate situation to try to conjure up ways to make money and a living and in the drug culture and some other illegal situations they get involved in. the second deficit i see really is a cultural deficit. many of these kids have grown up in the era of video games and gangsta rap music so they are not as culturally akin as we

were growing up with nat king cole and growing up with certain values. and third, we see a spiritual deficit. what is why we have put the program at the church is many of us have grown up in the shadows of the black church, and those values and that culture that it espouses. so you as a young minister grew up preaching at 13. i grew up in fellowship baptist church and those values of the church carried us through all of the violence and a lot of the temptations that normal kids have. in this day and age of just secularism, many kids don't have that. >> and we tried to pass it on because it was instilled on us and we're going to keep doing it

and support, as reverend hatch and others have supported us in our work, we support him in his work and those around the country who deal with the question of violence in our communities because they are the ones that are the experts in that area. we all must support each other. i have a time deficit now. i want to thank dwight mckee and reverend dr. marshal hatch. we'll be talking about this a lot more. now to portland, oregon where video overnight shows violent clashes between federal officers and demonstrators. the latest marks 50 days of ongoing froeprotests in the cit unrest many say is being stoked by the federal forces under president donald trump's command. four members of oregon's congressional delegation wrote a letter to the trump administration criticizing the, croa quote, authoritarian tactics and is calling for an investigation.

one of those members is my next guest, senator jeff merkley. as we saw those videos, this seems like something other than america. i understand some of these federal officers were dressed in plain clothes and just were doing things that were against the principles the country advocates. >> yes, reverend, it's really a scene out of some other world where you have a dictatorship, an authoritarian government, not a democratic republic. trump is sending unmarked authorities after protesters, throwing them into unmarked vans, sweeping them off the street and using munitions in a way that hasn't been coordinated with our police or our governor or mayor that is just absolutely inflaming the swaituation,

including an intact project iip that is shot at a pro tester just holding something over his head. you see him crumble as it hits his head. he's in the hospital. it's absolutely unacceptable in america and we have to end it. >> have you and your colleagues that have written the trump administration received any response on how they are dealing with this and how blatantly unfair it is seen to the world? >> we have not received a response to our letter, but i have spoken with derek driscoll with the u.s. marshals, try to find out how many they had sent, had they gone on to the street, what is the justification for that? who makes the decisions on the munitions? it was apparently a marshal who was shooting the impact proje

projectile that hit the head and took the young man down. then i connected with the customs and border protection. they are wearing camouflage and helmets with no i.d., no unique identifier, nothing that says customs and border protection, cbp, just a generic police. who are they? they have been grabbing people, throwing them into unmarked vans, taking them away p. the young man couldn't find out who they were, they wouldn't tell him when they released him. they had no apparent cause for grabbing him other than he was at a protest. and that is not a justification in america. but this young man says he was terrified because there's been challenges with different groups in portland and who are these people grabbing him and throwing him into a van? was he being kidnapped?

was he going to be beaten up? he had no idea. this is like a secret police or militia from an authoritarian government. it's not acceptable. i'm going to be introducing an amendment to the defense authorization reauthorization act that say you cannot conduct yourself in this fashion with these forces. >> all right, senator jeff merkley, thank you and we'll be certainly watching this as it develops. up next, my final thoughts. stay with us. distracted teenage r has the car. at subaru, we're taking on distracted driving... ...with sensors that alert you when your eyes are off the road. the subaru forester. the safest forester ever.

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this week we lost two giants. on thursday, i got the news that reverend c.t. vivian, who had been a civil rights activist and leader since the '40s and was honored by president obama because of his decades of service where he thought jim crow was beaten, had died.

i was bresed to have spent time with him, walked with him, marched with him, honored him at the national action network convention. and as i tried to make sense of his legacy and his investment in me and millions of others, we heard 36 hours later john lewis had passed. john lewis, who helped to lead the 50th anniversary march with martin luther king iii and i just a few years ago as martin iii and i planned for the march this year around police reform and voting rights on the same date. i thought about the last time i saw john lewis on the edmund pettus bridge this march and thought about how that bridge named after a slave owner ought to be renamed after john lewis. and i thought more personally why i was blessed to know both of these giants, what was expected of me in return for those blessings.

what is expected of you and america? it is not enough to just remember them. yes, they'll be and deservingly so tributes to john lewis across the next few days. we must pick up the baton, as he did as a young man, picking up the baton of martin luther king and continuing to fight for the dream. as c.t. virgin islandsian did until he was 95 years old. if you don't in your own way and your own station and your own walk of life keep fighting for the things they spent their lives doing, then your mourning is a mockery. as for me, whatever platform i have and whatever talents i possess, i'm going use that to pay back to these men that pour into me. i owe that to the next generation. i owe it so those men that have gone on and locked arms for the last time and walked into history to join dr. king. that does it for me.

thanks for watching. i'll see you back here tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. eastern. up next, my colleague chris jansing picks up our news coverage. hey, kids!

welcome to camp tonsafun on xfinity! it's summer camp, but in your living room. learn how to draw with a minions expert... how to build an indoor obstacle course! plus... whatever she's doing. and me, jade catta-preta. the host of e's the soup! camp tonsafun. it's like summer camp, but minus the poison ivy. unless you own poison ivy.

in which case, why? just say "summer camp" into your xfinity voice remote to join. hello, everyone. i'm chris jansing, and thank you for joining us on an evening when we are remembering the life of a man who put his life on the line repeatedly to push america to live up to its ideals. john lewis was an