the headlines, however, still not good, about which i am sorry. this one, for example, was a hard one to wake up to today. "the washington post." their main headline today. u.s. passes 4 million coronavirus cases, as pace of new infections roughly doubles. that is terrible. and that's where we are. the major headline today what i think will actually go down in the books in terms of presidential politics history, the president did last night, abruptly, announce the cancellation of the republican national convention next month, to renominate him to run for a

second term. one day after that surprise announcement from the president, or about 24 hours after that announcement now, it's still quite unclear as to whether there will be anything that looks like a republican convention, at all, next month. i mean, in american presidential campaign history, there have been good conventions. there have been bad conventions and scary ones. in modern times, though, there's never been one they couldn't get together to just actually do. i mean, we will see what they pull off. but the republicans and white house being in denial about the coronavirus. first, in new york norks, where they initially cancelled. then, in florida, where they tried to move it to, before they had to cancel there as well. i mean, that's just an historic thing. and their misconceptions about the coronavirus don't seem to be getting any more realistic. and so, you know, we've got this chaos of them making all these rash, last-minute decisions, which is their own fault. and we don't know how it's going

to resolve. i mean, other people could see that there was a problem with the jacksonville, florida, plan. a poll of florida voters just out yesterday showed that 62% of florida voters thought that holding the republican convention in jacksonville would be unsafe. yeah, everyone can see this, except apparently the re-whiwhi house and the republican party until a month before this thing's supposed to go live. florida just hit a new daily death record for the virus. florida test results, which is a key metric. you want positivity rates to be as low as possible if you are test results. florida's test results have been over 10% positive, solidly, for more than a month now. several days this week, they were considerably over 10%. in jacksonville, specifically, the city where the rnc was going to be held, until yesterday when they cancelled it, teachers in jacksonville are now listing that city's republican mayor as their personal healthcare proxy

on their living wills, as a way of trying to get his attention for how much they do not want to be forced back into in-person classes next month while florida's still raging out of control. you know, icus at capacity. but the white house sudden division last night to cancel the republican convention, it does put a fine point on this as a matter of policy, right? i mean, how can it not be safe enough to host the republican convention in florida right now? but florida's governor, meanwhile, says it is safe to force open every school in the state, which is his current position. i mean, this is actually the lead at the "politico" playbook today. quote. all caps. wait a second. how can the white house push schools across the country to open, vowing that it's safe to gather. while, at the same time, they're

cancelling the republican convention in jacksonville, florida, saying it's not safe to gather? >> right. like i said, putting a fine point on this, as a matter of policy. but both, florida and the great state of tennessee have just hit record daily death dates. the u.s. death rate, overall, is up over 1,100 deaths a day steadily this week. it hasn't been that high in months. a whole bunch of states had a record number of new infections reported in the last 24 hours. alabama had a new record again. they have been setting new records all week. also, hawaii. also, indiana. also, missouri. also, new mexico. meanwhile, policy decisions that we made, as a country, we made federally, to try to mitigate what we thought would be a short-term crisis here. those mitigating policies, those policies designed to ease the burden on americans, while we went through what we hoped was a short-term crisis. those policies are now coming to

an end. with the crisis not being over, at all. with the crisis being bigger than ever. 4 million cases and the pace of new infections, doubling in less than a month. the federal ban on evictions expires tonight. that puts 12 million americans, who rent their homes, at risk of being thrown out by their landlords, as of midnight tonight. the federal boost to unemployment benefits. that is effectively ending right now, too. legally, it expires at the end of next week. but with congress not having acted by now to extend it. and they haven't. they have now gone home. the way the timing works for unemployment eligibility, their failure to act, already, in congress this week, means that, effectively, many americans have now received their last check of these boosted benefits. and, you know, these things were supposed to be temporary. these things wouldn't have had to be extended again, had we been past this by now. had we beat down the epidemic. had we controlled the virus, the way basically all of our allies around the world have handily done. i mean, the graph showing u.s.

cases, versus cases in the european union, over time. look at us. and look at them. i mean, it's still the best diagram we've got of what it means to have leadership, or not. what it means to have real governance, or not. those are our peer countries, as economies, as democracies, as allies of ours. and as countries that got hit at, basically, the same time and at the same neighbor rate thinie did. look how closely our initial curve tracks with theirs. well, the difference is that they responded the way public health experts, the world over, say that you need to respond to something like this. we, instead, decided to just pull all the drawers out in the kitchen, turn them upside down over our heads, and rain all the cutlery on ourselves. i mean, the reason we still need to extend what was supposed to be temporary economic help.

the reason we can't open everything, from schools to elective surgeries to beaches to bars and all the rest of it, back up is because we can't fix the economic damage of the pandemic, without fixing the pandemic. without having less people infected, all the time. and getting sick and dying. without getting our curve down so that this thing is manageable, and we can find hot spots when they arise. find people, through testing, with timely turnaround times. with good contact tracing. we can identify new outbreaks and squash them, by isolating the people who have been exposed. we're so beyond being anywhere near that, in this country, simply because our pandemic is out of control. and as long as it's out of control, we can't open anything back up. and, yeah, people still need economic help. dr. deborah birx, who is apparently one of the only trained public health people involved in the white house's daily work and decision-making on this crisis. dr. deborah birx told "the today

show" on nbc today that after the country looked on, in horror, at new york's catastrophe in april. you know, with 25,000 new yorkers dying, in a matter of weeks. now, she says, with new infections nationwide doubling in less than a month, with hospitalizations nationwide, back up where they were in the worst of it in april. she says today the other biggest states in the country, florida, california, texas, now, dr. birx says their epidemics are all so bad, we should see all of them as simultaneous analogs to new york, at its worst. >> i just want to make it clear to the american public. what we have, right now, are essentially three new yorks with these three major states. and so, we're really having to respond, as an american people. >> these three major states. florida. california. texas. today, over 150 prominent u.s.

medical experts, including zeke emmanuel. who you know from here on msnbc. this letter. this is actually very simple. very confrontational. right to the point, and worth paying attention to. because this is kind of the simple truth right now, at least as i see it. you see their headline. shut it down. start over. do it right. it says this. quote, dear decision makers, hit the reset button. of all the nations in the world, we have had the most deaths from covid-19. at the same time, we're in the midst of reopening our economy, exposing more and more people to coronavirus, and watching number -- numbers of cases and deaths skyrocket. in march, americans went home and stayed there for weeks to keep themselves and their neighbors safe. you, decision makers, did not use that time to set us up to defeat the virus. and then, you started to reopen, anyway, and too quickly. right now, we're on a path to

lose 200,000 american lives by november 1st. yet, in many states, people can drink in bars, get a haircut, eat inside a restaurant, get a tattoo, get a massage, and do myriad other normal, pleasant, but nonessential activities. let's get our priorities straight. reopening before suppressing the virus isn't going to help the economy. economists have gone on record saying that the only way to restore the economy is to address the pan ddemic, itself. pointing out that until we find a way to boost tenning asting a vaccine, people will not be able to participate. restaurant service should be limited to takeout. people should stay home, only to go out to get food or medicine and to get fresh air. masks should be mandatory in all situations. yes, that is stark, they are saying but, quote, we need that protocol in place, until case numbers recede to a level at

which we have the capacity to effectively test and trace. then, and only then, we can try a little more opening. one small step at a time. you should, they say, bar nonessential interstate travel. when people travel freely between states, the good numbers in one state can go bad quickly. the consequences will be measured in widespread suffering and death. we need you to lead. tell the american people the truth about the virus, even when it's hard. take bold action to save lives, even when it means shutting down again. unleash the resources needed to contain the virus. massively ramping up testing. building the necessary infrastructure for effective contact tracing and providing a safety net for those who need it. our government has, thus far, fallen short of what the moment demands. history has its eyes on you. and the headline there. shut it down, start over, do it right. signed by more than 150 u.s. health experts. and what they're asking for here, basically, is for the u.s.

to give it another go. try again. do what all of our peer countries, around the world, have basically, successfully done, all over the world. we know what works. for a lot of reasons. we didn't do it on the first round. we missed our chance to get it right the first time. so we should, now, give it another try. like dr. david ho told us the other night on this program. the best time to act was months ago. the second-best time to act is now. give it another go. try to do it right. now. rather than resigning ourselves to the deaths of hundreds of thousands more americans, and an epidemic that never goes away. and an economy and, even schools, that can never come back because the epidemic is still too gigantic. we missed our chance to get it right the first time. try again. now, importantly, what they're asking for is national action. an abandonment, implicitly, of

this idea that we have been pursuing, for some reason. which is that every state should do their own thing, on their own timeline, with no coordination. right? that's the basic point of the simultaneous action versus sequential action. those graphs from dr. david we have been trying to show all week. the idea being, if we act together, all at once, if we act simultaneously, like the graph shows on left, the whole thing is over, sooner. but if we don't. if we let everybody act, if we let every state act, whenever they feel like it, honestly, that may feel good. it may feel like a great american idea from the outset. but what it means, epidemiological epidemiologically, is the thing's going to go on and on and on. and a lot more people sick and a lot more people are going to die and the economy's going to be hit so much harder because it's going to have to be shut down for so much longer.

it's an infectious disease, right? this is not an ideological thing. listen to the infectious disease experts about how to do this thing, with the least pain. they knew from the beginning. we ignored them and did it the hard way. and that's what we're living through. listen to the experts on how to do this stuff. or, if you don't like listening to the experts, instead, just look at every other country in the world. that got it under control by doing that. while we, still, don't even know if we can have school again anytime soon. since the president started crowing that he was going to use the federal government to, somehow, force schools open nationwide. we have started to see protests around the country, by teachers and by some parents, against trying to force schools open in an environment where the spread of the virus is out of control. in just the past week, just looking for these protests just as a top-of-the-line survey, we have seen teacher protests in, as you see here, jackson, mississippi. the state capital in the great state of mississippi.

we have seen big teacher protects in cherokee county, georgia. we've seen protests at the state capitol in the great state of alabama. we have seen protests in chicago and in austin, texas. in iowa, where iowa republican governor kim reynolds says she intends to force schools to open, statewide, in iowa, no matter what. some iowa teachers have started writing their own obituaries, and sending them to governor kim reynolds. leaving open a spot where she can fill in the date on which they died. i mention we have also been seeing florida teachers writing living wills. in jacksonville, they've been naming the mayor there as their healthcare proxy to make decisions for them when they are incapacitated. in arizona, there's been tons of teacher protests. they have been doing these mobile teacher protests and these pretty significant teacher demonstrations in phoenix, tempe, gilson, surprise, arizona.

and arizona's a really interesting place. if you have been paying close attention, their numbers, statewide, are finally starting to level out this week. after arizona having been the scariest place in the country in terms of covid, for much of june and july. now, arizona's republican governor, doug ducey, had initially, like president trump, like florida governor ron desantis, like kim reynolds, arizona's governor, doug ducey, had also, initially, just announced a mandate, by which he declared all schools must open, no matter what. but, you know, there was pushback. and the pushback worked. and this sofrt rt of thing is w paying attention to, particularly if you are beaten down by how bad the headlines are and how bad it is staying. look at where the fight for constructive policy are winning. in arizona, we saw it when the state public health association

balked at what the governor was telling schools to do. the state public health association telling governor ducey that instead of picking a date out of a hat, by which he declared arizona schools had to open. instead, they said the government should pick evidence-based criteria, to decide when or whether it's safe to open k-12 schools. they suggested things like a sustained and consistent reduction in the number of new covid cases in the community. they wanted to see a threshold that communities had to meet. for example, the positivity rate being under 5% for two weeks at a time. they wanted to see contact tracing being up and running and effective. hospitals having beds available, in case there was a new surge. the arizona public health association told that state's governor that he should pick criteria that could indicate that it is safe to open. and then, make school districts meet -- meet those criteria, before they open. rather than him just randomly declaring that it doesn't

matter, and it's safe because he says so. on a date in which he picked out of a hat. so the arizona public health association speaks up. the state superintendent of schools in arizona joined in that call, as well. and of course, you cannot overstate the impact of teachers, all over the great state of arizona, taking to the streets and showing up and being heard. and it takes a lot of work like that. but it has, now, sort of at least, worked. the arizona governor has now reversed course, and is now telling schools that they are going to need to meet public health, evidence-based criteria in order to open, instead of him just picking a random date for a mandate. and it's not perfect. there's still ambiguity, and it still remains to be seen. we'll see how it works. but everybody who's been telling you that citizenship is really important right now. and that citizenship can really work right now, and that your country needs you right now. that we, citizens, need to make our government do a better job

right now. well, i mean, it's a small -- it's a small thing and it's one state. and again, we'll see how it works. but the activism and the pressure and the expert opinion and the sustained criticism and sustained constructive criticism in arizona has, this week, appeared to make that state's response, at least, marginally less ignorant, dangerous, and less fatal. at least scientifically accessible facts exist as nd th matter as to what the state should do next. so take that. take that little kernel and run with it. be heartened by that example. your citizenship is very important right now. your civic example is very important right now. your country needs you right now because our country needs to get less dumb, really fast. perhaps, you can help.

back in may, "the associated press" had a remarkable stream of stories, investigative reports about what the cdc was doing in terms of providing expert advice of how we could reopen things in america. and that ap report resulted in the initially leaked and then ultimately soft launched, quiet publication of the first cdc guidelines on how a number of different entities in the united states, inseclucluding schools, should decide on whether it's safe to reopen. in may after the ap did that reporting. the headline. reopening schools during the covid-19 pandemic. the purpose of this tool is to assist administrators in opening schools. then, the first column, the top of that column says in bold, blue type. should you consider opening? and then, it gives you the

checklist. and what's the first item on the checklist? well, is the school and the community no longer requiring significant mitigation? that's the first thing you need to check. you are trying to decide if your schools should open. the cdc says the first question you need to answer is, is the school in a community where the virus levels are low enough that it no longer requires significant mitigation? meaning, significant intervention, to try to control the virus there. if the answer to that is no, you still need significant mitigation in your community, still got a lot of virus circulating. then, the answer from the cdc back in may is, okay, then your flowchart here is over. skip right to the big stop sign. do not open. if you cannot check off that first criteria, you cannot open. that's the cdc as recently as two months ago. cdc guidance saying, as plain as day, with icons, you cannot open any school anywhere in america if the virus is prevalent enough in that community to require significant mitigation measures.

and right now, in america, that's a lot of america. right? because our epidemic is a catastrophe, coast to coast. of course, the white house, yesterday, just released new school opening guidelines. under the banner of the cdc. these new guidance -- guidelines they just released don't even address the issue of whether schools should be safely reopened or not. they just tell you how to reopen. "washington post" today was first to report that portions of these so-called cdc guidelines were not actually written by the cdc. they were written by white house staff. staffers. but, you know, the early drafts don't go away. and even though they didn't make a big deal out of them and they didn't send out a press release or brag about them when they put them out because they didn't want to make the white house mad. the cdc did tell us, not just in

black and white but in bold, blue type, with a stop sign. to not open schools anywhere in america, until community spread was well under control. if you are in a community where there is a lot of virus, there is no safe way to open your school, per the cdc, before the white house started writing their guidelines and calling them cdc guidelines. now, they have, you know, submarined that recommendation. they are hoping, i guess, we didn't print this stuff out before they tried to supersede it. our national response to coronavirus remains terrible. what we are learning over the course of this thing, though, is citizens can force the government to get better at it. boy, is it hard with a government this bad. but the alternative is to give up. and why not -- and -- and the reasons not to give up are -- are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of the lives of our fellow americans.

including, potentially, ourselves. someone who has been right about this stuff, from the beginning, is going to be our guest, live, here next. lori garrett. she has earned a nationwide reputation as sort of the cassandra of this pandemic. as a person willing to say hard, true things, includsiing now, about what is, inevitably, going to happen with u.s. schools this fall. lori garrett joins us live next. stay with us. next. stay with us out there, which one should i use? try crest pro/active defense. it neutralizes bacteria for a healthier mouth than even the leading multi-benefit toothpaste. crest.

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question one. should a national scale -- scho school reopening be considered at all? answer. emphatically, no. that is the opening from laurie garrett, pulitzer prize winning journalist who has been scary and right about coronavirus from the very beginning. she's just written this new and sobering piece called america's schools are a moral and medical

catastrophe. a guide to understanding the science and the politics preventing u.s. children from being educated this year. preventing u.s. children from being educated this year? this whole year? laurie garrett calling the white house demand for schools to reopen, and to figure out how, on their own, quote, nothing short of moral bankruptcy. joining us now, without further ado, is laurie garrett. as i mentioned, pulitzer prize-winning journalist. and someone we have been checking back into with this crisis. if for no other reason than she keep kee keeps us honest. thank you for being here. >> thank you rachel. >> you have been willing to stay sta say stark things, including in terms other people would likely to be to sugarcoat. what do you think is the reality check that americans need about safety considerations and the realistic chances of opening in-person instruction for kids this year?

>> well, there's several things. first of all, it's not zero risk. even in communities where the transmission of covid-19 is relatively low, opening schools is not a zero-risk exercise. you don't know what the scale of the risk is, unless you've done your baseline testing. you know exactly what percentage of your kids, in each school level, each age group, are already infected. what percentage of your teachers, your cafeteria workers, your janitorial staff, and your administrators are infected and you track them, over time, in cohorts so that you follow infection rates. and you baseline data and building data. and then, you have people -- you have policies in place for what to do if someone is infected. and you have people who can track them, and figure out if they took virus home to their grandmother, to their father, to whomever.

none of this is being done, in almost any school district in america. and on top of that, the costs. how do you make a school safe to attend for everybody involved? the adults. the children. the visiting parents. how do you make a school safe to attend? it costs money. you have to have a good air conditioning and airflow system. you have to limit the number of people per classroom, which means more space needs to be, somehow, available. or staggered schedules, with more teachers handling fewer students. all of these things need to be done, and they can't be done in school districts where there has never been enough money to do basic education, at any time, in the last many decades. so we're asking schools that have zero spare cash to somehow build a fancy, air-filtration

system. to, somehow, do testing and somehow create additional classrooms. they don't have money. >> laurie, i am struck that the very first thing that you said was testing. that schools need access to frequent, quick turnaround, repeated testing. ev for kids. for school staff. for teachers. and it needs to be linked into a competent contact tracing, essentially, outbreak monitoring system. i feel like, even six months into this, in terms of the -- the massive death that we have seen in the united states. we still don't have testing figured out, even for nursing homes. even for long-term care facilities, where we have had this huge bulk of the american deaths come from. i -- even in well-resourced school districts, it seems to be very unlikely that they are going to have access just to that first thing that you described. that kind of testing regime. >> rachel, universities in the

ivy league won't have it. so, how would a public school, located in a desperately poor community, or an native american reservation land, or in rural alabama, possibly have it? i mean, this is just so poorly thought out. it's -- the -- the rewrite on the cdc document is shameful. it's -- it is a mandate, that doesn't even begin to discuss safety for the employees. it's all written, from the point of view of dismissing the possibility that children will, somehow, get sick and die. and, therefore, the schools should open, without any real precautions taken. it's -- it's absolutely immoral. you know, betsy devos gave an interview. and she is the secretary of education. in which she basically said how you open is up to you, folks. you decide. we're just telling you you have

to open. or we're taking your money away from you. now, they don't even have enough money to teach the kids, under normal circumstances. in many school districts across america. and you're telling them conjure resources, somehow, to do something unheard of. the real problem, rachel, is that testing, anywhere, is being -- for any cohort -- is being done stupidly. it's utterly irrational, what we're doing in this country right now. we're asking people to queue up in a parking lot, and let their car engine run for eight hours to get a test that they get the results from three to seven to ten days later. what we're not doing is smart testing, that targets specific cohorts of people as sort of canaries in the coal mine. to let us see, over time, uh-oh, we see a little uptick in the first grade class.

ms. mcgrath. we got to find out what's going on in ms. mcgrath's class. we don't have the capacity. we don't have that set up. so we're just going to throw children to the wolves, throw teachers to the wolves, all for some mythological reason that somehow there's this massive demand. but every survey and poll i have seen for the last seven, ten, days, shows the majority of parents don't want to send their kids to school, if they are unsure about its safety. and they are unsure about its safety. especially, in these states with rampant, out-of-control community spread of sars cov-2. it's -- it's irrational. >> laurie garrett, science writer, former senior fellow for health and global communications. pulitzer prize-winning journalist. laurie, thank you for speaking the blunt truth tonight. thank you for being here. >> thank you, rachel.

>> i will say, what laurie is describing there, in terms of what sort of can't be done within the u.s. educational system right now. i mean, the solution to that is not that we need to blow up and reassemble education in this country, before anybody can go back safely. the solution there is that we need to get the virus under control, overall. and once you've got the virus under control, overall, then, it is potentially safe to open schools. but when the virus is out of control, schools are the last place in the world that'll be safe for kids or for anybody who works there. it's community transmission of this virus that must be stopped. the country must act, as a whole, as one, to get our curve down. to get our numbers down. so that we have this thing to a manageable size. then, you can talk about school and everything else reopening. be right back. [ thunder rumbles ]

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a couple of times on this show, since the president was

inaugurated, we have had a yale historian here, professor named tim snyder. we have had him here because he wrote what has amounted to a sort of citizens handbook for how to recognize if the obvious authoritarian inclinations of your president actually start tilting your country toward authoritarianism. it's about sort of what we can do about that, what we can learn from other countries who have gone through similar events like that. the book is called "on tyranny, 20 lessons from the 20th century." it's like six bucks or so. eight bucks. it's longer than a pamphlet but longer than your typical paperback. and it's -- it's a practical thing. i have probably bought and given away about 30 copies of it. a lot of it is, you know, simple and kind of profound and practical. rule number one, for example, is do not obey in advance. most of the pour wer of authoritarianism is given. think ahead about what a more

repressive government would want. a citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. lesson number two. defend institutions. this one means a lot to me. it is institutions that help us to preserve decency. choose an institution that you care about, a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union, and take its side. then, check out lesson 13, which feels both designed by and, also, sort of thwarted by this particular moment. practice -- it means like of the body, right? power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. get outside. put your body in unfamiliar places, with unfamiliar people. make new friends and march with them. designed for this moment and specifically thwarted by this moment. tim snyder's on tyranny is supposed to give you more practical work to do instead of despair about a country that is sliding in an authoritarian

direction, with an authoritarian-inspired leader. but snyder is also blunt about not just being practical but being alert to the worst. watching for the worst signs. you shouldn't sugarkoetd tho co things. why you shouldn't convince yourself it's not a big deal. like this one, that's been bugging me now. lafayette square, outside the white house, when the president cleared all those protestors, violently, for the purposef h o his photo op. and then what we have seen from the federal police in portland, oregon. be wary of paramilitaries. when the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come. and that's not, exactly, what we have been seeing. but that is the lesson that comes to mind and that's been looming for a lot of us, as we have watched unidentified officers, of some kind, scoop people off the streets. and now, the president threatening to do that in

democratic-controlled cities nationwide. that's why i wanted to talk to tim snyder again. joining us now for the interview is tim snyder. best-selling author of on tyranny. also, another best-seller called the road to unfreedom. he is abroad right now and is up in the middle of the night to be here. professor, thank you so much for being here. i really appreciate your time. >> of course. >> should we be thinking about this thing that we've been watching in portland? the president's threat to use force and his performative demonstration of force against civilians, as a material rule-of-law crisis? as something we ought to worry about in terms of our democracy? >> of course. in a rule-of-law state, which is what we should be, you can tell the police from the civilians. when the police don't identify themselves, when the police don't wear insignia, when the police act as though they are above the law, then, you've moved, clearly, in an authoritarian direction. it's -- it's the dark fantasy, both in life and literature, of

authoritarianism and totalitarianism, that someone who you can't identify arrests you and takes you away in the middle of the night. so yes, this is something we should be attending to. >> given your seminal work looking at the history across europe of the descent into authoritarianism and the way different cultures have slid in that direction. are there lessons from history about the right way or the most effective way, most meaningful way, to resist or oppose that kind of thing when it starts to happen in a country that you think of as a republic, as a democracy? >> well, one of them, we have already talked about, which is protest, itself. you have to start to identify yourself with the protestors. so if -- if, first, they come for the undocumented and you do nothing because you're documented. maybe, you're making a mistake. then, they come for the blacks. you don't do anything because

you're not black. you are making a mistake. then, they come for the protestors and you don't do anything, you're making a mistake. at some point, you have to turn it around and say -- like those moms in portland are doing. if they're coming for the protestors, i have to stand up for those people. i have to stand up for my fellow people, my fellow americans. their right to the first amendment. to the fourth amendment. i'm going to go out, for that reason. and history shows that mass, peaceful protest works. so if you are not protesting now, this would be a good time to start. >> one of the things that you spoke with michelle goldberg about, at "the new york times" this week and what i thought was an excellent piece of analysis, was the importance of the fact that it -- it does seem to be elements of the federal government, elements of department of homeland security, specifically assigned to the border and assigned to policing and dealing with immigrants. those appear to be the parts of the federal government that have dispatched these unidentified, unnamed, federal officers to the streets. that, to you,you've said that's

important. that we are seeing that part of the federal government brought off the border and into the interior to start policing civilians. why is that important to you? >> yeah. this is something that any historian of empire would say or the political theorist would say. vie le violence starts at the borderland. people become accustomed to violence at the border and what the authoritarian regime does is brings it back into the cities and uses it against protestors in the cities. people who are trained to think of others as not like us, aliens are foreigners. are then told there happen to be people inland who are not like us. we have this huge network of detention centers, which are basically lawless zones. another historical pattern is that people who are trained in lawless zones, such as detention centers or concentration camps, are then released into cities later on. and they behave the same way. they behave the way they have been trained. so this is the reason why we care about human rights. why we don't have lawless zones.

why we don't treat people who aren't citizens differently than those who are citizens because once you give up on human rights, you find your rights as a citizen will go away as well. >> i have another aspect of this that actually is about our president, his connections abroad, and the kinds of leaders he admires abroad. if you wouldn't mind sticking with us for one commercial break. i'd like to ask you about that stuff when we come back. >> of course. >> great. our guest is professor snyder. he is the best-selling author of untyranny and the road to unfreedom. he'll be right back. d the road unfreedom. he'll be right back. find your friends. find your sense of wander. find the world is new, again. at chevy we'd like to take you there. now during the chevy open road sales event, get up to 15% of msrp cash back on select 2020 models. that's over fifty-seven hundred dollars cash back on this equinox.

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today michael cohen, president trump's former lawyer was released from prison into home confinement. he'd been back to priz frn the last two weeks because the justice department said he couldn't stay in home confinement anymore if he wanted to write a book criticizing president trump. they said basically give up the book or go back to jail.

i know this stuff can sometimes feel just another day in the trump administration, but in the cohen case, a federal judge ruled yesterday that our government locked up an american citizen to punish him for writing a book critical of the president, and he ordered that citizen freed. that happened while simultaneously on the other side of the country there are these unmarked federal officers swooping down on protesters in portland, oregon again using tear gas and anti-crowd munitions, including pulling people off the streets into unmarked vans and detaining them without telling them why they're essentially being kidnapped or by whom. for all the crises affecting the country right now, there is an escalating daily crisis of the rule of law that is churning away alongside all of that. here is tim snyder, best selling author of "on tyranny and the road to unfreedom." professor snyder, thank you for sticking around.

i want to ask you about one aspect of this. but because of your history, your experience as a historian and the way that you have asked us to learn from other countries that have gone through authoritarian slides, what do you make of the fact that the president seems to be escalating his communication and calls with vladimir putin of russia? the kremlin told us this week they just had their seventh call since the end of march. should we see this as a separate lane, or should we see these things as potentially connected? >> of course they're connected. mr. trump makes no secret of the fact that he admires mr. putin. mr. putin is someone that just secured his own ability to be president through the year 2036, and that kind of presidency for life is something which naturally interests mr. trump. the two men have had a vivid relationship for several years now. and mr. putin interfered in our elections the last time around. we're now looking at a situation where mr. trump is getting

crushed in the polls. he doesn't seem to have much chance in november, at least much chance in a conventional election. so it doesn't seem surprising he would think of one of his fortunate constituents and allies as mr. putin. i think all of this is connected with november. i think portland is connected for november. it is a dry run to it in november. we will see these guys at polling stations and i think mr. putin is all about november. what can mr. putin offer mr. trump in november. >> tim snyder, the author of "on tyranny and the road to unfreedom." i know you had to stay up to 0 dark 30 to be here. i really appreciate it. i hope you'll be back with us soon. >> any time. glad to be with you. thank you. >> all right. we'll be back. stay with us. k. stay with us

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congressman john lewis was the son of sharecroppers. he grew up just outside troy, alabama. tomorrow troy university will hold a public celebration of his remarkable life starting at 11:00 a.m. eastern. tomorrow night there will be a second service for him at the church that was the starting point for the montgomery marches in 1965, the brown chapel and ame church. sunday morning congressman lewis will make his final crossing over the site where he shed so much blood. his body will then be received at the alabama state capital where he will lie in state. and then monday and tuesday,

john lewis will lie in state at the united states capital. msnbc will be carrying live coverage of that starting this weekend. that's going to do it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow where it's time for the "last word" where ali velshi is in for lawrence tonight. >> john lewis, they broke his school when they beat him. and he went to jail dozens of times. yet, every time i met him and every time i interviewed him, the man had kindness. he had a smile on his face. i often think if they jailed me once, i would probably be bad for the rest of my life. so the grace that he brought, even when you talk about him a week after his passing, it still brings a smile to my face. >> oh, yeah. there has never been anybody like him, never. >> rachel, you have a great weekend, and i will see you in a couple of days. thank you, rachel. look around. take a moment. process this. this is the united states of america. did you know that? sounds like a silly question,