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tv   Velshi  MSNBC  March 28, 2021 6:00am-7:00am PDT

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good morning. it's sunday, march 28th. i'm ali velshi live in minneapolis, minnesota, for our special 8:47, the trial of derek chauvin. that's infamously the amount of time that the former minneapolis police officer knelt on george floyd's neck before floyd died just months ago. chauvin's trial is set to begin tomorrow. it will be televised and one of the most closely watched trials in modern history.
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throughout this hour we're going to be breaking down the case, the prosecution as well as the defense, in addition to the tremendous stakes here. stakes that continue to have importance throughout the country. now authorities say that late friday in virginia beach, a police officer fatally shot a 25-year-old black man while responding to reports of shootings in the area. that officer did not have his body camera turned on at the time. we're going to have much more on that shooting later in the show as well. minneapolis is a city i know well. i was here multiple times last year covering the floyd killing and ensuing demonstrations which ignited the largest racial justice movement in decades across this country. the reason i'm back here is to bear witness to talk to black citizens and leaders across this community to learn about their struggles and bring them directly to you. i spoke with folks about what they expect both inside and outside the courtroom as well as the state of present day minneapolis. what has changed for the better?
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what has changed for the worse? security where i am right now is tight with demonstrations expected throughout the coming weeks. ahead of the trial, the city of minneapolis has already reached a $27 million settlement with floyd's family for his wrongful death. derek chauvin faces second-degree murder charges, unintentional murder charges and third-degree murder charges as well as second-degree manslaughter, all of which have different sentences and different standards that need to be proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt. this is criminal court, that's the standard. the prosecution is being led by the minnesota attorney general, keith ellison, who was appointed by the governor days after the incident last year. now, in addition to the video footage that shows derek chauvin kneeling on george floyd's neck for 8:46 while floyd said he couldn't breathe until indeed he lost all his breath and he died, the hennepin county medical examiner's office declared floyd's death a homicide soon after and separately two
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independent autopsies commissioned by the floyd family concluded that he died from asphyxiation from sustained pressure. those last two autopsies found no underlying health conditions played a role. however, the defense is expected to argue something different. they are expected to argue that floyd's health conditions did play a role in his death, as did the drug fentanyl. a drug which that original hennepin county medical examiner's report included in a list of other conditions that may have been involved in floyd's death, which also include heart disease. three other ex-officers are set to stand trial in august on a variety of charges related to the killing, however those cases hinge on the verdict in the chauvin trial. joining me now is shaquille brewster. shaq, you've been on this story since the beginning. when i arrived in minneapolis at the end of may last year, you had already been here and you have been covering it since from both inside and now it's going
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to be outside the court house and now inside. what are you expecting? >> reporter: well, what we're expecting is prosecutors starting tomorrow to begin making the case against that ex-officer, derek chauvin. we know that court will be in session at 9:00 a.m. local time. we'll hear from the judge initially. he'll then swear in that 14-member jury panel and then we'll hear the opening statement from the prosecution. attorneys here warn the opening statement is not going to be that law and order moment that we're so used to, that emotional argument. it's a statement. it's going to be them laying out what we will hear over the course of the trial. they'll preview some of that evidence. that's what we'll watch take place in the courtroom tomorrow and then eventually we'll get to witnesses. all of that is happening as you're seeing outside the court house the security measures. you see them behind me, behind you, the high fencing, the barbed wire, the concrete barriers. downtown area essentially under
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lockdown at least around the court house and that's a scene that you see throughout the city in various areas. so that is something that's continuing and something you hear from the mayor and the police chief of minneapolis last week. they said this operation safety net, so not only the physical modifications but that pairing with local law enforcement agencies, local and federal law enforcement agencies, that will only increase. they say you can expect to see a gradual increase of law enforcement presence, of national guard presence here in the city of minneapolis as the trial continues. we know the trial is expected to last three to four weeks, ali. >> shaq, we'll stay close to you through the course of the trial. thank you again for your excellent reporting over the course of the last year on this topic. shaquille brewster, nbc correspondent here with me in minneapolis. the movement ignited by the killing of george floyd, the largest racial equality movement in american history has taken place entirely during the covid-19 pandemic. the pandemic not only remains a
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major issue but is now once again getting worse as more and more states are prematurely waving the victory flag and waiving health restrictions. daily new cases of covid-19 are once again rising, now surpassing 70,000 new cases a day. daily deaths remain between 1,000 and 1,500 a day. more than 51,000 people have now died from covid-19 -- i'm sorry, more than 551,000 have now died from covid-19 in the united states. the positive outlook is that vaccinations are also increasing. daily doses administered now consistently above 3 million a day. more than 140 million people in total, just over 27% of the american population, has had at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine. 15% of the entire population is fully vaccinated. the other major story we're covering today has its epicenter
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1,100 miles south-southwest of here. in georgia demonstrators took to the streets for a voting rights rally something that republicans are actively trying to suppress. georgia republicans just passed massive new voting restriction laws full of draconian measures aimed at making it harder for certain populations to vote, laws that president biden has called jim crow in the 21st century. the laws also give the historically republican legislature the power to overturn elections they don't like the outcome of. to throw out the will of the people when the people vote against them. the rally at atlanta was also a massive show of support for representative park cannon who was arrested and literally pulled out of the state capitol by state troopers because she had knocked on governor brian kemp's statehouse office door after he signed the bill into law during a cowardly closed door ceremony. joining me now is congresswoman
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gwen moore of wisconsin. she was the first african-american elected to the congress from the state of wisconsin. congresswoman moore, good to see you. thank you for being with us. we have so much to discuss this week, including this trial and the state of race relations in america and things at the border and guns, but i want to start with atlanta where democracy itself is under attack and georgia is just the guinea pig for this. we are seeing things like this in arizona, we're seeing it in iowa, we're seeing it in michigan. but georgia, what has happened in georgia is something that should be very worrisome to all americans. >> and we ought to -- good morning, ali. and we ought to see it as armageddon and the struggle and fight for our democracy. you laid it out beautifully, ali, the most egregious part of this legislation was for them --
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for the legislature to put in statute what donald trump couldn't accomplish by trying to intimidate the secretary of state. they literally have stripped him of his power and relegated those duties to a state board chosen by the legislature. and then the legislature ultimately could find, what was it, ali, about 11,780 something votes. that, and then not being able to give people water when you deliberately increase the need to stand in line by taking away drop boxes and limiting voting, it's all part of a perfect plan. i think the worst this bill is, the better it's going to be for our justice department and for those litigants to intervene. >> and this is an interesting point. it may be better for others to intervene, but what does it do
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for americans? and i was going to say black americans, but the issue isn't black americans, the issue is all americans, because these erosions in our guaranteed rights to vote will affect all of us, regardless of the color of our skin eventually. if we say that legislatures can erode the way in which we vote, that is bad for every single one of us, even if you're not black. >> i mean if you are an elderly white woman, you better go out and get yourself a photocopier right now in georgia and get you some wi-fi and scan your driver's license. if you don't drive, you've got to go get a driver's license in order to be able to vote. really, the lawsuit really contends that they're violating people's first amendment, 14th amendment rights, and section 2 of the voting rights act. this is the reason that we need
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hr-4, the john lewis hr-4 bill as well as hr-1. >> hr-1 and hr-4 need to be passed by the united states senate. this is kind of remarkable because you would think that everybody, democrat and republican, would be able to look at the state of georgia, happens to be run by republicans at the moment, but to say this is not partisan. if republicans want to win elections in this country, they need to win it in the arena of ideas, not win it on the basis of rules that they put into place in the first place. all those things that changed in georgia were things that existed under republican governance there that worked fine for republicans until suddenly it didn't. until suddenly more people voted for democrats than republicans so now the rules must be broken and they're using voter fraud as the excuse, although none of the changes here actually fix anything that you'd think of as voter fraud, which the secretary of state in georgia said doesn't exist. >> well, i mean there are three reasons that this is happening,
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ali. demographics and demographics and demographics. the reality is that the republican party has unfortunately become the party of white people. my grandmother for whom i'm named died a republican. but it has become the party of white people and the demographic shift is such that in this country people are more likely to look like us, ali, than they are white people. and so once panic sets in, it's just impossible to reverse it. they're panicking over being in the minority as a race, they're panicking over sharing power and wealth, and it's really sad to see the dissolution of the grand old party. >> congresswoman, good to talk to you, as always. thank you for being with us again. representative gwen moore is a democratic congresswoman from wisconsin. america's leading oil and
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after years of fighting at the oil and gas industry's largest trade group, the american petroleum institute last week came out in support of pricing carbon emission, putting a cost on how much you emit. the group said in a statement, quote, we think it's the most impactful way to address the risk of climate change, end quote. the change comes as president biden is set to announce a sweeping infrastructure proposal focused on transitioning to clean energy, a plan the administration has sworn would create a path toward net zero emissions by 2050. now, according to the epa, the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the united states
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is from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat and transportation. remember, we're about 5% of the world's population, but about 25% of the world's burning of gasoline for driving. it is still unclear how much of a tax would be needed in order to change behavior to effectively curb greenhouse gases. and while support from oil and gas groups sounds like progress, keep in mind they just want to be in the process because they know that's the way things are going. the aim from the oil and gas industry is to keep a carbon tax as low as possible in order to maximize their profits and still keep selling their goods. there may be another celebration, there may be another reason not to celebrate yet. environment groups have already come out to say that the american petroleum institute statement is self-serving, green washing which will do nothing to fight the climate engine and accused the api of trying desperately to distract the biden administration from the
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crucial work of keeping polluting fossil fuels in the ground. we're going to keep a very close eye on this story. we're coming to you from minneapolis, less than 24 hours before the start of the derek chauvin trial with the world watching and waiting to see if justice will be served for george floyd. i spoke with a panel of minneapolis residents who sounded off on the trial and lost no time expressing the concerns and anger they feel over george floyd's death to this very day. >> this was not a shooting. this was nine minutes of a man with a smug look on his face and his hands in his pockets kneeling on another man's neck. he couldn't have done that to a dog in the street. >> we've seen the evidence. the world has seen literally the evidence for it. for there not to be a conviction would be injustice toward of course the family, the community. i believe it would be an injustice toward god. e toward gd
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8:46 is how long former minneapolis police officer derek chauvin pressed his knee on the back of george floyd's neck. the world has seen the evidence. it looks very clear cut. but according to the legal experts i've talked to, there's never a slam dunk case when it comes to police killings. so i asked my panel of six residents from the minneapolis area what happens if there isn't a conviction? >> i can't let myself think about that. i started to, and i just started crying. i mean one of the biggest differences between this case and so many other cases of police brutality is this was not a shooting. this was nine minutes of a man with a smug look on his face and his hands in his pockets kneeling on another man's neck. he wouldn't have done that to a dog in the street, okay? so to do that to a black man at 38th and chicago where the whole
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world saw it right afterwards on the video, i just -- i can't imagine there not being a conviction. >> i'm trying to keep hopeful for my students, for my community. i think that when i let my mind get there and think about that reality of no conviction, i think of the community that has been continuously hurt for so long, hurting yet again. having to relive george floyd's murder was already traumatic enough, but to then wrestle with the fact that his murderer walks away scot-free, i think will be a testament to how strong we can stick together and be unified. >> what would happen is black people, first of all, won't be surprised if he's not convicted because we've seen it time and time again throughout history. the question should be then what do we as a society do about it. what do we as humanity do about it? the white community should be
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able to stand up and say, okay, seriously? we see you black people, we saw that for nine minutes, and now we are going to ensure this never happens again. >> as so many have already said, we can't think about if there's no conviction. we must attend to healing black emotional pain, and we must continue to fight to put in the resources that dismantle white supremacy culture. people will galvanize, people will attend to their own emotional healing, and we will fight and we will march on and we will not stop until this kind of activity ceases. >> i think the reality of what we saw, we've seen the evidence, the world has seen literally the evidence for it, and so for there not to be a conviction would be injustice toward of course the family, the community. i believe it would be an injustice toward god. i believe god would be grieved
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by this and that we would as a country face a reckoning with that reality. and i believe as people come to me or have come to me and if they do come to me, the first thing i'll tell them is that it's okay to be angry about this. i think it's very much okay to be angry about this if there is no conviction to be had. but i think that next step we would have to figure out how do we channel that anger into pressing forward for true and real reform. honestly, that sounds wonderful, but i have no idea how you even get there. >> i was at the protest, i took my daughter to protests. if there's not a conviction, she's 7 years old, how do i explain that to her? how do i explain what's right, what's wrong, what's fair, what's not fair to her? and i think that beyond our generation for the kids, that's what this -- that's what a conviction means. a conviction gives hope to children to say, you know, when somebody does something that is
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blatantly wrong, they're going to be held accountable for that. >> so again, beyond this trial and beyond a conviction or an acquittal, what change do you want to see given that we're all heightened to it now? we're all aware of it? >> what i'm looking forward to is how we figure out how to have social liberation, to how we rewrite the story on how we interact with each other, how we focus on healing and supporting each other. i'm looking for economic liberation to where people can produce what they need without the barriers and the hurdles to where we can lift ourselves up, we can provide our own supermarkets and our own food in our food desert where we live. i'm expecting political liberation to where our people can show up to freely vote and exercise their democratic right. this is america. the beacon of democracy. so collectively if we have that economic liberation, social liberation and political liberation, hopefully we can have the long-term changes that
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we want for the next generations to come. >> i want to see the passion and the fire of the young people, of youth, matched with the knowledge and wisdom of history of the people who have been fighting this fight for a lifetime. i want to see those things come together so that we have a coordinated, wise response to everything that has emerged because nothing has changed. when you read the autobiography of malcolm x, especially chapter 18, it is as if he is talking about 2021. it is the same. we have been doing this in some version, some fashion for 400 years and the story has not changed. and so we have to know that history. we have to know what has happened in the past. and we have to combine that with the passion of the youth and that is unstoppable. >> what do you think about that passion, is it here? are you feeling it? has it continued? is it growing?
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>> yeah, i think it's here. i definitely believe we're still feeling it. i think that it is growing. i do think in some people they are shrinking back into apathy as well and we have to continue to figure out how do we fuel the fire behind these things. >> one of the things that i observed very glaringly when everything was happening last summer, it's so easy to be removed from what's going on around you. you go outside of minneapolis, you go outside of st. paul, and it's like nothing happened and people are living in pleasantville. it's almost like people are willfully blind and ignorant to what's happening around them because it's uncomfortable and they don't want to be bothered with it and it's not their issue. i think it's so important for people to take a critical look at themselves honestly and say what a privilege it is to not be bothered. what a privilege it is to be removed from everything going on around me or be removed from any issue affecting a certain group
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of people. i think that it's very -- it's prevalent up here and in other places as well. >> as you know, i've been traveling around the country talking to people for a year. i enjoyed talking to that group so much. my thanks to them and to my crew and the great folks at nicollet island pavilion for providing us for the location for the second time in a year to have that location. by the way, the mask is on because i'm going to be having a conversation with somebody nearby after the break. on the eve of the opening statements of the derek chauvin trial, one thing is clear. this trial should have never had to happen. george floyd's death is another example of black men being unjustly dealt the ultimate penalty for petty crimes. but first, the battle for voting rights intensifying in georgia. democratic senator raphael warnock appeared on cnn just moments ago. here's what he had to say on the topic. >> georgia has a long history of voting suppression. and when i say a long history, i mean in recent years.
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and certainly it has ramped up with this bill that he signed into law the other night, as you pointed out in the presence of all white men. and on the other side was a state legislator elected by her people to represent them, and she was lightly knocking on the door and was arrested and charged with two felonies. georgia needs to understand that is a state legislature, it wasn't just a state legislator who's a member of our church and i went to see her. she's not the only one knocking on the door. the people are knocking on the door of democracy and they will not be denied. of democracy and not be denied.
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starting tomorrow, all eyes will be on this courthouse behind me. ex-minneapolis police officer derek chauvin goes on trial for the death of george floyd. over the next few weeks you'll hear a handful of arguments for and against chauvin's guilt. we cannot lose sight of this. what happened on may 25th, 2020, never should have escalated to death, end of story. floyd was arrested last year when a convenience store clerk claimed that he used a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes, an alleged petty crime that triggered a series of
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police actions that ultimately led to george floyd's death. now, whatever you think of george floyd, passing a counterfeit $20 bill is the kind of misdemeanor that usually results in little to no jail time. yet somehow george floyd ended up with a death sentence with no right to a judge or a jury. this is one of the major problems with our justice system. the punishment often does not fit the crime. americans have marched in the streets too many times for black men and women who paid the ultimate price for allegedly committing an insignificant crime. philando casteel gunned down by his girlfriend seated next to him in the car, his 4-year-old daughter in the back seat. he was pulled over for a broken taillight. michael brown, shot and killed in ferguson, missouri. he was stopped for walking in the middle of the road. it's alleged he stole a pack of cigarillos from a convenience store. eric garner.
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police locked him in a choke hold and slammed him to the ground for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on the streets of staten island. i'm emphasizing the word alleged because in the united states of america you're innocent until you're proven guilty, but there's no due process when a police officer becomes your judge, your jury and your executioner. there's little problem-solving left in policing. jenny roberts, a professor of law, says these two things should be considered when making an arrest. will this promote public safety or will it make the situation worse? she writes for nbc, every interaction with law enforcement can lead someone down a path of increasing consequences, and justice is not served when the enforcement of a low-level offense like the alleged use of a counterfeit $20 bill is prioritized over the life and the livelihood of a person. jenny roberts joins me now. she's a professor of law and co-director of the criminal justice clinic at american university washington.
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jenny, thank you for being with us. what's the way around this? because if you were called to this store in minneapolis because someone passed a $20 counterfeit bill allegedly, you've got to think through how does this not end up launching a civil rights movement in which businesses have been burned, people have been injured, more arrests have occurred? that can't be the desired outcome to whatever it was that was alleged that george floyd did on that day on march 25th. >> yeah, that's right. one way around it is massive tamping down of the misdemeanor system in this country. misdemeanors are low-level crimes, generally don't lead to more than a year in jail and often don't lead to any jail time. i think what a lot of people don't realize is that 80% of cases in the criminal legal system are misdemeanor cases. so if you walk into a criminal court, you might be expecting to see homicides, robberies.
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what you will see is 80% of the cases in those courts are going to be misdemeanors, and often very low-level misdemeanors. so i think the real question is -- first question is do we need these things to be crimes? is the criminal legal system even the place we want to be dealing with some of these problems? and some of them, are they even problems? >> what's the model for dealing with some things? i don't think anybody thinks we should be in a society where small things go entirely unnoticed. but what's the way of dealing with small crimes, stealing a pack of cigarettes, selling loose cigarettes, we're not 100% sure why that's a crime, or selling loose cigarettes or passing a $20 bill. what's the way to deal with that so that it never escalates to death? and not only that, you wrote that it causes people to disengage from the legal system
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more when they're charged with small crimes. >> yes, exactly. that's a big problem. if you've got this mass misdemeanor system, which we have, the mass criminalization in addition to mass incarceration in this country, one in 3 adults in the united states has some kind of arrest or conviction record and most of those come from misdemeanors. so you've got to ask how much people really believe in the legitimacy of a system that arrests so many people and gives them these criminal records that follow them for the rest of their lives and really make it hard to go out and be productive members of society because that record is there in most cases. there are opportunities sometimes to expunge records, but it's difficult in some places. so in answer to your question what do you do? well, not everything needs to be a crime. and the criminal legal system is not the answer to everything. we too often turn to it. so take jaywalking. if jaywalking is a problem, is it that we need the police? do we want them to be focusing
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their resources on jaywalking? is there some other way we might approach it, through education, through talking to people, through more crosswalks in places where crosswalks are needed? if that can save people's lives, then i'm all for it. >> jenny roberts, it's a good discussion. i'd like to have it with you some more to talk about some of the ways in which cities are implementing ideas where they can depoliticize and decriminalize some of these things. jenny roberts is the co-director of the criminal justice department at the american university washington. i want to check in with jonathan capehart. i talked to you friday night and said we've got to start talking a little bit more on this show and here you already are. what have you got on the sunday show coming up? >> well, first of all, ali, you're going to be joining us later to continue our coverage of the chauvin trial. we're also getting a reality check on the situation at the
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border with congresswoman veronica escobar who just led a bipartisan delegation to the border. she also spoke to vice president kamala harris who's now the white house point person on immigration. i'm going to ask her about that conversation. we'll also be covering the fight against voter suppression in georgia and beyond. i'll talk to muriel bowser about the quest to make d.c. our 51st state and some of the ridiculous objections coming from republicans. as you can tell, we've got a lot to cover on the sunday show this morning, ali. >> sounds good. and i will be with you. jonathan capehart will be here at the top of the hour, 10:00 a.m. eastern. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. u get unlima for as little as $25 a month. but when you bring a friend, you get a month for $5. so i'm bringing everyone within 12 degrees of me. bam, 12 months of $5 wireless. visible. wireless that gets better with friends. (woman) what should we do with it first? (man) road trip. (woman) yes.
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the prosecutors and the defense attorneys and the jury might all work when the trial of derek chauvin, the former police officer accused of murdering george floyd begins tomorrow. the jury is made up of nine women and six men. nine of the jurors identify as white, four as black and two as mixed race, ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s. there are 15 people in total, they need 14 in total. 12 jurors and two alternates. so if all 14 show up tomorrow, the extra selected alternate will likely be dismissed. the world witnessed the video of the now ex-police officer kneeling on the neck of the 46-year-old black man who essentially narrated his own death for part of the 8:46 that the police officer was on his neck until he lost consciousness and died. it's been almost 12 months -- 10 months since that unforgettable day with thousands of protests, marches, countless hours of media coverage behind us. now the focus shifts from the discussions of race and policing to the actual trial behind me
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see every delivery... hydrate like our heroes. every yikes... and even every awwwwwwww... wait, where was i? introducing self protection from xfinity. designed to put you in control. with real-time notifications and a week of uninterrupted recording. all powered by reliable, secure wifi from xfinity. gotta respect his determination. it's easy and affordable to get started. get self protection for $10 a month. congressional delegations from both parties visited the same u.s. border with mexico this past week. their takeaways were very different. one group declared a migrant disaster.
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the other emphasized the humanitarian toll faced by migrants crossing the border. you can guess who said what. by day one, republicans coasted the rio grande in a speed boat armed with military-style weapons. by nightfall, senator ted cruz made it his personal mission to try and expose what he calls the border crisis. cruz released this video live from a bush on thursday night claiming to witness smugglers, cartel members and human traffickers on mexico's side of the river. it was an oscar-worthy performance if you ask me. maybe if that crisis were in cancun, he would have showed up sooner. surges in migration are common. the border problem didn't begin when joe biden was elected president. it's been going on for a long time. but the influx of children at the border is steadily increasing. congresswoman ilhan omar of minnesota visited migrant families with democratic lawmakers on friday. she has a personal relationship with those who come at a young
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age because once she was one of them. a refugee seeking asylum. >> at the end of the day, at the center and the heart of this conversation are children. children who are fleeing unconscionable situations, who desperately need for us to meet them with dignity and humanity and to make sure that we are living up to international -- what international law dictates and what our laws dictate in regards to allowing people to seek asylum in our country. >> representative omar joins me now here in minneapolis. great to see you. good morning. >> great to be here with you, ali. >> thank you very much. let's talk about this whole idea of asylum and refugees. this is something that we're missing here. the united states, since the
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'60s and again in the '80s is party to international agreements about how you deal with refugees. that's separate and apart from immigration, and it's separate and apart from border security. that's something people have difficulty with. you don't because you experienced that. >> yeah, i mean, i try to explain, you know, to my colleagues that this happens at every border when a neighboring country has a crisis. people tend to seek refuge in the country that is not having the crisis. and so our neighbors are having a crisis. and there are children who are coming to our borders seeking a better life. i was one of those kids when my country fell into civil war in somalia. i fled to neighboring country kenya. and i was met with humanity and dignity because people had understanding and respect for international law. most of the kids that are coming are young children who not only
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endured horrendous situations as they traveled from their home to our border, but also are escaping horrendous situations. so the last thing we should be doing is playing politics and games and not expediting the process in reconnecting them with their family and relatives here in the united states. >> and i think a message that people get confused is one of safety and security. these children, unaccompanied minors. whatever you may think about why unaccompanied minors are appearing or what their parents were doing, the fact of the matter is they do not pose an economic job crisis for us or a security crisis for us. >> precisely. >> so now what do you think about, having seen this, what needs to actually be solved? it seems to be that there 24 problems. how we manage asylum seekers who come across the border and how we manage immigration policy. and immigration policy needs to be more sophisticated than just
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border policy. >> what we learned is these surges happen. and we are not a country that has prepared and formulated a plan to deal with these surges that periodically take place. and so what the emergency managers at the center that we visited told us is that what is needed is for there to be a deployment of all agencies at the border so that these kids can get processed. those that have family members and relatives can move through the process. others who are in need of a sponsor or a foster family can also move through the process. and, you know, we don't have to have these unacceptable conditions that kids are living in while they're being held at the border. and then moving them to another center like the one that we visited.
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and then starting that process. sometimes it could take up to six months in moving through that. the other thing that we have to deal with is that there isn't a crisis at the border. there's a crisis that's happening with our neighboring countries. and there is a collective effort that we can engage in to mitigate the crisis of migration. we all understand it. we all know why they happen. and we have the resources diplomatically to deal with them. >> back to here in minneapolis, i have spoken to a number of your constituents. they are anxious and fearful and paying great attention to this trial that's getting under way tomorrow. what are your thoughts? >> our community has been through a lot. witnessing the murder of george floyd, dealing with the trauma that comes from that, and then having to endure the uprising. it's also a community that knows
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what it means to not get justice. so a lot of us are anxiously awaiting for this trial to begin and for justice to be rendered. we know that the police unions have lots of money. and they're going to deploy every effort to defend the police officer that's indicted for the murder of george floyd. but there's a lot of trust in attorney general keith ellison and his team. and people are just anxiously awaiting for this trial to proceed. >> congresswoman, thank you for being with me. good to see you in person and good to be in your city. congresswoman ilhan omar of minnesota. and that brings us to the end of this show for today. i will be here, though, in minneapolis. stick around for reverend al sharpton who is also live from minneapolis for a special edition of "politics nation" at 5:00 p.m. eastern. at 6:00 p.m. eastern, tune in for the trial, "the killing of george floyd" with ari melber
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and tomorrow we'll have all-day coverage, analysis of the derek chauvin trial. don't go anywhere. "the sunday show" with jonathan capehart begins right now. a reality check on what's really going on at the border. congresswoman veronica escobar is just back from a bipartisan tour of border facilities. she's here to tell us all about it. the quest for d.c. statehood and the ridiculous objections from republicans. d.c. mayor muriel bowser will respond. and the battle over voting rights in georgia and beyond. why every voter in every state should be on alert. i'm jonathan capehart. and this is "the sunday show." this sunday, donald trump may be out of office, but the assault on our democ

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