indicted and still running, we have to remember the case against new jersey senator menendez. that's a really important case to look at because he was indicted and he ultimately was exonerated. so yes, to your point, you can be indicted and still win elections. >> that's right. he was indicted, defended himself, he was not convicted, he is a u.s. senator in good standing. katy benner, great reporting, thank you so much. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. protesters are expected tonight for a fourth straight evening. this is all happening after a 20-year-old man named daunte wright was shot and killed by a brooklyn center police officer during a traffic stop on sunday. that officer resigned from the force yesterday, as did the police chief in brooklyn center. today, state prosecutors arrested the officer and charged

her with manslaughter in the second degree. but we will keep eyes on brooklyn center tonight as we have for the last few nights. there have been several dozen arrests each of the last few nights. there have been very, very heated confrontations between local residents and the police including a lot of tear gas and projectiles thrown. tonight there is a curfew in effect in brooklyn center, minnesota. it starts at 10:00 p.m. local time which is 11:00 p.m. eastern. you see there night is just falling there. we've seen things get tense there, particularly after nightfall over these last few nights. i should also tell you there's an increased presence of national guard troops in the area tonight. about 2,000 troops were deployed, national guard troops were deployed in the minneapolis area for the last two nights. but as of today that has been increased by 50%. we're expecting more like 3,000 national guard troops in the streets there tonight. we will have a live report coming up from brooklyn center,

if from the minneapolis area. but we start tonight with a story you may not know about someone you have seen before as a guest on this show, somebody who's been a guest on this show as a reporter, pulitzer prize winning reporter talking about among other things the trump justice department most recently. none that have would necessarily give you any inkling as to just where he has been, what he has been through, what he in fact literally escaped from. here it is in his own words. quote, the car's engine roared as the gunman punched the accelerator and we crossed into the open desert. another gunman in the passenger turned stared at us as he

gripped his rifle. it was november 10. i had been heading to a meeting with a taliban commander. the commander had invited us to interview him outside kabul. the longer i looked at the gunman in the passenger seat, the more nervous i became. his face showed little emotion. his eyes were dark, flat, lifeless. i thought of my wife and family and was overcome with shame. an interview that seemed crucial hours earlier now seemed absurd and reckless. we reached a dry riverbed and the car stopped. they're going to kill us, my driver whispered, they're going to kill us. "the new york times" published that report by pulitzer prize winning reporter david rohde in 2009. the previous november, november 2008, less than a week after the u.s. election where barack obama was first elected, david rohde

and his two afghan colleagues were kidnapped outside kabul. they were held by the taliban for seven months and ten days before rohde and his journalist colleague finally figured out a way to escape and flee into the night. david rohde at that time was already a pulitzer prize winning journalist. once rohde escaped and got back to the taliban, his editor was interviewed in the united states and his editor was bewildered to report at the time to tell nbc news at the time that one of the first things david rohde did after escaping from his taliban kidnappers and getting himself to safety after seven plus months in captivity, one of the first things he did after getting himself free was to send an email to his editor at "the new york times" because he had

some corrections he wanted to see in a story the times had just published. >> we begin with news of an incredible escape by an american held hostage by the taliban for more than seven months. david rohde was kidnapped in afghanistan in november. friday night, he and another man reportedly climbed over the wall of a compound where they were being held and fled to safety. >> he was taken prisoner on november 10, it makes it something like 222 days was my count in captivity. we had periodic contact with david himself or with the kidnappers. there were still long periods of time when we didn't have information. and it was scary. i mean, there were certainly times we wondered whether they had been killed. we had no idea what the outcome was going to be. in the end, it may just have been that david had an opportunity, jumped the wall,

and got away. i had a brief email from him today because after seven months in captivity, he still is essentially a reporter. he went online and read the web story that we wrote about his escape. he had a few small corrections that he wanted to make, so he sent me an email. he sounds good, sounds healthy. he's completely exhausted. but also exhilarated and relieved. >> incredible. that was bill keller of "the new york times." rohde's wife, who married him just two months before the kidnapping, says his family is grateful to everyone who helped. >> imagine having the presence of mind, after being kidnapped and held hostage by the taliban for the better part of a year, imagine having the presence of mind to get out and immediately contact your editor and send some edits to the paper to make sure the story they've got about it is just right. but as i said, ultimately david

rohde would write the full story himself of what had happened to him in a six-part series for "the times" explaining his kidnapping, his captivity, how they survived, the desperate escape. he and his afghan journalist colleague used a car's tow rope that david rohde had found and hidden in a pile of old clothes hoping they might use it in the future to escape. they used that tow rope in the car to basically fling themselves over a perimeter wall that was about five feet on their side of it. it was a 20-foot drop on the other side. they dropped down into a sewage ditch on the other side of it. they ultimately fled into the night and presented themselves at a local militia base. in the middle of the night, they walk up to the militia base, and these two guys show up looking like hell, they were absolutely

convinced they were foreign suicide bombers showing up in the middle of the night to kill them all. quote, i held my hands high in the air and dared not move an inch. with my long beard, scarf, and clothes, i looked like a foreign suicide bomber, not a foreign journalist. another voice came from inside the building. it sounded as if the guard was waking up his comrades. they aimed more gun barrels at us. the guard on the roof intermittently spoke with tahir. i heard tahir say the words for afghan and american. i desperately tried to not move my hands. i told tahir, tell him we will not take off our shirts, fearing they thought we were suicide bombers. the man responded, lift up your shirt, tahir said. i immediately obliged. he ask asking if you're an

american, tahir said. i am an american journalist, i said, please help us, please help us. i kept talking, hoping they would recognize that i was a native english speaker. i said, we were kidnapped by the taliban seven months ago, we were kidnapped outside kabul and brought here. i said, do you speak english, hoping one of the pakistani guards on the roof understood? the guards said something to tahir. tahir said they were radioing their commander, they are asking for permission to bring us inside. tahir pleaded with the guards to protect us under the traditional law which requires them to give shelter to any stranger who asks. he begged them to take us inside the base before the taliban came looking for us. about two or three minutes passed. the guard stood between sandbags on the roof. for the first time that night, it occurred to me that we might

actually succeed. escape, an ending i never dreamed of, might be our salvation. he says, quote, i held my hands still and waited. for the whole time that david rohde was being held captive by the taliban, "the new york times," his employer, kept quiet about it, in hopes that keeping it out of the press, keeping it from becoming public, would increase the odds that david would survive. and he did survive. and his survival, his escape, is just a remarkable story of resilience and pluck and keeping your head in unimaginable circumstances, even when they drag on and on and on and on. but it has also stuck with me, not only what it says about david rohde, but because of what it showed us all, in stark, human terms, what it showed us all about the core impossibility

at the heart of the u.s. war in afghanistan, the core strategic impossibility. because what we went there for obviously was to depose the taliban as the ostensible leaders of afghanistan, to get them out of power, to punish them for giving the al qaeda terrorist movement a haven. al qaeda launched the 9/11 terrorist attacks against us and the u.s. invasion pushed the taliban out of afghanistan to punish them and prevent them from harboring al qaeda again or any other transnational terrorist entity that could threaten the united states again in the same way in the future. i say it that bluntly because that is spelled out explicitly in the authorization for military force that congress passed after 9/11 that has been used as the justification for the ongoing war there ever since, for the two decades since. but if deposing the taliban,

taking them out of power, was step one, step two was never all that clear. the overall idea was to keep the taliban from returning to power by standing up a different afghan government that could govern the country, that could also hold the taliban at bay, that could defend itself against the taliban. u.s. forces stayed in the country for two decades to make that happen, fighting the taliban, yes, but also trying to stand up and support an afghan government and afghan security forces to fight and resist the taliban themselves. but look at this at a human level. look back at what happened to david rohde and his two afghan colleagues back in 2008 and 2009. they were kidnapped while on their way to interview a taliban commander. that taliban commander had been interviewed by other western journalists in the past but for whatever reason he decided he would double cross them and

kidnap them instead of giving them an interview. what david rohde would write about for "the times" was that only for the first week that he was kidnapped, only for the first week that the taliban was holding him and his colleagues, only for the first week were they in afghanistan. after just one week, they took him and his colleagues across the afghan border into pakistan. that's where they kept him. they kept him in a series of different houses and hovels in pakistan for the better part of a year before he was able to escape. they kept he and his colleagues in a taliban safe zone, basically, in pakistan, where as he observed from captivity, he could see that the militant group, the taliban, basically did as they pleased, basically ran the place. and from which they ran all their operations in both countries, in both pakistan and in afghanistan, right? so just think about that in terms what have that means for strategy in terms what have that

means, the point of what the american government and the american military is doing is afghanistan. there is this big u.s.-led war next door against the taliban in afghanistan, except that enemy that the u.s. was fighting in afghanistan had another place they lived and worked and planned most of their work. it's like if you were trying to lose weight and so you kept dieting and dieting, cutting back on your portion sizes and your meals, being super disciplined about eating well and never snacking, but then it turns out every night you would sleep walk into the kitchen and gorge on everything in the fridge, right? it doesn't necessarily matter what's happening during the day and that's what's happening at night. same thing strategically in drastically oversimplified terms in this 20 years of war. knocking the taliban out of power in afghanistan was one thing. defeating them in some kind of larger war, preventing them from ever rising again in afghanistan, that was something that a large u.s. military conflict in afghanistan was

never going to be able to do. not when the taliban wasn't confined to afghanistan and wasn't really based there in terms of most of what they were doing. the night that then-president george w. bush announced that the u.s. military had started the first air strikes in afghanistan, the opening salvos of the war in afghanistan, a prominent democratic u.s. senator at the time, a senator named joe biden, was interviewed on cnn just a few hours after president bush made his announcement. biden told cnn that night from delaware that he was in favor of the air strikes, he had in fast been in favor of the start of the afghan war. he expressed to cnn confidence that the taliban would not be in control of afghanistan much longer. but then he said, quote, the easiest part is going to be taking it down. the hard part is going to be putting it together. right.

knocking them out of power in one place turned out to be doable and quickly. setting up something else to keep them at bay, to defeat them, to unite the nation of afghanistan under a different kind of government, that didn't happen, not with 100,000 u.s. troops there at a time, not with thousands of americans losing their lives there and tens of thousands of americans being injured there, not in a year of combat there, not in ten years of combat there, not in nearly 20 years of combat there. and so today, now as president, joe biden stood in the exact same place, in the exact same room that president bush stood in when he announced the start of the afghan war nearly 20 years ago. joe biden was there today to announce the end that have war. >> we cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in afghanistan hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal and expecting a different result. i'm now the fourth united states president to preside over american troop presence in

afghanistan. two republicans, two democrats. i will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth. it's time to end america's longest war. it's time for american troops to come home. we went to afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago. that cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021. rather than return to war with the taliban, we have to focus on the challenges that are in front of us. i'm the first president in 40 years who knows what it means to have a child serving in a war zone. and throughout this process, my north star has been remembering what it was like when my late son beau was deployed to iraq. how proud he was to serve his country. how insistent he was to deploy with his unit and the impact it had on him and all of us at home.

we already have service members doing their duty in afghanistan today whose parents served in the same war. we have service members who are not yet born when our nation was attacked in 9/11. the war in afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking. we were attacked. we went to war with clear goals. we achieved those objectives. bin laden is dead and al qaeda is degraded in iraq -- in afghanistan. and it's time to end the forever war. thank you all for listening. may god protect our troops. may god bless all those families who lost someone in this endeavor. >> president biden speaking today from the same room, the same place in the same room where president george w. bush announced the start of the afghan war nearly 20 years ago. the president's remarks were

followed by supportive comments by the secretary general of nato who said nato troops will leave afghanistan at the same time as the united states which means all nato and u.s. troops will be out by september 11th of this year. the president's remarks were also followed today by the president himself going to arlington national cemetery to pay his respects to the 2,488 americans killed in the war thus far. he was asked by a reporter at arlington if the decision that he announced today was a hard call. here is what he said. >> hard to believe, isn't it? i am always amazed at generation after generation, the women and men who were prepared to give their lives for their country. look at them all. >> reporter: was it a hard decision to make, sir? >> no, it wasn't. to me it was absolutely clear. absolutely clear.

>> absolutely clear. he says it was absolutely clear. george w. bush actually tried to end the u.s. war in afghanistan after he had started it. he was not able to do so. the obama administration, president obama deliberated long and hard about what to do in afghanistan, as his vice president joe biden argued, often without many allies in the administration, that it was time to finally and fully just get u.s. troops out. he did not win the argument back then and troops it not leave under president obama. but now today joe biden is president and he has made the decision. it is a date certain by which u.s. troops will be gone. he said today, interestingly, that it was not a hard decision. he said it was absolutely clear. a war with the taliban, he argued today, is not worth more than the 20 years and thousands of american lives we have already put into it. that pulitzer prize winning

journalist david rohde spent more than seven months being held by the taliban. in 2008 and 2009. he escaped and was able to write about his captivity. i thought about the military members who served in afghanistan and also about david rohde, now executive editor at thenewyorker.com. he joins us now. he is the author of "in deep." david, it's an honor to have you with us tonight, thanks for making time. >> thank you, rachel, i'm amazed by that introduction. thank you. >> well, i've always been sort of stunned by what you've been through and how you've put yourself together again and got up and continued with what has been an astonishing career. david, i just wanted to ask you at a personal level, given what

you've been through, the unique set of circumstances and your ordeal, how do you feel about the president ending the war today? >> i feel relief. and what really struck me and impressed me about what you took away from my story is the impossibility of we knowing this war because of the role of pakistan. and as long as pakistan continues to give the taliban a safe haven, the place i was held for seven months, it's an impossible war to win. i fear for my afghan friends. we can talk more about that, there are friends right now i'm desperately trying to get out of kabul. but i think 20 years is enough. if pakistan is going to continue to do this, it's time to leave. >> in terms of the sort of worst case scenarios, obviously this is a controversial decision. the president is announcing, the fact that he's announcing it so definitively, he's not carrying out a public process where he's

weighing the decision, but he's decided what he's going to do. there are people who say the taliban will now descend if not in all of afghanistan, in most of it, that the afghan government has never been stood up, that there will be a human rights disaster in the country of a different kind than the human rights disaster we've seen there during these 20 years of war. i want to talk specifically about afghans who have helped americans and afghanistan as you just described. setting that aside for a moment, thinking about the worst case scenarios, what do you make of those prospects and whether the u.s. has options to stop them? >> the prospects are terrible. the taliban carried out a series of targeted assassinations last year, they killed over 100 doctors, humanitarian workers and journalists, afghan women's rights activists. it is right to pull out u.s. troops but it's also right to

vastly increase the number of visas we're going to give those afghans who fought shoulder to shoulder with american forces. tahir, the afghan journalist who saved my life, he's out of afghanistan but all of his relatives aren't. i have many afghan friends who are terrified. the right thing to do is to get them to the united states to help our allies. 150,000 afghans have died since 2001. 40,000 of them are civilians. that's compared to 2,500 americans. so those afghan of who fought alongside american troops, we need to help them get out while they can. >> do you have confidence that the u.s. government can do that? i know that in the aftermath of the u.s. leaving iraq and then ultimately somewhat redeploying to iraq with the rise of isis,

afghan and iraq -- iraq and afghanistan veteran service members advocated fiercely and relentlessly that iraqies who had helped the u.s. in that conflict should get visas and should be brought home and their families should be protected and american promises to them should be upheld. did we learn anything from any of the failures to do that in iraq that makes you have any confidence that the u.s. government might be better on this score toward the afghans who helped us as we try to do this now? >> i don't have much confidence. there was sort of a long running islamophobia in this country. we can bring half began here, we can afghans here. this is a bold move by president biden. i applaud it. he needs to show how our immigration system can work. he can greatly increase the amount of afghanis that come

here, he needs to vet them. i think that is his responsibility, we cannot just walk away from this. it's a dangerous situation. it could be like you said, the islamic state after u.s. troops pulled out of iraq, they took control of much of iraq. u.s. troops could be back in six months. i think this is the right step but we must help get our afghan allies out of the country. >> pulitzer prize winning reporter david rohde, david, thank you for your time and your insight tonight. again, your experience there is unique and something that i think everybody has learned from. thanks for being willing to talk with us about it tonight. >> thank you. thanks so much. >> all right. we've got much more to get to tonight on this historic day in the news. as i mentioned at the top, we are keeping an eye on brooklyn center, minnesota, fourth night of protests tonight over the police killing of 20-year-old daunte wright on sunday.

this fourth night of protests is under way right now as night falls in minnesota. we've got multiple reporters on the ground describing the situation there as mostly peaceful but tense right now. we'll be checking in with them and more ahead. stay with us.

you know it's silly six-foot five, three hundred pounds i ride motorcycles on the weekends. so the thought of getting a hearing aid, i was.. i was scared. with lively, did a hearing test on the computer, when they sent them in the mail they were already set up for me. this little thing right here, has made me whole again. a test in minutes, hearing aids in days, better hearing in no time. get started today at listenlively.com the sky is the limit now, on what i can go do. fact i'm going to go riding this weekend.

it spreads across two full pages of newsprint, which is really striking. it says at the top, we stand for democracy. for american democracy to work for any of us we must ensure the right to vote for all of us. we defend the right to vote and oppose any measures that restrict or prevent any voter from having an equal opportunity to cast a ballot. it was this big ad, like i said, spread across two full pages of print. and it ran today in "the new york times," also ran in "the

washington post." this was not ad taken out by a progressive voting rights group or like the naacp. this is what the list of signatories looked like under that pro voting rights statement. target. bank of america. apple. cisco. berkshire partners. american express. wells fargo. also the chairmen and chairwomen and ceos of those and other big, really big corporations, some of the biggest companies in the country. so yes, the fight to get corporate america off the sidelines, to get them to push to defend democracy and voting rights as we are experiencing the biggest rollback in voting rights in more than a generation, as republican-controlled states try to clip voting rights everywhere they can, that fight to get corporate america involved in defending american democracy, this big show of force in "the

times" and "the post" today is a big win, given the size and heft of those corporations. but also, at the same time it's not like corporate america is speaking with one voice on this issue. "the wall street journal" now reporting that the u.s. chamber of commerce, the main lobbying arm for big business, the chamber of congress has simultaneously decided it will pressure u.s. senators to vote against hr 1, the for the people act, the big national voting rights bill that has already passed the house and that is now pending before the senate. it will be interesting to see how that lobbying effort goes, now that so many really big american businesses are wading into this fight and saying they support voting rights. they all say they support voting rights. the u.s. chamber of commerce is telling u.s. senators, as the chamber of commerce, we want you to vote against voting rights. how's that going to resolve? against that conflicted backdrop today we saw president biden's nominee to lead the civil rights

division of the justice department, kristen clarke. we saw her testify before the senate judiciary committee on her way to taking that all-important job. if confirmed, kristen clarke will be the first african-american woman to lead the civil rights division in the entire 64-year history of the civil rights division. senate republicans spent the whole day berating kristen clarke over all the terrible things they see in her record as an accomplished and uncontroversial civil rights lawyer just as they tried to do in the hearing for vanita gupta, president biden's nominee for the number three job at the department of justice who also happens to be an accomplished progressive woman of color. incidentally, the first vote in the full senate on vanita gupta's nomination is expected for tomorrow. she is expected to be confirmed in a final vote next week even though republicans have done their best against her. just like vanita gupta, there's no reason that kristen clarke will not be confirmed to run the civil rights division despite the grilling she got from republican senators. if she is confirmed, that will

put the country one step closer to having a justice department that leads the way in protecting the right to vote in states across the country. whether the business community is going to be a sort of faithful and utile ally in that point is a jump ball at this point. ms. ifill, thank you so much for making time. >> thank you, rachel. >> let me ask you first about the kristen clarke nomination. you have been an outspoken proponent that kristen clarke is the right person for this job and that she should be confirmed by the senate. her confirmation hearing was marked by republicans sort of doing a fox news pageant, acting out fox news prime time arguments against her as if she is the real racist and she is really controversial. what do you make about this process thus far and her prospects of being confirmed in the end?

>> rachel, i have to say i thought that kristen clarke was masterful today. she's not a tv lawyer. she's a real lawyer. and so she was really able to defend her record. she has an astonishing career as a civil rights lawyer behind her, leading the civil rights bureau at the new york state attorney general's office. she was a lawyer at the naacp legal defense fund, leads the lawyers committee for civil rights under law, worked at the department of justice for six years. and so she comes to it with just tremendous experience. but today, what people could see was just the intelligence, the poise, the confidence, and she couldn't be shaken. it's unfortunate, we should be thanking ourselves, cory booker said that, that ms. clarke is ready to serve particularly at this time in the country when we need someone with her vision, clarity, and commitment to really lead, as you say, in the

enforcement of the nation's civil rights laws and to really address the crisis of civil rights that we're in at this moment in the country. >> part of the crisis or at least the confrontation that we're having right now in the country is over the crucial issue of voting rights and voter suppression tactics that seem aimed quite specifically at african-american voters, other voters of color, poor voters, disabled voters, other people who can be cut off from the polls if the voter suppression litigation is written the right way to accomplish that goal. what do you make with the push me/pull you with business interests who are starting to speak out including this remarkable ad today in "the new york times" and "the washington post," starting to sort of find therapy voice as supporters of democracy and supporters of the right to vote, while simultaneously were saying things like the u.s. chamber of

commerce, lobby u.s. senators that they ought to vote against the most important voting rights bill that we've seen in a very long time. >> you know, rachel, i'm actually quite comfortable with this discomfort, because what we are seeing is a real shake-up happening in corporate america. as i have been appearing and speaking with business leaders and business groups, i have been telling them that we are in a democracy moment. you know, there was one crisis that we could see on january 6, because it was filled with violence, because it was there on our tv screens and we could all feel the sense of america slipping away from being a stable democracy. but i want to be clear that these voter suppression laws that passed in georgia, that are being proposed in texas, that just passed in arkansas, modelled on georgia, in south carolina we just submitted testimony today in opposition to the south carolina voter suppression bill. this is as much a threat to the integrity of our democracy as

january 6 was, because it's -- as the supreme court has said, the right to vote is preservative of all rights, it is fundamental. and this state by state attack, we saw an attack on the capitol on january 6, now we're seeing a state by state attack on voting. and it's going to require all of us to stand up and to speak powerfully for democratic principles and that includes corporate america. they don't get to be bystanders. and this is a moment of reckoning in which corporate america is going to have to tell the rest of the country whether democracy is something that they are agnostic about, whether it is not necessary to the business model of american corporations, or whether they believe that as citizens, and corporations, as you know, actually receive lots of rights as citizens by the united states supreme court, well, if you are a citizen, you have an obligation to stand up for our democracy. and so i think the ads today, that was incredibly powerful. i do feel the need to point out

that this shift, this seismic shift, this move, this destabilization and this willingness of hundreds of corporations to speak up, was led by black business leaders, black business executives, who first spoke out in that ad with 72 of them signing it in "the new york times" several weeks ago. and they listened to the voices of grassroots and community activists and national civil rights organizations pushing back against what was happening in georgia. this is what it's going to take if we're going to protect and save and strengthen our democracy. it's going to take people moving out of their comfort zone and being willing to stand up for the principles that should undergird any true democracy with integrity. >> sherrilyn ifill from the naacp legal defense fund, it's always really good to see you, thank you for joining us with so much going on in the news that hits your areas of expertise, it's really good to have you here. thank you. >> thank you, rachel. all right. we've got much more ahead here

tonight. stay with us. ♪ it's grilled cheese time. ♪ ♪ yeah, it's time for grilled cheese. ♪ ♪ after we make grilled cheese, ♪ ♪ then we're eating grilled cheese. ♪ ♪ because it's time. ♪ ♪ yeah. ♪ ♪ time for grilled cheese. ♪ are you one of the millions of americans who experience occasional bloating, ♪ yeah. ♪ gas or abdominal discomfort? taking align can help. align contains a quality probiotic to naturally help soothe digestive upsets 24/7. try align, the pros in digestive health. and join the align healthy gut team up and learn what millions of align users already know. how great a healthy gut can feel. sign up at alignprobiotics.com also try align dualbiotics gummies to help support digestive health. ♪ (ac/dc: back in black) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ back in black ♪ ♪ i hit the sack ♪ ♪ i've been too long... ♪ applebee's irresist-a-bowls are back. dig in for just $8.99. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. vo: calling all builders, all welders, and roofers. engineers and electricians. calling all brick masons and boiler makers. steel workers and steam fitters your country is calling you to rebuild america. to create a cleaner, safer, more prosperous future for all. tackling climate change, this is the job of our lifetime. it's time to build back better. let's get to work. [sfx: psst psst] allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst! psst! all good

and my message to all who are demanding justice for him and for his family, is this. your voices have been heard. now, the eyes of the world are watching brooklyn center. and i urge you to protest peacefully and without violence. let us show the best of our community. and to the wright family, i know that there is nothing i can say or do that will bring daunte back or ease your grief. but i promise you this. his death will not go in vain.

>> that's brooklyn center, minnesota mayor mike elliott earlier tonight on what is now the fourth night of demonstrations after the police killing of 20-year-old daunte wright on sunday. today the officer who killed daunte wright in that traffic stop was charged with second degree manslaughter in daunte wright's killing. that charge carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. she was taken to jail, since released on $100,000 bail. her first court appearance is scheduled for tomorrow. that is the backdrop for day four of protests tonight in the streets of brooklyn center. joining us from there is nbc news correspondent ron allen. ron, thanks so much for joining us again tonight. i know you've been out there several nights in a row in at times challenging conditions. what are you seeing tonight and how do you compare it to how the last few nights have been? >> reporter: rachel, as has been the case every night after nightfall, things get a bit more

tense. and we have seen more debris, bottles, rocks, going into the police compound in the last half hour or so. it's a very different crowd tonight. there's a lot of people riding around on -- in cars and motorcycles, racing up and town down the streets. there's also a lot of hostility directed towards us, towards the media. there was some of this on social media, urging people to smash cameras. that's one reason we are keeping our distance. there have been a couple of incidents were photographers closer have been pushed back by some elements in the crowd. the crowd of course is very diverse, there are people here from many, many different reasons. but the bottom line is that there's a lot of just more frustration, anger. this manslaughter charge, people feel just falls very short. they want to see a murder charge. they insist that mr. wright was murdered, killed in the streets, and that's what the charge should be.

they're also calling in some cases, i was to go some of the leaders of the protest earlier today, they want to see a special prosecutor take over this case, an independent person appointed by the state attorney general, not the local county prosecutor who has been assigned the case who they feel is too close to law enforcement to really prosecute this case in the way that they want to see it happen. also today earlier, there was a group of state legislators who have a long list of reforms that they want to see passed in this state including an end to qualified immunity which protects police officers. they want to see changes in the juvenile justice system. and i don't want to get into the minutiae of it too much but the point is there are a lot of concerns here that go beyond the daunte wright case and go beyond even the george floyd case. so when you talk to the organizers, they will tell you, these protests, there's no end in sight to them. it's going to go on, regardless perhaps even of the outcome of

the george floyd -- of the derek chauvin case regarding george floyd, because people here feel there is an endemic problem that's racially based with policing in this state. and they think that the manslaughter charge is further evidence of that. a lot of people point to the case of officer -- former officer mohammed noor, the minneapolis police officer who back in 2017 was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the death of a white woman, a resident who called 911 and noor and his partner arrived on the scene, he opened fire from his squad car when the woman approached, thinking that he and his partner were being threatened. it was a mistaken incident, they would say, he would say. but he was convicted and sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison. people see that case and they see what's happening with this white officer, and they just see a double standard. so for so many reasons, these protests are going to continue.

again, the bottom line, things are relatively calm tonight. we're still an hour or so from curfew. and that's when the police and the national guard, who have a very mill tarristic looking presence there, a lot of fatigues, a lot of -- >> ron, thank you for that. in terms of what ron was just referencing about the curfew, the curfew in brooklyn center is 10:00 p.m., which is 11:00 p.m. eastern time. the chain link fence that you can see there at the center of your screen where the protesters

are sort of directing their attention, that is essentially a temporary barrier that's been put up with chain link and jersey barriers around police headquarters in brooklyn center, minnesota. it has been the focal point of these demonstrations for the last four nights. but again, another cold night as night falls in brooklyn center, minnesota and plenty of people there making their feelings known in this same site that we have seen them for the past three nights as well. we'll keep an eye on this tonight and be right back. stay with us. e on this tonight and be right back. stay with us doesn't require gg to different lenders. sofi is a one-stop-shop for your finances- designed to work better together. get a home loan or home refi or fund home improvements with a personal loan. all in one place. that's better together. and get lower rates on personal loans when you have sofi money or invest. that's better together. and that's why members choose sofi to help make their dream home a reality. ♪♪

♪ to help make their dream home a reality. freshness and softness you never forget, with downy.

(mom vo) we fit a lot of life into our subaru forester. (dad) it's good to be back. (mom) it sure is. (mom vo) over the years, we trusted it to carry and protect the things that were most important to us. (mom) good boy. (mom vo) we always knew we had a lot of life ahead of us. (mom) remember this? (mom vo) that's why we chose a car that we knew would be there for us through it all. (male vo) welcome to the subaru forester. the longest-lasting, most trusted forester ever. we have some breaking news from bloomberg news. jennifer jake on the first to report tonight that the biden administration is getting ready to sanction russia tomorrow, russian individuals. the biden administration is poised to take action against

russian individuals and entities in retaliation for alleged misconduct including the solarwinds hack and efforts to disrupt the u.s. election, according to people familiar with the matter. according to bloomberg news, the plan is for the u.s. government to sanction about a dozen russian individuals, including government officials and intelligence officialofficials, russian entities of some kind. plus they're reporting that the u.s. government could expel as many as 10 russian officials and diplomats from the united states tomorrow. this, of course, comes right after president biden and president putin had what sounded from the readouts to be a very tense phone call yesterday. this happens as russia has amassed 80,000 troops along the border of russia and ukraine. they haven't done that since they invaded ukraine and took a piece of it for themselves back

in 2014. sanctions from russia coming from the biden administration tomorrow. we have not independently matched that reporting but we are watching this develop quite closely. stay with us. s develop quite closely. stay with us

all right, that is going to do it for us tonight. i'll see you again tomorrow, but now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. we're going to go to ron allen once again tonight in the streets of brooklyn center, minnesota where he has just been doing invaluable work for us reporting from the streets as he has done in the past in these kinds of situations. this is one of those weeks that we