welcome back. i'm "velshi" hosting a special edition of "the rachel maddow show." we begin this hour in panama. until a couple of years ago if you found yourself traveling to panama city, the capital of the central american nation of panama, you could check into the trump international hotel and tower. a 70-story building built to resemble a bill owing sail and containing the hotel managed by the trump organization. but after donald trump became president the owners of that hotel began trying to fire the trump organization from running the hotel because they said the trump organization had so mismanaged the hotel and the trump brand was so toxic, the hotel was being run into the ground. the dispute between the hotel owners and the triple digits management eventually rose to the level of physical altercations. at one point when representatives of the hotel owners tried to get into the

main office, trump security guards shoved and man-handled them out the door. the police were called to the hotel several times because of confrontations like this and at one point personnel working for the owner cut the power. the owner claimed that the trump personnel were shredding business documents in the midst of this. the trump organization denied all of it. in march much of 2018 the trump organization was evicted from the property. a panamanian judge sided with the hotel's owner and the police were sent in one last time to oust the trump management. and once the trump management was gone, it was time to -- it was time to deal with the trump sign. the trump name was pried off of donald trump's only hotel in latin america, literally. removed unceremoniously letter by letter. and we have to assume this was

the most painful part for donald trump. he likes to put his name on things. this has been happening over and over, property by property, ever since donald trump was elected president. his name was taken off his hotel in my hometown, toronto. it was also taken off a hotel in new york's soho neighborhood. the trump name is gone from a luxury hotel project in brazil. the tenants of six apartment buildings in new york city voted remove his name from their facades. new york, chicago, vancouver are all in the process of trying to get trump's name removed from various properties in those cities in particular because they say they have a civic interest in not having the name of a man who fomented an insurrection against the united states plastered across their sky lines in giant letters. in other words, the trump brand is already a brand in crisis. it has been for years. seems like maybe the trump organization as a business and a brand might not be in a position

to withstand a ten count felony indictment and 15 felony accounts against its chief financial officer. but don't take it from me. ask the people who used to work there in its upper ranks. former trump organization executive barbara rest tells "bloomberg news," quote, this is it. i think it's going to destroy the trump empire. a former trump sex executive vi president, when financiers see the charges their thoughts may turn to the company's ability to refinance more than $590 million of debt coming due within the next four years, more than half of which trump personally guaranteed. because as one former prosecutor points out, the direct consequences of any criminal conviction could be a massive fine probation, or some type of court supervision. and as we know, donald trump has already alienated every bank on

earth that could loan hip money. "the washington post," david farn hold, who has done some of the most granular reporting on donald trump's businesses including on that amazing panama city story, today he and his colleagues jonathan o'connell and josh dawsey spoke with trump's biographers to put these latest charges in perspective. both of them said the indictment of the trump organization comes during what appears to be the company's most difficult moment since trump's financial crash in the early 1990s. trump found himself hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and lost control of prized assets, including an airline, a yacht, and new york's plaza hotel. his business empire did not recover for a decade until trump gained television fame and made tens of millions as the star of nbc's "the apprentice." trump seems unlike to do be saved by a lucrative new television contract anytime

soon. another thing to keep this in mind in terms of the health of the trump organization is the charges filed against the cfo, allen weisselberg. not just because of his personal legal liability or the pressure on him to turn on his boss, but because of what it could mean for the company if anything happens to him. one trump biographer says, quote, if weisselberg were to unexpectedly leave the company whether for reasons row late today the case or not, it could cause a major disruption. weisselberg has effectively run the business with trump for several decades, managing the details and the finances while trump has built his brand and cut deals. the trump organization is a web of hundreds of interrelated limited liability companies making it unusually difficult to run for a relatively small company. quote, it was weisselberg's job to keep everything straight. well, joining us now is that reporter, "the washington post's" david farinholt, the first to report on the existence of the special grand jury in this case back in may.

this week he was the first to report that the grand jury filed criminal indictments against the trump organization and against its chief financial officer. david, thanks for your time tonight. i know you have been busy. give us a sense of what the financial situation is right now for the trump organization. what do we know about how much of a going concern this business actually is? >> well, obviously, it's a private company. it doesn't put out public statements about its cash flow. here's what we know. it's shrunk, as you said, lost a lot of hotels. it lost one of its biggest cash generators, the merchandising business. think about the trump suits, trump eyeglasses, trump water, trump fragrance. all of this stuff that generated money for trump for nothing, for no work and no effort. other people paid him to put his name on their stuff. that's gone. in addition to the hotels that suffered and the hotels that are gone. covid took a big bite out of his properties by ending the tourism business for all of 2020. so his business was in dire

shape at the beginning of 2021. then came the january 6th insurrection and trump's role in it which drove away more lenders, more business partners, a pga tour event, the british open and now on top of all of that we have this indictment which they haven't been convicted of anything, but it adds legal costs and uncertainty at a time when the business, as you said, is already at one of the lowest since 1990. >> i think about companies convicted. not something that happens very much. arthur anderson back in the early 2000s, that was ultimately overturned but wrecked the business. that was an accounting business, it had clients who didn't want to be associated it. is the trump organization that kind of business or does it run on its own? >> i don't think it would be as devastating. arthur anderson was an auditing business. you can't audit people if you have been convicted of a felony. it's hard to have a government contract. the trump organization is not a regulated business. it didn't need licenses to operate.

they might have trouble with lenders, trouble with liquor licenses, which are crucial to making money at hotels and golf clubs. i don't think that a conviction would be an automatic death sentence for the way it was for arthur anderson. that said, it adds stigma on top of stigma and might make it hard to refinance loans, find other business partners, move on from the hole that it's in. >> there is stuff that was alleged that is alleged to be illegal at best unsavory. it may be more common than we think. people have brought that up, the kind of things, the expensing ever the, you know, the unorthodox business practices that the trump organization allegedly practiced. you have seen these before. you reported on this company in the past. did these charges surprise you? >> they did surprise me only in there seemed to be such a deliberate effort to deceive here. i covered the trump foundation a few years ago, this charity

trump ran and they ran afoul of all kinds of laws. they said we didn't know how to run a charity, didn't bother to learn. this thing, on the other hand, seems to be not mistakes, deceit done purposefully. if you recall the indictment says there was a second set of books the trump organization created where they kept track of the real compensation for their employees and then showed the irs and state tax authorities another set of books in which some of that compensation is hidden. people that know this world say that is the -- that is manna from heaven for a tax prosecutor. you are showing that you understood that what you are doing wrong because you are keeping a ledger that hides things from the government and you kept track of exactly how much you hid from the government. you have a record. the trump organization has a record of the cash they should have paid taxes on and they didn't. >> let's talk about the loans. this company owes money, donald trump owes money. this has been a major concern of his for some time. he always has been able to not

only refinance, but this guy gets better terms than folks who have, you know, no strikes against them. what happens now? how serious is it that he has more than half a billion dollars of loans that are coming up in. >> it was a serious situation. it was serious before this indictment. it's serious now. the bigger problem for him is not the indictment, but rather the nature of the properties in which he has these loans. a couple of them, the doral property in florida, the d.c. hotel, they don't make money. they don't make enough money to pay off the huge loans. the d.c. hotel was clear at the beginning when he got this giant loan he was never going to make enough money to pay it back before he destroyed his representation with politics. all along people thought he needs to refinance the loans, he is never going to be able to pay them sufficient. that's going to be harder to find someone to refinance it. that said, trump's entire life has been sort of abobject lesson

that there is a sucker born every minute and if he tries hard enough somebody will save him. it's way too early to say he can't get out, but his options have narrowed. >> "washington post" reporter david farinholt, thank you. up next, the latest on the actual charges against the trump organization and its cfo and how far that investigation could go. rachel is coming up later in the show. stay with us. show stay with us

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among others, it appears that ivanka trump benefitted from the type of scheme described in the indictment today. the indictment says other executives also benefitted from that scheme and now we have solid reporting that the investigation continues, that raises the prospect that further charges could be brought against his children. >> yeah, it does. and again i think they should be quite anxious right now. i think he would be surprised to

learn that i don't believe my cousins would exert that kind of exercise that loyal towards him because his relationship with them and their relationship with him is entirely transactional. so -- and conditional, i should say. so they are not going risk anything for him just as he wouldn't risk anything for them. >> that's a crazy thing for someone to be saying about parents and their children. they are not going to risk anything for him just as he wouldn't risk anything for them. that's what donald trump's niece mary trump told rachel last night how she thinks donald trump's children would react if they were swept up in the new york investigation that just resulted in criminal charges against trump's chief financial officer as well as the trump business itself. as we enter the next phase of this criminal case, the big question is, where will prosecutors take this next? how confident should donald trump be that allen weisselberg will remain loyal to him? who else at the trump organization might end up walking into a new york state

courtroom in handcuffs? joining us now, former manhattan assistant district attorney rebecca, good to see you. you know, michael cohen pointed out this week something that has been pointed out over the years and that one's reality, no matter how important they are or wolters, one's reality changes when there are charges of this level, of this magnitude filed against you and when the handcuffs go on. it makes you rethink your priorities. >> yeah. that's 100% true. and he is speaking, obviously, from personal experience. but as a prosecutor, you really realize that this is true. i think it's most helpful to have somebody's cooperation at the beginning of an investigation, but sometimes prosecutors can't get that and they need to wait to a later phase when the reality really sets in for somebody to agree to cooperate. the key question here, as you

say, everybody is speculating, why did they come down with this indictment of the organization if they are waiting to bring charges against somebody else? and to me what's really clear about this particular indictment, there are two things. one is this is a really strong indictment. 15 years of, you know, off the books compensation scheme. and the question is, who was this designed to benefit? and it's not -- once you read this indictment, it's really clear that it wasn't allen weisselberg. the prosecutors do not think this was a scheme that was designed to benefit allen weisselberg. it has to be a scheme that was designed to benefit somebody else. and so the fact that there are other executives involved, given the fact that there was that detailed set of other records that david fahrenthold was talking about, this is not a one-man game. so there are other people. the prosecutors know there are other people. the question is, how can they get from what they know to what

they can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, and that's the question mark that i think is really difficult to answer right now. >> there is a thame that showed up some months ago for the first time, not a name that people who haven't followed the closely have talked about, and we know that there is something called an unindicted conspiracy, co-conspirator in this case. cnn is reporting that person or a person familiar with the investigation told them that the unindicted co-conspirator is jeff mcconaughey, the trump organization's long-time controller. there is a lot of information in there. weisselberg was the cfo, the controller and cfo and most companies worked closely together on detailed financial matters and have financial responsibility. what, if anything, does this reporting mean to you? >> well, the conspiracy count to me is quite interesting because you have to have an agreement in order to have a conspiracy. and then you have to have an act that is furthering that conspiracy. the act itself doesn't have to be illegal, but in order to make

a conspiracy you have to have the agreement and the act. you have to have weisselberg agreeing with somebody to engage in this scheme to enrich himself and enrich others. and so that makes a lot of sense that it would be the person to who works basically directly below him who would be involved this this agreement. again, the question mark is, who else, if anybody, is involved? and to me that's this question about when you think about it, who stands to benefit from this? and to a certain extent it's any of the executives named. weisselberg is not only helping to create this situation which he is getting all of this compensation that's hidden as if to see like fringe benefits. there were others. what was their involvement in the conspiracy? if the conspiracy was between him and mcconaughey, that shows that that's what the prosecutors can prove right now.

but if there are others involved in that conspiracy, we just don't know that yet. and we don't know whether, you know, who those people might be and whether prosecutors can prove that yet or whether they are waiting for a cooperator, somebody to flip in order to be able to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. >> and one can never tell when and how that mightis, obviously first step, right? you file charges against them. people have their come to jesus moment and decide whether they are going to participate or they are going to, as donald trump always hopes, stay loyal to donald trump and not do that. any sense as to how this plays out? >> i really don't have a sense. but i do think that the fact that this was a far stronger indictment than anybody thought it would be puts increasing pressure on those individuals too cooperate. i will tell you another thing that i think is important about this, which is i feel like it undermines that narrative that we saw the defense attorney and his family members say this is a political witch hunt, this has worked for the president in the

past, but the stronger the indictment, the more ironclad it is, the harder it is to make that stick. and so there is some way in which there is, obviously, a legal battle and a public relations battle, but winning the public relations battle or at least being in there helps a little bit with the legal battle. up to this point we had the defense attorneys basically along with trump himself able to spin this the way they wanted to spin it. you know, with trump saying things like, you know, all businesses are run this way. well, now we can look at this and, you know, if you are just a business owner in new york you know, like, no they don't, i can't pay my employees off the book, if i did i would get caught and get sent to prison. it's about what the defendant did. and that really pokes holes in this narrative or this rhetoric that the defense attorneys -- and again it is their job to do this, but it just -- it's not

going to work as well with an indictment like this. i think that makes a difference, too, both on a public relations level as we were speaking about before, but also a little bit in the legal battle to come. >> yeah, your point is really coming down it this. is it about who the defendant is as trump would have you believe and his people, or about what the defendant did. thanks for this, rebecca. a former manhattan assistant district attorney. much more to get to on this friday night. we will hear from rachel shortly. next, a reason to be very thankful this holiday weekend. stay with us. ul this holiday we. stay with us olab scientific clean here. and here. which is why the scientific expertise that helps operating rooms stay clean now helps the places you go too. look for the ecolab science certified seal.

we were here. about 50,000 new covid-19 cases were reported that day across the country. a seven-day average of more than 48,000 new cases that day and it was going up. look at that incline. that was the start of what would quickly become this country's second peak in the pandemic.

fast forward about 365 days and we are approaching the july 4th weekend once again. yesterday about 16,500 cases were recorded for a seven day average of more than 12,800. far fewer than this time last year. cases are down more than 95% from the highest peak in january. we are doing pretty well in the fight against the virus. if you look closer where we are on the curve right now, you will see that the seven-day average of cases, hard to see, you have to look in the right corner, is increasing once again. new daily covid cases rose 10% since last week. that might be due in part to the lagging vaccination rates in the country. we are on a slight increase for that right now. our pace of vaccinations has been declining since spring. president biden set a goal to get 70% of adults one shot by july 4th. we are not on track to meet that goal. heading into the holiday weekend

he is right. there are now a fewer than 66% of adults with at least one shot. another reason cases are increasing even if just by 10% might be the delta variant, the strain of covid-19 originally seen in india. it's now present in all 50 states and accounts for a quarter of all new cases. experts like dr. anthony fauci of the white house covid-19 response team say the vaccinations we have are still highly effective against the delta variant but cdc director rochelle walensky said yesterday that health officials expect transmission to increase in unvaccinated communities unless those vaccination rates increase right now. so the question is, when it comes to new covid cases, are we at an inflection point because of the delta variant? if we are, what can we do about it? joining us now, the dean of brown university school of public health. good to see you. thank you for being with us today. your take on this? where are we right now? we are clearly far better than a

year ago. we are in the tens of thousands of cases or over 10,000 new cases each week, and we have the delta variant. >> yes, first of all, thanks for having me back. a couple of things. first of all, a couple of hundred americans are still dying every day. that's not great. we want that number to be lower. where we are as a country is more and more we are becoming a nation of really two americas. we have a vaccinated america that's doing well that i think is going to have a safe july 4th and we have an unvaccinated america that is at very high risk from the delta variant. and, unfortunately, i'm worried that the unvaccinated america is going to see a lot of infections and hospitalizations in the weeks and months ahead. >> what do you do about it at this point? is it a messaging problem? access problem? in new york city they literally have pop-up stands all over the place touting vaccinations. do we have a vaccination short

age in the country or are we up against people that don't want it? >> we have more vaccines than we know what to do with. i have been arguing we need to ship more vaccines abroad to places that don't have enough. a what is slowing thing down is a couple things. one is a massive misinformation campaign that has been directed at communities of color, directed at conservatives, and that has dissuaded some people. there are other people who have, you know, who work three jobs, who can't just take a day off after they have had their first or second shot. for them those barriers still exist. so we've got to do an all of the above strategy, better messaging, more trusted voices, also, yes, policies that make easier for people to get the shot. there were worries about what we have to do about the delta variant and whether or not boosters will be needed. an analysis from public health england released june 14th found

two doses of pfizer were 96% effective from hospital hospitalization, astrazeneca 92%, j&j its vaccine effective against delta. moderna says its vaccine is effective against delta. what does that mean? >> what that means is i feel incredibly fortunate. all of our vaccines are holding up against these variants. i don't know that six months ago i would have predicted incredib. if you are fully vaccinated you may suffer a breakthrough infection in you are around a lot of unvaccinated people, but you are going to do well. this is amazing this is terrific and should be more motivation for people to get vaccinated. you wanted to have a fourth of july barbecue. is that going to happen? >> yes. back in november i said that i thought we'd be at a point where we could do it, having about 20 or so friends and colleagues

over. my backyard probably cannot accommodate much more than that without violating some gathering laws. but we will have a standard traditional july 4th barbecue. >> that makes us happy at the show. we appreciate you are going to do that. thank you for the time you have taken to join us. the dean of brown university school of public health. all right. when we come back rachel is going to be here with incredible story. she will be right back and we'll be right back. backnd a we'll be right back. ♪ she will be right back and we'll be right back. nincredible story. she will be right back and we'll be right back. an incredible story. she will be right back and we'll be right back. ght back and we'll be right back. well, since you asked. it finds discounts and policy recommendations, so you only pay for what you need. limu, you're an animal! who's got the bird legs now? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ do you struggle with occasional nerve aches, weakness or discomfort in your hands or feet?

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the official crust of a fancy private school in the las vegas, nevada area. see that and then jma in the three corners? the moto splashed across the front latin for actions not words and the j, m, a, the james

madison academy. here is the school's website. this private school is called the james madison academy. it's named after james madison, one the founding fathers, credited as the brains behind the second amendment to the constitution, the right for americans to keep guns. and that you might imagine is why the james madison academy in las vegas picked these two guys to address their graduating class earlier this month. on the left is david keene. he spent two terms as president of the national rifle association. is now on the board of directors. the right is john lott. he is a very influential person in sort of gun organization circles, an advocate for more people having guns with fewer rules about having them or using them. he wrote a book that people call the bible of the nar. they were invited to address the graduas fromames madison

academy, and they both said yes. they put on their robes and their funny hats. they traveled to las vegas. they prepared speeches about following your hopes and dreams, also about the importance of the second amendment, right. that's kind of why they were there. the school told them as a thank you for giving those speeches they would both be awarded the james madison academy's keeper of the constitution award. this is them having received their statues to commemorate their receiving those awards. and all of this, i don't know, seems a little bit on the nose, right. gun-themed school gets gun-themed speakers to give gun-themed speeches and receive a sort of gun-themed award. so it's a little on the nose. there were other signs, too, that a vigilant person may have picked up on early on. look at that website again for the james madison academy. parts of it look quite official

like the things you might expect. but then there is little things that seem a little bit weird like this. call us at 800-blah, blah, blah to apply. call us to apply. what is that like operators are standing by at your toll-free number? are you an ambulance chasing law firm? if you run a history of the web address for the james madison academy's website, it turns out the school's website has only existed since april of this year. that's weird. also, the keeper of the constitution award for which those guys got the little statue thing, keeper of the constitution award doesn't exist. there is no record of it anywhere. there is no record of anybody else ever having received that award. turns out the james madison academy doesn't exist either. unbeknownst to these two pro-gun advocates, they were both invited to speak at a fake graduation for a fake school and

they gave their pro-gun speeches in front of 3,044 empty white chairs in a las vegas venue. according to one group that tracks gun death statistics, that 3,044 number is the number of high school seniors who should have put on their caps and gowns and gotten their high school diplomas this year. instead, they died. they were victims of gun violence and they never made it to this year's graduation. that's the class of 2021 in gun violence deaths. and it is a dramatic thing to watch a sitting nra board member telling 3,000 empty chairs they need to follow their hopes and dreams. they are not going to follow their hopes and dreams. i'm going to play a little video of parts of his speech now, parts of keen's speech. this video includes some upsetting audio from 911 calls made during school shootings.

if that is something you would rather not experience, this is a chance to mute the tv if that is something you don't want to hear. okay. here we go. >> let me begin by telling you what an honor it is to be here to help celebrate your graduation. picture for a minute the young james madison for whom this school is named. this year you focused on one of the most important of madison's amendments. the second amendment. there are some who continue to fight to gut the second amendment. but i'd be willing to bet that many of you will be among those who stand up and prevent them from succeeding. >> 911, what is your emergency? >> defending it is a challenge and a duty that americans like you -- >> there is a shooting in my

classroom. >> is anybody injured? >> yes, a lot of blood. please help! >> an overwhelming majority of you will go on to college while others may decide their dream dictates a different route to success. >> the school, the school. >> okay, do you know how many people are injured? >> so my advice to you is simple enough. follow your dream and make it a reality. >> my son is texting me from school. >> and never for a minute doubt you can achieve that dream. thank you. [ gunshots ] >> follow your dream and make it a reality. never for a minute doubt you can achieve that dream. an overwhelming majority of you will go to college.

some will continue to fate to gut the second amendment, i bet many of you will stand up and prevent them from succeeding. that is not going to happen from any of those students. that nra board member david keene and the pro-gun commentator, gave those speeches in front of those 3,000 empty seats representing kids who did not graduate this year because they were killed in gun violence in the united states. keene and john lott were told before the event they needed to participate in a dress rehearsal. that that's what this video is from. after the run-through, they were told the actual graduation was canceled because of a credible threat of violence. "buzzfeed news" called up the pro-nra commentator guy after the videos were published. he said he had no idea what happened here. of he says, you are telling me

the whole thing was a setup? no, i didn't know that. we reached out to david keane. we haven't heard back from him. this remarkable demonstrative experiment, this stunt was orchestrated by a gun safety advocacy group called change the ref. they pointed out today that, quote, ironically, had the men conducted a proper background check on the school, they would have seen the school is fake. they were trying to illustrate that the thousands of students lost to gun violence won't be forgotten and they wanted to force pro-gun advocates to literally face the consequences of their policies. they call those 3,000 empty seats the lost class. this advocacy group change the ref was founded by manuel and patricia oliver. their son was killed when he was

17 years old. he was a great writer. an athlete, loved music. joaquin's father manuel said today that he was not scared to pull off this sort of unbelievable piece of advocacy and honestly subterfuge. he said we need to show we're brave and not afraid of these guys. we have already felt the worst possible situation. there is no threat that can make me feel different. actions, not words. joining us now is manuel oliver. mr. oliver, thank you so much for being here. really appreciate it. >> thank you. you did a great job presenting what we did. i love it. thank you. >> well, tell me about change the ref and how you came up with this idea. >> well, change the ref is a consequence of losing our beautiful son, joaquin. he loved to play basketball. he was a great writer, like you said. and he mentioned that sometimes when he played basketball, he

was feeling bad calls from the referees. he was always looking for a fair game. then when i saw what happened in portland and i got more involved with the news and the reality behind that episode and every day gun violence, we thought that the referees, the referees in d.c., the ones that are supposed to give us a fair game, the ones that are supposed to make the right calls, are ignoring us. so that's how we started with change the ref. my wife patricia, myself, my daughter andrea will love the fact that the name came from joaquin and not from us. so it's an extension of joaquin's act visit. >> i know that you and your wife were on site, behind the scenes and able to watch while these pro-nf ra guys were giving their speeches in front of that sea of empty chairs.

it must have been emotional? >> it was very emotional. we were not allowed. they told me that the man recognized me. i had no idea that i was recognizable. so, but we didn't want to take the risk of anything going wrong. so they locked us in the rv and we watched the whole thing. very emotional, but because we were a part of a process. we knew exactly every step, everything that was happening. it came out exactly how we planned. >> do you feel any more hope than you have felt in the past that there will be action on any element of gun safety, including background checks, which you, obviously, have been pushing the forefront. do you feel more hopeful, do you see any other ran for people to hope something might finally change? >> i am going to give you a great reason for me to think

that things are different. i am having an interview with you, not because there was a mass shooting, but because we are doing something to prevent this from happening. so now we handle the conversation. we don't need to wait for a new tragedy to bring the subject, and that is a great advance for us, for everyone that is fighting this epidemic that is killing people every single day. preventible, but just because some of our leaders are a part of a problem, it's kind of on hold being part of a solution. while i think we control the information, we do things like the one you saw. we are not the only group work going this direction. and, hopefully, that young generation will make things happen. it's not going to happen tomorrow or next year, but it will happen in a few years.

you saw what happened to the tobacco industry. i've always said that we need to advertise the truth. patricia and myself, we use art and we do a lot we do a lot of things to make things happen. we believe in this. we need to bring out a reality that has been ignored for years. enough of lies. these two guys. this about them. i don't care how they feel my wife, was the one that received his diploma when he was supposed to be graduating high school. i'm dwlad that i can do this. i am glad that we can find things that empower us. and maybe, maybe, they are

giving power to many parents that don't know how to react. they don't know how to do things. they maybe have not found themselves doing something similar . we need to keep on being parents. and no one, no one will stop that from happening. >> manuel oliver. the co-founder, it's an honor to have you here tonight. thank you. >> it was my horn, thank you. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. before you begin an aspirin regimen. you need an ecolab scientific clean here. and here. which is why the scientific expertise that helps operating rooms stay clean now helps the places you go too. look for the ecolab science certified seal.

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back in the day, if you were wealthy, you spent your money on arts, you funded expeditions to the fartherest corners of the world, now it's apparently space exploration. richard branson has virgin

galactic and it's not necessarily a terrible thing. nasa will focus on other things, including eye poppingly eciting technology. jeff bezos is stepping down as a ceo of amazon coming monday, announced that the first thing he will do is travel in to space himself after that. he will not be in space long. he is getting to technically pace, but on a sub orbital flight. he is going up on july 20th richard branson is also going in to space on a sub orbital flight and he is get ing there first. he plans to beat bezos to space by nine days. if the idea of billionaires

beating each other to the upper atmosphere makes you feel icky. something may make it more paltable, bezos is bringing his brother and somebody that deserves the chance more than any other human. let's go back to the dawn of the space program in the late 1950s, nasa selected the mercury seven from fight jet pilots, who were all men. a few years later, there was a shadow program privately funded and administered by the same man who had tested the men to test and train women for the same opportunity. the first woman recruited for, a pilot named gerri cobb was in a photo spread, titled a lady proofs she is fit for spaceflight. mary wallace funk, was a

21-year-old flight instructor working in oklahoma when she saw the life magazine story and was inspired to sign up to be an astronaut. 13 women, each accomplished pilots though allowed to fly fighter jets for the u.s. military tested off the charts on some of the same tests that nasa was putting the male astronauts through. she was able to endure 10.5 hours floating in a sensory deprivation tank. here's how she described it. >> what would i do in a tank of water that was so, and the humidity of the room that was so perfectly controlled to my temperature that i could not feel the water on my hands or my face because there was no hearing, smelling, all of your sights, all of your senses were taken away from you and you were to stay in there as long as

possible and i broke the record of 10 hours and 35 minutes. >> but acing the tests was where the dream ended for wally funk and 12 other women. the next step would have been flight training. but that required sign off from nasa and the u.s. military. that sign-off never game. women would not be allowed to be women astronauts until the late 1970s. and in 1995, when astronaut ilene collins was the first woman to pilot a space shuttle mission, seven members of the 13 women came to florida as her invited guests to watch the launch. wally funk herself said she applied to nasa's astronaut program four times after they let women in, but was turned down for act love an engineering degree and since then has jumped on every opportunity to make it to space. including several years ago when she thought branson would be the

billionire to get her there. and bezos now said she is getting a seat. so if all a goes well, more than 60 years after that life magazine story kindled the hopes of a young pilot from oklahoma, one of the first female astronaut hopefuls may get her chance to fly high. that does it for tonight. rachel will be back next week. i will see you tomorrow and sunday morning from 8:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. i'm talking to benny thompson, and congressman pete aguilar who is also on the committee. have a great holiday and a good night. good evening, we have a lot of news to get to right now, heading in to the holiday weekend. there's no reaction to the trump org indictments and new polling revealing where people are