give any spoilers but there is a trauma that happens to alma and she passes down sort of pressures and expectations to her children. i spoke with a lot of tiktokers who loved this film and told me that's my story. my family came from this place and we were, you know, my parents have certain expectations for me. that is just one of many facets as to why people are so clued into this film and love it so much. >> helen rosenblatt, bring it in. good talk. thank you. that is all the time i have for today and this weekend. i'm alicia menendez. i'll see you back here next weekend 6:00 p.m. eastern for more "american voices" but for now over to mehdi hasan. hi, mehdi. >> thank you so much. have a great rest of your night. tonight on the mehdi hasan show, democracy is on the line but do americans care? kyrsten sinema certainly doesn't. how about long covid as we play down the threat from omicron? are we ignoring the dangerous after effects of this virus?

also, an update on the hours long hostage stand-off at a texas synagogue. and my take on a dangerous rise in anti-semitism here in the united states. good evening. i'm mehdi hasan. of the hundreds of people who have been arrested in the year plus since the january 6th attack on the united states capitol, the most important so far has been the arrest of this man. meet stewart rhodes the founder of the far right militia the oath keepers. he is a former army paratrooper who was honorably discharged after he was injured in a night parachuting accident. he then worked for libertarian congressman ron paul and went to yale law school. so far what would seem to be a kind of main stream conservative. according to the southern policy law center it's only when rhodes moved to montana that his beliefs turned a hard right away from small d democratic politics the justice department announced thursday it was charging rhodes and ten of his

coconspirators with something called seditious conspiracy for their roles in the january insurrection. seditious conspiracy is a rarely used civil war era statute reserved only for the most serious of political criminals. i look at the court documents for rhodes' arrest reveals why the government believes seditious conspiracy is warranted. there had been allegedly planning for january 6th for months. on november 9th, 2020 after biden had been projected the winner rhodes apparently instructed his followers to go to d.c. to let trump know the people are behind him and he hoped trump would call up the militia. it would be a bloody and desperate fight, rhodes warned. we are going to have a fight. although rhodes and the oath keepers have prepared for the fight, have gathered weapons to fight, a big part of right wing media propaganda over the past year has relied on, well, talking points like these. >> none of the so-called insurrectionists had guns. when was the last time you saw an insurrection like that?

>> except the oath keepers did have guns. lots of guns as our colleague ben collins at nbc news.com points out on the day before the insurrection, posts from an online forum favored by the militants showed that the plan was to go all night and transport in the guns later once they felt they had control over the capitol. here is a photo of some of those guns on january 5th in virginia ready to head to d.c. from the indictment while certain oath keepers inside of washington, d.c. breached the capitol grounds and building, others remained stationed just outside of the city. teams were prepared to rapidly transport firearms and other weapons in support of operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of power. again, the plan it seems was to take over the capitol first and then bring in the weapons to secure it. second, and overturn the presidential election by force if necessary, third. >> oh, it was an insurrection. so how many of the participants in that insurrection have been

charged insurrection, with sedition, with treason? zero. >> except it's not zero. at least not anymore. and that kind of destroys the narrative that tucker carlson there and his fellow far right propagandists have spent a a worryingly productive year leaning on to convince many americans not to be alarmed. in fact mcclatchy correspondent alex roartie said he watched the focus group of swing voters this past week where the term january 6 meant almost nothing to some of them and among those who did understand what happened that day one woman said flat out it wasn't something she was worried about anymore compared to other concerns. another woman said she thought biden and the democrats had over embellished the insurrection. astonishing. a so-called pocketbook issues like gas prices really more important right now than the future of american democracy? really? the irony is that gop voters meanwhile are alarmed and an october poll found a majority of republicans in the survey, of them 60% are not confident their

votes will be counted in this autumn's midterm elections. there is no election of fraud but there is evidence of voter suppression. so the people who should be worried, aren't. and the people who shouldn't be worried, are. and yet we're now stuck. in november more than 150 political science professors and scholars warned congress the filibuster in the senate had to go in order to pass the freedom to vote act and protect u.s. democracy and elections and voting rights. but conservative senate democrats joe manchin and kyrsten sinema this week made it clear that making nice with their republican colleagues is more important to them than the right to vote, or free and fair elections. meanwhile donald trump, busy endorsing gop elections officials, in suing states, he says the quiet part out loud as usual. >> sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate and we can't let that ever, ever happen again. they have to get tougher and smarter. >> they're not even hiding it. look, it's exhausting.

i'm exhausted. in a rather remarkable intervention one preeminent canadian political scientist now says it is time for our neighbors to the north to start making plans for the end of the american democratic experiment. quote, by 2025, american democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability including widespread civil violence. by 2030 if not sooner the country could be governed by a right wing dictatorship. author thomas homer dixon says i'm a scholar of violent conflict for more than 40 years. i've studied and published on the causes of war, social breakdown, revolution, ethnic violence and genocide. today as i watch the unfolding crisis in the united states i see a political and social landscape flashing with warning signals. so i ask you, exactly how many sirens and red lights flashing is it going to take to wake this country up? who better to ask than thomas homer dixon himself, the author

of that sobering, chilling op-ed. he is executive director of the cascade institute at royal road university. his latest book is "commanding hope, the power we have to renew a world in peril." thomas homer-dixon so nice to have you with us this evening. you are a serious scholar of this stuff. you're not some op-ed columnist pushing out hot takes or trying to get social media clicks. so how serious are you about the idea of america being run by a right wing dictator by the end of this decade? a lot of our viewers at home will be taken aback by that. >> i think we are talking about several different phenomena here, different things that could happen. the one you have been really talking about, discussing over the last few minutes is the collapse of american democracy, a fatal weakening of democratic institutions that would probably be occasioned by the reelection of donald trump as president. now, somewhat further down the road, if trump and his successors are able to consolidate power, then you could have something that would

i believe the description of a right wing dictatorship in the country. as you notice in the quotation the timeline i suggest is that the democratic crisis could occur as soon as 2025. but sometime by 2030 i think that you might find that an extreme republican presidency and republican regime could as i say consolidate itself into a situation where you have power subordinated to one individual, the rule of law subordinated to one individual, and by any reasonable description you'd call that a dictatorship. >> thomas, you are an outside observer watching what's going on here. you know that what's happening in america is part of a global authoritarian trend. but i wonder, is america, is the trumpian gop here, is it leading or following this global attack on liberal democracy? are we the tail or the dog? >> i think that probably on

balance the united states is the dog in the sense that while there were -- there have been many moves you might say, shifts toward authoritarianism and countries around the world in hungary and brazil and the philippines and india, what happens in the united states has extraordinary consequences for the rest of the world. so those other shifts toward authoritarianism that we see in the other countries might be reversed if democracy holds firm within the western democracies in particular in the united states. if the united states moves in that direction, too, that will simply reinforce the trends we've seen develop elsewhere in the world. so while the united states is not the first to start moving down this pathway it is certainly the most important by far. and arguably the oldest democracy in the world. and so it has huge symbolic

importance for the entire democratic experiment in human history. >> a very good if worrying point. thomas, if democracy does die in america, it could be in a drip-drip legalistic fashion in the way that hungary went full authoritarian under viktor orban, or it could be marked by widespread violence in the streets. you mentioned in your piece how civil war is now being discussed by the experts. how worried are you about which direction we go in as a country? >> in many ways, once we start to think about these things we enter into a sort of land of imponderables. you know, it's just extraordinary. i have to say i find this an unbelievably difficult piece to write. i'm a writer by profession, and i've published many, many pieces in newspapers around the world, but this one was extraordinary in its difficulty. in part because the consequences seem so unmentionable.

i think there are many different pathways. you mentioned viktor orban, liberal democracy. there is a kind of civil chaos that we see within brazil at the moment under the increasingly authoritarian regime jair bolsonaro. we have of course inevitably vladimir putin's one-man autocracy and nationalist autocracy in russia. a lot of people are speculating about civil war in the united states. it's interesting i think that americans because you've had that horrific experience in your history, that you frame things frequently in terms of civil war. that's certainly a risk, widespread violence certainly is a risk in part because the american public is so heavily armed with some 400 million firearms in civilian hands in the country. but i think the real risk is ultimately less internal violence, which i think is actually quite likely, if things go badly with the republican extremist regime, but the real

concern is the development of a right wing as i say dictatorship, a hard autocracy in the country that would take some time to consolidate and might be a drip, drip, drip process that could take a decade or more to consolidate. >> so you paint this picture in very stark terms both in your op-ed and tonight on this show. question, do you believe the both sides american media is taking this threat seriously enough? >> i think it's been a sea change just in the last few weeks actually. in part because of the publication of some key books on the risk of civil war, but i think there's also a recognition that those 2022 elections are approaching and there is a real chance republicans are going to basically win a majority in both the house and the senate, and at that point they will have captured essentially the dynamic

of the political conversation in the country. so there is a very small window now to protect the key mechanisms of democracy in the united states in terms of time, and so i think with president biden's speech this last tuesday there is now a recognition the moment is now if not perhaps too late. so, yes. i think that at least some segments of the american population and certainly around the world we're starting to see some much more attention to this issue than we were before. which is actually a very good thing. but i hope it's not too late. biden has come very late to this game now to apply his full political pressure. >> sadly, he has. last quick question for you. what can canada do here to help the forces of democracy in the u.s.? what can the rest of the world do? anything? >> well, i think it has to be very clear what side we're on here. you know, we need to express our enormous support for democratic forces and processes in the united states.

there are three-quarters of a million canadian emigres in the united states, many of them very influential. we might have a voice at sometime though we have to be careful of being accused of interfering in american affairs. but i think for the most part it's about saying where we stand and how important what happens over the next year in the united states is to the entire world. >> yes, indeed. we'll have to leave it there. thomas homer-dixon, thank you very much for your time tonight. i appreciate it. >> thank you. still to come, in 2022 on this holiday weekend is martin luther king's democratic dream still alive? we'll take a look at what's happening to voting rights in arizona, kyrsten sinema's state. plus, what could happen if a president decides to keep a campaign promise? i'll explain in the 60-second rant. don't go away. don't go away. voltaren is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel

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>> in case you missed it those were just some of the arguments that democratic senator kyrsten sinema offered in defense of her decision to knee cap her own party's voting rights bills this past week. her rhetoric soaring as it was trite called on americans to embrace their better angels, to leave ideology by the way side and, i suppose, to go quietly into the night as republicans across the country pass increasingly extreme and anti-democratic election reform aka voter suppression measures. in an instance of cosmic irony just two days after sinema staked her claim as the new heir of civility politics, donald trump traveled to her home state of arizona and along with a clown car of conspiracy mongers organized a massive rally to once again trot out shamefully dishonest and fascistic talking points. trump's favorite candidate for arizona government carrie lake even went so far as to explicitly call for imprisonment of anyone involved in certifying

the 2020 election. let's be clear. in arizona the anti-democratic fervor extends beyond just words. the state legislature there is taking action. republicans have already introduced bills that would ban ballot drop boxes, severely curtail drive through voting, require ballots to become public records, and establish a bureau of elections to investigate any allegations of fraud. but no, senator sinema, you are absolutely right. the real danger facing america right now is the disease of division. joining me now to discuss all of this is state representative reginald bolding democratic leader in the arizona house of representatives, and a candidate for arizona secretary of state. thank you so much for taking time out to join me tonight. what did you make of your senator, senator sinema of arizona, giving a speech this past week on the senate floor refusing to budge in her support for the senate filibuster blaming the disease of division rather than republican party voter suppression?

>> you know, first, thanks for having me on. only thing i would say to senator sinema is just pick up the phone and give me a call. i am literally on the front lines with my democratic caucus on the floor of the house fighting against these voter suppression -- now. just last year there was a bill introduced signed into law that would remove nearly 200,000 individuals from mail-in voting. quite frankly the decision to stop democracy is already taking place and we're seeing it exploding here in arizona. >> i know it is a rhetorical flourish pick up the phone and give me a call but serious question do you not talk to kyrsten sinema? when was the last time you did speak to her? does she not try to find out what is going on in her own state in her own state legislature? >> you know, the reality is, you know, our senator has been one in which i think she spent a little bit more time in washington, d.c. than here in

the state of arizona. we've attempted to reach out to our senator exactly on issues like this, fighting for democracy. we've seen bills to make it harder to register people to vote, make it more difficult for them to vote at the polls, and after they vote, make it even difficult for their ballots to be counted. we've seen with this bogus audit that just took place. so the reality is arizona is on the front lines. >> so a growing number of arizona democrats are calling for senator sinema to face a primary challenge in 2024. do you agree with them? >> un, the reality is right now in 2022 as we're facing a huge election, you know, yesterday i marched in the streets with martin luther king iii and the king family asking for senators to deliver for voting rights. just a few miles away from that march, my opponent for secretary of state stood on the stage and spread the big lie of donald trump. the stakes could not be higher.

donald trump's hand picked candidate is running for secretary of state and he would not -- >> i understand. we'll come on to him but i am just wondering, she is your senator. are you happy with her continuing being your senator in arizona given she has thrown voting rights under the bus? >> the reality is if we do not have a voting rights bill passed at the federal government, arizona citizens have to make a decision and if that decision is a change then so be it. >> i was wondering what your view was but you don't seem to want to tell me. let me ask you this. the same week sinema says she is fine keeping the filibuster and not passing voting rights laws you have trump coming to your state as he did this weekend holding a rally to push the big lie again. >> yes, you know, arizona, we are consistently seeing audits. we're seeing rhetoric that is making a portion of our public lose faith in democracy. the stakes could not be higher. had we not had a democratic secretary of state in 2020 who knows what the outcome of the

presidential or u.s. senate race would have been then? we have to make sure we protect the secretary of state's office. that is why i'm running for this office. >> so you are running for this office right now. one of the speakers at yesterday's rally was mark finchum a self-confessed oath keeper who is trump's favorite choice for arizona secretary of state. how worried are you if he wins the race for that position he will not certify an arizona win for the democrats come 2024 and the next presidential election? >> the only thing it takes is looking at his own words. he sent an e-mail out to his supporters and said if i mark finchum was secretary of state in 2020 i would have made sure donald trump won the election indicating he would have changed the results. the stakes could not be clearer. we have to win this race because it will have implications in 2024. and that will have implications not just here in arizona, but across the country.

>> so the election is this year for secretary of state, for congress in arizona. what do you say to the democratic base, to activists? what do you say to african american voters in particular and latino voters in arizona who knocked on doors to get people elected? how do you get them to turn out to vote again? they might say we elected two senators from the democratic party for the state. we elected the president from this state. and yet nothing changed when it came to voting rights. how do you get them to turn out again? >> one, make sure we listen to our voters in the state of arizona and we apply pressure to politicians, ie kyrsten sinema or whoever else stands in the way of voting rights and stands in the way of democracy. then we also have to make sure we let our citizens know what issues are at stake. we're talking about issues that are relating to gun violence, education, health care, criminal justice. if we don't have a democracy, those issues don't move forward. so the stakes are clear. we have to stand up.

we have to protect democracy. >> you mentioned you were marching yesterday with martin luther king's grandson. is it time now for marching for protests for civil disobedience? even at what point do you have to take to the streets to protect democracy peacefully? >> you know, everything has to be on the table right now. we have to make sure we are mobilizing our community to engage them and educating them on the process. we also have to make sure we're calling out to our senators to say, look. if it takes a simple majority at the state legislature, to take away our voting rights, it should take a simple majority to actually protect our rights in the u.s. senate. we have to make sure we do whatever we can to make that happen. >> yes, indeed. an argument that kyrsten sinema never seems to consider nor manchin from west virginia. last quick question, one more time. do you think kyrsten sinema given what she did this week, given what she has done this past year should continue being arizona's democratic senator come 2024?

>> look, if senator sinema cannot stand up and pass a voting rights bill for the citizens of arizona, we're going to need to make sure we have someone who will do it. i'll be protecting on the front lines as secretary of state and i encourage your guests to support at reginaldvoting.com. >> arizona state representative reginald bolding, thank you so much for your time tonight. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. when president biden ran for office he promised some student debt forgiveness. why hasn't he kept his promise and can he go further? first richard lui is here with the headlines. hello, richard. >> hey, mehdi. stories we're watching for you this hour. officials in japan and south korea warn at least one suspected ballistic missile was launched from north korea this evening. this is pyongyang's fourth rocket volley since the start of january. north korea has been ramping up tests of new, potentially nuclear capable missiles designed to overwhelm missile defenses in the region. an update on the hostage stand-off at a dallas area synagogue saturday. the fbi identified the suspect who held four people hostage for

nearly 12 hours saturday as malik faisal akram, a 44-year-old british citizen. authorities say that all hostages are safe. the suspect died during the stand-off. and a severe winter storm combined with high winds and ice sweeping through parts of the southeast. officials say that tens of thousands are still without power. emergency warnings are in effect as the storm now heads northeast bringing heavy snow and freezing rain. more of the mehdi hasan show right after this break. right after this break we search for savings for you. from coupons to lower costs options. plus, earn up to $50 extra bucks rewards each year just for filling at cvs pharmacy. ♪ ♪making your way in the world today♪ ♪takes everything you've got♪ ♪ ♪taking a break from all your worries ♪ ♪sure would help a lot ♪ ♪wouldn't you like to get away? ♪

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actually across the board full student debt cancellation from the federal government. i'll give you six reasons in 60 seconds. start is the clock. number one student debt is now out of control and actually doubled in this country in the past decade alone. it stands at a whopping record $1.7 trillion. number two women would benefit hugely. debt cancellation. two thirds of the outstanding student debt is held by women. number three, black and latino americans are disproportionately burdened by student debt. student debt cancellation is a racial equity issue. number four, yes, most student debt is held by high-earning professionals, doctors and lawyers. it is progressive. debt cancellation for low income americans as a share of their income is much more than for higher income americans who have often paid off much of their debt which is private not federal. number five, cancelling student debt would give the economy a boost. one study suggests an increase in gdp of 86 to $100 billion a year on average. you'd have more disposable income for younger people who would be able to afford houses or to start new businesses.

and number six, the majority of americans it is claimed back some sort of student loan. if joe biden his own poll ratings are low does this it is a winning issue. do it mr. president. what are you waiting for? next the long-term effects of covid and why we need to take each variant of the virus much more seriously. plus the mehdi hasan show is available as a podcast. you can listen to the show on the go any time, anywhere. listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. you get your podcasts. ♪ ♪ plus, 90-day refills and same day delivery. larry? that's even less to medicare about. fill your medicare prescriptions with walgreens and save. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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when it comes to media coverage of the coronavirus, conventional wisdom seems to be that the new omicron variant is mild. it's a common reframe. it's mild. mild. you hear it on both the left and the right. but is it true? well, omicron isn't as severe as delta, yes, but hospitalizations have already hit a new pandemic peak among a huge numbers of children, many of alcohol are still too young to be vaccinated. hospitalized kids doesn't sound mild to me. more importantly those who insist it is mild are not considering the long term effects that an infection might have. this is a new disease. the research into it is just beginning. no one knows what those effects will be. but we are starting to get an idea. last fall the world's largest study on long covid in children found that 1 in 7 a full 14% of children who got covid may still have symptoms 15 weeks later. personally i think it is time we rethink our view of what constitutes mild and i think we need to talk much more not just

about covid but long covid. our guest had two cases of covid and still experiences symptoms. she is a washington and founding partner for the new media company puck. thanks so much for coming back on the show. tell us about the first experience with covid that you had. how bad was it and how bad does it continue to be for you? >> thanks so much for having me on, mehdi. the first time i got covid was in august, 2020. so i'm guessing it was the original strain. and of course there was no vaccine at the time. i was sick about five weeks. there was this kind of rollercoaster that went steadily down. and eventually i ended up in the e.r. i couldn't breathe. my oxygen levels plummeted. they said that my lungs were partially collapsed. and i recovered. i didn't, thank god, need to be intubated or anything. but it left me with what they called reactive airway disease and they weren't sure if it would be temporary or not.

it is another name for what is essentially asthma. they weren't sure if it would be temporary or would go away, if this was just kind of post viral inflammation. well, fast forward, in december i caught omicron strain i think. but i was vaxed, boosted, and it felt like mild flu for a week night and day totally different from the first experience but has brought the asthma raging back and actually just this week i talked to my pulmonologist who said looks like this is going to be a permanent feature of your life going forward so thanks, covid. >> julia, so sorry to hear that verdict from your pulmonologist. question then. there are lots of people like you out there who are dealing with the after effects of a mild case, a serious case, even asymptomatic case. what do you make of our industry's coverage of this issue? what do you make of media coverage of long covid? for me, i get frustrated that

it's mentioned not enough, so little in some of the coverage. we either talk about hospitalizations and death or nothing else. when there is this impact. we'll have a massive, long term impact on our health care system, on disabled communities, and yet we're just not talking about it. >> yeah, i mean, i do say, maybe because i had long covid and, you know, was struggling with the reactive airway disease/asthma for over a year i think my ears and eyes were more sensitive to the story so i, you know, keep seeing the stories about long covid. i feel like i've seen them but i do think, you know, especially among people who don't want to be vaccinated there seems to be this idea that this is a duality like a light switch. you're either, you either get covid and you're fine or you get covid and you die. and there is nothing in between. in fact, there was a massive spectrum in between and it can change your life forever and leave you with a chronic health

condition that you'll be dealing with for the rest of your life. i have to tell you it does not feel good to suddenly, you know, develop asthma in your late 30s and feel your body is just permanently changed by this. >> it's crazy to think that as you said a moment ago that you could have a condition that lasts forever. it is permanent based on something that didn't kill you, did put you in the hospital but as you say you didn't get intubated, etcetera, thank god yet you're still left with this condition. you hear stories of people losing their sense of smell and taste and i think to myself, that's not, you know, just a joke, ha ha. you can't smell anything or eat. losing that permanently or even six months or a year, that is a massive cost. that isn't something to be so blase about. and you mentioned earlier, let's talk about people who still refuse to get vaccinated, a lot are pointing to omicron and the fact that people are getting breakthrough infections at increasing rates and saying there is no need to get vaccinated. your experience as someone who had o.g. covid if we can call it that and omicron is there is a

big difference to being vaccinated. >> there is a massive difference. i mean, you know, they say that this variant is milder but it is only 5% milder as far as we know. and what really makes it mild is having the vaccine and having a booster. you know, it was just a completely different experience. this was a week of not feeling great, feeling like a little feverish, and then feeling totally fine except for the asthma. last time it was, you know, i lost two months out of my life and it took a long time to get back to where i was. it had a massive effect on my mental health i have to say. it wasn't just the flu. it was a massive, massive difference having it pre and post vaccine. >> one last quick question before i let you go. let's talk politics coming up to the first anniversary of joe biden's presidency. one big thing he wanted to be judged on was fighting this pandemic. you have the weird situation now where republicans are saying see? see? he failed to control the

pandemic. he failed to keep covid under control. meanwhile they're cheering on the supreme court as it knocks down mandates, cheering on governors who stop any kind of mitigation measures. >> yeah. well, i think that is a tall order for anybody and i wrote the week joe biden was elected that expecting just joe biden getting elected and getting donald trump out of the white house doesn't really do much for the virus. the virus doesn't really care who is president, right, it's about public health measures that could mitigate it but as we now know this virus isn't going away ever. and whoever is in the white house can't control what variant we get. the other thing is having talked to republicans on capitol hill, one fairly senior one told me that, you know, he was vaccinated, all the people in his office were vaccinated, but spreading the antivax message in the conservative media was kind of a way to make things bad for joe biden and to keep democrats from getting the credit that they believe donald trump should

have gotten for the vaccine. so it was this kind of extremely cynical, like let's get our own voters to stick it to joe biden. it's working. >> meanwhile 2,000 americans die every day or more than a thousand. it's crazy the death toll right now. thank you so much. >> right. they're working. >> that's what they're willing to do. cynical indeed. we have to leave it there. thank you so much for your time this evening. appreciate it. next, the oldest hatred still persists in america and throughout the world. my thoughts on yesterday's hostage situation at a texas synagogue. synagogue.♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ i'm still drawn to what's next. even with hi stroke risk due to afib

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so we only pay for what we need. -hey tex, -wooo. can someone else get a turn? yeah, hang on, i'm about to break my own record. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ president biden today used the strongest possible lang language to condemn the gunman who held four adults hostage at

a dallas area synagogue yesterday. >> this was an act of terror. this is an act of terror. i wanted to make sure we got the word out to synagogues and places of worship that we're not going to tolerate this. we have this capacity to deal with assaults on particularly the anti-semitism that has grown up. >> after a ten-hour stand-off the hostages including the synagogue's rabbi were eventually released unharmed. the hostage taker died during the stand-off. this afternoon the fbi confirmed his identity as 44-year-old british citizen malik faisal akram. a statement from akram's brother said, quote, we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident. look, what happened yesterday was an outrage. synagogues shouldn't be placed where jewish american worshipers have to be afraid. synagogues shouldn't be places that require armed guards. and yet in 2018 we saw the pittsburgh synagogue shooting. what was described then as the single biggest massacre of jews in american history, 11 dead.

in 2019 we saw the poway synagogue shooting one jewish woman killed and three more worshipers injured. the far right shooter there was just sentenced last month to life in prison. now, you'd have thought the start of the pandemic and the lockdowns would have led to a big reduction in attacks on jews in public places but no. 2020 was the third highest year on record for anti-semitic incidents in america because sadly anti-semitism is a vile, resilient, and long standing virus in our communities. there is a reason it is called the oldest hatred as was pointed out on twitter one thing people do not realize is jews are just 2% of the u.s. population and 0.2% of world's population. it actually takes a lot of effort to even find us but every year in western countries including america jews are the number one target of antireligious hate crimes. that is a scandal. the hostage taker last night reportedly wanted to free a pakistani muslim prisoner in texas convicted a few years back of trying to kill an american soldier in afghanistan.

but what has that got to do with four jewish americans in a texas synagogue? why take them hostage? look, whether it is on the brown muslim far right or the white christian far right, attributing super powers to jews, claiming they are behind all of the world's evils, responsible for all of the world's ills is both insane and deeply dangerous. and so all of us have a role to play in pushing back against these anti-semitic tropes and bigoted rhetoric that inevitably fuel anti-jewish violence and hate crimes. in october, 2018, in the wake of the pittsburgh synagogue massacre, the rabbi who was held hostage in texas last night wrote a facebook post in which he said, quote, too many times in jewish history we face tragedy without love or support. too many times to count we were left to pick up the pieces of tragedy and destruction. believe me, the love and support matters. it is something that we should all be able to expect of each other. let me say to rabbi charlie

cytron-walker and to all of my jewish viewers watching at home tonight, you are not alone. we have your back. and in this moment of fear, hate, and violence, you can count on the rest of us. coming up at the top of the hour, palestinian american stand up comedian mo amer joins ayman mohyeldin for some comic relief. we'll be right back right after this. don't go away. we'll be right back right after this this don't go away. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but, no matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age increasing your rior getting shingles. so, what can protect you? shingrix protects. you can protect yourself from shingles with a vaccine proven to be over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions

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thank you for watching, we'll be right back here next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern as ever and catch me monday through thursday, 7:00 p.m. eastern live on the choice on nbc streaming channel peacock. now it's time to hand it over to my friend ayman mohyeldin. ayman, before i go, i must have you. what do you make of this circus around novak djokovic and the australian open. now deported after being not vaccinated and false information on his visa form, depraved himself of a possible victory at the australia open because he doesn't want to get vaccinate. >> listen, first of all, on one hand, i'm glad that this saga is finally over. but for me, mehdi, and i've been following it pretty closely over the last week or so, it highlights the hypocrisy and the privilege that certain people think they have that the rest of society don't have to abide by. look, australia is having a massive surge and the country with some of the strictest covid rules and protocols since the pandemic began, and rightfully

so, australians were angry that he was somehow given an exemption and allowed to come and participate in the australian open. so from my perspective, good riddance. i'm glad that we're done with this saga, and he should not have been given the exemption in the first place because rules are rules. you cannot just be exempt for being famous, rich, or white, but then again, look at what's happening in the uk, many of what we learned about boris johnson, curious to get your thoughts on that. what do you think of that? >> i think boris johnson and novak djokovic both personify this idea that there's one rule for us and one rule for the rest of you. i mean that's it, isn't it? its rich tennis players you mention and a powerful politician, boris johnson partying it up in downing street while insisting brits go to weddings on their own, funerals on their own, having no parties. while they were living it up. now told they should be exempt, no, hold everybody to the same rule. it's interesting also, another

angle on this worth considering. you talk about privilege. you talk about people on the right. ben shapiro here in the u.s. saying it's not right. these are the same people that love immigration controls and border walls and deportations when it's not rich, white, tennis players being the ones deported. >> yeah, i was going say, ben shapiro seems to think if you're white and healthy, you should be able to come into the country. so a weird take on everything that has happened. but then again, so is this concept of privilege. good to see you my friend, enjoy your weekend tomorrow. good evening everyone, welcome to ayman tonight. with voting rights all but dead in the senate, how much of the blame falls on republicans versus democrats? plus, the department of justice finally showing up to make an example of the oath keepers.

and finally, it hasn't been the easiest two years to be a comic in this country, but funny-man mo aman made it work. i'm going ask him how. i'm ayman mohyeldin. couldn't the u.s. government the training its own insurrectionists, on thursday the department of justice charged 11 members of the oath keepers, a far-right militia group with seditious conspiracies for the role in the january 6th attack. now inside those indictment documents are new details of how the militia group used military schools to advance their extremist plots. here, you could see a group using a formation known as ranger file. it's a standard procedure convent teams use as they breach a building. and it's instantly recognizable to any soldier or marine who was served. looking at that level of coordination, it's frightening to see ju h