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tv   Velshi  MSNBC  January 29, 2022 5:00am-6:00am PST

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and backing from an expert team, 24/7. and for even more value, ask how to get up to a $500 prepaid card. get a great deal for your business with the ready. set. save. sale today. comcast business. powering possibilities. today on velshi, a fresh round of subpoenas from the january 6 select committee. what we stand to learn about the scheme to install lectors. and american troops are being sent to eastern europe soons the world watches an waits for a russian invasion of ukraine. plus she will make history. but what else could we expect from joe biden's first supreme court nominee. i'll be joined by some very smart lawyers including a former
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supreme court clerk to talk about who is on the short list and who could make a difference politically, and 65 million americans on winter weather alert. many bracing for blizzard conditions as a dangerous and disruptive winter storm hits the east coast. we'll have the latest on the storm just ahead. and then disturbing movement that might be sweeping through a school district near you. what is behind the sudden epidemic of book banning in america. why you should be more concerned than you are and what it will take to stop it. "velshi" starts now. >> good morning, it is saturday, january, 29th, i'm ali velshi. let's get right to it. number one, the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus is driving the covid related death toll higher
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than last fall's delta wave. even as new cases begin to decline. the weekly average for deaths grew to over 2500 per day. the highest since february the 12th of 2021. in some states, such as alaska, louisiana, tennessee and florida, fatalities have been increasing by more than 100% or more over the past two weeks. as of this morning, the united states has surpassed over 74 million cases and more than 866,000 lives have been lost since the pandemic began. meanwhile, in an ironic twist of fate, a 52-year-old bridge in pennsylvania collapsed, just hours before president biden was due to visit the area. to tout his infrastructure agenda. rescue crews repelled down into the concrete and rubble to help
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those injured in the collapse. but there were no fatalities. that bridge in pittsburgh is one of the 3300 bridges in the state of pennsylvania that were deemed to be structurally deficient. around $1.6 billion is headed to pennsylvania for bridge repairs over the next five years thanks to biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill. during the visit he vowed to repair all of them across the country. >> we're going to fix them all. not a joke. this is going to be a gigantic change and there is 43,000 nationwide. >> back on capitol hill, the january 6 committee is taking a big leap forward in its investigation. the panel issued a wave of subpoenas for 14 republicans from seven states who signed documents falsely claiming that they were their state's rightful electors for donald trump in 2020. even though states, they were all won by president biden. quick lesson here, if you win
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the state, you get the eelectors. in the statement the committee said we believe the individuals we've subpoenaed today have information about how these so-called alternate electors met and who was behind this scheme. we encouraged them to cooperate with the select committee's investigations to get answers about january 6 for the american people and help ensure that nothing like that day ever happens again. end quote. the individuals subpoenas are not house hold names, which means they can't claim executive privilege but some of them are republicans who hold influential positions that play a key role in their tate's election process. for instance, on the list of people subpoenaed, is david schaefer, the chairman of the georgia gop. as well as michael jay mcdonald, the chairman of the nevada gop. we're going to be diving into
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those developments in a moat with politico's betry wood swan. but now i want to turn to the supreme court, justice breyer will retire this summer when gives president biden a chance to deliver on key campaign promises an to make history in the process by nominating a black woman to replace him. overnight the white house confirmed that south carolina district judge jay michelle childs is being considered as a possible candidate to succeed justice breyer, making her the first person that the administration has publicly identified as a potential nominee. now in addition to childs, other high-profile contenders include cat angie brown jackson and the superior court justice leondra kruger. and this is where we begin our discussion this morning. joining me, a professor of law at columbia university and served on president biden's
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supreme court commission and served as law clerk for john paul stevens. good to see you this morning. thank you for joining us. >> nice to see you. thanks for having me. >> could you tell us, to start with, what is the math on this? justice breyer retiring, being replaced by a judge, a justice who is appointed by a democratic president, does not effect the balance on the court. so to your mind, what is the biggest deal here? >> yeah, first of all, let me just say that everyone goes trait to the math, the politics and you're thinking about how will this change the court and that is i think a sensible bottom line but i just want to say a word about breyer and what we lose with breyer, right. this is a justice who is supremely committed to democracy, to an idea of a functioning government. he has written opinions and sometimes dissents that are really powerful on the basis of individual rights and racial
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equity. so this is who we're losing. so it is important and i really significant that he's stepping down, because it really clears the way for new voices on the court, which is important and we will undoubtedly see someone younger. we may see someone who is a woman. we may see a woman of color, we may see a black woman. and there is also an opportunity at this point to diversify the court and in all ort sorts of other ways. he had experience in congress, which was very valuable. he had experience as a professor. now he miepgt be able to have someone who has experience representing poor people, or working in the criminal justice system. and all of that can effect the courts. so you may not see it immediately in the bottom line, in terms of some of the hot-button issues, but over time the composition of the court could really effect how they address issues effecting
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ordinary america. >> you said we may get a woman, we may get a black woman. the president has said he's going to nominate them. so when you say we may, is there doubt in your mind that that could happen, that the senate will confirm a nominee that joe biden has appointed, has nominated? >> there shouldn't be doubt, right. given the political situation that is right now with regard to the inability to filibuster a nominee. i'm also really hopeful that with any of these nominees, that they be considered acceptable to both parties. we don't know who it is. and so i think there is always a little bit of doubt until it happens. and that is one of the things that i want to address. but when you see the people who you listed as front-runners, they're all judges right now. and oftentimes, though i don't think you have to do it this way, the president will look to a judge and that is someone who
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sometimes can command bipartisan support. you see that this was the case with ketanji brown jackson. she had tremendous support when she was elevated from the district court to the court after peels. so you hope you would see the same thing. judges have a known record. so it is easier to see how they're going to approach issues and that is why we look at judges as potential candidates. >> can you talk to me, if the balance of the court is not effected, obviously there are mathematical implications for bringing someone on who is young and might be on the court for a lot of years an the balance of the court may shift differently over that time. but in the moment, for the moment, the balance of the court will not change. how important is diversification and representation? there is a black justice, for instance and there are women justices for instance. >> and let me say at beginning,
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we don't know how the ballots will shift. because we only pay attention to the hot button issues but there are other things that the court decide. but in terms of diversity, it is important for the court. for one, there have ome been two black justices. there have only been, what are we at the count now, four women. so i think that that kind of diversity matters for the legitimacy of the institution and this is a point in which a lot of people are asking about the supreme court, how responsive it is on a range of issues, whether this is a court that the public has trust on, trust in over time, some of the polling and what we see in terms of the political attention shows that there is a real concern about whether the court has legitimacy. >> a law professor at columbia university, former law clerk for the late justice john paul stevens. we appreciate your perspective
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this morning. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. well, it is becoming clearer almost every day, that the plot to overthrow the 2020 election result was more coordinated than we initially thought. the house select january 6 committee is now turning its attention toward the republican led scheme to replace valid biden electors with so-called alternate electors who would claim that president trump was the winner in their states. the committee said on december 14th, 2020, groups of republicans met informally in seven states, including arizona, georgia, michigan, new mexico, nevada, pennsylvania, and wisconsin. the gop fraudsters tried to submit forged documents of their own state of electors declaring trump the winner despite biden's victory. joining me now is betsy woodruff swan, and an msnbc political
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contributor. good morning to you. i get that the january 6 committee is rightfully very interested in this. but as you point out and they often point out when we speak to members, they're not a criminal investigative group. they could refer things to the justice department. is there no law against this to inventing yourself as an elector in as presidential election and submitting fake documents. why is this not a justice department matter as opposed to the january 6 matter? >> it is a great question. my understanding is that there is not language in federal law, specifically saying what you just said in part because there was so many really weird things that happened during the last, you know, week or two months of trump's presidency that american lawmakers never really anticipated. ben ginsburg has been very critical of president trump, he said making a legal case against the people involved in this particular scheme would be
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challenging. on the other hand many legal experts said it is not challenging. the issue for doj, it is unchartered area. and the reason they are unchartered is because the behavior is so bizarre. the fact that this whole situation is percolating points to the increase pressure on the justice department in this context. we know that state attorneys general have referred these electors to the doj for prosecution earlier this week the second in command at doj lisa monaco referenced the fact that doj has received those referrals and said the department is looking at them. there are real questions as to whether or not doj might have looked at this topic if they hadn't had those referrals come in. if people who didn't have the ability to bring criminal charges in this context hadn't jumped up and down and waved their arms over at doj and said maybe you should take a look at this and that is the impact that
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the select committee could have. they are doing investigations that we don't know if the justice department necessarily would have done of its own accord, they're bringing together a massive amount of information from all corners and that is something that is giving them an usually detail and broad picture of what happened. >> yeah, to that degree, the information gathering is crucial and the ability to convey to people watching us right now that every day this thing seems to have more tentacles that it did. that said, colleagues of mine make fun of me because i say what does success look like. what was success supposed to look like for those fake slates of republican electors? was there a sense that someone would get fooled by the submission or was it setting up a defensible legal argument for why trump should be declared president or why mike pence should have been able to do what they wanted him to do in congress on january 6? was anybody going to get fooled and get this envelope and say i
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get pennsylvania went republican? >> what the fake electors have said is that the reason that they were engaged in this activity is that lawyers on trumps team told them that there -- that trump's team had its own civil litigation going into the seven battleground states. so trump's lawyers told the fake electors, if we win these lawsuits to overturn the results in states like pennsylvania, wisconsin and arizona, then we'll need these electors teed up so that a judge could say, oh, wisconsin, there was so much crazy voter fraud and we're going to switch and send in the trump electorsin ted. that is the legal strategy. it is a real head scratcher, but one of the people who has been subpoenaed by the select committee andrew hit has put out a statement saying, he's from wisconsin, saying that the reason he was engaged in this scheme was because he and others
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working with him on this project received legal counsel from wisconsin lawyers suggesting that these were lawyers operating in some sort of official capacity. that is an argument that anybody who faces sort of more criminal scrutiny will be able to use. it is not a magical exculpatory thing but they're going to say, hey, we were just following the advice of lawyers. >> do you ever have to put ott the top of your bottom of your stories, i'm not making this up. this really happened. things we discuss on a weekly basis, betsy, in 30 years of the career i would not have imagined to discuss with you. but i'm grateful for you taking time to explain to our viewers. and she doesn't actually make stuff up. still ahead on velshi, we'll have more on the january 6
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investigation and who is on president biden short list. and ukrainian is on the brink of an invasion with more than 130,000 russian troops stationed long its border with russia. and now the united states plans to send additional troops to nato countries in the region. also, right now much of the northeast engulfed in a major winter storm. some areas are expecting up to 30 inches of snow. some places 60 mile-per-hour winds. go nowhere. you're watching velshi. that is "times" square on msnbc. .
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whose last year in office was 1992. clarence thomas has had much more impact on the way we live than the first president bush did. a mass of and major winter storm is covering a large swath of the northeast of the united states. storm warnings are in effect from virginia up to maine with blizzard warnings in effect across multiple states from the
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far eastern section of long island in new york up to maine. up to 30 inches of snow could fall in areas around boston. there is also potential for 60 mile-per-hour winds. joining us live from boston is nbc news correspondent kathy park. what is the situation where you are? >> reporter: hey, ali, the snow is starting to pick up, we have a few inches on the ground already. but the winds are just brutal. but i guess you could say this is a precursor just a bit of an appetizer before the big show because the storm is expected to intensify. we're expecting two to four inches an hour sometime this afternoon. so yeah, this could be a historic storm. here in massachusetts, about 4,000 pieces of equipment are ready to go. in boston there is a snow emergency. so parking restrictions are in place. and as you could imagine, air travel has been halted because
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of this powerful system. hundreds of flights canceled in and out of boston logan international airport. meanwhile, we're also tracking conditions over in coastal communities, not only are they getting slammed with a whole lot of snow, we are potentially following the potential for flooding and also widespread power out anls in communities like situate and marshville with a whole lot of strong wave as long the shore. the ocean surge could be up to three feet. so people were boarding up and getting the sandbags out and hunkering down and getting prepared for this nor'easter. but conditions are only expected to deteriorate later on today so officials are encouraging people to stay indoors. so the crews, the plows could do their job throughout the course of the day today as well as tomorrow and, ali, would you tell you, not only are we getting slammed with snow, it is pretty cold out here. 19 degrees here in boston but it
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feels like 3 degrees. i'm wearing four layers an i'm still shivering under here. >> it is cold and it is windy. wherever you are, whether in new york city or boston or around the northeast, the wind levels will be very high which is a danger in itself when snowfalls on things and they blow around, they could injure you. so everybody be very careful. kathy, you stay safe in boston. we'll check in with you later on. the situation in ukraine remains tense with more than 130,000 russian troops stationed at the border. and joe biden plans to move u.s. troops to nato countries in eastern europe. so it is a geopolitical game of chess. so the five-time grand master gary casperoff standing by to discuss vladimir putin's next moves. s vladimir putin's next moves.
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and russia continue to escalate, president biden plans to move u.s. troops to eastern europe and nato countries. he didn't say how many and he provided no specific timetable but he did say it will happen in the near term. now russia remains poised for an invasion of ukraine. according to the defense minister, in ukraine, there are upwards of 130,000 russian troops massed near the border. president biden is reportedly warned that a russian invasion in february is a, quote, distinct possibility. russia, however, maintains it doesn't want a war and won't allow interests including ukraine to be allowed to join nato. at a pentagon press conference millie described the magnitude of the situation. >> larger in scale and scope and the massing of forces than anything that we've seen in recent memory and i think you
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have to go back quite a while into the cold war days to see something of this magnitude. >> if that was unleashed on ukraine, it would be significant, very significant. and it would result in a significant amount of casualties. >> the current state of affairs traces back to a list of security demands issued by vladimir putin to america and its allies last month. in addition to the demands about ukraine, putin called for an end to the nato alliances eastward expansion to the few remaining nonaligned countries on russia's borders and for the removal of nato troops from eastern europe. for more on how putin may proceed with ukraine. i'm joined by gary casperoff, the chairman of the renewed democracy initiative for -- and the human rights foundation. a russian pro-democracy leader and, of course, a five-time world chess champion so he knows a thing or two about getting out
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of difficult situations. thank you for being with us this morning. i'm not making light of the whole thing by caring it to chess. but we actually have two participants in this who are in difficult situations. vladimir putin may not -- many people tell me he doesn't want a military confrontation, he wants to win something. and the west and nato certainly seem adverse to getting involved in a war right now. and yet everybody is making preparations for one. >> ali, thank you very much for inviting me. please, stop making comparisons to the game of chess. putin is playing poker. he's bluffing. and why he's bluffing, i won't say a weak hand but it is not a winning hand. because he believes that the free world led by america will blink again. so, it's also important to understand that it is not a game of two. it is a game of many. that is why i say it is a poker table. and putin knows that it is not
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only him and in america and ukraine, but other allies like germany and france, they're not willing even to play this game. so putin's plans are not just limited to ukraine. he never made a secret of his dual political ambitions to reassert russian control of the former soviet union or beyond that. at the security conference in europe, he talked about going back to the so-called fear of influence. he believes that the big countries must dictate will to the smaller countries and nato is standing in his way. and ukraine is part of this grandiose geopolitical reorganization of the map. let's not forget, putin annexed crimea and part of eastern ukraine. is now it is not just about invasion, it is about destroying ukraine civility and 24/7 russia
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propaganda kept telling russian public that ukraine was a failed state and is it doesn't deserve to stay in independent. so ukraine is one of the important bargaining chips in putin's man. but it goes beyond that. and if he fails again to stand by ukrainian and to defend the world order as we used to know, so the consequence could go beyond that. and why putin thinks that he could get away with that. because he has been doing it for years. >> yeah. >> so just remember syria. that is when putin sent troops and fighter jets to support asad and barack obama kept sending -- >> we drew a red line and let them cross the red line. i want to put up nato while there was soviet union versus
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nato now. his complaint is you've made them nato countries so i've got american backed countries on my border now entirely. why then, after all that, is ukraine the one that he won't let go of? >> look, i'm not sure that you're right saying that we took these countries. they rushed to nato because they had an experience, they have been occupied by soviet troops for more than four decades. it's a fear of russian invasion, and it is a real fear, the republic of georgia could confirm and to push baltic states into nato. that is why ukraine and georgia would like to move to nato. but all of the hoopla about nato is too close to russian borders. show the map. astonia is much closer to st. petersburg than ukraine. it is not flying time of american missiles to russia, it is about flying time of ideas of
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the free world. putin knows that free independent sovereign democratic prosperous ukraine is the biggest threat to his dictatorship in russia because it will have the same domino effect as polynesian did. and he doesn't want to have war by all means. if he could get what he wants. but if he doesn't, let's remember, he never any allergy for -- and that is why massing up troops on the border could end up in a full-scale invasion and now we have some good news that american is taking the lead, the first administration after 2007 that took a strong stand. but instead of talking and threats, i think some of this so-called -- must be imposed now. because putin should understand, we mean business. because otherwise he could expect soon trump comes back,
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he's pro-trump, and it is all goes bust again. >> gary, good to see you as always. thank you for joining us this morning. gary casperoff, the founder of renewed democracy initiative and the chairman of the human rights foundation and a chess grand master who said stop comparing this to chess because putin is playing poker. the videos which recording the police killings of george floyd and other people of color not only captured the acts on tape, they captured the attention of america and in many cases helped bring about some level of accountability. now some republicans are trying to make those types of videos illegal because, of course they are. of course they of course they are. and the new baja chicken & bacon, aka "the smokeshow." save big. order through the app.
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house bill 2319 would make it unlawful for someone to film a police officer in public without their permission and within 15 feet of the officer carrying out, quote, law enforcement activity. now if you're thinking that this feels very much like a bill written by a police officer and one in particular who doesn't think that the public should have transparency into policing, you'd be mostly right. the legislation was proposed by republican state representative john cavanaugh, a retired cop who spent decades as an officer for the port authority of new york and new jersey. now cavanaugh said that bystanders film law enforcement are a distraction to the police officers. or might it simply distract from the abuses carried out by bad cops. over the last decades or so the public defense best defense against police brutality has been the smartphone with a camera that just about every one of us has in our pockets all of the time. for many the phone is their only armor. it might not protect from injury
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but could document what is playing out in front of your eyes and justices that would not see the light of day without the video recording. because video bears witness and it allows power to be held to account. it is often the officer's word against everyone else, and cops and bosses and courts take the word of cops. but this modern breakthrough of the public filming policen counters, it is a positive break through for the public and for cops. at least for the good ones. it guarantees transparency on both sides. officers can't get away with illegal activity and civilians can't make up stories about police brutality that didn't happen. many police departments welcome the use of body cameras, cell phone video serves same purpose, it is just a different angle. to those who support a law like the one proposed in arizona, remember we are still a democracy, which means we're a society whose politics, public security and military are
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governed by civilians. america is not run by the military or the police. they do not make decisions about the public. it is the other way around. police in this country are public servants who do not get to make decisions about who sees and records what they do. i've reported from countries where you do need permission to record law enforcement. they are not countries in which you would like to live. wonder how that would have worked as derek chauvin murdered george floyd and placed their hands on their mace while daniela begged them to stop. that camera on that smartphone did not change the situation for george floyd. derek chauvin nyhe was being recorded. he saw the camera. he looked right into it as he knelt on to george floyd's neck for nine and a half minutes. the video seen around the world did not save george floyd, but
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thanks to that video there was accountability. thanks to that video, george floyd did not die in rain. dare chauvin is behind bars as a convicted murderer. the idea that the public should seek permission before filming the police is insidious. the first amendment have confirmed the right, to not do so it to turn the lights of accountability off. of of accountability off ...or last-minute gift shopping rashida... i'm putting a bow on it! wow... ...even sneaking away for a vacay rashida. shhh! i've earned this, okay? earn 5% cash back in your top eligible spend category, up to $500 spent each billing cycle. with the citi custom℠ card. subway's new roast beef footlong has so much new,
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i knew your probably getting busy for your day but i'm going to ask for your full attention for a couple of minutes. you want to watch a remarkable video that i'm about to play in its entirety. international holocaust remembrance day was this week. thursday marked 77 years since the liberation of the auschwitz concentration camp. a million of the 6 million killed in the holocaust were murdered at auschwitz and its sister camp nearby. the holocaust was one of the worst genocides in history yet knowledge and understanding of it is alarmingly low. those under 40 found that 48% of millennial and gen z respondents could not name a single nazi
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concentration camp. not one. 63% did not know that 6 million jews were killed in the holocaust and most alarmingly 11% said they believe it was jews who caused the holocaust. now when you take this low knowledge environment and mix in the dangerous brew of deliberate disinformation from holocaust deniers that circulates online in this era of weaponized lies, you could see we're on the press pis of a greater threat. a new short film released by the holocaust film of los angeles aims to serve as a warning of what could happen if the same tools of disinformation brought to bear against our election system are fully unleashed on the very important history of the holocaust. a warning. this video is fictional. but it is pretty disturbing.
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>> and in sadder news, the world's last known survivor of the holocaust has passed away. >> and as she was buried, last firsthand account of the worst mass genocide in history was buried. >> people gather to mourn, to pray, vowing to never forget in the hopes that we'll never -- >> to germany from her age of 4 and separated at the border and placed in -- >> the story is our story and her struggle is one that still haunts us. >> it is an important reminder that we need to learn the less lessons of history so we don't repeat the mistakes. >> i'm about to be pulled over by the pc police, but there is a lot of evidence that what we know about the holocaust has been greatly exaggerated. >> this old lady dies that we've never heard of and we're supposed to stop asking questions. >> did you just question whether or not the holocaust happened. >> oh, no, don't put words in my mouth. i'm just saying it is our responsibility to listen to both
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sides. >> no, there are not always two sides. what is next, slavery was good for the slaves? >> are you saying the interviews with holocaust survivors are actors reading a script? >> no. i'm just saying they could be actors reading a script. >> do you have proof that they are? >> no. but do you have proof that their not. >>script. >> do you have proof that they are? >> no, but do you have proof that they're not? >> let me know what you think in the comments below. >> acts of anti-semitic -- >> expressing concerns that swastikas painted on schools -- >> research firm has just released a shocking -- >> 49% of americans now say they have doubts about what actually happened. >> and 35% say they don't think the holocaust happened at all. >> trisha, these protests have really escalated today. what can you tell us? >> on one side they're holding signs saying deniers are liars. on the other, teach both sides. >> this historic legislation will once and for all make sure our kids are taught both sides
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of every issue. [ applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ >> okay, everyone. welcome to the holocaust, fact or fiction? in this course we'll be examining both sides of this divisive historical event. ♪♪ ♪♪ that's such a disturbing video that i have to remind you it's fictional. those are all actors in there. it's meant to make a statement, it is stark, however, and coming up after a quick break i will speak to the man who co-wrote and directed that video about why that dystopian view of the future is actually looking plausible. is actually looking plausible. to find 92% of colon cancers... even in early stages.
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this idea of taking things that are obvious and have facts behind them and sort of saying there's a both sides to this thing is taking grip of society. this is far more serious than it's ever been. >> i think that's true. i think when you enter the age of misinformation is the idea of both sides, and when you dare to say that not every issue has two sides to it, you are often told that you are often told that you are trying to shut down free speech, that you're anti-free speech. it's not about being anti-free speech and being anti-using free speech as a shield to protect hate speech. >> that's a distinction we want to make. we want to get into a world where we're not banning stuff and we're not stopping people from talking about things so what's the particular danger lear? it seems obvious to us. 6 million people died in the holocaust. the idea of denying it which, by the way, is illegal in many
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countries is dangerous because we aren't able to learn from our own history. >> yeah. that's exactly right. the reason i wanted to make this film and the reason the holocaust museum wanted to get behind it and put it out is simply because we are in an era where things that aren't true, things that are lies are able to spread so quickly and so globally and actually gain traction with such a large audience and we've seen this time and time again, but most of the time right now that phenomena is mostly infecting current events. it's living here in the present, and i wanted to create this imagery to show what happens when that fire jumps the freeway and misinformation and the same tools that make us believe things that aren't true in the present start to infect our history and the critical lessons of history and what we need to learn to make sure it's not repeated. >> i want to ask my director to put those three polls up on the screen to rotate through them.
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have you heard of the holocaust? do you believe the holocaust happened? have you heard of the holocaust on social media? >> is this a poor -- is this bad history teaching or is this disinformation that is calling these results? 63% of people did not know about 6 million jews were killed in the holocaust. how does this happen, eric? >> i don't know how it happened. i don't know this is disinformation other than the rich soil in which disinformation spreads. i had polls in the video where it went from passive to active. the polls you're showing that are real today is people not having real knowledge of what happened and not being aware of the truth of history and that's sort of the rich soil that bad actors spreading this information can use to their advantage and what you saw in the video is a fairly plausible set of future polls that show an
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active denial that it happened, and so if you have no awareness that it happened, if you haven't been taught the truth of history. i think you're more susceptible of an know true view of being accepted as truth. >> for people who think this is an abstraction, mcmin county, the school board in tennessee voted unanimously against the graphic novel "maus" on the family's experience in the holocaust. >> yeah. i -- i've been -- i've been told by some critics like they feel it's a straw man argument, i wish it were a straw man argument and i was in tennessee in south lake, texas, just a couple of months prior. a school board administrator saying if there were books about the holocaust in the library that there should be books about
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opposing views. i had completed this video before that was caught on tape, but i was thinking that maybe my future facing video didn't go far enough because it seems to already be happening. >> eric, thanks for making it and thanks for the holocaust museum of l.a. for being behind it. errish is the founder of the non-profit organization will work for change. not only is there a snowstorm outside for many of you. there's more to learn, and a fresh round of subpoenas from the january 6th committee and who is on president biden's supreme court short list? another power-packed hour of velshi begins right now. good morning to you. it is 9:00 a.m. in the east on saturday january the 29th. i'm ali velshi. president biden and his administration continue to be stymied by a series of ongoing challenges. the coronavirus pandemic still devastating the country. casers down i

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