today on velshi, the biggest lie yet. donald trump's republican party calls the insurrection, legitimate political discourse. in just a moment i'll talk to the man who told us that january 6th would happen almost two years before it did. michael cohen has got first-hand experience as donald trump's fall guy and he warned us that his former boss would not go peacefully if he lost the election. the twice-impeached

ex-president's former fixer joins me next. plus huge job numbers beat everyone's expectations this week as the recovery continues, but what is this booming economy doing for black americans? i'll talk to the vice president of the st. louis fed. and introducing the velshi banned book club. we're innaug raing a new club. velshi starts now. augurating a . velshi starts now. good morning to you. it's saturday february 5th. for most americans the attack on the capitol on january 6th, 2021 was a shocking event in history. what we've learned since then, it was stoked by an active plot

to deny joe biden the presidency. memos unearthed by "the new york times" and "the washington post" this week shine light on the month's long effort that preceded the events of that day and they link those efforts to donald trump himself. according to "the new york times" 15 days after election day in 2020, james r. troupes a lawyer for the trump campaign in wisconsin received a memo for the rational for an audacious strategy to put in place slates of electors in states where donald trump was trying to overturn his loss. but the january 18th memo are among the earliest known efforts to put on paper proposals for preparing and submitting alternate slates of electors. it is a strategy that president trump would embrace with profound consequences for himself and the nation, end

quote. another report from the times directly connects trump with the unsigned draft executive order that would have allowed the military to seize voting machines across the country. a separate memo drafted by trump allies and obtained by "the washington post" proposed another idea, quote the memo used the language of government beauracracy but the proposal it advocated was extreme. president donald trump should invoke the powers of the national security agency and the defense department to sift through raw electronic communications in an attempt to show that foreign powers had intervened in the 2020 election to help joe biden win. end quote. these memos show the extent to which donald trump and his allies went to create false justifications to overturn the election. none of their dangerous ideas succeeded, maybe one of them did, it made people doubt the election.

but trump and his people were consumed by this effort for weeks. many hours spent studying laws like the electoral count act and trying to find loopholes that would allow trump to hold onto power for as long as possible. elected members of congress were aware this was going on. "the washington post" reports that at least three gop senators, kevin kramer, cynthia loomis and ron johnson attended a meeting on january 4th that was organized by the then sleep deprived foam pillow salesman to discuss allegations of election fraud. it is shocking to think about this, but it's not surprising at all considering the man we're talking about. let's take a quick trip down memory lane. on february 1, 2016, the state of iowa kicked off primary season with its first in the

nation caucus. the big winner that night was ted cruz, trump came in a close and respectable second place. but because he's donald trump he began making bogus accusations about the iowa caucus. he tweeted it was rigged, there was fraud involved and the state should redo the election because he didn't like the outcome. the 2016 iowa caucus was the first time donald trump was a candidate for any election of any kind. six years later, trump is the same man he was back then. repeating the same tired and baseless lies. except this time the election delusion that he conjured up is eroding democracy nationwide. it's causing turmoil within his own party. the rift between donald trump and his vice president, mike pence, spilled out into the open this week. last sunday donald trump issued a statement which he declared that pence, quote, could have overturned the election. yesterday the former vice president responded to the

twice-impeached ex-president's outrageous claim. >> president trump is wrong. i had to right to overturn the election. the presidency belongs to the american people and the american people alone. and frankly, there is no idea more un-american than the notion that any one person could choose the american president. >> also yesterday the republican national committee overwhelmingly voted to censure representatives liz cheney and adam kinzinger. both republicans. the rnc cited their work as members of the house select committee investigating the january 6th insurrection as the reason they've been marginalized by their own party. this is what the republican party has been reduced to. it's a party without a platform that exists right now to place a disgraced and failed politician in the front and center. there's never been an effort to uncover widespread fraud in the

2020 election because there wasn't widespread fraud in the 2020 election. it's been proved over and over again in courts, by recourt, by secretaries of state. this has always been the preservation of one man's fragile ego. and with me is someone who knows that man and his fragile ego very well. for more than a decade, michael cohen served as trump's fixer before they parted ways. in 2018 he pleaded guilty to a series of crimes he did on trump's behave. he's the author of the big "disloyal" michael cohen joins me now. michael, good to see you this morning, thank you for being with us. >> good to see you. i'm hoping they don't end up banning "disloyal" and my podcast from that list of ali velshi books that are going to be banned. >> if they do we'll put you on

velshi banned books club. i've read a series of articles this week, the cast of characters, rudy giuliani, sidney powell, the pillow guy, the cyber ninja guy, mike flynn, they were trying to figure out some way of overturning this election. they drafted an executive order for donald trump's signature. according to "the new york times" donald trump was front and center in this thing, sort of leading it, trying to get whatever answer he wanted, going with whatever claim came up as long as it kept him president. you know that man, how did that go down with all these people around him jockeying for position trying to convince him that he could remain president? >> there's nothing new here i saw. i watched donald do the same stupid things over and over again during my more than decade

with him. here's the scenario. donald is actually a stupid man. the way you ingratiate yourself in into his orbit is you say ridiculous things knowing that it's not true, but knowing it's exactly what donald trump wants to hear. so you are 100% when you say he has a fragile ego. he has the most fragile ego of anyone you would meet. the fact he lost the election is impossible to him. anyone that would come to him and say, mr. president, donald, whatever they call him, mike pence has the ability to go ahead and stop the certification of joe biden's victory. now all of a sudden he's perked up and interested, and he'll tell you go in the other room and come back with a strategy. so the notion that donald trump wasn't involved in it is baseless. then it gets better.

other people see that donald is paying attention to them so they want the attention themselves. the whole organization ran this way. it's crazy. so you come up with something more ludicrous. hey, all of the machines are being hacked by foreign entities. so let's confiscate them. yeah, yeah, we can confiscate them. let's get the fbi to do it, secret service, the national security agency, let's get the justice department. okay. you know, let's do this. and donald in his crazy mind is thinking, yeah, yeah, i can do this. i'm the president still. i can do this, right. i can do this. all you need is one person, one fool like a rudy or mark meadows and next thing you know he's out there and they're scratching out a document for him to sign. it's insane. it's not america. >> back in 2019 i think you told chris hayes that donald trump is not going to go without a fight. he's not going to go easily. turned out to be true.

you and i talked on your podcast and you said the stuff that donald trump is doing, it's not to run for office, it's something else, to feed his ego. i have to say, the attention he's getting, are you convinced he's not running for president again? >> i believe that that grip is waning and i believe that grip will disappear once the 2022 mid terms are over, simply because there's a group of individuals that need his base in order to be re-elected. the problem is that the politicians, the gop politicians, they don't care about america. they don't care about democracy or a constitution. and any one of them that says that's not true is a liar. they don't. what they care about, just like donald, is their own power. end of story. that's all they care about. what's funny, when we were talking before, about the things that donald does. i'll never forget -- this is a true story -- when we were in the office and the billy bush tape came out, one of our mutual

friends said to donald, this is -- it was crazy, that's not your voice on the tape with billy bush. and donald sat for a second, he perked up his face like he does, and next thing he does, you're right. let's say it wasn't me. i'm not sure we need to have that tape tested to make sure it wasn't tampered with. >> this is interesting. >> donald is a liar and he will do anything to protect himself. >> when he hears he can use the national guard, national security, whatever, to get these voting machines and find evidence, do you think he thought they would find evidence there. was he diluting himself that he won the election or is he pathologically not able to lose? >> of course. he's pathologically not able to lose and he will look for anything he can point his finger

at to say i'm right. donald in his mind thinks he's right about anything. it's exactly why he said, he's never apologized to god because he's never made a mistake. anyone that's watching this program knows right off the bat that donald made more than one mistake while he was at least president of the united states. but he will never acknowledge error. because he thinks it's a weakness. and employeeing the military to come in and seize machines it's so kim jong-un, vladimir putin style, it excited him. >> it's wild. michael good to see you this morning. thank you as always for joining us. michael cohen is the former personal attorney for donald trump. the most of an excellent podcast. i've appeared with him a few times. his book, it is not yet banned, his book is called "disloyal, a

true story of the former personal attorney to president donald j. trump" as soon as some school boards get wind of the fact that it's critical of donald trump, it may appear on the velshi banned book list. joining me now eugene scott. thank you for being with us. i have to say each week what happened on january 6th comes into sharper relief. in the beginning people were saying what happened, we had the impeachment we know what happened. but with talking with michael cohen we now know the clown car that donald trump was using to try to overturn the election, it feels there's still more to come. >> absolutely. i believe this is one of those situations where we will be made aware of the background and details involved in this insurrection for maybe decades to come.

one of the things that's so fascinating listening to trump defenders and those in congress who push back on any suggestion that things were involved and determined by the white house, is the reality that they don't know all of the things coming to light because they make it very clear when they find out information that has been revealed that it's news to them. there were so many hands involved. very often not working together or on the same page but trying to figure out how they individually or at least their set could keep donald trump in office. and i think that american people need to know what was involved and who was involved, and so that alone i think would be motivation enough for investigations to continue. >> what do you think happens, though, when there are public hearings and all of these dots are put together, right now mostly put together in the press, obviously something more complete will come out from the committee, but what do you think happens? is it your view that anybody changes their mind about

anything as a result of this? >> well, we know that the media consumes directly influence how they see the world. while you've been having the conservative for 15 minutes we know the conservative media is not addressing this at all this morning. so many people who do not believe that things that were happening that are inconsistent with what is legal aren't hearing these stories. they're hearing conspiracy theories and push back on the democrats and republicans who unveiled this information. so it depends, what you consume, who you're doing life with, who you're listening to, which political leaders you look up to are shaping your view of january 6th. we knew that to be true january 7th and will be that way moving forward. >> disturbing. thank you for being here eugene scott. we'll continue to break down these wild new developments relating to the january 6th

investigation and the ongoing efforts to save american democracy. we'll discuss it with stacy plas ket at the top of the hour, she was the impeachment manager who laid out exactly what happened at the capitol that day. plus i am excited to make a major announcement about a velshi series. we talked about it a little bit and we'll need your help and suggestions. first we head to ukraine for a live report on the ground as the specter of a russian invasion looms large. r of a rusn r of a rusn invasion looms large ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day,... ♪ ...it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. ♪...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ no once-daily copd medicine... has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function.

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the u.s. and its western allies continue to engage in a high stakes waiting game as tensions between russia and the ukraine simmer. the kremlin has 130,000 troops deployed along the borders of ukraine north, east and south. and portions of the russian military have reached full combat strength and appear to be ready for war should the kremlin give the go ahead to invade. president biden has already sent more than 3,000 american troops to nato allies in eastern europe to help bolster defenses and keeping another 8,500 shoulders on stand by. joining me is mat bradley in

ukraine. you're getting incite of people who live in ukraine. they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. >> reporter: yeah, that's right. you know, it's a reminder of the fact that for a lot of ukrainians this isn't a new thing. this threat of war they've been living with this for the past eight years. and i went out and only last year the hungarian foreign minister called it one of the saddest places in europe. look at our report. this border crossing on europe's eastern fringe stands as a monument to displacement and despair. >> what's life like on the other side? >> translator: it's like we are indigenous people being oppressed by colonizers we're not allowed to go here or there. >> reporter: on the other side, the people's republic, a russian led separatist region has been at war with ukraine since 2014.

for the thousands of people who have to cross back and forth in this bridge into russian controlled territory every day, war with russia isn't imminent, it's their past, present and future. what's the significance of this crossing? >> translator: this checkpoint is very important for the people living on both sides because it's the only one that's still functioning. most people cross the checkpoint to get their pension, get vaccinated, visit relatives or buy grocegroceries. >> reporter: here the west pledges of support have always rung hollow. is there anything else that you want to tell the world about this? >> translator: tell biden please don't send troops to shoot around here. we'll deal with our own problems. >> reporter: so it just goes to show, that's why people in ukraine are not running around with their hair on fire. it's been one of the questions since the beginning why ukrainians seem so unconcerned, because for them, war is a

day-to-day reality. >> stay safe there. matt bradley in ukraine. more americans are dying daily from covid-19 than any other point during the pandemic. we're seeing deaths consistently between 3,000 and 4,000 a day, and some communities are getting hit harder than others. getting getting hit harder than others ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ ever notice how stiff clothes can feel rough on your skin? for softer clothes that are gentle on your skin, try downy free & gentle downy will soften your clothes without dyes or perfumes. the towel washed with downy is softer, and gentler on your skin. try downy free & gentle.

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but aren't you glad you can also just swing by to pick it up, and get your questions answered? because peace of mind is something you just can't get in a cardboard box. that's how healthier happens together with cvs. a grim milestone to report this morning, we've passed 900,000 total deaths related to covid-19 in the u.s. since the start of the pandemic. more than 3,800 people died of covid on thursday of this week alone. at this point in the pandemic, most of the people dying, the overwhelming majority are the unvaccinated. so i want to focus on the grass roots level battle to administer vaccines to those who are still resisting getting the shot. dr. stanford has been on the front lines of trying to get first testing and then vaccines to the black community in

philadelphia since the start of the pandemic. her organization, the black doctors covid-19 consortium has teamed up with fema in a big push to get kids vaccinated in local area schools. in philadelphia, anyone 11 or older can be vaccinated with or without parental consent. the school district however requires consent for students in the eighth grade and below. only about half of the kids in philadelphia are vaccinated right now. the philadelphia inquirer went along with dr. stanford as she went to a vaccination clinic in a high school. a 15-year-old told him his grandfather didn't want him to get a vaccine. if he did, he might have his video games taken away. joining us is dr. stanford, founder of the black doctors covid-19 consortium. she administered my first covid test in 2020. it is good to see you.

let's talk about this. what's your general -- what's the general reaction and feedback you're getting to an attempt to vaccinate more kids? >> so the children who have not had access and opportunity jump at the chance. i have an educational session and i ask them, if you've been vaccinated, tell me why. if you haven't, tell me why not. that starts the conversation. i'm able to dispel myths and for my high schoolers, most of them thought that they needed parental consent, that they needed insurance, and that they needed id to get vaccinated. when i tell them that's not the case, many of them are jumping at the opportunity to get vaccinated. >> you know, when you first started testing, before there was a vaccine, part of the issue was in the areas you were dealing with, particularly the areas with high black populations in philadelphia, a lot of people didn't have doctors, some of these areas were almost health care deserts if you will, so testing was not

easy to come by for anybody in those days but particularly black people. and you managed to go out in the community and get people tested. now is different. they weren't resis tent to testing. it was an access issue. how many people are resistant to the idea of getting a vaccine and how do you tackle that? >> i listen to them. that has been what we've done since the beginning. being empathic and understanding why there might be distrust with a medical system that has been largely untrustworthy to them in their communities. sometimes with the children it's as simple as i'm afraid of a needle. we were with our philadelphia police department yesterday, because they need boosters and sometimes it's i can't get time off work. in a public health crisis, you have to go to the people. particularly those who are most vulnerable. and that is alleviating many of the barriers.

but we do need folks to stop putting in place obstruction and barriers, creating your own rules, blocking wearing masks, blocking children once they make a decision by then involving others to stop them from making that choice. and then it would be a lot easier for us to do our job. >> you and i have spent some time together on facebook live, talking, taking questions from people who are concerned. do you draw a distinction between black people who have legitimate and valid reasons for -- historical reasons for distrust in the medical system and people who fall victim to anti-vax conspiracy theories? >> again, that's why you have to listen. sometimes it's a combination of both. sometimes it's just i'm scared of a needle. and then explaining to folks that the people who are getting sick right now are largely unvaccinated. that you are more likely to be

hospitalized if you're not vaccinated. and even for the people who don't die, some folks with covid are never the same again. so in our center for health equity, which we still need city, state and federal funding so we will be sustainable, and present and perpetuity, we are able to not just talk about covid, but talk about preventative paperwork and to talk about health disease and preventing cancer and other conditions. so you have to meet people are where they are and answer and alleviate their fears. >> one thing you used to tell me, we would say on the facebook lives, when people would be hesitant and you'd say in the black community in philadelphia, in some cases high instances of diabetes and heart disease and you have diabetes and heart disease and get covid, your chances of dying are higher than the average person. does that resonate? >> absolutely. we stopped just giving a shot.

now when you come to see us we do a mini physical exam, we check your vital signs, blood pressure, check your medications, go over your past medical histories. we were putting a band-aid on with your vaccine and not paying attention to the disparities that exist in this community. that's what's different this year than last year. yes, we're still in a pandemic but we cannot ignore all the people who have had delayed diagnoses with cancer, at an increased risk for stroke but not focussing on the other conditions. so that's what we're doing with our center for health equity and i encourage others to do the same. >> you're a hero. you and your colleagues who went at it when there was nothing available for testing and vaccines. thank you for all you do. dr. stanford, the founder of the black doctors covid-19 consortium in philadelphia.

february is heritage month. we'll go into the fight to stop erosion of voting rights. the congressman jamal bowman who was just arrested for voting rights, joins me next. d for votg d for votg rights, joins me next. you could, but i'm not gonna. subway keeps refreshing and refreshing and re... hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need sometifferent. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this. your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, like asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee. yeah i should've just led with that. with at&t business. you can pick the best plan for each employee and get the best deals on every smart phone.

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♪ ♪ we got a lot more velshi on the way. at the top of the hour i speak with stacey plaskett about how

the republican party has declared the attack on the capitol, quote, legitimate political discourse. but first, we're doing something special. we're launching a banned book club. you're all invited. each week we'll focus on books and authors thrust into the spotlight due to their writing. so please, send your book recommendations, your comments, your suggestions about books that have been banned or are being banned to my story@velshi.com. we'll get a book, decide on a book, read it through the course of the week and we'll have an author to talk about it. we have a book and author picked for next weekend "all boys aren't blue" by george m. johnson. grab a copy this week and join our discussion. i know most clubs have wine but it's early, so join us with your

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reasons, they contain, quote, objectionable language, outrageous story telling, too sexually explicit, or fall into this allegation of being about critical race theory. in some cases the problems with the books is their context might make a young reader or more likely their parents uncomfortable. a book might do all of those things that critics say and that's okay. some books are for comfort, some for laughs, some for love, some are to expand our minds, expose us to the perspective of others and maybe just make us uncomfortable. i love books and i like when they make me feel warm and fuzzy about myself or the world. but i've had the most personal growth in books from people who present me with ideas that make me uncomfortable. some of that discomfort relates specifically to my station in life as a man, as a person with

a platform and as a person of means. i'm not to blame for anyone else's suffering or lack of equality in society but i can choose to be responsible. and with that responsibility consider ways in which i can change things for the better. the discomfort motivates me. what's weird about these book bans is that virtually none of them are the so-called normal books about the straight white experience. not too many people find those threatening. once you talk about the blacks and the gays or black people who are gay or people who don't think they are the gender which they are assigned at birth, you wh -- things get weird. several of these arguments are clearly racist or homophobic or transphobic. titles including "the blewest eye" by the late toni morrison, a black nobel prize winner.

"heather has two mommies" about a young girl who realizes she has lesbian mommies. and maus. "how to be an antiracist," a book that became a must read in 2020 during the nation's reckoning in the wake of george floyd's murder. the list goes on. banning books is bad. it denies people of exposure to ideas, concepts, and world views that are not their own. it stifles curiosity. when you dampen curiosity you weaken our ability to think critically, to know when you're being fooled. banning books is going to make us into a stupid society, vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation. you know i tend to prattle on about democracy on this show, but a democracy relies upon an

informed electorate. we're less informed when our choices about the range of information we consume is limited. banning books imperils society. but that's not all that's bad about it. banning books that humanize people's experience with race, sexuality, gender, ability, poverty, sexual assault, actually reverses the difficult process that we are undergoing as a society to change and to become better. in doing so, it upholds the status quo. and that sounds okay if the status quo is working for you. but the status quo is not working for millions of americans, and banning books that trouble your sensibilities fast becomes a tool of subjugation and oppression. do not let this get by you. find out what your school or school district is doing about books. attend school board meetings, very few people do. do these even if you don't have

kids because the kids who don't lead these books today will be our leaders one day. i do not need another generation of people governing this country who cannot empathize with the experiences of those with whom they govern. sometimes it feels there's too much to fight for. but pushing against book bans is what we call low hanging fruit. we all can make a difference here. the catalyst for the latest wave is nicole hannah jones, creator of the 1619 project. she's had some powerful enemies since the day she introduced that year 1619 with accusations she's concocted a revisionist account. the 1619 project is critical. and it is about race. but it's not theory. i'll talk to professor hannah jones after the break. professo professo jones after the break. there is no destination.

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all right. before the break i talked about the underlying danger of this wave of book bans that's spreading across the country. the goal of these book bans seems to be suppress ideas or narratives that might make readers uncomfortable. it's got the added bonus of riling up the conserve of it base and stoking the culture wars. so here's what we're doing about it. today we inaugurate the velshi

banned book club and we invite you to be members. on the weekend we'll speak with the author or if the authors aren't with us someone who knows their work well. i know you haven't had a chance to read a book for the club yet, we'll kick it off with the creator of the 1619 project which seeks to reframe american history to more accurately include the role of slavery any black people. it set off a firestorm of criticism fuelled by discomfort and a wave of bans that sought to stop teachers from using it in class. unfortunately, those bans almost three years ago were just a precursor to what we're seeing happen today. nicole hanna jones joins me now. she's a pulitzer prize-winning journalist for "the new york times" magazine from howard university and a co-creator of the 1619 project and co-author of the book "the 1619 project. a new origin story." nicole, thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you so much and thank

you for the powerful opening monologue. >> let's talk about it for a bit. what's the issue here? you, i know, have never been uncomfortable with making people uncomfortable. you get people out of the comfort zone and that's a good intellectual space. bee have books that make people uncomfortable and they give people a fence no matter where they are on the political spectrum. why we must not only ban them, but we should read them. >> well, i feel like this is an obvious argument that the role of an education, the role of being a member of a multi-racial society is to expand our understanding of our world, not to simply have an education that affirms what we already know, what affirms our world view, but one that is challenging. i think about this idea that we would never make them

uncomfortable. the books have been deeply unsettling and i think about the first time i read "just mercy" and i started sobbing on the train because i'd never thought about capital punishment in that way, and how we allow the state to kill in our name in that way. "a thousand splendid sons" forced me to think about what we were doing in afghanistan in a way that i didn't have to examine from the comforts of my home, and i also cried reading that book, so i don't understand how we think that children should not be exposed to things that make them more empathetic and understand their links to other parts of humanity and that is the purpose of an education and frankly, i think that is what we must do as human beings. so you and i have had a discussion many times because i admit this freely. i did not understand 1619 before meeting you and you and i sat at this building at a desk and you educated me with that and i thought wow, that's neat.

that's something i didn't know that now i'm going to know. why is there a response that is not that. you are bringing attention to something that actually happened. it's not theory. you are telling people what actually happened in 1619 that they perhaps were not taught in school. why does it awaken such enmity? >> well, as you know, so much of our national identity in this country has been built around this concept of american exceptionalism, and we stake a lot in the idea that we are an exceptional country, an exceptional force for good, that we are the freest country the world has ever seen and that is thinking about 1776 and colonists who broke off from a repressive empire in order to get their freedom. so to recenter american identity around the fact that we were actually an enslaved nation and slavery was pivotal to our development has been deeply unsettling to people.

as you all are reading in your banned book club i would suggest that you read an essay that i assigned my students at howard university black recon production by w.e.b. dubois. history is what are we taught about what happened and history is who get the the power? who gets to shape what we know about what happened in the past and 1619 has been, raced and you know this. that has been intentional and when we start to fill in those gaps then i think that people start to challenge the powerful people who allow history to maintain their power. that's what these laws are about. they're clearly not about an accurate rendering of history and they're about an inaccurate rendering of history. a rendering of history that maintains power and maintains the justification for those who run our country. nicole, thank you for helping us kick this off. i think you're an important voice to help people understand why this is necessary to go out and get those books while you

can across the spectrum, whoever you are, however they may offend you is the point. nicole is with the new york times magazine, co-creator of the 1619 project. again, you are all now members of the velshi banned book club, we should get membership cards or something. like i said we will feature books and authors that have been challenged across the political spectrum or pulled in libraries and schools across the nation. we want your input and we need your input because what's a book club without comments and suggestions, your comments and your reactions to this week's book to my story at velshi.com each week to help propel our conversation. our inaugural book is all boys aren't blue by george m. johnson. this memoir manifesto explores johnson's childhood through college years as a young queer man of color covering gender identity, structural marginalization, consent and black joy.

it has been targeted for removal in at least 15 states. so pick up a copy of "all boys aren't blue." it's at your local library or bookstore. give it a read and be sure to tell us what you think and join us when george m. johnson will be here to join our discussion. this is a real book club. don't go anywhere. we have more for you this saturday morning. stacy plaskett reacts to wild new developments about january 6th that you have to hear to believe. another hour of "velshi" begins right now. good morning. it is 9:00 a.m. in the east. i'm ali velshi, ahead of the upcoming midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election, a dangerous republican narrative is coming into focus, one that fore shadows a dystopian future steep in revisionist history filled with lies with people responsible for the violent and deadly attack on the united states capitol on january 6, 2021 should be pardoned and

praised as martyrs for participating in legitimate political discourse. the republican national committee has voted to formally censure liz cheney and adam kinzinger for being members of the house select committee investigating the january 6th attack. that is their offense. the censured document is wild on many levels. among many truly insane things it accuses them of being destructive to the republican party for wanting to find the truth of what happened january 6th. the republican conference must not be sabotaged by cheney and kinzinger. how else could the truth be destructive and seeking it be considered it sabotage? the rnc now admits it's demanding republicans put party over country and pledge fidelity to donald trump, adding that cheney and