tv The Reid Out MSNBC April 28, 2022 4:00pm-5:00pm PDT
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super manager scooter braun is now online on youtube. you can go @the beat with ari or put scooter and ari into youtube. you can find me online @arimelber on social. speaking of that, time's up. the readout with joy reid starts now. good evening, everyone. we begin "the reid out" with a question that has been bugging me increasingly over the last few years even more so after the coup attempt lass january. it is this. has america become ungovernable? hold on. let me tease this out a little bit. president joe biden won with 81 million votes, 7 million more than donald trump got. it includes things that are demonstrably popular with americans. protecting your right to vote.
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62% of voters make it illegal to prevent someone from registering to vote. police reform. more than 2/3 of americans say our criminal justice system needs either a complete overhaul or major changes. there's also gun reform, not ending gun reform but just making it so that our kids don't have to do active shooter drills and we can go to a walmart in texas or on the new york subway without having to duck and cover without worrying about a mass shooter with an ar-15. gun laws should be more strict, 53% support. majority of women and men support a woman having the right to choose about pregnancy. there's also all that stuff that was in the build back better bill, things like americans like, like expanding medicare coverage, universal pre-k and making prescription drugs
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affordable, extending the child tax credit, fighting climate change by investing in clean energy, getting away from fossil fuels. despite what republicans try to tell you, the vast majority of americans support student debt forgiveness especially young americans. none are law and none are likely to become law despite democrats narrowly controlling the legislature and the white house. why? because one or two senators can literally shut down every one of those things over the will of hundreds of representatives in the house which has passed most of the things i just mentioned and without 60 senators approval, 327 million americans cannot have nice things. oh, and one of our two viable political parties planned an actual insurrection and are probably going to do it again. so i ask again, is america at this point in our history and a system that was designed by european men who never
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engendered racial equality, are we ungovernable? joining me now is my friend lawrence o'donnell host of the great "the last word" here on msnbc. talk me down if you can. >> thanks for giving me a nice, easy subject. >> we like to keep it simple. >> this is the biggest subject i've ever discussed on television. it is an enormous question, and for some periods of our history the country did seem reasonably governable and reasonably well governed if you were white and if you had property, but then as this -- you know, as the civil war approached, slavery was tearing the world apart. no, this is a gigantic issue on which two different sections of the country have completely different views, to the point that a group in the states said, you know what, we don't think this can be a country.
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>> right. >> we're going to call ourselves the confederate states. we saw that. that belief took hold very strongly that, no, it cannot be. you're asking this one place to absorb too much conflicting thought. so you look at the united states now, and you say, well, we're not -- we certainly are not governing as a country. >> right. >> so the governable question is clearly one that begins with we're not governed. >> yeah. >> so on something like abortion, the notion that in some states you have certain rights and in other states you don't have the same rights, is the kind of thing that literally defines different countries. >> right. right. >> that's why there's a luxembourg and a belgium instead of let's put them together. >> right. >> it's not just that. there is uniquely peculiar to
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the united states of america. how much your tax burden is depends on where you live. >> right. >> it depends on the state government that you live under and there are states that have no income tax, there are states that have much higher sales taxes, states with higher property taxes, other taxes. that's another thing that defines elsewhere in the world the separate countries. >> right. right. >> and so we have these really peculiar things that have developed because we have these 50 different governments within the federal government that make this place behave as more than one country but then always we must live under this sort of faith and declaration that we are one country. it is both a declaration and true in its law, but there's also a faith element to it. there's a thing that comes out when people say things like, oh, we're better than this. well, maybe in your neighborhood you are or maybe in your state
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you are but, no -- >> kind of -- >> who's the we when you say that? that's the expression about faith, who we, america is as a group of people. and so this has been -- we're now in a period where questioning the very govern ability of the 50 states is a very, very ripe question. we go through decades where it doesn't feel like a reasonable question. >> yeah. >> it feels like, oh, no, we're kind of moving along. yeah, that was a struggle. we got that. we did get voting rights and 65. you do these things that make you feel like -- america does these things that makes it feel like that it's functioning as a country and then progressing. then you have these fantastic national successes like the space program. >> sure. >> first person to set foot on the moon and all of that. that's very -- that's a national effort. definitely that was a 50 state effort with talent from 50 states. >> right. >> there's all of those rallying
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moments in our history where you can absolutely -- there's no doubt about it. >> well, can i ask you about that? because the rallying moments you're talking about took place at a time, and i feel this is part of the challenge for joe biden, the time when biden grew up and the time he recalls the kennedy era, that was a time when there was almost no gender orational diversity in the main legislative body. >> yes. >> we're an anti-majoritarian government on purpose. >> right. >> the only agreements had to be made between this old white guy and that old white guy. they say, fundamentally we agree on the same things. i doubt you could do the space program now because you'd have one -- >> well, you're not. >> joe manchin saying, i don't want this, i don't like the spending. then you have republicans saying, no, we don't want to do anything because a democrat is president, therefore, no space program. then you have african-americans,
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latinos, lgbtq people aren't even in the room. they weren't even in the room when they divided up $1.7 trillion. to me, the diversity of the country and the different interests and one party saying they don't even care about democracy at all, how do you actually get the senate -- let's just say the senate. the senate is ungovernable. >> case closed, the senate is a disaster. it was a structural disaster. it was a disaster at birth. this notion of two per state. the founders never dreamed there was going to be a place with a place named california with all of these spanish names and was going to have a population that approached the size of france. new york was your biggest thing and it wasn't that much bigger than the other ones. so the two per state thing has become an utter disaster. that working across the street there in the united states senate in the 1990s was when i
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really started to get focused on this. i was working for new york state, senator moynihan. you're looking at funding issues for mass transit and it's being held up by alabama. >> right. >> now just a minute. >> right. >> first of all, the funding for this is all coming from the rich states like new york, california. >> from the blue states. >> and what are you -- why is -- how does this happen? and so it's a fundamentally and relentlessly and permanently anti-democratic institution. >> yeah. >> more people are almost always going to vote for democratic senators in the united states senate even when they end up with less democratic senators in the senate because the dakotas get four senators. there's populations the size of staten island that get two senators. >> let's drill down to one specific issue. student loans. it would be enormously politically helpful for joe biden if he could get student
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loan forgiveness. one of the reasons he's underwater is the stuff he ran on. police reform did not pass. this would actually materially help millions of people who are millennials and younger. just a lot of people of color. it would just help him politically. he cannot pass it because joe manchin is going to say no. what do we do about that? >> one thing i'd like to do about it is, i would like to ask the voters who say unless you forgive my student loans or significant portion thereof, i am not going to vote for you, i am going to ask them how that became their single issue in the united states of america and are they willing to let everything else, everything else be handed over to the republican party? republican party isn't going to forgive one penny of your student loans. >> no, they won't. >> so there's this very peculiar notion that i guess you can determine in polls, democratic voters, there's a group of
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democratic voters that are purely transactional, purely. you forgive my student loans and i vote for you and if you don't, i don't care who's on the supreme court and i don't care who any of the federal judges are anywhere ever and i don't care about anyone else. you know who doesn't vote like that? >> republicans. >> republicans, ever. you make the republicans get promises. the promises are not ever delivered except the tax cut promise. they don't deliver any other ones. republican voters say, when do you want me to vote again for a republican who will not build the wall, but i'm going to vote for that person because their votes actually are not transactional in the way that we are assuming that student loan vote is. >> i would argue, we are out of time, one of the reasons republicans get away with that, they make promises that cannot be kept but seem to be kept. the wall was never going to be
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built, mexico could never pay for it. he could point to the wall and that's good enough. they can get some muslims banned. the only thing he actually materially did is tax cuts for the rich. they don't care. >> presidential campaigns, they say to a presidential candidate, what are you going to do? the candidate says something that's legislative and they think that's an answer. when someone says i'm going to do x and it happens in the legislature, they're just guessing. >> yeah. >> it's not a promise, it's just a guess. i can go on and on. >> we can do this for an hour. trust me, believe me, we can do that for an hour. i'm not going to do that. lawrence o'donnell we will see you at 10 p.m. -- >> can i borrow that chair at 10 p.m. >> i thought you were going to say the jacket? >> the jacket. >> i am here in the joy studio in washington and i'm going to partake in the joy of this studio at 10 p.m. >> we will change the logos.
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you probably don't want the jacket but the chair. >> leave the jacket. >> lawrence o'donnell. thank you, my friend. be sure to watch lawrence on "the last word." next on "the reid out", president biden calls for an enormous military package as concerns rise that russia will enhance the investigation. the new light on the republican effort to undo the last election. so how is that -- how is it that no members of congress have faced any consequences for their action? plus -- >> let's say you take these books out of the library. what are you going to do with them? you going to put them in the street? light them on fire? where are they going? >> i don't have a clue but i would burn them. >> democratic state representative john ray clemons of tennessee who called out the book banners and would be book
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under district attorney gascón, i prosecuted car break-ins. all repeat offenders, often in organized crime rings. but when chesa boudin took office, he dissolved the unit and stopped me from collaborating with the police on my cases. now home and car break-ins are on the rise because repeat offenders know they can get away with it. chesa boudin is failing to do his job. there's a better way to keep san francisco safe. recall chesa boudin now.
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this is xfinity rewards. our way of showing our appreciation. with rewards of all shapes and sizes. [ cheers ] are we actually going? yes!! and once in a lifetime moments. two tickets to nascar! yes! find rewards like these and so many more in the xfinity app. today is yam hashoa, the nationally recognized holocaust day. the 6 million jews murdered by nazi germany and their collaborators. it's the day to reflect on the unspeakable atrocities and horrors of world war ii. also is a stark warning to the world to never let it happen
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again and yet here we are, this time russian troops are murdering ukrainians in an attempt to erase their history, culture and identity. in bucha mass graves continue to be unearthed as families line up to identify the bodies of their loved ones. forensic experts are working around the clock to identify the 400 people murdered by russian invaders there. in kherson, a city under russian occupation in the east russians are wiping out any trace of ukraine, replacing their flag, language, currency despite public protests. some 300 men have been kidnapped and tortured and women are in constant fear of rape at the hands of russian soileders. today russian bombs struck the capitol kyiv killing one and injuring several more. russia has warned western countries to, quote, not test our patience after they backed the right to strike russian territories. this week russian foreign
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minister sergei lavrov warrant that the conflict was serious and real. today president biden submitted a request to congress to provide ukraine with an additional $33 billion, a dramatic increase in u.s. funding, as well as new legal tools to siphon assets from russian oligarchs. >> we're not attacking russia, we're helping ukraine defend itself against russian aggression. just as putin chose to launch this brutal invasion, he could make the choice to end this brutal invasion. russia is the aggressor, no ifs, ands or buts about it. >> earlier russia cut off gas to bull grar and poland. they refused to pony up so the russians cut them off. the president of the european commission called what it was, black mail. blockberg is reporting some european countries from italy, hungary and elsewhere have met
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putin's demands. russia has been using that money to fund its attack on ukraine. according to "the guardian" russia has doubled the revenues despite selling less gas. with me now, john brennan who's an msnbc national security analyst and former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael fall. director brennan, i do want to start with you. this is the unending tangle. how do you deal with a global bully who has nukes and who also holds the gas tank? do you take seriously russia's threats to use nuclear weapons, number one, and number two, should europe respond to their threats by saying the hell with your gas? >> well, first of all, i think we had the mindful that russia is a nuclear power. this is a lot of nuclear saber-rattling as a way to threaten and intimidate the west
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and europe. putin still wants to win this war with conventional military might and not going to escalate to a nuclear realm. as far as europe is concerned, the gas supplies to bulgaria and poland. and it's been very, very strong. and determined to. using these levers that he has particularly on the energy fronts, but i think based on my discussions with some europeans, they realize that the threat that europe poses not just to ukraine, to europe more broadly is very, very serious and this is the time for them to stay strong. >> same question to you, ambassador. do you take seriously russia's threats knowing them as you do, knowing putin and his people as you do? do you take their nuclear
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threats seriously? should the rest of europe tell them the hell with their gas? >> well, i agree with john. i think we need to listen seriously. when you're talking about a nuclear power, everything is serious. but if you look and listen more closely, i think it's a smaller threat than people understand. at the beginning of the war putin said i'm going to put my weapons on alerts and he was talking about strategic nuclear weapons. we now know he didn't do that. there was no change in their status. he rolled out mr. peskov and the former president to say we'll only do that when there's an existential threat against russia and thankfully there isn't as president biden just said. i think that's off the table. a tactical nuclear weapon is something that's been threatened and reported that maybe they'll use if they're losing the war, right? but, again, i think it's a low probability event and i also think we should be careful to
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assume that if they use, god forbid a tactical nuclear weapon in ukraine, that it would have the same effect as it did in japan in 1945. i can imagine it having the opposite effect and the ukrainians deciding to fight further because of the use of a nuclear weapon against them. >> to that very point because -- stay with me for one moment, ambassador mcfall -- incentive to negotiate. here's a story from bbc. ukrainians are being deported to russia and mistreated. one was captured and deported to russia, blindfolded, beaten with rifles, punched and hit. after being held he was transported with others to belarus. he was transferred to russia where he was beaten again. he was transferred to ukraine after a prisoner swap. in belarus these prisoners were given an identity document. it says it was issued by the
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military and describes his place of birth as the ukrainian soviet socialist republic. that's how it was known. there's no point negotiating with russia at this point, right? ukraine just has to beat them? >> well, it's very hard to negotiate when they're doing those things. i want to remind everybody, ukraine is a democracy, right? even if mr. zelenskyy wanted to negotiate, it would be very difficult given the horrific, horrendous -- i don't like the word war. it's not war when you use cruise missiles to kill babies. we know from history, wars tend to end, either one side wins as you described or there might be a stalemate on the battlefield. right now neither of those conditions are there and so i suspect both sides think they can still advance their aims through military objectives and that's why the war in donbas is going to go on for a long time and it's going to get a lot, lot worse in my opinion. >> yeah.
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unfortunately. director brennan, i wonder what you make of the fact that we have near unanimity in this country. there are a small number of people, republicans namely, who oppose ukraine and do not strongly take the side of ukraine in this i can't call it a war, it's simply a terrorist act against a sovereign country. you did have ten house republicans vote against giving military aid to ukraine. what do you make about that? >> well, i think it's unconscionable. i think it sends a very bad signal globally that we do have individuals in congress, not just the ten house members, i was listening to the comments of rand paul whose ignorance is only exceeded by the lunacy and sentiment that he expresses publicly. these are things that for whatever reason they do not understand the importance of what's going on in ukraine right now, not just to the ukrainian people, but also to u.s.
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national security interests. so, therefore, i think this decision that is moving forward in congress and is going to be going to president biden in terms of approving it, $33 billion in aid to ukraine is critically important, because it sends a signal not just to the ukrainian people as a government that we're behind them, but also to vladimir putin. we're not going to slow down, in fact, we're going to increase our support because it's a war to stop russian aggression against ukraine and against the broader region overall. therefore, i can't understand how american politicians of any stripe are going to object to our continued support to what i think is really going to be a determining battle in our fight against this russian aggression. >> yeah. indeed. director john brennan, thank you very much. still ahead, a brief moment of silence for congresswoman marjorie taylor greene's memory. apparently she can't recall basically anything related to
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if you put that text message up, it's clear and easy to read that if that's my text messages and that's what they're reporting, i don't recall if they are, but if they are, those text messages do not say calling for marshall law. >> so you're saying you conveniently don't recall pitching a plan to overthrow the government but if you did do it, it's okay, right, because you were just passing the message along? okay. so for anyone who needs a reminder, here's what she texted, quote, in our private chat with members several are saying the only way to save our republic is for trump to call for marshall law, do ignore the spell. we know she's not the only one. congressman scott perry suggesting using the director of national intelligence to overthrow the election. they're downplaying any claims they made because the insurrectionists are the party. otherwise, why on earth would
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steve scalise say i'm sorry if this caused you problems to matt gates if he suggested he acted improperly. i mean, it seems like the only time in recent memory that he's been up at arms over behavior was when madison cawthorn talked about holding cocaine fueled origies. that is the line that can't be crossed. the january 6th committee is moving quickly. moments ago bennie thompson announced they would hold their first of eight public hearings ahead of june 9th. they plan to reup their request including little kevin mccarthy to appear before the committee by the end of the week. with me, congressman erst wall. sounds like she has a lawyer and
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she's been talking to them a lot. she simply doesn't recall. kevin mccarthy's indifference to that lack of recollection. >> joy, they talk such a big game all the time and then when they're caught literally on audio or text message, they shrink. i don't get it. they project all the time. they call democrats snowflakes but these people are so afraid to defend what they said privately. you saw scott perry running away from another network's reporter yesterday on the house steps. i mean, if this is what you believe, i don't agree with you, i think it's wrong, maybe traitorist, but why can't you defend it? again, they are so weak. they're so afraid. they're so cowardly but what they want to do in private should very, very much concern all of us because if anything, they're even more emboldened by a trump base that is more and more, you know, supporting and more comfortable with violence
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than voting and that's what we're up against right now. >> the thing is what's interesting, republicans have shown when they do want to rebuke and police their own, they can. they've come down like a ton of bricks on little madison cawthorn. not for fantasizing hitler's bunker, not for bringing the gun into the capitol. because he said the porn thing. once he said that, it seems like a world of hurt. he's getting the leaks. the leaks are not coming from democrats. they're leaking everything they can find on this guy, even one of his -- the senators from his home state is out savaging him. >> that's right, joy. you can lead an insurrection, you can say that the catholic church is run by satinists, you can sympathize with gun laws that embolden mass shooters, but the second you talk about the party's cocaine and orgies, you're done, you're toast. that's really where they are
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now. this is a party that's tougher on mickey mouse than they are on russia. hare mucher on dr. seuss than they are on insurrectionists and of course they have gone after liz cheney, who has, you know, shown consistent integrity through and through, more tough than they have on paul gosar who has threatened to kill alexandria owe casia cortez and joe biden. you had kevin mccarthy, essentially he's not responding. trump had no reaction. trump excused me for saying the truth. running in his home state. he is a wholly owned property of donald trump just like j.j.d. vance would be. they're all trump's property if they get into leadership, right? my question is what then becomes of the house of
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representatives. >> members of the house. i have no intention of losing the mid terms. we have delivered, they have divided but kevin mccarthy, we would all be better off if his affair with integrity had lasted longer than a week. but he's gotten back together with the old big lie and the party of the big lie is led by the biggest liar in kevin mccarthy. so there will be no back stop, no insurance policy, no guarantee that when the next coup or insurrection is planned that the leader of the party, the speaker of the house would clamp down and prevent it from happening. in fact, he would just step aside and allow whatever donald trump preferred to take place. >> michael luddick who is a conservative legal scholar and said it openly. he did a cnn.com piece. he laid out the way -- all the different ways in which they are 100% planning to steal the 2024 election and lock in whoever it is, trump or desantis, whoever
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runs. let me play chairman bennie thompson. he was asked by alli vitali about these leaked texts. take a look. >> i think for somebody to -- in leadership or in a member make a statement about his non-participation or opinions and ult may it's found out that that's the complete opposite, it does not bode well for members of congress. you know, people send us here to be truthful. >> as true as that is, and he's a very calm man, bennie thompson, he's a gentleman, but do you -- inside of the democratic caucus do you think there is sufficient alarm about the clear determination up and down the ballot among republicans from the state level all the way to the congress and the united states senate.
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to implement the coup and make it successful next time? >> yes, joy. the fear is that they are putting in place the building blocks to ensure that a democrat would never win at the highest office again and that there would never be a peaceful transition of power again because there would never be a transition of power because they through antivoting measures that they're putting in place from the candidates that they're nominating, look at michigan, joy. they have an attorney general candidate who is a republican nominee who said he would put in jail the former attorney general if she loses. that's where their mindset is, violence over voting. by the way, with kevin mccarthy as the leader, with bennie thompson eluding to there, he's lost the public trust. if they want a 24 carat liar to be their leader, that's fine. kevin mccarthy is a member of the gang of 8.
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that is the most intense, deepest dive that anyone in the united states gets on our intelligence operations and national security plans and intentions and he's proven himself to have been compromised by saying one thing and then publicly being shown to be a liar. and i don't think he should have that kind of access if he's not a trustworthy individual. >> hopefully the democratic party and any sane republicans out there are prepared to make that vigorously because the threat is real. thank you very much, sir. appreciate you. up next. a book banning push in the tennessee legislature sparks heated debate and protest. be right back. be right back. save $500 on the sleep number 360 c4 smart bed, queen now only $1,299. lowest price ever! only for a limited time. trelegy for copd.
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remember when a tennessee school board voted to remove mouse, the pulitzer prize winning novel about the holocaust. maybe the board wanted to teach a nicer holocaust? maybe they're good old-fashioned book banners. now they have the state on their side. on wednesday tennessee legislators passed a bill to have a state appointed textbook commission. during debate on the house floor the republican sponsor was lashed out against librarians before suggested that librarians were the ones signing off on these very bad books on library shelves, code for grooming, see what you did there,there,erer j.
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>> what we do know is there's been books that's been put in our libraries that are obscene in nature and certainly not age appropriate for our children, books that are pornographic. >> representative john ray clemons, a democrat asked for examples. you can imagine how that went. >> can you give us a firm example of what school and what book you're speaking of? >> i can give you some off the top of my head. i could give you a list of books. to my knowledge i think it was -- and i may not have these numbers exactly right, but they're going to be real close. i think we found obscene material in something like 93 out of 95 counties in school libraries. so they're all over the place. >> all over the place.
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yet he couldn't name one single school. clemons then raised one of the key points in this entire book banning debate. why is the state making the decisions about books instead of the educators. >> they're called librarians and we employ them and pay them with taxpayer money. i don't understand why we would be taking authority away from them to decide what would be best in an educational setting. >> the jaw dropping moment finally arrived when sexton shared what he planned to do with all of these books. let's say fahrenheit 451 doesn't seem like if i can shub. i will tell you what sexton said right after this quick break. qk
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state house just passed a bill allowing the states textbook commission to approve or reject books in school libraries. when a democratic lawmaker challenge the bill, the exchange felt downright dystopian. >> let's say you take these books out of a library. what are you going to do with them? are you going to put them in the street? like them on fire? we are they going? >> representative sexton. >> i don't have a clue.
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i would burn them. >> joining me now is the democratic state representative in that exchange, john ray clemmons, of tennessee, and sharon kay edwards, president of the tennessee library association. the mind reels, representative. let me start with you. apparently, nbc news reports that there is another representative, gloria johnson, a democrat, saying that history has not looked connally on those who have burned books or banned them. she says, don't worry there won't be any band, books he's not on the commission. what are your thoughts? >> that is where we are right across the country. we have the tennessee gop and republicans across the country want to pull books off the bookshelves. some of them want to burn them. as if we have not learned enough from history -- i think we are in trouble. this is where we are, sadly. >> and we are in holocaust remembrance day. it is really that conversation about book bringing -- the world has not had that
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conversation since then. or if we were talking about the soviet union -- that is where people burn books. did you ever get an answer to your question, representative clemens, about what specific books offend the representative who put the bill forward? >> well, we have asked the committee. this is not the first bill. that is the thing. they have had multiple bills this year to remove books from bookshelves. and to limit access to the internet and placed additional filters on the internet. they are trying to limit all information to our children in the educational environment that they can. and with some hopes, i guess, of trying to indoctrinate our children into wet they subjectively deem appropriate. but i never got any answer from them. of course they don't have examples. it is all just trying to score political points in a very dangerous way, for whatever purpose, i don't know. but as someone with children,
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my wife is jewish, and my wife and i, our children are jewish -- it is very disturbing. disturbing on this day and any other day, honestly. we have seen this play out. we know how this goes, we know at this indicates. and it is greatly disturbing. it is really a sad time for our country. >> it definitely is. i'm also glad to have you, here sharon kay edwards. i love librarians, i grew up running around the library, that is where my mom used to take me and my sister and brother, to the library. take any book we wanted, it was so joyful, it was like a discovery every week we could go and hang out in the library. i can't imagine anyone wanting to limit that discovery process and that phone for kids. but this is disturbing -- even trying to say that we are going to limit the access to books on the internet. the country that does that is china. that is what this sounds like. it sounds like communist china.
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what are your thoughts on all of this? >> well, the first thing i'm going to have to say is that this is not a problem at all. for them to say that school libraries in general have obscene materials for children, that's a lie. tennessee has a harmful to minors law on the books already. if that were the case, we would already be in jail. the books that they have issue with our free live a label to what consumers at walmart, at amazon, to consumers of all ages. if the books were obscene, that would not be the case. we don't have an issue here. when we do have is an attempt at government censorship, which is where the government tries to remove books based on the ideas in them. and that is a first amendment violation. because we know that per a court case that i can't recall
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right now -- but rights do not stop at the school house gate. >> let's talk about some of the people involved in this commission. according to the tennessean, there is a woman named laurie cardoza more on the commission. she tried to stop construction of a mosque. she spread false information about the election. she seems to be a mug a trump person. very quickly, to each of you, sharon kay edwards, does this feel to you like the attempt -- as the representative said -- to limit information so that they can indoctrinate shouldering with a particular right-wing ideology instead? >> i do see that that is an attempt. i would also say that it is twofold, perhaps an attempt to not only indoctrinate people and to limit the information they receive, and to skew and rewrite history, but also to break public schools. >> yep. >> there is a whole layer --
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representative clements. and thank you by the way for what you said by librarians! that's our sweet! he can speak more to this, the representative, but there's a whole issue right now with charter schools and public schools, and the money being pulled from them. there was a funding protest today or yesterday. it is a whole mess down here! >> let me let you speak to that, representative clemens. is this an attempt to break public schools? >> yes, and what they are trying to do is reduce confidence in our public schools. they have done that with crt. they have done with messaging that the books are a threat to the children. governor lee has made it clear that he wants 50 charter schools opened. they are putting this puzzle together one piece at a time. and this is just one more piece. it is a very dangerous path down which we are heading. i truly believe that education
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and the full education of our students is important. this is disturbing. >> people should pay attention because this is what the old soviet union did, this is what communist china does, this is what they do in cuba. this is not what we should be doing in america. libraries are great, the greatest place on earth and they should be open and free to our children. and what they are doing, that is grooming, that's what i called rooming. representative john ray clemmons and sharon kay edwards, but thank you, that is the reidout for tonight, all in with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on all in this -- >> the cost of this fight is not cheap. but caving to aggression is going to be more costly. >> the white house announces massive new aid as bombs fall in kyiv during a visit from the un secretary general. tonight, the ominous signals from russia as we approach a dangerous crossroads in ukraine. then -- >> i don't recall ever advocating for
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