there you have it. a former senator, a comedian, a light night host. and right there, now a mathematician. i hope that clears up any confusion about the big lie. and if you are looking for more of that fact checking, stick with us right here at the 11th hour. we have the facts. al franken right there, he happens to be one of our favorite guests. on that find no, i wish you all a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late with us, i will see you at the end of tomorrow. of tomorrow. >> tonight, as donald trump's former vice president considers talking to the january six investigation. his former lawyer testifies before an atlanta grand jury and his longtime cfo prepares to plead guilty in turn on the trump organization. despite the presidents considerable legal woes, he can't seem to find any

qualified attorneys to represent him. carol lenning, who joins us live. then we go down to florida, where republican governor ron desantis has given some new lessons for -- revisionist history, and christian nationalism. new yorker writer, and dean of the -- jelani cobb will be in the studios to discuss, and president biden cancels -- promising jobs of the future, that never arrived. but we start tonight with mounting investigations into the former president of the united states. after last night's election in wyoming, donald trump appears poised to gain some allies in congress. but it comes as trump is quickly losing friends, basically everywhere else. today, trump's former president mike pence said he'd consider talking to the january 6th committee.

>> just this state on the january 6th, if they were to call you on the committee to come testify, would you be agreeable? >> if there is an invitation to participate, i consider it. any invitation to be directed to me, i'd have to reflect on the unique role i was serving on as vice president. if there's any formal invitation rendered to us, we'll give due consideration. >> the former vp's potential willingness to testify before the january 6th committee comes after its chairman, benny thompson, told and pc news last week that the depositions continue on almost daily basis, and that investigators spoke to pretty much every senior person in the trump cabinet, and for the most part they have all indicated a win willingness to talk to the committee. well okay now as more trump allies signal that willingness, other members of his administration are being subpoenaed by the department of justice, as part of its own investigation into january 6th. yesterday we learned that former white house lawyer eric

herschmann has been subpoenaed to testify before the federal grand jury in that investigation. if that name sounds familiar, it's because eric herschmann is the guy with the of electric wall art, who gave expletive laden testimony to january 6th committee about the white house effort to overturn the election. the new york times has brand-new reporting tonight that the justice department has subpoenaed the national archives for all the trump white house documents that the agency previously turned over to the january six committee, according to the times, the grand jury subpoena, which was issued in may, suggests that the justice department is not only been following the committees lead in pursuing its inquiry, but also the prosecutors believe that evidence of a crime may exist in the white house documents, the archives turned over the house panel. that is new tonight. and then, there is the other other trump investigation, also being conducted by the justice department, this one looking

into trump's potential mishandling of classified information at mar-a-lago. tonight, nbc news reports nine days after fbi agents recovered classified documents from the former president's florida home, the fbi filter team, is still sifting through those documents to determine which ones are covered by executive privilege, and which ones are relevant to its investigation. this comes, after we learned that two top trump lawyers -- the pats, have been interviewed as part of the doj's investigation into trump's removal of the documents. the wall street journal reports that investigators, have also reached out to several other trump aides who had knowledge of his record keeping practices, including trump's white house assistant, and then, there is the totally separate trump investigation being conducted in fulton county, georgia. today, trump's attorney rudy giuliani testified for more than six hours before a special grand jury in that investigation. once rudy giuliani managed to get through the door of the

fulton county courthouse. a federal judge in new mexico also ordered trump lawyer john eastman, who of course advocated pressuring the vice president to overturn the results of the election, he's been ordered to testify before the same grand jury by the end of the month. don't forget about senator lindsey graham who's also been ordered by a judge to testify before the same grand jury in fulton county. and finally, is your head spinning yet? because mine certainly is. then there is the criminal investigation here in new york, where tomorrow trump's longtime cfo allen weisselberg is expected to plead guilty to tax fraud and other crimes, and as a condition of that plea, weisselberg will have to testify as a witness in the case against trump's business. with this colossus of legal drama, the former president is in desperate need of some good legal help. but, as the washington post's

carol lennig reports, that expert legal help is not easy to find. trump's rushing to hire seasoned lawyers, but he keeps harry no. donald trump and close aides have spent eight days since defy searches florida home rushing to assemble a team of respected defense lawyers. but the answer they keep hearing is no. instead, the president has had to rely on a c list team, and that might be kind of generous, a similar team of lawyers, and one which includes a florida insurance lawyer who's never had a federal case, a past general counsel for a parking garage company, and a former host at far-right one american news network. the former president of the united states is facing an unprecedented level of scrutiny, over his numerous unprecedented actions against american democracy national security, and most of the legal team he has defended settled to defend him, looks like they came straight out of a bus stop advertisement, and that is perhaps not being so fair to both stop litigators. so, what does it all mean for

the future of all of these sprawling investigations? joining us now is carrol leonnig, reporter for the washington post, one of the byline's on the difficulty of getting seasoned lawyers to represent him. carol, thank you for being here, and listening to the roster of legal woes facing president trump, let's just start with the lawyers he has assembled. i, think just looking at their cvs, the amount of inexperience is fairly staggering. how did this come to pass? >> well, as described to us by sources, alex, the former president is often a reactive individual as a client, and he's often trying to plug holes as crises arrive, or arise. and in this case, a lot of crises have been brewing, and brewing, and brewing, including

the one that led to the search warrant at his home in mar-a-lago. for many months, the problem is, until the tea kettle started to boil, don't donald trump didn't act. so he's had some lawyers that are actually quite experienced, in terms of having been federal prosecutors in the past, but he has quite a few legal advisers, as well, who have very limited to no experience before the federal bench, and that is a problem for the president, alan dershowitz told us for our story, that the president, you may remember allen dershowitz was a fan of donald trump, he has said that the president needs a top-flight lawyer stat, and he should've had one for months, someone who is nationally known, who has a track record of success, because right now the president is facing legal jeopardy on at least four fronts, as you perfectly summed up at the top of your show.

and this one in mar-a-lago now, is on the front burner, but it's not the only problem that former president trump faces. >> i mean also, if you're a top flight legal mind, you might also look to see how other top flight legal minds have fared working for donald trump. ty cobb, a former lawyer for the president, now tweets about how much he hates donald trump. don mcgahn, was a star witness for the mueller investigation, pat cipollone and pat philbin, they are cooperating with the doj's investigation. these are not people who are pledging fealty to donald trump, and probably for good reason. i'm sure all of those are data points that act as deterrence four other lawyers who are considering representing the former president. >> well absolutely, well summed. don mcgahn ultimately became a witness with her for overwhelming instances of obstruction, criminal obstruction by the sitting

president of the united states. if you had not been a sitting president, the department justice would've normally indicted a person with a level of evidence that don mcgahn provided, about how donald trump tried to derail her criminal investigation, and avoid embarrassing information coming out about him. in the case of pets have flown -y, there's really not a lawyer who wasn't a bigger fan of donald trump's, and wanted to help him achieve his agenda, he was proud and honored to become his white house counsel, and he's now left with some discussed after january 6th, and after watching the president repeatedly, in office, reject his sound advice that you cannot claim the election was rigged, when there is no evidence of it, you cannot seize voting machines and re-run elections, mister president, when we don't have any evidence that they should be, and martial law is not warranted in this instance.

all these people tried to give him good counsel, let's add bill barr to the mix, his attorney general, who repeatedly told him we've investigated all this, and there's nothing here, sir, all of them found this client unusually difficult, and rejecting facts and evidence. >> i mean, it bears mentioning that the team of legal eagles he has assembled a present, aren't just unseasoned lawyers who represent crossfit in parking garages. you mentioned kash patel, former white house aide, he's raising money for a legal offense fund by selling merchandise such as tank tops and beanies emblazoned with the logo. k, money signed, h. meaning cash. this is not just a problem, everybody wants a good lawyer,

and maybe not a lawyer who is -- the hell out of the case. but trump doesn't have the representation to protect them anymore, it's possibly meaningful as it has been before, considering he's on his, zone is a normal gonell, and he needs a good lawyer. i guess i remember, whether neuro reporting, there's a sense of an adequate sense of alarm emanating with the trump land overall this. >> absolutely, there is alex, it's such a good question. when i heard over and over again was, among the adults, and again it's a limited group. among the adults and on trump, there's great consternation in fear that he doesn't have the kind of star legal eagle to lead him out of all of these thickets, or at least to give him good advice to how to respond to the department of justice. incredible concern, and that concern, i'm told, has been growing for the last couple of months, because remember this mar-a-lago search warrant, it has been brewing for months,

the fight between the department of justice, and the trump team in mar-a-lago, overturning over all the records through the national archives, turning over all the records that were in question. have you given us everything back? and lawyers and colleagues of donald trump we felt that he was, essentially, taunting the department of justice, he was making decisions that ultimately led to this search at his home, instead of just turning over the records, which would've been fairly easy to do. i will also say, there's a very big problem, there are good lawyers working for donald trump, but some of them are now potentially compromised. legal experts that we've spoken to have said that lawyers who try to assert to the department of justice on donald trump's behalf that he had turnover all the records, that was false, that information turned out to be false.

now those lawyers who made that assertion, made that claim may end up being witnesses who are conflicted, and unable to represent donald trump, that's really important and also a big bucket of problems for donald trump. >> a big bucket of problems. south created. it's not like he can't afford a lawyer. contributions to trump's pac topped $1 million at least two days after the fbi raid in mar-a-lago, so you can afford them, we know that, kara ng, washington post national reporter, thanks for being here tonight. >> thank you, alex. ron desantis is on a mission to change what is being taught in his state's public schools. >> obviously, in the classroom, we've battled a lot of ideologies. we're not gonna let this state descend into some kind of woke dumpster fire. >> we will go to florida, where

desantis is efforts to disarm that so-called woke dumpster fire, is alarming -- revisionist history on things like slavery. new yorkers staff writer in the of the columbia school of journalism, killarney cobbe joins us live in studio to break it all down, much more highlights, please stay with us. allergy. now available without a prescription. astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid free spray. while other allergy sprays take hours astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can... astepro and go. we really had our hands full with our two-year-old. so naturally, we doubled down with a new puppy. thankfully, we also have new tide ultra-oxi with odor eliminators. between stains and odors, it can handle double trouble. for the #1 stain fighter and odor remover, it's got to be tide.

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critical race theory, i call that the black experience in america. >> trying to divide us by skin 's skin color absolutely makes no sense. >> you think it's not settled that there is systemic racism? you think you need to present both sides. >> there's always racism, there will always be people like that. but do i think it's rampant in our schools, or in our society? no, i really don't. >> -- they just attack upon the freedom of classrooms. >> i'm just so scared about the future of public education here in florida, and i'm scared that it will create this movement across the nation.

>> i feel like we need to learn that history so we can progress as a country, or else we just make the same mistakes. >> that is a state of affairs and florida, where schools started this week for most students in public schools, and where in each and every one of those schools, there is a new guy in class. his name is ron desantis, the governor of florida. desantis is in his first reelection battle this november, and while he has made a very big impression during his first term running the state, it seems clear that desantis's eye is fixed on the white house in 2024, and his path to get there seems to run right through florida's public school system. since he took office in 2019, he's made it a priority to re-fashion the florida school system according to right wing conservative principles, a culture war over textbooks, lesson plans, book fairs and classroom conversation, you may

recall, two signal pieces of legislation in particular, courtesy of desantis. the so-called doses don't say gay bill, which restricts teaching on sex and gender -- higher grades remained tbd, and the so-called stop woke act, which bans the teaching of any lesson especially about race and racism, which makes any student feel discomfort, which could be anything to suggest of systemic racism is real, and then make make students who benefit from it feel guilty. stop woke and don't say gay have become national flash points, and they won him a lot of credibility within the republican party, but his work to assert conservative christian doctrine within the classroom, began well before those notorious pieces of legislation. in fact, desantis started this ideological campaign with something seemingly so innocuous and so bipartisan, that it raised very few red flags of the time. but what it created, and what is arriving in florida classrooms this week is alarming. in 2019, shortly after taking

office. governor desantis called for a complete overhaul hall of teaching standards for civics, which is how florida is going about their government, and what it is to be an american citizen. democrats in the legislature, they supported the effort, maybe they're thinking of domestically, hey now they will get some renewed interest in civic responsibility. maybe young people will vote? but, when the department of education released a first draft of the new standards for review in 2021, a couple of alarming things jumped out. like, how these standards suddenly seem to emphasize religion, particularly christianity, for example the new standards for us civics teaching, which required seventh graders to be able to, quote, recognized judeo-christian values, and their influence on the founding ideals and documents. including, that the seventh grader should, quote, recognize the influence of the ten commandments on establishing the rule of law in america,

which is just not something that is universally acknowledged in this country, by any stretch. and along with the ten commandments, the new standard called for students to be able to, quote, recognize the influence of the protestant work ethic on economic freedom and personal responsibility. now, some of those references were eventually dialed back in the final package, but the ideas behind them, those appear to have survived. the standards won't be fully implemented in classrooms until next year, but the desantis administration is already pushing them out to teachers, in 2021, governor desantis announced 100 and $6 million to establish something called the civic literary excellence initiative. this summer, the florida department of education held a series of trainings for public school teachers, each session was held over the span of three days. and teachers, they were paid $700 to attend them, which for florida public school teachers, where the third lowest paid

teachers in the country, 700 boxes a pretty tempting sign, especially for teachers or new to teaching. one of those early career teachers, a broward county government teacher with one year in the classroom under her belt, she went to a training in june, three days later, disturbed by what she had witnessed in the room, she blew the whistle on these teacher training sessions, and other teachers started talking to, they noticed that one big theme running through the three days of courses, was an emphasis on christiane 80, when teachers said quote, there is a very strong christian fundamentalist way towards analyzing points in documents, that was concerning, another teacher said that there was a christian nationalism philosophy those baked into everything that was there, we got a hold of some of the slides they used in those tradings, they tell us some of the story of what happened, but not all of it, so we took a trip down to florida to find out what exactly has been happening to public education, under the stewardship of ron desantis, i sat down with

tatyana album the teacher blew the whistle on the suffix trainings, and she walked me through with the state of florida wanted her to teach students about one of the most fundamental principles of our government, the thing that many people believe makes america america, the separation of church and state. >> session purpose, articulate the founders view of this of church and state, and religious liberty. church and state, the wall between the two coming down. what are we learning here, thought siena? >> so, this slide was coupled with a discussion on how, you know, the separation of church and state may not be a wall, it's more like offense, a graded fence, they even mentioned. so it was weird, this was when the flags were going off in my mind, where they were immediately kind of saying, no there wasn't this kind of separation between church and state, which when you look at

history and you kind of know, maybe that somewhat true, but it's definitely more complex and nuanced in the way they're presenting it. so lots of flags were going off. >> also, it sounds like they're advocating for a more porous separation between church and state, they're not only saying it was much more fluid, the relationship between church and state in the air the founding fathers, but that's the way that american society should be structured today. >> misconception, the founders desired strict separation of church and state, and the founders only wanted to protect freedom of worship. >> this kind of misconception followed us throughout the entirety of the sessions, it would kind of hone in on, these are things you might know to be true, but they are a misconception.

so this is a big one for this workshop, where they legitimately said to us, the founders didn't want the strict separation, they wanted religion to influence peoples values. >> and specifically christian religion. >> yes. >> because there's a long lineup of how it's about christian tennis, and that's what the founders intended, so when they talk about this church, they're really talking about the christian church. >> right. >> and this is kind of the end thesis of this whole presentation, or this is the end conclusion that they want you to come away with. i mean, this doesn't seem like a training slide, this feels like, to borrow a phrase from the governor, indoctrination? >> it can, it's definitely of concern. it doesn't feel like any sort of other training i've been to. and are there other teachers that are not christians in the audience? what did they say? >> they were really concerned. a lot of the teachers i knew that were there, especially those that didn't grow up in a

christian household, they were very concerned, and very worried about what was happening, especially those with a lot of tenure in the field. >> and nobody could raise our hands and question this? >> no, if you ask the question, they used my favorite teacher strategy, which is essentially to say, that's wonderful, great. great topic of discussion, we will come back to that, and never come back to it. kind of hoping that they'll forget that they raise these questions. >> then there is what the trainings had to say about how the quotes should have to put the constitution, in the real world there is an ongoing debate between two fundamentally different methods of interpretation, on one side there's regionalism, the belief that the court should target the constitution by the way that the founding fathers wrote it in the 19th century. on the other side, the idea that the constitution is a document who's interpretation of all start the years, as american society itself state changes.

but according to tatyana, or teacher who sat through these trainings, the state of florida appears to want teachers to think that, there's really only one correct view, i let you guess which one. >> yeah, this is interesting, this slide. tell me what you see here. >> yeah, this is interesting. they brought up this as the supreme court, the reason we have the separation of church and, say, not necessarily the constitution. so, they talked about how, through these cases and others, the supreme court has interpreted the constitution to mean this strong separation of church and state. however, through originalism, that might not be what the constitution was saying. and there was a strong focus on originalism in terms of understanding the constitution. >> and originalism is seen as the right way to interpret the constitution? >> by way of what we were taught, yes. [inaudible] yes. >> right, so this suggests the supreme court is going against the founders'original vision, in engel v. vitale, the ending

of school prayer. that's seen as moving away from the principles of america? >> there is a slide here, where he goes on to talk about the ending of originalism. >> it's this one, interpreting the constitution. and who is that? >> scalia, justice scalia, who is probably the most notorious in the modern supreme court for being an originalist. >> yeah. >> and kind of the more conservative court -- here, they only mention originalism. there is no mention of any other justices in this slide, just him and just originalism, which i think is a disservice. i think that if we are going to talk about it, we have to bring up all the different sides. we have to make sure we are

including all the ways that people on our supreme court currently are interpreting this document. >> the constitution, yeah. so, the only way you are taught is originalism? >> originalism, picture of antonin scalia. >> right. >> as if it's this guy -- this is how we interpret the constitution. i mean, like -- this is as explicit as it gets. >> yeah. yeah. >> especially in this moment, in america, when we are looking at the legacy of scalia and what originalism is doing to society. that legacy is enacted by the current 6 to 3 conservative court, obviously include the overturning of roe v. wade, as well as the signal sent out by die hard originalist justice clarence thomas, that the rights to same-sex marriage and constitutional contraception, well, those should be considered as well.

that point is white florida peers to be emphasizing when it comes to teaching public school students about their government. and wait -- about slavery. you will get to that, plus reaction from one of america's prominent voices on history, race and politics, coming up next. are you feeling sluggish or weighed down? metamucil's new fiber plus collagen can help.

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large out-of-state corporations have set their sights on california. they've written prop 27, to allow online sports betting. they tell us it will fund programs for the homeless. but read prop 27's fine print. 90% of profits go to out-of-state corporations, leaving almost nothing for the homeless. no real jobs are created here. but the promise between our state

and our sovereign tribes would be broken forever. these out-of-state corporations don't care about california. but we do. >> so, down in florida, there stand with us. are public school teachers alarmed at how the state wants them to teach civics to their students.

in republican governor ron desantis's version of american history, in governance, church and state are not so separate, and the constitution should be interpreted through the lens of originalism, that idea that everything the founders believed in 1787, a long time ago, should take precedence over everything we've learned since then, which brings us to the topic of slavery. when i sat down with florida high school teacher tatiana alhbum, just before the school year began, she walked me through the official state department training on the subject of slavery. >> the only thing i can find in this slide, in this entire presentation, about enslaved people -- it is one slide and it says, less than 4% of slavery in the western hemisphere was in colonial america. the number of enslaved people increased in america through birth. what is happening here, in this slide? >> yeah, so this is a map showing how the transatlantic

slave trade brought enslaved people to both of the americas. there is a heavy emphasis that those people were brought to south america. it is a much bigger arrow. >> right. >> and where we are at, in north america, our colonies are very small sliver. and it was this heavy emphasis that most of our enslaved people were born here, almost to say it was left bad -- >> to enslaved children, for generations. >> to say we were born here, we didn't steal them and bring them on a boat, is kind of what it felt like. >> sort of making the difference between sleeves born in the united states and there was born in africa, and suggesting somehow that slave life -- that our moral debt is less because they were born into

slavery, as opposed to snatched from their homes. >> yeah, that's definitely how i felt they were portraying. >> and also that less than 4% of slavery in the western hemisphere was in colonial america. is that to minimize the number of slaves that were here, which still numbered in the millions? >> i believe so. >> this slide says two thirds of the founders held slaves, even those that held slaves did not defend the institution of slavery. in november 1789, benjamin franklin describe slavery as an atrocious debasement of human nature. did they give you the source of the two thirds of the founders? >> they did not. >> who didn't even approve of slavery? >> they did not, which was odd, because there was this heavy focus on primary sources. and to be given the information without the source, how can i take that back other than, in my head? you know? how can i take that back to my students in a -- if i'm supposed to be relaying this information to them? >> and then this is the slide you were talking about. george washington saying, it being among my first wishes to

see some planted opted, by which slavery in this country maybe by abolished by law. the abolition of domestic slavery is the great desire of those in colonies where it was and happily introduced in their infant state. so, what is happening? >> well, these are two men that are known to be slaveowners. thomas jefferson and the people he enslaved, it is notorious. it is a huge topic of discussion, it's really interesting to see them positioned. these two specific figures, with quotes, that are not sourced, saying they opposed slavery, knowing -- >> they owned slaves. >> they own slaves -- >> and at least one of them raped a slave. >> right. >> which seems to be the framing here, which slavery in america was not as bad as it was elsewhere. this league that were owned was not as bad -- the people that own them did so reluctantly. >> my next guest is the person to talk about the teaching of

history and race in america. he has been a longtime staff writer at the new yorker, providing analysis on everything from politics to policing during his time at the new yorker, he has also co-edited the matter of black lives, a collection of groundbreaking pieces on black history and culture, featuring works from writers like james baldwin and tony morrison. he is also the author of -- and he is also recently been named the dean of the columbia school of journalism. joining us now is the great jelani cobb. thank you, professor, for joining us. so, there is a lot to talk about here. i want to start with that slide that seems to minimize the role of america in slavery. -- less morally egregious then the initial slave boats that brought slaves over to the new world, if you will. sociologist and law professor dorothy roberts explains what's dissent based slavery actually

meant. >> the short words breeding. >> yes. >> reading human beings like livestock. >> yes, and i will read a quote from her book. so, virginia decides that enslaved black women give birth to enslaved people, even if those children are white. she says, that law allowed white men to profit from their sexual assault on black women. freed from the worry that their mixed race offspring had any legal claim to freedom, white men could rape enslaved women with total impunity, maintaining their domination while increasing their wealth. their control over black women 's bodies whiskey to creating a permanent labor supply. >> that's right. >> that reality has no place in the civics training. what does this mean, practically speaking? >> practically speaking, is a mechanism by which lies can be given the cloak of truth. and so if we want to go back to that document about only 4% of the people brought into the slant transatlantic slave trade

to the american colonies, that secondly true. what they don't talk about is that the british rolling to the transatlantic trade slave trade. so, when we talk about 60 19 1619, and the 1619 project, that's more than a century than people, particularly the spanish and portuguese, had been bringing enslaved people to brazil, had been bringing them to the caribbean, had been bringing them throughout south america. that is why they were fewer. and so when you get to the other part of the the dissent based slavery versus trafficking and kidnapping people, that is motivated by the small thing called the haitian revolution, which sent shockwaves throughout the slave holding world, where haiti, this island, which was overwhelmingly populated by enslaved black people launched a revolution and overthrew their french overseers. and this terrified slave

holders throughout the west. and so you began to see a push to say that they are needed to be abolition, not of slavery, but specifically and abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. >> yes. >> because places like south carolina already had a majority black population. there were more black people in south carolina than there were white people in south carolina. >> so they ended the transatlantic slave trade and continued to keep the people enslaved in through the process every production, which led to the people being bred, like livestock, as i said earlier. so, they are using a cloak of humanity to disguise utter in humanity. >> i wonder, when you look at these moments, when you have

the sort of white patriarchs offering a revisionist history, lost cause at the end of the civil war. and again, this sort of revisionist history and appalachia apologia -- when we feel like progress is being made. that the desantis is of the world, that organizations working to implement this kind of teaching in schools, are doing so because they feel like progress is on the doorstep? >> absolutely. this is the old dictum that he who controls the past controls the present. he who controls the present, controls the future. it's the kind of jingle waste viewed analysis of that. but still, the battle of the past is always about the president. it is about rationalizing a particular state of affairs that we see in the world right now. and so if we can diminish the claim of white racism and white supremacy have done in this society, you automatically and implicitly diminish the moral claim that people who are the descendants of those [inaudible] in this country right now. so, that's what the ballgame is. if you can muddy the waters, on

how difficult it has been for people to achieve citizenship, you can do things that make it more difficult for them to gain access to the vote. and so all of these things are about rationalizing present policies. >> and we are going to talk to you more about all of this, jelani cobb, please stay with us. we are going to talk about christian nationalism and right-wing politics and whether ron desantis would like to teleport the country back to 1787. stay with us. new astepro allergy. now available without a prescription. astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid free spray. while other allergy sprays take hours astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can... astepro and go. with downy infusions, let the scent set the mood. feel the difference with downy. >> tech: cracked windshield? don't wait. go to safelite.com you can schedule service in just a few clicks.

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we've battled a lot of ideologies. but what i've said is that the state of florida is the place where one goes to die. we are not going to let the state descend into some type of woke dumpster fire. >> that was florida republican governor ron desantis, apparently trying to reframe his civics education in florida as a moral battle. there will be no woke dumpster fire in what desantis is florida, putting a license plate. of course what he's doing is drawing a line between so called woke left his values,

and between his americas virtues and values, it's a theme that comes up repeatedly in the states civics at training for educators, back with us is jelani cobb dean of the columbia journalism school. but is the point of overlaying this moral instruction over what is a -- >> generally speaking, if you're talking to the public, people don't want nuance, they want stark lines, they want to be told and illustrated that the distinctions are absolutely clear and an harried, so he's framing this as woke, and woke us become a drinking game, just tossed outward out as many times as you can, and as by framing it as a metaphor for

everything that you find contemptible, you are able to make the case implicitly for when it is you're trying to do, that these people are uncrossed shin, they're immoral, that the opposite of you, and in fact that you should be afraid of them in some way shape or form. >> i mean, many teachers said to the press, to us, that christian nationalism flowed throughout that, and it seemed to be a really convenient tool from which you can, it's a rich arsenal, if you will, for a number of communion theories. >> it's cynical in a particular way, because in trying to break down the wall between church and state, it's not an attempt to break down the wall between synagogue and state, or between mosque and state. it's a very specific attempt to re-frame the nation itself as a kind of default christian state, and be upfront about that. this is not talking about freedom of religion, but the privacy of one religious doctrine. >> did it surprise you that they were so explicit in there so restraining about originalism, and release a picture of antonin scalia. i wonder if a surprise do it all. >> it's not surprising, because we saw this kind of assault began in the kind of the middle of the trump years, where people began trying to frame

any kind of anti racist trainings that people were doing in the department of justice, in the various institutions, to try to frame them as ideological indoctrination, and that created a rationale to do the opposite, a kind of counter indoctrination, so those almost always especially the manifold lives around what critical race theory is, it was opening the door for exactly this type of thing. >> we have so much more to talk to you about on this, we're gonna have more on this trip we took to florida and learned a lot, i'm so appreciative of your time and thoughts and wisdom on all this, jelani cobb, dean of the columbia journalism school, thank you for a time tonight. good luck in the school year, ahead is going to be a wild ride. we will be right back. it only takes a second for an everyday item to become dangerous. tide pods child-guard pack helps keep your laundry pacs in a safe place and your child safer. to close, twist until it clicks. tide pods child-guard packaging. ♪ ♪ away suitcases come in many colors. so you can find your color. colors. choices. happiness. away. ♪ ♪

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tonight, but we'll be back again tomorrow to take another crack at it. now it is time for the last

word with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening alex but and you are off to a fantastic start, as everyone can see. i really could listen to you and jelani cobb -- in fact, if you want to use just another ten minutes or so -- >> i will bring it back in the studio -- >> any night, when you need, say, an extra five, ten minutes, just text me and i will stay upstairs. >> friday, friday. have a good show, lawrence. -- >> the very bad news for donald trump is that rudy giuliani has finally, today, learned to talk like a lawyer again. today, for the first time in years, rudy giuliani did not sound like a hallucinating mad man when he walked into the fulton county courthouse in georgia to testify to a grand jury. he did not sound like someone willing to tell any lie for