how to make the capabilities for the knowledge of any time now, to begin to turn the levers of any parts that were -- there is a lot of science to be gun. you can understand how to do this, more simply, and more reputedly. and there is a lot of engineering to be done to build all the systems that will be required to do this at the repetition rate that will be required for commercial fusion energy. i think it is important to remember that we have not been doing that technology development for a long time. it is not that we do not have ideas, or concepts to pursue, but we are pretty much in the early days of developing the component commercial plant. the good news from the his discoveries that the process is possible. we demonstrated the fundamental physics and how they work for calculations that suggest we will be able to get to the kinds of high games he would need to have a partially viable

source a fusion energy. and, we need to begin this process of developing the component technologies and really exploring the rich physics round that we have opened with this breakthrough. >> >> well, well, it's remarkably exciting. and again, we congratulate you on your team in the people have been working on the so hard. maybe it's a long way to go, but i'm glad to be with you at least in this early part of the conversation. cam -- is the director at the lawrence livermore national laboratory. should, had the latest on the investigation into the insurrection, including the charged of the january six committee is actively considering recommending against donald trump, and when we should expect the decision. another area velshi begins right now. >> and good morning to, you is a, saturday summit 17th, it is not even the, east six aim the, west i'm ali velshi, and then a couple of, weeks the january six committee's work will officially come to an end. but before then, they have some big decisions to make, in one big report to publish.

all of which are expected to happen over the next few days. we now know that the committee is considering sending the justice department multiple criminal referrals against donald trump. for his role in the january 6th insurrection. sources stressed nbc news that the committee has not made any final decisions yet, but at this stage, there are three criminal referrals. they actively consider the former president. one? for conspiracy to defraud the government. another for obstruction of an official proceeding of congress. in the third, for inciting an insurrection. and that last one is a big one, in the nearly two years since the riot at the capitol, more than 900 people and counting have been indicted in connection to the events of january six. but so far, the justice department has not pursued an insurrection charge and any of those cases. a couple weeks, ago the justice department scored a major legal victory when a jury found elmer stewart rhodes, the founder of the oath keepers, and his co defendant, kelly meggs, guilty of seditious conspiracy. which is the most serious

convictions yet. rhodes and meggs now face up to 20 years in prison. the justice department is not done dealing with members of the far-right extremist organization yet. another group of oath keepers on trial right now for the same charge of seditious conspiracy. the justice department has shown a willingness to pursue ambitious charges light seditious conspiracy, but an insurrection charge against a former president would be another step into further unfamiliar territory. charging a former president for any crime, let alone one a serious as inciting a insurrection is impressive in america. again, the january six committee has not made any final decisions yet. a referral is simply that, a referral. it holds no legal weight whatsoever, and the justice department has the exclusive power to make indictments, and they are not bowed to any referrals that they received from any committee, but the fact that we are even speaking of this as a possibility is a remarkable sign of where we are right now.

joining me now is the pulitzer prize-winning reporter, charlie savage, he is eight -- for the new york times, he's an msnbc contributor. charlie, good morning to you, good to see you again. let's talk about this. first of all, how much do we know about this. there's been some reporting that there are these three charges, they are hoping, that the justice department take up, but we don't know that that decisions even fully been made or agreed to by the committee. that seems to be unfolding over the next 48 hours. >> those are the three charges that have been leaking out as the most likely charges that the committee will refer. there may be others. i'm curious to see whether there will also ask for charges on disobeying the subpoena that they issued to trump that have been getting some headlines awhile back. and then of course, underneath trump there's all of the attention as always. but they're a lot of other people in the committee is also thinking about. john eastman and others and candace chesbrough and really giuliani and others involved in the fake electorate scheme.

they've already said in court, when we're trying to get john eastman's emails, they thought that he and trump had conspired together to obstruct the congressional proceedings in the far the government and if are the night states. and so it would be shocking to not stay at the criminal referral at this point as well, ali. >> and some lawyers, the insurrection charge is the most important, because if convicted on that charge, donald trump could not hold office subsequently, but it's also the toughest one to prove and the one that has no precedent in being able to prove level only gives the former president. >> i would say two things about that. one is that there is a lot of good reason to think that the component of the insurrection act that says that you cannot run for office or you're not eligible for office would be unconstitutional as applied to a presidential candidate. the constitution sets a criteria for who is eligible to be president and the notion is that congress cannot by statute, modify that list. the constitution trumps when there's a difference between

law and its text. and so that is probably just a pipe dream. the other thing about that is that the intro here talked about inciting insurrection, and that is possible that where the committee is going to go with this is a different phrase in that same law about assisting an insurrection. including because trump did not motivate -- mobilize for several hours when people were asking him to intervene to send the national guard him and so forth, and he just sat there. and he said tweets in the middle of the insurrection that sort of stoked it to go on the right. including saying, mike pence did not have the courage to do what was necessary and et cetera right in the middle of all this chaos. incitement is one issue, but assistance is also an element, a separate element of the insurrection act. >> what is your sense, charlie, of what happens here? obviously, the department justice gets referrals all the time from people, but don't typically get referrals from a

committee that is interviewed 1000 people and hundreds of thousands of pages of testimony and emails and text and things like that, transcripts. what do you think happens? jack smith gets this thing, and then what? >> realistically, this is basically irrelevant from the justice department standpoint. they already have their investigation, going they don't need january six committee to tell them what statutes may or may not have been violated here. it is easy for the committee to say, oh, this clearly violates this, and they're not going to go and meet certain legal standards and so forth and figure out the evidence. i think that this is more about political messaging, it is a function, in a cynical way of saying is that is just way for the committee to get a big headline in a splash as it ramps up its work. i think it is more than that, i think it functions as a super censure. it is something that will be part of the history of this period. to the extent that people are having criminal referrals, if they go nowhere, i think that will probably be in the

arbitrary's. that will be part of how they are remembered for. and in some ways, it is like on several occasions, both bill clinton and maybe the first trump impeachments, the house impeached knowing that the votes were not there in the senate. they had a supermajority to convict and nevertheless the fact that clinton and trump were impeached became a form of super censure and is part of what they remembered for, and goes down in history. this may function similarly regardless of what the justice department does on a separate track investigation. >> charlie, good to see is, always this rejoining. us charlie started is the water to correspondent the new york times. a pulitzer prize winner in an msnbc contributor. up next, the crossroads of the january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol in the extremism inside the gop. plus, russia continues to target civilian infrastructure, but the u.s. is now set to send a defensive game changer to ukraine. and, loyal velshi viewers know that the bad faith book banning a sweeping the nation. as for this week's meeting of the velshi banned book club's, we will dive into the shadowy

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for truth would cost me my job, friendships, and even my personal security, i would, without hesitation, do it all over again. i can rest easy at night knowing that i fulfilled my oath to the office. i know many in this institution cannot do the same. unfortunately, we now live in a world where lives trump truth. where democracy is being challenged by authoritarianism. if we americans elected leaders do not search within ourselves for a way out, i fear that this green experiment will fall into history. >> that was a part of, that adam kinzinger, you should go back and listen to the whole thing. he was just a farewell speech

to congress this week. kinzinger is one of two republicans on the january six committee who stood up for democracy and against extremism. neither kinzinger nor the republicans in congress, or this cheney, will be returning to the halls of congress next year. for more the republican parties increased willingness to accept extremism and ideas, i'm joined by rick -- rick is the cofounder of -- and he's msnbc political strategist, former national spokesperson for the ted cruz campaign. he's the author of the book, still, write a -- composting american makes the case for conservatism. and he is a good old friend. rick, good to see you this morning. >> ali, it's great to be with you. >> so we just played adam kinzinger, we talked about being a conservative, and what being a republican he would be like. and i just saw this a conversation with john bolton if you minutes ago, who takes a very different view of what conservatives are. john bolton made an interesting point to me. he said me, he called me the liberal media, we are all wrong about the republican party. the republican party still normal in what it used to, be the party of barry goldwater

and ronald reagan, and there's a few fringes around the side. but ultimately, the party is safe and will continue. do you share that view? >> we'll have a great deal of respect for ambassador bolton, and i know him personally, and i've worked with him on many foreign policy things, but i think he underestimated agreed to which the republican party has been susceptible to being seduced by snake oil salesman and the like. particularly donald trump. you have to look far for donald trump, donald trump it obtain somebody like nick fuentes at a dinner, and claims he doesn't know him, i bet he is lying or he is just incompetent. either way, it is bad. we have to root that out. we have to cut it out like a cancerous tumor, and celebrates its defeat. instead, we play all of these dance games. and we have to be clear the voters. is that the republican party. i think ambassador bolton's right in this regard, most republicans either are not racist and they don't embrace

racism, but the leadership of the party has got to be strong about speaking out against it. and not entertaining it in the slightest. >> well leadership of the party, the only thing done in last few weeks is that they have decided, like in 2012 when they have that postmortem after mitt romney lost to barack obama, and talked about things that they should do, they got a little postmortem going on that says that maybe we should talk about the 2020 election and election denialism and stealing elections all that much, which would be progress, but it doesn't deal with any of the stuff. there's all sorts of people who've taken a position about how there's no room for antisemitism, white nationalism, or whatever it might be in the republican party. none of those people, with the exception of mitt romney, named donald trump. >> that's right. and you mentioned, and thank you for mentioning, it was written 2020. and i've outlined all these things. the whole book is what it means to be conservative. you have people running around

claiming to be conservatives like people who are chewing on raw meat and claiming to be right vegetarians. there is no coherence. and what the republican party needs essentially is not in a bitter airy postmortem, they need what is equivalent of a council of trans. and it means what they stand for. and it i've always had the republican party in conservatism is attractive governing philosophy when communicating correctly, and when the understand what it, is and what the alternative is. and they would attract people on their side. and instead they engage in muddiness, and elections were stolen and voting machines are rigged and it's very dangerous. it is in fact, as people begin to believe, that they run around the whole foundation, for american democracy and you will have people calling for regulating elections at the national level, and now you want to talk about how elections can be rigged, go ahead and let it be at the national level. the fact that it is aggregate among 200,000 precincts, with

all of their local officials, their media, in the candidates on the ballot, and all the people who work for the candidates who all have conflicting interests, this is what makes the elections safe. and so we were talking about the past, and the muddiness of the past, of the stolen elections, we are losing, and that is what happened in the 2022 election in the republican party needs to realize that their messaging with the voters who is completely out of whack. they need to correct it, and they suffer for it, in the next two years and they better get it right. or there won't be a loyal opposition party that is strong enough to overwhelm with the democrats, what we. that is not good for the country. >> well, it should be a strong opposition party regardless of what the government is doing or not, whatever side you are hosting. good to see you, friend and this, you you are getting a ten out of ten on christmas room raider for the setup you have there. retirees the cofounder foundry strategies, msnbc political strategies. an immigrant loving compost

american loves the case for conservatism. elon musk's short tenure as the owner of twitter has been filled controversy for who is on the platform to what is allowed to be on the platform, and it is a part of musk's latest mast. i will explain coming up. coming up over the last 100 years, lincoln's witnessed a good bit of history. even made some themselves. makes you wonder... what will they do for an encore? ♪♪ the promise of america is freedom, equality, but right now, those pillars of our democracy are fragile and our rights are under attack. reproductive rights, voting rights, the right to make your own choices

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puffs has 50% more lotion and brings soothing relief. don't get burned by winter nose. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. america's #1 lotion tissue. >> elon musk, the multi billionaire owner of twitter and self-described free speech absolutist is facing bipartisan criticism from lawmakers, condemnation from the united nations, and threats of sanctions from the eu after suspending the accounts of at least ten journalists on thursday without warning, accusing them of doxxing him. most of those accounts are now back online, and if you're not really with the term doxxing, to defines doxxing as sharing someone's private information online without their permission. it is a considered a breach of the company's roles. continue your, times the journalists were banned quote a day after twitter suspended more than two dozen other

counts, including an account belonging to jack sweeney, it 20-year-old college student. behind elon jet, which tracked the public movements of mr. musk's private plane. most of the band journalists had reported on or tweeted about those private jet cracking accounts. keep in, mind in america, most commercial airspace was controlled by the government are tracking planes in realtime is legal and available to anyone with a smartphone. information about planes is just not private information. i currently have a couple of apps that can do that right now. it's even by twitter's own rules, during publicly information about flights is not doxxing at all. as of this morning, eight of those journalist accounts have been and suspended, and are back online, but at least two accounts appear to be still be banned, including business insiders linette lopez. lopez does not repeal to have reported on musk's private jets at all. she has, however, done extensive investigating reporting on mosques businesses, particularly tesla.

keith albumin remain suspended. on thursday night, you love musk was confronted about the decision to censor the accounts and a live audio conversation hosted by a group of journalist on twitter. twitter spaces, as it is called, and they have had their account suspended. moscow broke we left a conversation subsequently shut down the whole twitter spaces platform when the conversation took place. this is not very free speech absolutist a view mr. musk. hold on, i didn't say that, this is taped, because i don't descended from twitter. if i am by the way, i'm ana mastodon in post. i will give you those handles any minute. it's worth noting, twitter is a private company. elon musk can do whatever he wants on it. bailey journalists is a lot of things. it is dangerous, and it is hypocritical, but banning journalist from twitter is actually not a first amendment issue. i want to be clear on this, because elon musk is never clear about what the first amendment actually means. joining me now is roger -- he is the cofounder of elevation partners, he was an

early investor in google and facebook, and he's the author the best-selling book -- socked, he's an adviser for the group stop kate for profit. r he's my go-to guy to understad some of these issues. good morning to you roger, you can get much sleep last night, because you and i were talking about this last night. and again, while it is not a free speech issue, for a guy who claims to be a free speech absolutist and took over twitter, and so this could be some kind of fettered town square of debate in this course. it doesn't seem to be turning out that way. >> no, not at all ali, the issue that we have here is very simple. between 2020 -- then it was highly fragmented and there was a lot of conversation, a lot of speech going on, and it was spread out over literally thousands of sites. beginning 2010, facebook, twitter, and other platforms consolidated all of that speech into a few centralized nodes that were controlled by very

very rich people. and they made protections about being neutral. but in fact, their actual behavior was that they promoted toxicity, because it was great for business. these businesses are as supportive, they need our attention. the best way to get it is with toxic content. because it triggers our natural self defense mechanisms. and so, that is what has been going on. musk has taken this to a totally different level. i view him a little bit like a guy who's got a laser pointer, and politicians and journalists are like the cat. they are chasing the laser pointer, completely ignoring the larger point here. which is that musk not only doesn't believe in democracy, he doesn't believe journalism is a legitimate business, and he is trying to torture journalists, he's trying to torture the country. i think that our job right now is to recognize what is going on, and to go to battle

stations and do the things that we need to do to defend democracy and defend journalism. >> let's talk about that means. what is meditation's? mean the job of a journalist is twofold, it is to bear witness into this to hold power into account. and that is what these journalists were kicked off twitter were doing. right? it was gaslighting for him i must say, they were engaging in doxxing. because when i first saw that tweet, i thought to myself, what is somebody doing to elon musk? our journals being irresponsible? no, journalist are doing exactly what journalists are built to do and are supposed to do. so what does battle stations look like right now in this fight to keep twitter from becoming this cesspool of toxicity? >> i think it is too late to prevent twitter from being a cesspool of toxicity. i think the fundamental issue is that twitter was never a great place to conduct journalism and politics. they were always deep flaws. and offered huge potential, because it gave the disadvantage access to politicians, access to

journalists, but the cost has been very high. and it's getting much much higher. and i think we need to recognize that we just can't have a nice things like a centralized twitter. but this thing has gone too far. and that mosque is literally going to pull people back, he's going to ban people, and he's going to do whatever it takes to keep the attention on him. this is his soap opera, and he is the star, and i don't think that any of us can do anything about that. because as you say, this is not about the first amendment. it is a private company. but we do not need to give him our attention. and i think most important thing that i talk about battle stations, is for media organizations like nbc to recognize that they need to support their journalists. there is an extraordinary nbc journalist, ben collins, who has currently been suspended for doing something on twitter that, honestly, i don't think anybody other than nbc believes was problematic. it was in fact completely appropriate.

he was doing his job. it's really important for media organizations to be -- not allow themselves to be intimidated. this is a critical juncture for democracy, it is a critical juncture for journalism. it's a little bit like the pentagon papers, or watergate, where in those days, journalistic organizations might have been cowed by power, but they did stand up to it. and that is what all journalistic organizations need to do right now. this is not about eight or ten or 12 people being suspended from twitter. this is about legitimate journalists being suspended from their jobs for doing their job. >> roger, as always, thank you. look we got to later than we spoke to this morning, because i apologize, and you're on the west coast, it's a lot earlier for you than it is for us, and we appreciate you joining us with your take, and thank you as always. roger -- is the cofounder of elevation partners, and he's advisor for the group stop a for profit. he's the author the best-selling important book, -- waking up to facebook atrophy.

for those of you migrating hanging out on the twitter alternatives, mastodon or post, news you can find me at velshi at mastodon dot world and at velshi. he is a rest my social media handles there too, and if i just disappear from twitter, firing at the other places! another barrage of russian missiles have targeted ukraine civilian infrastructure yesterday, knocking out power and heat for millions. but a potential game-changer is said to be on the way courtesy of the usa. of the usa [ music playing ] when we first arrived at st. jude,

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invasion of ukraine, unable to make major gains in the east in the south, moscow's barbaric strategy of trying to invoke terror among the ukrainian citizens really continues. yesterday morning, russia launched another barrage of attacks on ukrainian infrastructure in cities across ukraine, including kyiv, kharkiv, and odessa. 76 missiles were launched in all. according to ukrainian officials, ukraine shot down 60 of them while 16 did hit their targets, killing at least two people. the attacks once again knocked out power and heat for millions in the dead of winter. however, a potential intangible game-changer is now heading to ukraine. according to three u.s. defense officials, the united states is now set to send the advanced patriot surface to air missile defense system to ukraine. patriot missiles, as you know, shoot down incoming missiles

and rockets with high precision. join me now is the admiral james -- the former supreme allied commander of nato, and he's also an nbc news chief international security and diplomacy analysts. admiral, good to see this morning, thank you for being with us. >> great to be with you, and before we launch, just back to twitter for one second and battle stations and sanctions, i am very proud that i am sanctioned by vladimir putin. i think that perhaps in the future of being sanctioned by twitter as a journalist maybe a comparable badge of honor. >> it may well be, sir. i just described the patriot missile defense system as a game-changer. i did want to know, from somebody like you, who's actually an expert at this, i don't diminish the sophistication of this military effort that is gone into holding russia off since february, but this feels like a big deal to me. >> it is a big deal, ali, and this is a terrific weapons system. defensive, it has been around for decades. highly accurate, we have been

using it since the gulf war. it has a range of close to 100 miles, and you can go up at least 100,000 feet. it can defend itself, and it is perfect for knocking down these barrages of incoming missiles. and it can also go in the jets across the skies in ukraine. it's the perfect told to put on the battlefield, it is defensive in nature, and it will help president zelenskyy do it when he talks about -- which is close the sky over ukraine. let's face, it that is the only part of the war that vladimir putin is succeeding in. the ukrainians have stopped him and rolled him back on the ground, and the degree to which we stop him in the air is the degree to which this turns out well for our ukrainian friends. >> admiral, you are the supreme allied commander of nato, and so you have a really good sense of history for those countries, and particularly of ukraine, which is never been a nato member, but has a very times wanted to be. what vladimir putin is trying

to do to the ukrainian people is not working. the breaking of their spirit by attacking civilian targets for a long time for work crimes and author literally freezing them out, which i think is a war crime when you target civilians with that, it is not still not working. it does not break their backs. the civil defense initiative in ukraine continues, and their army continues to do its work. it is kind of a remarkable story. >> it absolutely is. and i know ukraine will have visited on multiple occasions. i committed their troops in afghanistan, they came with us instead alongside us, not as a member of the alliance but because they wanted to do the right thing and be part of the effort there. and so i know their military very well. the russians will never break their spirit. and you are a student of history, ali, and what this reminds me of is the battle of britain at the beginning of world war ii. hitler thought he could just launch missiles and crush the spirit of the brits, winston

churchill led them through that dark our. i would say that zelenskyy is channeling winston churchill pretty well at the moment. >> and when i talked about this in february much of this, year when this guy who nobody thought would be up to the job of running ukraine, let alone running ukraine out of the threat of vladimir putin. but the comparisons to churchill being made. then munson, in winter, in the cold after so many people have died, people are thinking that more so, the result of the ukrainian people combined with the leadership of volodymyr zelenskyy, actually looks like a winning formula. my guess my question to you is what does winning look. like when does this. and does russia say that we can afford the city, more we can't do this to the russian people protest about it? how and when does this and. >> three words, answer that question, which is i don't know. nobody knows, war is very unpredictable obviously. but i think that these burn rate if you will on both sides of that firing line is very

bad. the russians are burning through troops, hundred thousand probably at this point killed were knocked out. three and 1000 young men have left the country, might as well be killed in action. equipment, running through their stores immaterial, borrowing from the -- and on the other side of the firing line, ali, it is our patients. it is how long we are willing to support and resource and provide very expensive systems, like the patriot. both of those are burning on really quick fuses. i would say sometime in 2023, both sides are going to come to a negotiation. will result in a laughing piece? or the first in conflict, we don't know. but our job in the west is to put the ukrainians in the best possible negotiating position, patriot is a good step in that direction. >> admiral, unfortunately we have many more months at least to talk about this, and i hope it's not a lot longer than that. but i know you will be with us no matter how long it takes.

dr. -- admiral james to read this is the former allied supreme commander of nato. coming, up there isn't a single a book on the agenda this, week it said we're gonna do it deep dive into some of that shadowy groups behind book banning across the country. country

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velshi banned book club's not about any singular book or author. it is about the nationwide bad faith effort to ban books and the people in the groups that are behind it. the recent surge of book manning is not the result of a grassroots effort by concerned parents who are raising genuine questions about the content that their children have access to. parents like that do exist, to be clear, and they deserve to be fully engaged in what their children are reading and learning. but they are not the ones propelling the book bounce that you are hearing about on the show every week. in a new dispatch on the new york times, elizabeth harris and alexandra -- right quote, recently, the issue has been supercharged by a rapidly growing and increasingly influential

consolation of conservative groups. the organizations frequently describe themselves has defending parental rights. some are new, and that is a long-standing, but with a recent focus on books, some work at the district and state level, others have national reach. in over the past two years or so, they have grown vastly more organized, interconnected, well funded and effective. one of these groups is patriot mobile. it is self described as america's only christian conservative wireless provider. it wireless provider, why is a cell phone company get involved in children's reading? patriot mobiles political action committee poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into school board races in texas to quote, promote candidates with conservative views on race, gender, and sexuality, including on which books children can access at school. in quote. according to the air times. 11 candidates, backed by patriot mobiles p i see, this is a wireless carrier, we are elected school boards in four districts, with the goal of

eliminating critical race theory and what they call lgbtq indoctrination from schools, and even successful and pulling at least 40 previously challenge titles off of library shelves. the group's executive director joins steve bannon's podcast and said, even books that feature lgbtq characters, with zero sexual content are problem because quote, it is normalizing a lifestyle that is a sexual choice, in quote. the packs effort contributed to texas holding the title of the state with the most book bans. weighing in at 801 across 22 districts. another group is florida citizens alliance. one of the group's founders told the new york times that his mission is to protect the innocence of children in quote, let the parents decide what the trial gets, rather than having government schools indoctrinate our kids, in quote. government schools which you might otherwise know as public schools. florida citizens alliance as been around for almost ten years, it's got very close ties to the sky, the sitting governor of florida, with its cofounders previously working

on rhonda santa's transition committee. last, year the alliance released its annual so-called porn in schools report. listening books that they consider indecent and offensive. this includes the children's book, -- makes three, which is a story of two male penguins to adopt a baby penguin. that made it into the porn in school's report. penguins! the report rallied. the groups network of over 250,000 people to lobby for a bill that would require school districts to report all book objections to the state. so the state can keep track of them. 566 books were banned within 21 of florida school districts within the last year, according to pan america. then there is the utah parents united. a group that was initially co-created to protest covid restrictions, but recently turned to manipulating libraries and school curriculum. the group want to pack lobbying for a bill banning what it called sensitive material schools. the bill passed, and the number of challenges have skyrocketed. according to the new york times,

brick stevens, the curriculum director for utah parents united, quote, now argues that the law needs to be more strictly enforced. and has filed complaints with the sheriff's department demanding the removal of 47 books from the davis school district. schools have to abide by the criminal code, she said, in quote. these are just three of hundreds of groups and chapters targeting literature in school libraries with severely anti-democratic intentions. they're using racist and homophobic in transphobic language and lies. they use terms like grooming, and invoking pedophilia described literature that so much acknowledges the existence and humanity of gay or trans people. these are not sincerely concerned parents, this is not a grassroots movement, this is a deep pocketed scheme by far-right groups that are targeting marginalized groups in a way that is genuinely dangerous. joining me now is christopher, roads lecture and government at harvard university, and lecture and social sciences at boston

university. and suzanne nossel, the ceo of pan america, and not be secured at the intersection of literature and human rights. she's also the author of dare to speak, defending free speech for. all good morning to both of you, thank you for joining us. suzanne, welcome back to the show, christian thank you for being with us. suzanne, let me to start with, you unite been talk about this, while i want to talk to you. we have both acknowledge that the right and the necessity of parents being involved in what their kids are learning and expressing concerns about that, that's what school boards are, for that is what school associations are for, but that is just not what this is. >> i think that is right, ali, and look, i think there are parents who have genuine concerns who come at this honestly, who maybe find that some of the materials in their kids classroom are not what they are accustomed to. they don't comport to the values that are being conveyed in a utah family, for example, but it is the orchestrated nature of this in the link to long-standing educational movements. movements that sought, decades

ago, to get prayer into schools, movements that thought, when they couldn't get prepared opted, push towards home schooling in push towards much more liberal roles in terms of people being able to take their kids out of public school and educate them at home. and then even movements that are really about trying to dismantle our public schools. get us to convert to a voucher system, so that people can pick and choose if they want to send their kids to a religious goal, they can do so on public money, no matter what that does to the public schools that serve the community at large. betsy devos is part of this movement. she is called for the abolition of the department of education, that she once ran. >> and you make interesting, point because as i mentioned, people started calling, people who don't like these things, don't call in public schools anymore, they call them government scores. dr. rhodes, you wrote an op-ed recently in february, you said that it's become clear that the censorship of books and classroom material was not the endgame, but merely in opening

salvo to greater demands for control of information and discourse. the right wing anti-democratic movement is not moving beyond mere censorship, in entering a phase of surveillance and the very thought policing that conservatives like to accuse liberals of employing. when i try to bring some of that up in the intro, or we talked about a place where their police of the sheriff. or in florida, in the instance of a request of a book has to be referred to the state. this is going a lot for that then what they get is reading into class. >> no, absolutely. it's been quite disturbing, some of the things that we have seen, from some of these groups that one organization, for example, -- defending freedom recently held a workshop in corpus christi on how to observe teachers, social media accounts to find information that could be used with some of these accusations, labeling them as groomers, providing pornography, and whatnot, and our couple of bills that were proposed last year in florida that would

actually have implanted cameras in classrooms so that parents could watch at home and could stream and monitor them in realtime what teachers were teaching and how they were instructing students. those particular bills have not passed yet, but this is the kind of level of surveillance that we have seen that these groups are proposing. and criminalizing, in some cases, filing lawsuits against teachers, against even private booksellers and virginia, and there's a lawsuit against bars and nobles trying to restrict a type of books that are consulting minors and whatnot. and even criminal complaints in places like howard county, maryland, using the charge of providing pornography, quote unquote, to minors in order to ban these books and even penalize teachers and educators to provide such materials to their students. >> suzanne, what is the line here between material that people say is inappropriate for their kids to learn about, versus control and political

power, because you described earlier about prayer in home schooling in vouchers, but in fact, you can compare this to the anti-lgbtq movement. you can compare it to the fact that in the 70s, republicans turned to a country that didn't really have major objectives with abortion into a rallying cry for conservatives. there seems to be a power play here. we noticed one group in utah which wasn't about book, benny and it's not become about banning. they were about covid restrictions. >> well that is right. one phenomenon that we definitely see is that the anger and frustration that arose in relation to covid restrictions has now been funneled into book banning. and curriculum banning. and it is unfortunate. we have a lot of documented learning lost during the pandemic, and now it's being compounded in the schools that have been turned into battlegrounds where people are surveilling teachers, they're going after teachers, they are speaking legislative restrictions, and it all distracts from teaching and

learning, which should be our focus right now. i do think that it is important to try to distill those who have a large political agenda, whether it is cities mantle the public schools, or to make the public schools more religiously influenced, from parents who are -- need to be brought along into the ways in which our society and our curriculum is changing. and we passed a law -- game areas this week. and these people are ultimately going to find themselves to be in the minority, probably even in the communities where they are working, and they have a vested interest and protecting against government censorship. today, it may be them, censoring books they don't like, but the tables will be turned at some point, it may be books that they very much believe, and that others call into question. and so upon america, we really stress the principle here which is that the resort to censorship, to government bans on books, no matter what the debates may be, there can be room for discussion about what

is the right age to introduce certain concepts, whether certain books are two explicit, or a particular environment, we can discuss that. that can be a given take between parents and teachers. but censorship book bans go well beyond that. >> and for all the authors we've been talking about here at the velshi banned book club, not a single one doesn't say that. that maybe my book is not for everybody, don't ban it, but peoples -- parents should have a say in what their children read, but let's have it as a real discussion. thank you to both of you, it's been great to have you both here. christopher rhodes's a lecturer boston university and harvard university. suzanne nossel is the ceo of pan america and the author of dare to speak, defending free speech for all. hey, that does it for me, thank you for watching, catch me back here tomorrow from 8 to 10 pin eastern and financial media, including that new twitter alternatives, post news and massive. on those miami's a bear, i will tweet them on twitter until they suspended for doing. so msnbc report begins right now. ns right now.

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reiser here in new york. we begin with a major milestone in the investigation into the insurrection. this monday the house january six committee set to hold its final public hearing. laying out key findings and voting on issuing criminal referrals. according to three sources after usually involved in the committee's deliberations, a final call has