tv The Mehdi Hasan Show MSNBC March 26, 2023 5:00pm-6:00pm PDT
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eastern for more american voices. for now, i handed over to mehdi hasan. you know, mehdi, i was thinking about the fact that this past week, you and i were both in, all eyes were on the new york da, and it turned out some of the biggest news of the week came out of special counsel jack smith's investigation. >> yeah. i mean, i can keep track of all the trump cases. i'll be honest. every day, i try to explain to the bureau's, which indictment are we talking about now? i'm just glad that you and i both took time -- to talk about the wisconsin state supreme court grace. i find it astonishing that american democracy in 2024 could come down to what happened in a supreme court race in wisconsin next month. the rioters of this show are spoiling us. >> the most critical race in the country that very few people bowl, ourselves excluded, by talking about. mehdi, have a great show. >> thank you very much, alicia. >> tonight, on the mehdi hasan
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show, trump versus desantis. fascism versus fascism. is this what the grand old party has been reduced to in 2024? really? but, congressman jamal bowman, one of the lone defenders of tiktok, will be with me to argue against congress trying to ban it. and filmmaker an activist michael -- also join me on the show tonight. 20 years off from his famous anti-iraq war oscar speech. ♪ ♪ ♪ good evening. i'm mehdi hasan. as we read the tea leaves ahead of the next election, the 2024 presidential election, the week we've just enjoyed have proven to be most clarifying. well the democratic presidential nominee is almost certainly gonna be joe biden, not a lot of internal party infighting for him incite -- the republican nominee will be certainly one of two men.
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donald john trump -- golf club slash wedding venue mar-a-lago, and ron desantis out of tallahassee. that's it. that's the choice. forget about nikki haley, mike pence, its former president trump versus ron desantis. this week has served as a stark reminder of how bad that rock and a hard place choice is for the rest of us. for the rest of the country. for all of us non florida, non-republican, non-cuckoo for cocoa puffs folks, i.e. the majority of americans. recall seven days ago, trump was having a fit online pushing false and hysterical claims that he was facing an intimate indictment and arrest on tuesday. spoiler alert, none of that materialized on tuesday or any day of this past week. but that ostensibly mattered little to the former president, and he doubled and tripled down on attacking manhattan da alvin bragg, calling him human scum,
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an animal, threatening, quote, death and destruction. he kept up the onslaught even after nonslip containing mysterious white powder and a death threat was mailed to brag. i shocking but hardly surprising development giving what donald trump's own niece told me last week about his ability to rhetorically stock up random acts of terror. >> donald continues to engage in this kind of stochastic terrorism that -- as we've seen, really has devastating consequences. unfortunately, this is the kind of thing where violence could break out anywhere in the country, and it's difficult to prepare for that. >> all of this week's chaos than culminated in trump's first official campaign event of 2023, where he railed against law enforcement and shamelessly lionized because of january 6th insurrectionists. and especially, shall we say,
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curious move given the event was held in waco, texas, on the 30th anniversary of an armed standoff between the anti government division colt and the fbi. you could say a lot about the former president, but you could never accuse him of being subtle. he's truly taken the bombast up to a whole different and dangerous level these past few days, past few weeks, past few months. consider this reminder from the new york times this weekend. i quote, he died at home with a white president -- supremacist, he declared himself more anger than ever in general, vowed to make retribution after a second term in the white house in march, he's embraced the qanon conspiracy theory movement -- described vladimir putin as a genius, and -- four republican. he's become the target of four criminal investigations, including one in new york that might result in potential death and destruction. still, mr. trump remains a strong front runner for the 2024 republican party presidential nomination. yes. despite all that, still leading the grand old party.
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it boggles the mind. or would, if his opponents, ron desantis, actually fought back after being slammed with rhetorical haymakers like this. >> when a man comes to me, tears in his eyes, he's at almost nothing in the polls, and he's fighting somebody that's a 42, and he's got almost $30 million in the bank, he's an almost nothing, he's got no cash, and i said, i can't give you an endorsement. you can't win, kenya, honey? sir, if you undress me, i went. please, please, sir endorsed me! >> i know you're tempted to revel in this cat fight. i enjoyed the image of a sobbing desantis as much as the next man. but ultimately, this is serious stuff. it's one florida fascist for another. i mean that. then for a second but the governor of florida is any less extreme and dangerous and authoritarian than donald trump.
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this week, when pressed to differentiate himself from the former president, the best he could offer, the most major point of distinction he can bring up was that he would've fired anthony fauci during the peak of the covid pandemic. recall, this comes after previous violent threats against the nation's former top doctor from the florida governor, saying he wanted to, quote, grabbed a little -- and toss him across the potomac. charming. -- desantis's ire this week, no. he wasn't -- once against the power of the state against the queer community, moving to expand his ban on classroom discussions of lgbtq people and topics through to the 12th grade. so much for that protect the elementary school kids. -- -- the stonewall uprising, i will now be too obscene, it seems, for high school classrooms. once more, he tied new legislation that makes it easier to sue reporters and gusto -- anonymous sources could be effectively outlawed. richard nixon would've dreamed
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of this. and look, desantis will take on everyone. the doctors, the media, the case. but he won't take on the former president. it's no wonder that even conservative pundits like matt lewis was saying he's not ready for primetime. he's looking uncomfortable in his own skin. and it's no wonder that at the recent gathering of gop big wigs, some of his top allies and top donors reportedly suggested he set out of gop presidential races until at least 2028. his own people. his own buddies. they see him as a potential loser to. the calls are coming from inside the house. look, it's good for democracy that these two men, these two florida fascists, in my view, i've had such a bad week. but it's bad that they remain the two republican front runners. when i look at trump v. desantis, i'm reminded of lindsey graham's infamous 2016 job at the trump ted cruz standoff. choosing between those two, he said at the time, was like choosing between being shot or poisoned.
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joining me now is olivia troye, -- a adviser to vice president mike pence. now, a trump critic. -- correspondent for -- arthur of go back to where we you came from. thank, you often have you, for joining me this sunday evening. olivia, let start with you. last week, a trump on the show talked about stochastic terrorism. about how -- her uncle using rhetoric to inspire people to commit acts of violence, but in a direct, approvable way. is that what happened with the threat to alvin bragg friday, a predictable consequence of your former bosses dangerous and racist rhetoric against brag? >> yes, absolutely. this is exactly what trump does. he knows exactly what he's doing. he's very calculated when he doesn't. i think mary trump is 100% correct and saying that. people been worried, you know, they're saying, oh, they're watching new york city, things like that. yeah. i have concerns on what might happen, perhaps, in new york city.
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i'm more concerned about the runoff across the country. things like this. the threats to people who are just doing their jobs, because that's what we're seeing. we saw with the georgia election workers. we've seen it on street doctors, when people have attacked people like dr. fauci. it's consequences. it's not just attacking the one person. the repercussions actually permeate to other doctors. either public servants. the other people that are in this type of work. that's why these things are so dangerous. we know exactly what it means and what it does. and what the people listening -- they take that as a call to action. >> yeah. he knows what he's doing, indeed. ali, we spent all last week on indictment watch. trump falsely claimed he was gonna get arrested on tuesday. when you make of da bragg's case against trump on the stormy daniels money? do you think he'll be indicted soon? >> look, from what we
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understand now -- very strong. if it was brought in 2021. right? because most folks, everybody knows trump -- this is not a measure of controversy. right? we know we paid her hush money. we know he lied about it. we know michael cohen has evidence about how he hid that money from the federal ease -- campaign finance losses. we all know he did it. the question is, why hasn't he been charged for it already? why wasn't he charged not by the manhattan da, but by the southern district of new york? by the federal prosecutors in new york in 2021? -- with them do it in 2020, fine. what's merrick garland's excuse? the usa oh -- why wasn't this case brought in 2021 when it was more timely? now, it's later, the statute of limitations -- there's other technicalities that help trump we got off this
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again. again, the foundation of the case is strong. we all know he did it. but there are technicalities here that we can be argument -- this particular issue, bringing trump -- >> he also announced his candidacy -- election interference. he doesn't say anything about trump's, apparent plea, election interference. -- he goes into something to prove us wrong. yesterday, he held a rally in waco, texas, of all places, on the 30th anniversary of the siege and violence that. then, he stood with his hand on his hired for a song that trump recorded with the j six prism choir. and mates who are charged with storming the capitol on one sex. that's astonishing even by trumpian standards. is it not? >> i don't know why anyone surprise. the qualities the point. i would say the violence is the point. trump is beholden to no one but himself. he believes in the united states of trump. he's a fascist. as such, we should not be surprised that he held a rally at waco, where a bunch of
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violent criminals decided to do a standoff with the government. they died, by the way. and he called for death and destruction, right? we want about death and destruction if he was to be indicted. he still hasn't been indicted. furthermore, he's embraced, mehdi, we forgot, he's embraced the qanon theory. openly, the last few months. that's radicalized individuals to commit violence. he said he'll suspend the constitution. this is a person who has unleashed his radicalized mob to commit violence against any and all perceived threats. that includes law enforcement, what we call the deep state, poll workers, as olivia said, educators, democratic officials, and also mike pence. for those who are watching right now and say, oh, you know what, muslims -- mike pence is the most whitest, christian man on earth. if mike pence was targeted by trump and his maga cult, what makes you think you'll be safe if these people ever come into power again? >> so, on that note about kind
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of double standards and racial minorities, ali, i hate to play the imagination game. can you imagine if barack obama had held a rally in which he embraced a bunch of black convicted criminals -- what with the gop and fox have done, elie? and -- pontificate as the law and order party while their leader openly gore flies and encourages domestic terrorism against law enforcement? >> obama would be banished to mars if he had done anything like this. but the media continues to placate these people. that's where you get them to where you start with this trump versus desantis standoff thing. i don't like to pontificate on the gop primary. i don't know which version they want their destroyer to come in, whether it's an un-reconstructed troglodyte, or a large marshmallow man. i don't know. that's for them to describe it. but -- normalizing and placating both of these fascists.
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trump -- oh, now he's being more reasonable. he ain't. we could just prove that right. with desantis, you have to stab lodgment republicans openly pining for him. the media normalizes the crazy people, and that is one of the reasons that landed us in this mess. the media has never faced accountability for how they created trump in the first place, and they're in the process of doing it again. >> i both agree and disagree with you. to many people in the media are doing that. but not us. olivia, how depressing is it for you, as a conservative, a quote unquote rick -- recovering republican, but the only real alternative to the fascism of donald trump is the fascism of ron desantis? the book burning, gay smearing -- appeasing republican governor in florida? >> it's horrifying. it's so disgusting to watch this play out. the extremists at the center of the republican party. unfortunately. but sometimes, i feel like i'm
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on my own island here. because there's plenty of my former republican colleagues and friends who are all rallying behind desantis. because the like, hey, he's not trump. and i'm like, no. yes, he's not exactly like trump, but he does every policy -- he parrots everything trump says, basically. we just watched them -- on ukraine. that is one thing, that for establishment conservatives, republicans -- we would never side with russia. right? we would never side with putin. yeah, this guy can't discover what side he's on. now he's walking it back, because, i will shoot, we might lose some of those more conservative voters that are trying to courtney. right? that's what it's about. >> on that note, 30 seconds left. last word to you. is ron desantis ready for primetime? does he have what it takes to beat donald trump? >> what desantis is a wet noodle cause playing as an alpha maga man. it doesn't have what he takes.
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he's a fascist who's on the bench of the gdp -- i set it on your four years ago, i say it again. he has no chance. >> i don't think he has a chance against trump. i wouldn't say no chance, because you can never explain the republican party, but you make a good point. elie, olivia, troy, thank you so much. coming up, one of the only members of congress to defend tiktok this week. democratic congressman jamal bowman. he joins me after the break to discuss why he wants to keep the app on our phones. he doesn't think it's as bad as everyone says. we bring you to that next. ♪ ♪ ♪ (avo) now you can with once-weekly mounjaro. mounjaro helps your body regulate blood sugar, and mounjaro can help decrease how much food you eat. 3 out of 4 people reached an a1c of less than 7%. plus people taking mounjaro lost up to 25 pounds.
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testified before the house energy and commerce community on potential security issues with the app. we here's how that went. >> welcome to the most bipartisan committee in congress -- spied on american citizens. >> i don't think spying is the right way to describe it. congressman, i've seen no evidence that the chinese government has access to that data. they've never acts us. we've not provided. >> i find that actually purse prosperous. >> american data has always been stored in virginia and singapore, in the past. axis of this is on an ask required basis -- by engineers for business -- >> the communist party? >> no. >> this tiktok access home wi-fi networks? >> i would have to -- connections to the internet, if that's the question. >> from the looks of that, you
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think tiktok has no friends at all in the states. but that's not including democratic congressman jamal bowman of new york. squad member bowman is one of the few advocates against congress trying to ban tiktok, calling the bipartisan move, quote, another bad scare. he joins me now. congressman, welcome back to the show. you have said that the targeting of tiktok by the u.s. government as a result of xenophobic, anti china rhetoric and conspiracy. it's a new red scare. i -- both things can be true, and they're not? that the opposition to tiktok is driven in part by racism, but also that there are legitimate security fears about surveillance by the chinese government that tiktok hasn't resolved. why can't both things be true? >> both things can be true. but my contention is this. what about facebook? what about youtube? what about twitter? what about instagram? we have to look at the entire
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safety and security and privacy apparatus of all social media when we talk about federal legislation. the area pinion has national, federal legislation to ensure the safety and security of its citizens. we don't have anything like that here. so what i was trying to do is brought in the conversation. when i read that facebook -- russia was interfering with our 2016 elections in realtime, and did nothing, that blew me away to a level but i'm like, wait a minute, we're not going to talk about -- ways to get to sell, or forcing it to end its monopoly, but we're gonna ban tiktok? it's absurd for us to have one conversation and not the other. >> i guess people would say, as odious as people might find zuckerberg, or elon musk, they're not the chinese government. you don't want to ban tiktok,
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he said, this week, because it could harm democrats politically in 2024. a lot of tiktok users tend to be democrats. your critics will say, congressman, that's a self serving in partisan argument. that's why you protect top, not because you think it's spying -- safe, but what do you say to them? >> i would describe myself as protected. it's about how to make full conversation, not scapegoating tiktok. if you bennett tomorrow, distill data brokers who are buying and selling and trading our data on the open market in china and other countries. and, when it comes to the private sector. that's happening right now as we speak. we've been tiktok tomorrow, our data is still everywhere. we have no idea where that is. this is the point of your question, yes. -- hundred 50 million americans used tiktok, most of the million people. i've got two year olds who follow my tiktok, and lots of followers, because that's how they learn about our things
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work in congress. so it's a powerful tool not just for democrats, but for our overall democracy. many republicans and democrats struggle with, first of all, understanding how social media works. i don't fully understand it and i use it all the time. but secondly, they struggled to connect with younger voters. but also, and i think that's the bigger part of this conversation -- we struggle to have honest, transparent, nuanced conversations, and scapegoating china, where the border, where the middle east, or some enemies, is always easier for us to digest. >> it's always a little embarrassing to see what some of your colleagues in congress ask people. >> like -- [inaudible] >> it cracked me up. all right, one last word on tiktok, but i also want to talk about this new bill you have a. it's called them more teaching, less testing act. what do you say to concerned
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parents -- last testing? let's just gonna put our kids at an even bigger disadvantage against countries like china. >> we've been over using and misusing testing for over 20 years. we were trying to close an achievement gap. that hasn't worked. we've been trying to get to 100 percent literacy. that hasn't worked. and by the way, our tests are created by third-party for profit companies that sell them to states, that give them to kids, targeting teachers and -- charter schools. that's with the industrious. when we focus on teaching, and the magic that happens between teacher and student in our classrooms, were able to give parents better information in realtime, and really work with them as partners and their child's education. and because of this testing regime, we have sanctioned very important developmental disciplines out of our schools. music has been gone, by and
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large. sports, recess, play, jim, and the interdisciplinary 21st century curriculum we need to solve 24 century problems like climate change. no conversation about a bit of this, because everything is about tests, and punish, as opposed to a -- curriculum. >> one last question on another topic. after ask you. historic, huge protest in israel against the new far-right authoritarian government there. we'll be discussing that later on the show. when i ask you, you've been a critic of israel's occupation. do you believe, like senator bernadette -- given the nature of that government, what it's doing -- palestinians? >> it's absolutely stark. we have to start having that conversation. we haven't been able to have an honest conversation about the occupation while it has been settlement expansion, the impact of that, and the impact on palestinians even before netanyahu. but now that he's come in, he's
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doubling down on the harshest policies that were in place prior to him coming back. so we have to have a robust, full conversation about what's happening there, as israel remains an ally of the u.s.. >> the aid is on the table. u.s. aid should be on the table. >> absolutely. yes. >> jamal bowman, always appreciate our conversations. thanks for coming on the show tonight. >> thank you so much. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> coming up next. an update on the mississippi communities devastated by a series of tornadoes. low-rate personal loan from sofi. get a personal loan with low low fixed rates, and borrow up to $100k. sofi get your money right. (dog barking) we love our pets. and borrow up to $100k. but we don't always love their hair. which is why we made bounce pet hair and lint guard with three times the pet hair fighting ingredients. just one sheet helps remove pet hair from your clothes! looking good starts in the dryer with bounce pet. when you have chronic kidney disease.
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i'm the sizzle in this promposal. and while romeo over here is trying to look cool, things are about to heat up. darn it, kyle! and if you don't have the right home insurance coverage, you could end up paying for this yourself. so get allstate. >> coming up, my next guest is a cultural icon whose ideas are often challenging for conservatives and liberals. michael moore will join me to talk about the iraq war. 20 years on that famous oscar speech of his, after he won the
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oscar for bowling for columbine. the first, richard louis is here with the headlines. good evening, richard. >> good evening to you, mehdi. rescue crews digging through mississippi today as a series of tornadoes left at least 60 people dead, and dozens injured in that state and alabama. president biden issued an emergency declaration for mississippi also making federal funding available for the hardest-hit counties. more than half a dozen shelters were open in the state for displaced residents. that storm beginning near the small town of rolling fork in the lower portion of mississippi. -- northeast to several rural communities. msnbc -- linda williams who watched her sister in the storm. >> -- i see my sister, and [inaudible] he ran out to our porch, run in the rain. we were calling her name.
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no hits are. no answer. >> at least 13 people died and just that town alone. the mississippi emergency management agency warns, though, thunderstorms and high winds could hit mississippi again sunday evening. the national weather service also learning -- potential severe weather in parts of alabama and louisiana for sunday night. more of the mehdi hasan show right after this break. stantly relieves nighttime nasal congestion. daytime, too. helping you breathe easier for up to 12 hours. breathe right. strip on. a ballet studio, an architecture firm... and homemade barbeque sauce. they're called 'small businesses.' but to the people who build them there's nothing 'small' about them. that's why at t-mobile for business... you'll save more than $1,000 versus verizon. and with price lock guarantee, we'll never raise your rate plan. so you can keep your focus on toe-turns and making sure the sauce is extra spicy. at t-mobile, there are no small businesses.
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spoke to journalist peter beinart about the 20th anniversary of the u.s. invasion of iraq -- since regretted his support for that warren apologized for it. but see, most people in the american news media -- very few have apologized since, to be honest. it was a very lonely time to be openly and loudly anti-war and march 2003. in fact, tonight is the anniversary of the 2003 oscars, academy awards, when filmmaker michael moore was booed by supposedly liberal hollywood cloud for speaking out against george w. bush's were. take a look. >> we live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. whether it's the friction of duck tape, or the fictitious -- we are against this war, mister bush.
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shame on you, mister bush. shame on you. >> he was right. the crowd was wrong, and michael moore, filmmaker activist and host of the rumble with michael more podcast joins me now. welcome back to the show, michael. what was your memory of that night? what was it like going up there? did you expect to get food? >> no. i, in fact, in the commercial break, just before the award was announced, i asked my fellow nominees, the other documentary nominees, if they wanted to, i welcome them onto the stage if i won. to join with me in solidarity against the war. they all said yes, absolutely. and they did. they came up there with me. and it was a big standing ovation, and everything was fine, and then i just thought i'd talk about how we make nonfiction, because --
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nonfiction in this time is very important. and i started talking about the fiction of the lie that led us into iraq, that we were not gonna find any weapons of mass destruction, this was all big lie. and -- i don't know. i'm not a weapons manufacturer. but just using my common sense, you know, if you grew up during the vietnam, you know that the government will lie to us about taking us towards any chance they can, because -- eisenhower called it the military industrial complex. so, i was smiling when you took the camera on me at the end -- i was looking at harrison ford in the front row. and he had this huge green on his face. and you know, he's a well-known
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-- house shall be caught? you know, a punk. he appreciates a certain substance. and so -- what i think the rest of them, pretty accepting. we were in this room where thousands of americans lives were gonna be lost -- already being lost because of -- for sometime. so >> at the time, michael, you're in the minority of people who oppose the iraq war. but the people who supported in -- doing just fine. 20 years later, what do you make of seeing all the people who lied to us feeling up? you have george w. bush rehabilitated, swapping cough drops with michelle obama. >> right. 29 democratic u.s. senators, the majority of democrats in the senate, voted to give push permission to stop this war.
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and a few have made their immense, i guess, but not most of them. so it's very -- you know -- remember nate kristoff in the times, we calm, going after me. he had some awful pro bush piece that he did this past week in the times. david remnick, the editor of the new yorker, the liberal new yorker, wrote -- in the magazine before the war supporting -- us going into iraq. chance your question, it's pretty awful. it's pretty hard. msnbc at the time was being run by different people, in a different way. owned by a company that was also a weapons manufacturer. not today. by, still -- a nightly show, and that was the end of him, when he came out against the war.
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so, yeah. >> it was a lonely time, i think it's fair to say. michael, let's just remind ourselves. you won the oscars for your film a bowling for columbine, about gun violence. to get decades later, is the gun violence situation even worse now, and you feel? what could president biden be doing right now on gun reform that he isn't, given deadlock in congress, it's better at sandra? >> of course it's for us. we started making boeing for columbine after the shooting -- 99. and we all sat down, my crew and i, just said, we have to do something about this now. this will not be the end of what just happened in columbine. remember, there's not been a school shooting of that size, of that many deaths, that magnitude, before. and said to the staff, i said,
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i think this is gonna become a thing. let's not let it become a thing. let's make a movie. let's get it out there. let's stop this. so -- you covered every single day on this news network. this mass shooting, that mass shooting. and -- on that level, mehdi, the film, on solemn level, to me, feels like a failure. we weren't able to not only not stop it, but it's only gotten worse. now here's a couple good things that have gotten better. only about 29 or 30% of americans only gotten. 70% of us are now gonna honors. we're a nation of gun knots. the vast majority of us don't own a gun. depending on what poll you look at, upwards of 70, 80, 90% in some polls, on the issue of gun control -- republicans and democrats support more gun control. >> yeah. >> so that has been a good
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change. you know, president biden, i know he cares deeply about this, but you know, we've got to do more, and we don't have the time to discuss this. gun control will not change things. -- there are more canadian hunters with guns than hockey players. yeah, they don't kill each other on the level we do. the kids in germany and france and england -- their kids watch violent movies, play violent video games. they don't kill each other. there is something unique about the american character, where we desire violence. and the way that we use it, and the way that we, you know -- again, the scary part is that 3% of the population of this country, according to washington post, own more than half of all the guns. so it's a problem. >> it's such a good point you make. this is not the nation of gun
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nuts but the right ones to believe it is. -- michael more, sadly, off to leave it there. i wish we had more time. thanks for coming on our show tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> coming up next, thank you so much, michael, appreciate it. coming up next, by hundreds of thousands of israelis are marching in the streets against that government. what america should be doing about it, on the way. ♪ ♪ ♪ flying insects. they work continuously so you don't have to. zevo. people-friendly. bug-deadly. i got into debt in college, and no matter how much i paid, it followed me everywhere. so i consolidated it into a low-rate personal loan from sofi. get a personal loan with low low fixed rates, and borrow up to $100k. sofi get your money right.
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protests are wrapped all across israel. take a look at these wild images from a few hours ago. protesters blocking highways, lighting fires in the streets of tel aviv, and in jerusalem -- water cannons against protesters demonstrating outside of benjamin netanyahu's residents. last night, there one estimated 300 -- tel aviv. that's about 3% of that nation's population protesting against state government. -- 10 million people taking to the streets. that's a lot of people. -- fighting back against the netanyahu government, a -- consent -- these proposed changes from a prime minister who is himself on trial for corruption have created the kind of anger and outrage -- that i should point out, netanyahu's repression of the palestinians never really has. and the prime minister's only
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adding fuel to that fire, but earlier today he fired his own defense minister. less than 24 hours after that, -- halt to these controversial judicial reforms. this comes a week after the formally the rector of israel -- when that the country could be on the, quote, threshold of dictatorship. joining me now is -- israeli human rights -- a visit to the united states. thanks for coming on the show. you are a human rights lawyer. you know better than me that the israeli government has had human rights issues for a while now. why is that this move by netanyahu and this government to bring an independent judiciary under political control. why is it been so contentious, so provocative, so explosive? why hundreds of thousands of your fellow israelis on the streets week after week? >> well, thanks very much for having me. i think -- remarkable that so many israelis are going up to the streets. what i have to say, as he pointed out -- there fighting for their own rights.
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we're fighting for our own rights. but -- in the last few months -- initiated -- intensively. something -- regime change. -- a revolution which will completely alleviate any checks and balances and -- with the government -- one system of governance. and that is something that many israelis are -- they're afraid of the incrementalist, ultraconservatives that -- what we are accustomed -- and yes, unfortunately, as you pointed out, this is something that we are exercising. 15, 20 minutes away from tel aviv, all for millions of people, over multiple
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generations. they do not have -- they are not involved in any process to govern their lives. and i'm just -- a defining moment for israeli society and which a collective -- fought and learned by the public. but these democratic i deals will open up israelis hides to what's going on very close to their homes. >> you are visiting the u.s. right now, michael. what can the u.s. government, what can congress do to rein in what the israeli government is doing on the judicial front? the biden administration would say it's already intervened behind the scenes. it's often some of these, quote unquote, reforms that netanyahu is on trial for corruption himself -- in the past. >> so, i am a visitor and --
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would be polite. but it has to be said that the gathering -- eventually is the fact that -- netanyahu's government in this process of re-defying israeli regimes because they want more flexibility -- perpetuating our domination, our occupation, our apartheid system, in the west bank. and the international community has -- obligation to stop israel from doing that. unfortunately, the international community -- enabler of this situation. and even if the israeli government will be able to confront something very fundamental in the split personality that we've had since the --
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real, genuine liberal values that -- basics of are coming together. -- very ultraconservative, and to some extent -- while living in the same, so to speak, collective psyche. even if we can -- when it comes to the system of government that governs us, we still we'll have to -- and it has to be now, deal with the core defining feature of our system of governance -- domination of the occupation. the never-ending occupation. >> well said. fascinating stuff. michael, appreciate you coming on the show in this historic moment for your country. thank you so much. >> thank you for having me. >> we will have more in a moment. but go away.
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>> nobody is going to win with the farmers but donald j trump. i got 28 billion dollars -- i saved up tunnel, and i made farmers happy and rich gun. and they're doing a fantastic job. and you know what? someday, it will become time for them to leave this beautiful earth, and they'll be able to leave their farm without taxes to their children. i got rid of the dot tax on firearms so that when you do pass away, with the assumption that you love your children, you can leave it to them and they won't have to pay tax. but if you don't love your children so much, and are some people that don't, and maybe desperately slow, it won't matter, because frankly, you don't have to leave them anything. thank you very much, have fun. [silence] >> i've
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