before we go, one quick reminder. today marked the third anniversary of the murder of george floyd. we can talk about the impact of that murder throughout this country, but i'll be specifically discussing it on my podcast, a word with jason johnson, tomorrow, which drops on slate every week. hopefully you get a chance to hear a very meaningful discussion about a global response to violence wherever you get your podcasts. that does it for me. "the reidout" with joy reid is up next. tonight on "the reidout" -- the members are reminded to abide by decorum of the house.

[ laughing ] >> democrats are taking rude, crude, and shouty congresswoman marjorie taylor greene's calls for decorum in the house as seriously as the republicans seem to be taking the threat to our economy with their manufactured debt ceiling crisis. but i'm guessing our veterans and social security recipients are not laughing. plus, the longest january 6th sentence so far as oath keepers leader stewart rhodes gets 18 years for seditious conspiracy. and later, ron desantis' disastrous campaign rollout leads to speculation that pudding may have been clogging up the twitter tubes.

yuck. >> but we begin with the republican lie that could plunge our nation off of an economic cliff. with just seven days until the united states could default on our debt, talks between republicans and white house representatives have yet to resolve the issue. but today, president biden made a very important point. >> it's time for congress to act now. i want to be clear. the negotiations we're having with speaker mccarthy is about the outlines of what the budget will look like. not about default. >> i mean, he's right. and this is why the white house, and this is the way the white house is thinking about it, but let's be clear. what biden said is literally why this is a manufactured crisis. the debt ceiling, our nation's credit limit, is not a legitimate thing to be negotiated any more than whether or not you can refuse to pay your credit card bill until your spouse negotiates next year's holiday spending budget is

legit. you literally have to pay the bill for the money you spend on your card, regardless of what you intend to spend going forward. if you have reached your credit limit and you have an aaa credit limit like the u.s. does, you call your card company and they can raise your limit, the end. and republicans know this. trust me, they know it. because they raised the debt limit three times when trump was president. no questions asked. it's only when a democrat is president that they threaten to torch our national credit rating by not paying the bill. that is exactly what they did when biden's old boss, president obama, was in the white house in 2011, holding that administration hostage the exact same way with the same demands, to slash spending on the working poor and their kids and health care and earning the u.s. its first credit downgrade ever. and the senate majority leader at the time, mitch mcconnell, admitted what he learned from that awful exercise was that the u.s. economy is a hostage worth

purpose, and if you don't want to believe me, here's the evidence. >> this is a president that is failing the american people. so i think that bodes very well for the republican field. >> that is republican national committee chairwoman ronna romney-mcdaniel. joining the quiet part out loud part with matt gaetz who said earlier this week that he and his maga colleagues do not feel like they should negotiate with our hostage. speaker in quotes, kevin mccarthy's real boss in the house, marjorie taylor greene, has a different take. >> no one is freaking out, no one is concerned about this mystery date that janet yellen has thrown out like it's going to actually crash america. regular americans living their lives day in and day out don't worry about the government

shutting down. >> this is why they laugh at you. tell that to the mortgage holder at the cross fit jim you own, you know, the one you got that sweet ppp grant money for. or the senior citizens in your district in rural georgia who won't get their checks if the dent limit isn't resolved by june 1st because seniors are among the regular americans woo will be the first to suffer. potential default means $47 million in medicare provider benefits and $12 billion in veterans benefits will not be paid on june 1st either. then on june 2nd, $25 billion in social security payments will go unpaid. payments to the oldest and poorest social security recipients, retirees older than 80 years and seniors with especially low incomes will get the chop first. you know that's next week, right? republicans seem stoked to not pay america's bills, to own the

libs. did i mention $12 billion in veterans benefits are also at risk? the veterans administration warned of catastrophic effects for the more than 7.1 million veterans and their families whose benefits will not be paid out. but the most galling part is not just what republicans are doing, playing with the livelihoods of regular americans and claiming no one gives a crap. that they're doing it this weekend, this weekend, the timing as house democratic whip katherine clark pointed out. >> i don't know how my colleagues across the aisle who voted for the default on america act are going to look our veterans in the eye this memorial day. [ cheers and applause ] >> you have presented our country with an impossible choice. devastating cuts or devastating default. hungry families or homeless seniors. kids without classrooms or

parents without jobs. and now you're sending us home with no resolution. >> i'm joined now by democratic california congressman ro khanna, member of the house committee on oversight and deputy whip of the progressive caucus and john solace, chairman and cofounder of votevets.org and a two-time iraq veteran. i'm going to put this chart back up. medicare, $47 billion. veterans benefits $12 billion right before memorial day. have your colleagues explained what they intend to tell their constituents on why they get to go home and chill and their constituents including veterans on memorial day weekend won't get their checks next week? >> it's a sad situation. they don't care. they don't care about the harm they're doing, because this is a manufactured crisis, as you have said. they are holding the country hostage to enact radical

policies that they know they can't win in an ordinary debate. they can't win it in an election, so this is their tactic. we need to call them out on that, and thankfully, this president is acting responsibly to make sure we don't default. >> the company fitch, which basically rates u.s. credit, they're doing what your credit card company would do if you said i'm not paying these bills because my spouse and i couldn't agree on what we're going to spendthex year for christmas. they said we're going to cut your credit rating, which is what any creditor would do. i just want to put up this chart here. this is how the debt has increased, right, and how the debt limit has increased over time. going all the way back to the reagan era. it just goes up, up, up, up, up, up. and the republicans in congress kept voting for that and that and that. and they did it every year. there it is, there's the chart. it goes up, up, up, because john, that is how american

credit works. you do the spending, and then you have to go back and pay the credit card bill. and this budget is a completely separate thing. it has nothing to do with the debt limit. they're separate things. as a veteran, is your head exploding listening to people debate and quote/unquote negotiate over two separate things and combining them and putting veterans' checks at risk? >> you know, generally speaking, it's always hurtful when republicans vote for essentially every war and $100 billion a year of funding, but we never take into consideration what those costs are going to be over the long term. so to be held hostage and see veterans benefits held hostage, it's serious stuff. service connected veterans who are 100% disabled having their checks threatened, active service duty members, gold star families and survivor benefits, these are practical things.

when you listen to marjorie taylor greene on the lead-in, she lives on pluto. of course these are issues regular people are nervous about. i think, you know, i can't sit here and say every veteran understands why the debt crisis is happening but they'll understand when they don't get their check. it's a pro-war, anti-military, anti-veteran party, and that's the reality of what we're dealing with, and congressman khanna and the rest of the committee have done a phenomenal job of holding republicans accountable for using veterans as a brokage chip. even the new republican congressman in the second congressional district of virginia said this is the only bargaining chip we have. that is droord that they openly admit they're using disability benefits and military pay to hold this country hostage. >> it is bananas, congressman, because they're literally saying that, as john said, they're saying we're just not going to pay the veterans in our own states. these red states have

disproportionate numbers of veterans, of active duty military. they're literally saying we won't pay them because their assumption is those people are conservative. they'll just blame biden. texas has 421,000 people who receive federal financial support who are veterans. california's a big state, so they have the next biggest. look at florida, north carolina, ohio. congressman, they are literally threatening to take the checks, the food out of the mouths of their own constituents to own the libs. and to take away, you know, meals on wheels and head start. it makes no sense. >> joy, you're right. and john, thank you for your service to our country and for being such a voice of clarity. here is what is so frustrating and sad. the republicans will take away the benefits from veterans who risk their lives for this nation, but they're unwilling to take away the obscene profits of

defense contractors, 60 minutes did a documentary just this week, $100 billion plus that is being wasted because defense contractors are ripping us off. they don't want to talk about that. but they want to take away money from the veterans, from the people who put on the uniform. they want to take away the money from the most vulnerable. their values are just out of whack. >> john, they have taken the pentagon off the table. they have also taken getting rid of loopholes for the superrich off the table, leaving only things that also a lot of veterans are not making, you know, lots and lots of money. if you're a veteran that's also working, you know, among the working poor, and you're working as a clerk or something, they're saying they want to make you work longer hours in order to get your check that you're due. let me play this for you, because what i think really galls me the most is that the white house doesn't even have to do this. let me play jamie raskin and hot he said on this show this week.

>> we got the constitution on our side, and the 14th amendment says that the validity of the public dent should not be questioned, which to my mind means forced to the edge by these maga extremists, the president has no other choice but to respect the laws of the country and pay our bills to the social security recipients, the medicare recipients, veterans, and the bond holders of the country. >> john, in your mind, in the mind of the people that you served with, should the white house just stop negotiating with these people and just pay the bills? >> i'm not quite sure, you know -- if the white house doesn't negotiate, then everything is going to be in chaos. i think the problem here is the speaker doesn't have control of his own party. so even when we kind of beat them up really bad on the 22% cut to the v.a. and they sort of backed off some of that, if we default, everything is in play. so everybody gets hurt.

in addition to that, now, all of these other issues are complicated because there's a lot of veterans on military active duty that use food stamps, that use meals on wheels. it's sort of like a surgical conversation. without debating the merit of debt, the ramifications of how people are going to get hurt are tremendous. they can say we're backing off the 22% cut to the v.a., which is sort of the anticipated cut, but if we default, everyone is crushed. so i think, look, the concern is going to be, where is the house versus the president on what deal the president cuts? and i think, you know, that's a debate that congressman khanna is very familiar with, as we're all watching the numbers in the next few hours. but for practical people and practical veterans, you know, veterans outperformed for joe biden by 12 points compared to hillary clinton. it was a constituency where democrats began to make up ground. it hurts my heart that the american legion and the vfw do not attack republicans in election campaigns for doing this, and they continue to get

away with it. even though they said they're not going to do certain cuts, they're still trying to make burn pit cuts and make funding go from mandatory to discretionary. there's a variety of engineering they're making, so the negotiation is extraordinarily important from the white house to insure that, you know, they don't give the house away and all these americans are crushed and hurt. you can get crushed by a shutdown, but you can also get crushed by the cuts. >> absolutely, and ro khanna, do you feel the white house is talking enough to your caucus, because you're representing the people by and large who are going to get really hurt and who they're targeting for the cuts? >> joy, they are in touch. here's what's sad. the republicans are taking advantage of this president's decency, of his sense of compassion, of his patriotism, of his sense of duty. there's one person in the united states of america who is responsible to make sure the economy doesn't crash. and that's joe biden. and they're holding him and the country hostage, and we need to be very clear that this is not the president or the white house's fault.

this is the republicans manufacturing the crisis. i support this president and we're going to back him up to make sure that he does not hurt vulnerable people, but let's just understand what they're doing, the republicans are doing to take advantage of a person who is very decent and trying to just make sure this country stays afloat. >> we will continue to watch this, and happy memorial day, we'll see how things go, and i'll join in thanking you for your service. thank you both. up next on "the reidout," oath keepers leader elmrt stewart rhodes gets the longest sentence yet for his role in the insurrection, but many are saying it's not long enough. "the reidout" continues after this. a super thin, flexible ph with maximum otc strength lidocaine that contours to the body to relieve pain right where it hurts. and did we mention, it really, really sticks? salonpas, it's good medicine.

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18 years, that is the sentence a federal judge handed down to elmrt stewart rhodes founder of the right wing extremist group the oath keepers. he was convicted of seditious conspiracy related to attack on the capitol. it's the longest sentence so far handed down to any of the insurrectionists. the judge said rhodes presents an ongoing threat to the country and to the republic and the very fabric of this democracy. yet, the judge chose to give rhodes less than the 25 years the prosecutors were seeking. which was well within the federal guidelines. it wasn't as if rhodes was showing any remorse in court today. the judge even said so. appearing in an orange jumpsuit, he called himself a political prisoner and said the only crime he committed was opposing those who are, quote, destroying our democracy. also notable during his

sentencing, rhodes took the time to endorse the man who brought him to the capitol that day, wishing for donald trump to win the 2024 presidential election. perhaps it has something to do with trump's promise to pardon many of his january 6th foot soldiers. rhodes is one of ten defendants from the oath keepers and the proud boys convicted of seditious conspiracy. kelly megs was also sentenced today. 12 years behind bars. i'm joined by frank figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi and an msnbc national security analyst. great to see you, frank. i want to play what stewart rhodes' defense team said after this whole sentencing wasover. here they are. >> based on the judge's belief of what the fact show and his recitation of that yesterday and today, i believe that was lower than what i thought he would do. >> lower than you thought? >> today. after today, i thought it would be higher. >> i anticipated much higher than an 18-year sentence, not

that i agree with the sentence, but i anticipated much more based on the way he was leading up to it. >> i agrew with them. reading through what the judge ozsaying, the way he blasted elmer rhodes, i was surprised it was only 18 years. were you? >> i'm with you on this. look, it's a stiff sentence, but i compare it to other federal crimes. you rob a couple banks, you're looking at 15 to 20 years in prison. you commit and are convicted of what i believe to be the second most severe charge the federal government can throw at you, seditious conspiracy, the only thing worse would be treason, betraying the country while at war, and you get 18 years, you try to rob the country of its democracy, not money in a bank. you try to rob it of the peaceful transition of power, so yeah, i'm with you. i think it's stiff, but it's still too light. and nevertheless, there is some good news coming out of this in the sense that we're already seeing a chilling effect from this prosecution of the oath

keepers leadership. folks in law enforcement who signed up years ago for something called oath keepers, they didn't know what they were signing up. many are saying time-out, i didn't sign up for that. i didn't sign up for seditious conspiracy. there's also a blow to the militia movement. not the hard core die-hard domestic terror guys who are all in on chaos and anarchy, but i'm talking about the folks who are going, yeah, maybe not. maybe i'm not showing up for the violence. you know? >> yeah. and i'm guessing, also, if people really believe that donald trump gives damn about any of these people and is going to pardon them, i have a bridge to sell them, and you can have it for a mere $5.95. he doesn't care about these people. let's go through the oath keepers and proud boys have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. it's now a large group of people. if i'm, let's say, enrique tarrio, who like stewart rhodes

was not physically at the capitol, and he sees him get 18 years. this guy is 58 years old, he won't be out until he's in hi70s, i'm thinking they have to be worried, right, when they get sentenced? >> yeah, look, who else do we know who is very high profile and wasn't inside the capitol? as neither enrique tarrio or stewart rhodes were but helped instigate, insight, plan violence that day. so that's people like donald trump, roger stone, steve bannon, who all must look at this. but you know who else is looking at this as kind of a beta test? i think special counsel jack smith is looking at this going, wow, we have had now two major cases, proud boys cases, oath keepers cases, very serious cases, d.c. juries aren't buying their stories. and he may be emboldened to really levee the most serious charges against trump and his

cohorts. do you think this kind of sentence, because it is stiff, 18 years is a long time, do you think this might help unlock some of the answers to the questions we haven't got answered, who put those pipe bombs down? do people start talking, does it loosen up people's remembrance and memories of the truth when they see people going away for this amount of time, to maybe turn state's evidence? >> oh, yeah. this could be come to jesus time for a lot of folks thinking i'm not doing a plea deal, not cooperating. now they look at 18 years for rhodes and go maybe i will cooperate and start talking. so i think you're going to see some cooperation deals. you'll start seeing some plea deals for some of these folks. that's the hope here, anyway. >> we'll find out who has the highest iq among these people on the loser end of the spectrum when one of them starts talking. that's the smart one. frank figliuzzi, thank you very much. still ahead, marking three years since the murder of george floyd and the advocacy and

activism he inspired. as president biden reminded us today, there's still a lot of work to be done. we'll be right back. with scotts turf builder triple action! gets three jobs done at once - kills weeds. prevents crabgrass. and keeps it growing strong. get a bag of scotts triple action today, it's guaranteed. feed your lawn. feed it.

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candlelight vigil to honor george floyd three years after he was murdered at the hands of police officers. it was on this day in 2020 that derek chauvin was caught on camera holding his knee on floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes as he pleaded for air, saying i can't breathe. and the three officers who held him down or did nothing. it was a moment that changed the narrative of the black lives matter movement. in some ways it changed the expectation of accountability in this country since it's so rare police officers are convicted for culling people of color. tonight, all four officers involved in george floyd's murder are in prison. chauvin is serving a 22 1/2-year sentence for second degree murder. floyd's murder caught excruciatingly on video sparked a mass movement right in the middle of the global coronavirus pandemic and those huge multiracial protests all across the country then became the catapult for the right's

anti-woke insurgency, while adding fresh urgency to the conversation on race and policing that black lives matter kicked off a decade before. and while we have seen some movement legislatively on the local level, a handful of states banning choke holds and no-knock warrants, mandating body cameras and eliminating qualified immunity, three years later there's been zero police reform passed on the federal level, even as police killings continue. and a bill named after george floyd languishes in congress. joining me is katie phang, trial attorney and host of the katie phang show here on msnbc, and paul butler, former federal prosecutor, law professor at georgetown university and msnbc legal analyst. wedecided to bring the band back together. these are my all-stars who covered the george floyd trial with me basically every day. we did this on a daily. i'm curious to get your thoughts on what has changed and not changed enough. >> so, more bad apple cops are being brought to justice before

george floyd, the officers who killed breonna taylor, alter sterling, philando castile were not prosecuted. it means something that derek chauvin is serving a 22-year life sentence and the three other officers implicated in mr. floyd's death are also facing federal time. at the same time, these officers continue to kill 1,000 people or more every year. that number is actually gone up since george floyd was murdered. and black and brown people still experience the violent warrior type policing that the whole world saw with what those five officers did with tyre nichols. >> it feels to me like there's been an up and down. yes, the number of police killings in 2022 was the highest. it reached actually an historic high of 1,096 people. there were only 15 days without an officer involved with the tr

martin situation, the idea of violence against black and browm police to civilians, like it did in the trayvon martin case. it doesn't feel like we have come as far as we could. how do you feel about it? >> today, president biden said on the third anniversary of george floyd's murder, equal justice is the covenant that we have with each other, but justice has to be viewed through the lens of who is meting out the justice, when it's not looked at through the lens of true equality, it's just lip service, and i think to paul's point and to your point, the deaths are the facts. the deaths aren't stopping and they're occurring at the hands of civilians and also occurring at the hands of law enforcement. you can't paint all law enforcement with one swath, one brush, saying they're all bad. there's bad apples in all groups of people, but i think the fact that cops are given guns and given badges and imbued with the

authority to mete out lethal force is what needs to be considered. the fact that the policing, justice and policing act for george floyd, the fact that it stalls in congress is the greatest shame i think america should have for a long time, because the sticking point, joy, is qualified immunity. a judicially created legal doctrine that the supreme court created to protect from civil liability the misconduct of police officers. but what happens is the powerful and very muddy backed forces of police unions and police benevolent associations put fear in politicians to think that just like the nra, for example, that if they were to do the right thing, that they would not be able to suck cease in their offices. they use phrases like defund the police to equate them with this qualified immunity, but that's not right and accurate. in shame, we stand here three years later after the murder of

george floyd and we haven't had significant movement other than president biden and his executive order last year. >> you wrote an excellent book called choke hold, which everyone should read, paul, but at the same time, the number of -- the fear that i have and that a lot of black folk and i'm sure you have when you see the lights on the street, is you're going to get shot. you're going to get shot for having the wrong air conditioner hanging in your car, a minor traffic stop can become a killing, and that to katie's point, cities are willing to pay, they would rather pay than change anything. the amount of money paid out just last year, i mean, just in 2020, was $80 million collectively. that's tax dollars being paid. essentially, we're essentially funding the killing of people by police. >> millions and millions of dollars to compensate victims of police brutality, not as much being done to prevent that brutality. to be fair, 30 states after george floyd's murder revised

their criminal legal codes or their police codes to make there be more accountability and more oversight, but there are 18,000 different police departments in the united states. which means there are 18,000 different ways of policing. the george floyd act would have imposed some national standards, but that act has been stalled in congress, mainly by republicans who don't want bad apple cops to be held accountable. >> hashtag tim scott who thinks he's going to be president of the united states. katie, just in looking at it, people kind of understand what could work. one of the things i think has been positive since george floyd is there's been more conversation about having mental health professionals respond to mental health crises, not cops. having police do less. is that a solution, pull police out of situations where their only solution is a gun or a

night stick and get someone with mental health training before. >> paul and i have talked about this before. crisis reactions from cops is nothing new. the fact we're having this conversation, that it seems like it's some nouveau idea today is absurd because the realization and the recognition that some of these escalated scenarios that police are using use of force matrixes is absurd because they should have the proper training. it resorts back to the idea, we allow these police officers, people to be given badges and guns which we don't give to other people, and we presume they're going to be able to do their jobs properly. >> and also, we send them out there in a society with 420 million civilian owned firearms and then wonder why also they're also freaked out by everyone that they run into, especially with sort of inherent anti-blackness, we could do this for an hour. katie phang and paul butler, thank you both very much. up next, remember back in

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running for president of the united states. the rollout was odd, embarrassing, marred by technical glitched. it was a hot mess that imploded in real time in a very public way. >> sorry about that. we have got so many people here that i think we are -- we are kind of melting the servers. >> let's see. >> just to simplify -- >> let's see. >> crashing again. >> are we back online? all right. all right, well, it's certainly an incredible honor to have governor desantis make this announcement. >> i thought he was supposed to be a genius. it was an unusual decision to begin with. desantis kicking off his much anticipated battle with donald trump on an audio only platform called twitter spaces. so while his official campaign ad before the failure to launch

looked like this, the video tweeted out after the debacle by the desantis war room which is a twitter account run by the desantis rapid response team, doubled down on the disaster in a weird way, boosting the ron/elon connection even more. there he was shooting a flame thrower thing and co-starring with the candidate. hard to tell who's running for president, ron or elon, who literally can't. he was born in south africa. keep in mind, this is what ron desantis does. he associated himself with more famous people when he runs for office. hey, american voter, you don't know who i am, but here's whose ideology i match. he did the same thing with donald trump when he ran for governor in 2018, releasing this rather creepy ad showing his kid building the wall with toy blocks. maga onesies for everyone. don't look at me, the ad

screams. look at how much i love trump. he's doing it all over again, but with elon this time. this is the person desantis most identifies with these days. they share an ideology that seems libertarian on the service, meaning certainly people, basically people who look like elon musk and ron desantis get the freedom and do whatever i want, no matter how racist, cruel, or offensive, no censorship, no masks. but for you, it's pure authoritarianism. wokism is dangerous. fascism, though, free speech. don't tread on me is for them. the authoritarianism is for you. your kid can't read certain books or learn about history while their kids get christian prayer in school and get to hurl the n-word on twitter with no consequences. they get to decide what bathroom you use, what you can wear. they even get to tell you your gender identity and your kids, too. and ladies, your body, their choice.

musk has become a guru for people who share this philosophy, libertarianism for me, my rules for thee. and desantis wants to take that m.o. all the way to the white house, capping off his launch with an anti-woke rant on fox news. >> the woke mind virus is a form of cultural marxism. at the end of the day, it's an attack on the truth. because it's a war on truth, i think we have no chose but to wage a war on woke. >> woke mind virus. a nonsense term created by, you guessed it, elon musk. what does it mean? that we're just a bunch of zombies infected not by covid, surely, that virus is fake, while the real virus is wokism, and the cure, having the government of florida and if desantis gets his way, the federal government, tell us how to dress, where to pee, but especially what to read, which is why pan america, which is leading the fight against book banning, has filed a lawsuit

against a florida school district, saying it unlawfully removes or restricts access to books on race, racism, and lgbtq identities. their ceo and one of the authors whose book was removed join me next. he snores like an angry rhino you've never heard an angry rhino baby i hear one every night... every night. okay. i'll work on that. save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed, plus, special financing and free home delivery when you add any base. only at sleep number.

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but, shingrix protects. shingrix is now zero dollars for almost everyone. ask your doctor about shingrix today. so the whole book banned thing

is a hoax. there has not been a single book banned in the state of florida. you can go buy or use whatever book you want.

>> [laughter] nothing like kicking off a presidential campaign with a big fat ally. does this man know what's happening in his state? i won one county alone at least 100 books were pulled from school libraries because of the complaints of one person? pan america, the nonprofit group that advocates for free expense freshen is monitoring these bans across the country, alongside publisher pen penguin random house. they filed a lawsuit against a florida school district for removing books related to race in the lgbtq community after high school teacher complained. joining me now is suzanne nossel pen america ceo, and ashley ho perez, a plaintive in the suit and author of out of darkness, one of the most banned books in recent years, according to pan america. thank you both for being here. ms. suzanne nossel, please explain your lost suit. >> great to see you, joy. great to be here. we are suing in escambia county challenging under the first amendment in the 14th amendment

to the constitution, the removal and banning of books for students in school libraries. these books overwhelmingly target stories and authors, narratives, people of color, and lgbtq individuals, so that places a discrimination claim under the constitution and from a first amendment perspective they are picking in choosing books they don't like that portray stories that they don't agree with, that they think are inappropriate, that don't depict a family the way they think it should be shown, and just picking in choosing and taking those off the shelves. that's viewpoint based discrimination, precisely what strength the heart is worst red but. so we are asking the court to stand with us in vindicate these kids freedom to read. >> and the thing is, if you look at the commonly banned books, gender queer is the number one banned book, these are the most commonly, all boys are blue, about the lgbtq experience, out of darkness, your book, ashley, and the bluest eye is the other book.

so ashley, tell us about your book and how surprised were you when you found out it was bent band. what's your book about? >> out of darkness takes a historical event as the backdrop for an interracial romance. you look at the cover, this is one of the reasons why rate wing groups love to waive this book around and say that it's filth. but one of the things that is interesting is that this book was on the shelves from 2015 to 2021 without a single complaint. and as i school english teacher i can tell you that's because it meets the needs of young readers, it helps high school students reckoned with our history, look at what our realities of racism in america, and imagine other possibilities for the future. in 2021, right-wing groups try telling parents but that was a problem and that's when books like out of darkness started being targeted. >> you said you're a former english teacher. i believe i saw you with ali

velshi talking about this book as well. his banned book club isyou undet kids, i mean the bluest eye is one of the greatest books i've ever read. it opened to be up to the love of language. we fall in love with words because tony morrison such a brilliant writer. you're a brilliant writer. what does it do to kids like the kids used to teach, when you take away from them the joy of words and the joy of reading about new and interesting in different experiences? >> it's all about control and narrowing the possibilities of imagination. i think that when you think about what does it mean when someone, the core of some words agenda is subtraction, it is taking away a possibility. that should be a really big red flag for folks. and that's what we are seeing. we are seeing folks who don't want kids to be able to imagine full and rich lives lived by

people who are different from themselves or like themselves. and i think that's one of the really important things to underscore, that this is fundamentally subtracted and it's a diminishing of every students education when we remove books that reflect young peoples experiences or allow them to imagine other peoples experiences. >> it's also unfair. washington post went through and they looked at the book challenges around the country and found that 11 people are responsible for the majority of them. how do 11 people think they have the right to tell all students what they are allowed to read? amanda gorman's poem was banned in miami-dade county because one parent, associated with the proud boys, by the way, said she didn't like it because she didn't like what she said it raised. as a first amendment matter, i don't understand how it's legal for one person or 11 people to tell every other kid in every

other parent what is allowed to be read. >> it absolutely shouldn't be. they wrapped themselves in a lather of parents racists and their ladies shoelace lead individuals trample over the rights of tens of thousands, even millions across the state, parents of children who have the right to read. so it's absolutely counterattack aryan. it's undemocratic. it's unpatriotic here in united states of america to ridge or resort to book bans. it's now not how we look at things here. you can argue against a, book you can write your own book, a different book, that you got plenty of ways to deal with this. and so it's really outrageous and it's good to see people like amanda, authors like ashley, standing up. >> absolutely. and final question to you, ashley, you probably did here because nobody can hear it because the tape didn't work, when you heard the governor of florida are saying not one book is being banned, and your book is literally being banned, what did you make of that?

>> it's basic vocabulary. it comes down to when people say these books or pornographic, i'm like, can we talk about vocabulary? can we talk about what words mean? so what a ban? a ban isn't official removal from any space when people like school boards officially remove a book from myspace, it is banned in that space. you can buy it on amazon. is it relevant to the child in the school library? >> and by the way, if these people don't think that their children are reading hetero normative books that have sexual situations in them and that girl and the boy kissing in the books, they have never been a child or a teenager, because kids are already reading that stuff. grow up. your kids are more mature than. you suzanne nossel, and actually hope perez, thank you very much. all in with chris hayes starts now. in with chris hayes starts now. >> tonight on all in -- >> we have been stationed outside d.c. as a nuclear