because they can push the button. they could do much better, frankly, getting into the weeds in the budget process. they control house of congress, for goodness sake. also they put out a spending plan, they never foot out a poll blanket plan, which would include taxes, for example. that would have been eye-opening. republicans are not on the side of angels when it comes to physical sobriety here. including and extending tax cuts creates a huge deficit problem. so, i think going forward, legislatively, it would be best to solve this well in advance as the next crisis. if that doesn't do the job, then you go -- to the courts, but not at a time when we're facing an economic calamity. that is too little too late. >> let me tell you, if they ever do get that on a budget process, we three squares will enjoy that discussion because it's like it's actually an important discussion. we should be having that conversation. the legitimate differences in

how conservatives and liberals think this country should raise and spend its money is a very, very valid discussion to have. sadly, that's not the one we're having. thanks to both of you, -- and solar and political economy in the american enterprise institute. he's the author of a dream is not dead, but populism could kill it. jennifer reuben is an opinion writer at the washington post, and msnbc political analyst host of the new podcast, jen reuben's green room. all right, straight ahead, we'll continue our breaking news coverage of the debt ceiling negotiations, which are ongoing right now. i'll be joined by congressman lloyd doggett, democrat of texas, and a member of the budget committee, as well as congressman adam smith, democrat of washington, and ranking member of the armed services committee. another hour of velshi begins right now. of velshi begin right now. and good morning to you, it is saturday may the 27th, i'm ali velshi, the full faith and credit of the united states is in jeopardy this hour. president biden says he's hopeful and optimistic about ongoing debt ceiling

negotiations, and just moments ago, the speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy echoed those hopeful sentiments from capitol hill. >> i feel closer to an agreement now than i did a long time before, because i see progress. listen, this is not easy in any shape or form, and that doesn't back goes away from it. one thing you always learned about me, i don't give up, it doesn't matter, doesn't matter how many times it takes. you want to make sure you get an agreement before the american public. >> patrick mchenry, the republican congressman from north carolina who's been a key figure in these talks also said, yesterday, quote, the deal is within reach. there are some serious sticking points that remain. when asked the republicans will drop their demand for work requirements for social safety programs like food assistance, republican congressman garrett -- i want to leave negotiators said, quote, hell no. meanwhile, janet yellen announced the x days, the projected deadline to raise the debt ceiling after which the government will not be able to pay its bills is june 5th.

time is ticking for congress to take action, because it's congress that has an actual constitutional duty here. they swore a north to support and defend the constitution, and the 14th amendment of that constitution, as i was reading earlier, says, the validity of the public debt of the united states shall not be questioned. june 5th is only nine days for now, the house of representatives has adjourned for the long weekend, memorial day weekend. republican leadership says they will provide 24 hours notice before scheduling voting days and addressing potential default, while some republicans might just be hoping to extract greater cuts to the social safety net in exchange for not crashing the american economy. with others, the motivation remains less clear. take, for example, the chaos caucus, a group of the most disruptive numbers of the republican party. the chaos caucus, many from our members of the house freedom caucus, succeeded in complicating and -- kevin mccarthy's election to the speakership back in january, forcing him into a series of 15

ballots before he finally won. earlier this week, most of them also signed on to a letter addressed to the speaker, telling him to, quote, hold the line on the debt ceiling. joined now by nbc news capitol hill correspondent, ryan nobles, who, just moments ago, was in conversation with kevin mccarthy, where he sounded those hopeful notes, ryan. again, short on details, i do want to hit that timeline again because most republicans, i see some activity behind you, but i think that's a tour. most republican members of congress -- say has to be warranted to come back, and then you said, kevin mccarthy says, if there is a deal, he then has to breathe his caucus. then he has to do some other stuff. and then it's 72 hours before a vote. >> yeah, that's right, and that is a tour group. we like to joke, ali, it's a miracle's middle school season here -- towards this capitol during this period of time, which is busy for us as well. it's great to have them back. dear your point about the

timeline, it is one that is very condensed, but it's one that we have to get through. they can't even begin the process of writing legislation until they have a deal, once they have a deal, than they had to write the legislation, once the legislation is created, then it takes 72 hours before they began any of the votes on that process. remember, it's not just one vote, there will be a rule that has to be attached to it. i will get into the legislative legalese, but there's a process that they have to go through in the house side. once it passes the how, it has to go to the senate. senate republicans have already said that they're not going to do anything to speed the process up. there is a mechanism by which, if all hundred senators agree, they can get something through quickly. if just one senator says, they want to go through the full gauntlet of senate procedure, then they have to do that. so, when you take all those things into account, you're talking about at least a three to 5 to 6-day process before you actually have a piece of legislation that the president can sign into law. what mccarthy just told us in this last gaggle he had with a

reporter just a few minutes ago is that he's going to hold firm to that 72-hour mandate that the house has put together. but he also said this, and this is interesting. i do think it gives us a little bit of insight into what this deal will look like, ali. he said it's not going to be 1000-page bill. he said it'she said at most, ma0 to 200 pages. that gives you an indication as to exactly what the parameter hours of this negotiation. it's not going to be a ton for these members to sit through. the details are going to be right there in front of them. and so, that could make the process easier or more difficult, the pending on the perspective. we're nine days away from this, you said you don't want to get into the legal stuff that the legislative detail, i guarantee you, when u.s. treasury -- over the course of the next nine days, you're going to be getting into every little piece of that legalese. there is one u.s. senator, mike lee, who has said that if he doesn't like that deal, he will hold it up. so, much to happen, ryan.

thanks very much, good to see you, we'll probably see you again in the next hour with the way things are going these days. more on this, i'm joined by my good friend caleb silver, he's the editor in chief of investopedia, and was someone who've i've been through these watches about how this is going to go. michael straight, from the aapi, which is on with me, he said something interesting, it's the auspicious year of your birth, where we had a technical breach of the that limit back in 1970. it was not a legislative thing. just something went wrong, and we were a few days later. he's saying there's some economists who think we're still praying the price for the increase in borrowing costs, from this accidental thing we did. back in 1970. in 2023. this is serious business >> absolutely, you mess with our interest rates -- messed with the interest we play on that we have. you are messing on the entire financial ecosystem. almost every financial instrument is based on that u.s. treasury, the most widely held, most widely trusted assets -- you get money for lending the

u.s. government. you get interest for it. it's called a yield, right? everybody does this, everybody buys u.s. treasury, is because it is considered the safest investment on planet earth -- if we break that, the danger is we can say we've always paid our bills. >> that's right, and we'll have to pay more for the privilege to let people borrow our money. if we reach that limit, one of the first things that happens is people that hold our bonds don't get paid the right to hold our money, to buy u.s. treasuries, and that's just not -- governments around the world, although it is. it's you, me, it's our viewers, as the public, -- holds a lot of u.s. that. china holds a lot, japan holds a lot, the uk, governments around the world, pension funds, institutions, being institutional investors -- >> one of the interesting things is that it pays very little interest because it's that safe, but the follow on effect of that is that our low, relatively low interest that we pay for cars and houses and

things like that are of result of the fact that united states treasury can borrow money at a low rate. so, whoever you are in this country, and whether you've ever owned or touched or thought about a u.s. bond, or the u.s. debt, this could have a negative effect on you. >> absolutely, it's a bedrock of our financial system, because all rates said of the u.s. tenure treasury. the world's -- asset on the planet, because we usually pay our bills. we have enormous bills, but we usually pay them one way or the other, and that has been raising the debt ceiling some 87 times since it was created in 1917. is probably going to get raised again if we believe what we hear here. the bottom >> line is, janet yellen has said the week of june 5th is when they're going to start running out of money. and so, if that happens, if we go to june 5th and she has to prioritize, what happens? there are certain things, we don't miss all payments all at once. >> that's right, this is what's already happening, this is what the treasuries had to do. janet yellen has had to call extraordinary measures.

that means that funding some certain experiment account, stop processing payments, not issuing government bonds, and requiring a slow rolling the bills, making sure there's approval -- 5 million dollar expense to a 500 million dollar -- the >> united states government. >> 5 million bucks. >> 5 million bucks is a limit that someone had to sign off on and this whole thing. it doesn't make a difference that's where some people who say that when, if janet yellen runs out of money that week, they will prioritize the paying of bond holders, but that means some people don't get their salaries or things like that. it's not a good choice to have to make. >> no, it gets even worse. it could mean the delay of social security payments, it can be the delay of payments to medicare providers, it could be the -- of government employees, closing out government offices, closing of national parks. as we're going the summer, imagine that, not being able to get into a part because we can pay our bills. there's a lot of things that could happen if we had that deadline and go through it. it might not happen at once, but these are things that we're going to start to feel as households, as americans, as consumers. >> thank you my friend. good to see you, caleb so where

is the elevator in chief of investopedia. joining me now is the former public and congressman from pennsylvania, charlie dent. he's a senior adviser for the global law firm, the l.a. paper, he previously served as a senior member of the house appropriations committee when he was in congress. congressman, is great to see you again, thank you for being with us. again, appropriations, budgeting, ways and means, these are the ways that institutions that congress has to deal with matters of spending and raising money. matters othese are valid drived points of disagreement between the conservatives and liberals in this country, and there are mechanisms to have this discussion. the structure you one of them. >> i completely agree. the budget process and washington is broken. it's that, i've often said that the process in washington is an exercise and confederate money. it's not real. if the budget committee, are used to battle with them from time to time because i was on the appropriations committee, but the budget committee, i have always felt has been the most uses committee in congress because they failed to do their

job, which is to establish the -- for the country. and engage in what's called reconciliation instructions. most years they can't and they can't do either. so, right now, we're at the point where congress is trying to establish spending [inaudible] maybe some work requirements, falling back some of the covid money, and that's the parameters of a deal. that's what they want to do. and i suspect we're going to get there, but holding the full faith in the united states government at bay here is not a good strategy. this is one -- >> let's talk about the options here. we have been thinking about the options, or something called a discharge petition, something you have been involved in the past. there is the invoking of the 14th amendment. as of right now, based on the messaging that we're hearing from the white house, from president biden and from kevin mccarthy, and his lead negotiators, it doesn't seem like we're headed that way. it sounds like they're moving

towards a deal, but 90s away is not as long as it seems. >> yeah, i think they're going to get to a deal. it's really not that difficult that the challenge for, i think, speaker mccarthy right now is how many house republicans will vote for this deal. i think house republicans, when they pass that bill a few weeks ago, save limit grow, they say raise expectations among their most hard-line members, who will not likely vote for any agreement. and so, whatever the agreement is that will be found in the next few days, it's going to disappoint them, and they're going to need at least 100 democratic votes, and my estimate, in the house, pass -- his challenge right now. he'll get an agreement, and he'll get it done. the question is, how many house republicans, in the end, will vote for it. that was always part of a group that would vote for these agreements. it's usually a minority.

the house republicans -- the majority of the majority. they say that's what we need to do, until they don't. and we've done this many times, where we want the minority of us, we vote for these things, whether it's budget meant but -- these are the kinds of things that they need better discipline on, and so this is really the challenge -- >> that's governing, that's governing, charlie. that's the issue, right? whether it's a problem solvers caucus or there are some republicans who -- they won their seats in places that joe biden had won as president. this is what you have to do, these people are elected to go there and get the business of governing done. >> elie, there's a lot of people in congress, unfortunately, who are really good at telling you all the things they can never do. they're good at telling you no, and they don't have the capacity to get to yes. i just saw, for example, some members of the freedom caucus, that they don't want to

negotiate at all in the debt ceiling until the senate passes a bill. they just spent the last four months saying that we need to negotiate. we need to negotiate. now they're all negotiating, they don't want to negotiate. the point is, i've often felt very passionately about this, that too often, republican leadership would take advice from so many of the members who were voting for the bills -- weren't governing. those of us who were putting up the votes, we should determine the content of the bills, not those voting against it. i think that's always been a challenge, not for the speaker, but for speaker ryan and speaker -- so they need to break that cycle, because you're right, this is about government, it's about doing the right thing, and some folks just don't have any sense of governance. the democrats, they are more about governing in many ways -- a lot of republicans who don't feel that way, but i always felt like i was one of the leaders of the governing caucus in the house side -- >> let me take a break, and i

want to talk to you about that, because while there are some people and what i called the chaos caucus, there are actually probably an equal number of republicans are more are more interested in not sending america off in an economic cliff. stay with me, former congressman charlie -- when we come back, we'll get rust -- that ceiling situation, i'll be joined by congressman lloyd doggett, member of the budget committee, and adam smith, a member of the armed services committee. as i promised, we're gonna call this meetings week as a banned book club to odor. on the agenda, one of the most important graphic novel of all-time, maus by art spiegelman coming up. on velshi. on velshi. dryness and frizz that keeps coming back, could be damaged hair that can't retain moisture. you need pantene's miracle rescue deep conditioner. it's filled with pro-vitamins to help hair lock in moisture, visibly repairing six months of damage in just one use, with no weigh-down. guaranteed, or your money back. for hair that looks healthy and stays healthy.

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with global secure networking from comcast business. a former republican congressman, it's not just possible. it's happening. charlie dent is back with me, served as a senior member of the house appropriations county when he was in congress. he is also the executive director of the aspen institute congressional program. congressman, what i want to put up a view, a few --

the first one is, i called him the crossovers. these are republicans who won in districts that joe biden won, who are, there are also members of the problem solvers caucus. sort of a category you might have described yourself in, right? these are people who are most likely to take the business of governing fairly seriously, so therefore is going to be crossover voting going on here, you might look to some of these types of people. there are other categories, biden district republicans who won, there are gop members and the problem solvers caucus who are not in vulnerable districts. there are 30 plus, 40 republicans here, to whom we can turn for hope. >> yeah, by the way, ali, i was one of the founding members of the problem solvers caucus. many of those members will, indeed, vote for the debt ceiling. i always looked at the republican congress three ways. you had that three dumb caucus, and rejections wing of the party.

you had the more pragmatic numbers, guys like me, problem solved, governing group, republican mainstream partnership. the pragmatic governing went into the party. then you have this other group, which could be about 100 members, it can be folded either direction. that was always the challenge for the -- how do you get that 100 members or so who can get pulled to move in the right way. you're right, those problem solvers will vote for the deal at the end of the day, and that rejection is when is making a lot of demands right now, a lot of demands that we all know they're not going to vote for the bill. that's why i get so frustrated. the leadership listen to them. why would they listen? listen to the people who are voting for the bills, they determined the content, not those who are going to yell and scream. this deal is pretty much done, spending agreements, -- pulling back the covid money, straightforward. i mean, they'll get it, might not get public reform -- but they'll get some agreement, i hope.

this is easily done, but they raised expectations when they passed that bill a few weeks ago, leadership, they raise that expectations, knowing -- syncing happened in 2011. they call -- had no chance, and there was inevitable -- even right now, i find particularly, some of the few freedom caucus is said that those negotiations make the senate passed a bill. watch what you ask for, because of the senate passes a bill was over 60 votes, guess what, the house is going to eat it, every single time. i don't think they want that, either. so the senate has a much better capacity to engage in bipartisan agreements then does the house. that's why these things usually originate in the senate, not this time, and i think that's probably healthy. >> charlie, your expertise and experiences are really helpful to us in moments like this, so we appreciate your time like this always -- up next, i will continue this conversation with two house democrats, who said on key committees, lloyd doggett of the budget committee, and adam

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and, try nervive pain relieving roll-on. >> i'm joined by democratic congressman lloyd doggett of texas. he's a member of the budget, ways and means committee and the democratic congressman adam smith of washington, the ranking humbert of the armed services committee. gentlemen, good to see you. thank you for being with us. i want to bring you the latest news of -- although you may know this already. a democratic source familiar with negotiations tells nbc news quote, we are very close but not done yet. as to whether there could be a deal today, the quote is still possible but not planning for anything eminent to be announced. the source also says president biden remains engaged from camp david where he is expected to be until sunday. he's got no events, no movements, no schedules, and then as the negotiations continue, we heard that the negotiations went on until 2:30 this morning. so, let me start with you, congressman dog. you and i have had this

conversation before. what is your sense of where we are right now and how this is gonna go now? >> we all remain hopeful. i mean, republicans have taken us to a new level of irresponsibility. time is still short. we need this signed into law by next sunday. and we need action. i think the republicans have just been engaged in hypocrisy here. they were not worried about the size of the debt when they raised it three times under trump, when they borrowed trillions of dollars for tax breaks for those at the top and of the multinational corporations. now, they only get concerned about debt reduction when democrats are in charge. and i think it has less to do about the size of the deficit and then an opportunity to cut programs they never supported for education, for protection of our air and water, for opportunities for people to advance in our society, they did not support those programs.

and so, now, they see it as an opportunity to cut it, and then make way for huge, additional tax cuts, perhaps over three trillion dollars that they want to get approved by june the 16th. >> so, this is important, congressman smith, to remember that if you don't feel -- if you feel that there is more money going out and then you'd like, less money coming in, there are two ways to solve this, right? you can either cut spending, or raise revenues. you can raise taxes on some people. we fully know that the average bus driver in america pays a larger proportion of their taxes then do corporations and the wealthy. so, that's an absolute option that is open, too, to raise taxes on some people. on the other hand, you tweeted, republicans want to cut programs for everyday americans under the guise of fiscal responsibility, while at the same time pushing through tax cuts for the rich that blow hole through the budget. this is unacceptable. >> look, i want that foot stump what lloyd said. this has literally nothing to

do with fiscal responsibility, reducing the deficit. that republicans are doing, as a lawyer described, and they are driving our economy to the edge of a cliff, and for no reason other than to, a, appear like they might want to do something about that deficit, or more to the point as exactly what lloyd said, to basically cut programs for poor people, to pay tax cuts for rich people. that's what they want to do. because their proposal doesn't mention the deficit. as you point out, nothing about revenue. revenue is a huge piece. they're not gonna bring in a they take defense off the table, they take veterans off the table. you add all of that up, that is over 90% of the budget that we're not even talking about. it all comes down to the non-defense discretionary budget. this isn't about fiscal responsibility. the republicans want to cut programs for poor people so that they can continue to cut

taxes and jack defense spending up. we will be in just as bad as place in the deficit as we were before, we will hurt poor people. meanwhile, replacing the entire global economy at risk. they are responsibility here is breathtaking. and we, as democrats, we gotta drive this message out there. the idea that people are thinking, well, democrats, republicans, you know, they're just arguing about something. now, that republicans are trying to destroy our economy in the most irresponsible way possible. and we have to drive that message to let people know what's really happening here. >> congressman doggett, i wanna put up a pie chart of the u.s. budget, how we spend our money, because i can't imagine that, you know, i have been turning viewers away for an hour talking about debt limit, because it's a conversation we shouldn't have. now, i'm gonna talk about budgets. here is the reality. there is a process, congressman dent, charlie dent, former congressman of pennsylvania was saying, as has been said last hour, it's a bit of a broken brothers in america.

there's a complicated but actually laid out process for discussing how we spend our money. this is pretty much what it looks like, about 19% of our budget goes to social security, 15% is spent on have, that's more than the country spends on defense, medicare, social services. that's basically the pie. there are lots of ways to have reasonable and good faith discussions about what that pie should look like. but that process is a little bit broken. >> absolutely, and adam summed it up very well, how we just add that some of the responsibility here affects not only the poorest and most vulnerable of our neighbors, but it reaches wide into the middle class. i think the students at the university of texas, in texas state, could see their pell grants cut by thousands of dollars as a result of this. that makes a real difference to many students, particularly first-time students, who are struggling there. we see social security recipients or veterans wondering whether they're gonna

make it from one paycheck to another, one benefit that they count on. but specifically on the budget, the point you are making is so important. and we were promised a different world by republicans. they told us they had a great budget and they would get it out in a timely way. president biden presented his budget early in the spring. we have no republican budget. i have been attending budget committees again this week to find a lot of rhetoric, a lot of talk about wokeness, which they don't even really know what that means. but no specific republican budget because they don't want to tell the american people specifically how much they will be her in health, in education, in environmental law protection by their measures. they want to keep it all very vague and talk about top lines, budget principles and the like. we need to see a specific budget, and that's where we could determine the impact of

their bad policies. >> so, congressman smith, what do you think is gonna happen here? again, even just to approve this, whatever deal happens, it is a several day process. it will be a few days, speaker mccarthy is saying three days before a vote. but he has to inform his membership first. he has to discuss it. and then he needs to put it out in public. once the house passes it, i don't know what that math looks like. but presumably, it will pass. then it goes to the senate. all this, as congressman docket says, has to happen by next sunday night. what's your sense of whether this is gonna unfold? >> two quick things for that. one, as lloyd pointed out, republicans, they don't have a budget. they can't even pass and this. in fact, they try to pass a couple of appropriations bills, they don't have the votes even to make those small cuts for the grants that are there. they can't do that. also, october 1st is when the fiscal year runs out. we can have this debate on october 1st as we should, not

putting the debt ceiling on the line. that's how things are going to happen. look, i don't see how we get out of this. it is conceivable that president biden and kevin mccarthy cut a deal. but most of the republicans, as charlie dent did an excellent job pointing out, most republicans run from that deal anyway, and they will be relying on democratic votes. and why wouldn't democrats vote for this? it is gonna increase defense spending. it's not gonna do anything about the deficit, and it's gonna cut programs that we, in the country, care about, many of which lloyd outlined. i think they're gonna have a devil of a time in the votes, whatever this deal is in congress. and again, we should just raise the debt ceiling, and then have that debate about how to spend the budget in the appropriate time. so, i think we are going to real trouble here. i hope i'm wrong. i just don't see how this convoluted play will unfold. >> well, that's why we have you two on here, because you are in it. we appreciate your time as always, gentlemen. democratic representative lloyd doggett of texas and adam smith

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>> three quarters of the way through the first volume of art spiegelman's celebrated graphic novel, maus, his mother learns that much of her family is in

prison in auschwitz already that. she begs his father to let her die, and he responds gently and lovingly, no, darling, to die is easy, but you have to struggle for life, until the last moment, we must struggle together. i need you and you will see that together, we will survive. this always i told her, and quote. there are dozens of moments like that within the pages of maus, this will, tragic, bra. and all of them appallingly real. today's velshi banned book club feature, maus to interwoven timelines, 1978 new york city where spiegelman house gathered information from his father about his experience during the holocaust, and poland from 1935 to 1944 where the underlying story of the holocaust takes place. and at its core, maus is a more, a story about the holocaust, but it's also explores intergenerational trauma, the complexities of family, mental health, and enduring love. spiegelman famously depicts his characters as animals in maus,

jewish mice, not, not see cats, polish pigs, french dogs, american dogs, a representation of the common racist nazi propaganda that portrayed jewish people as rats or vermin or some human. through the animal imagery, the animal imagery doesn't do much to light in the heaviness of this book but the black and white drawings especially of the mines masterfully illustrate anguish and love and fear and brutality. the reader is not just hearing about the depravity of the holocaust. they are seeing it. maus has faced calls to ban it, both in the u.s. and overseas. last year, in late january, the mcmahon county school board in tennessee voted unanimously to remove maus from its eighth grade curriculum. the 10% school board cited to curse words, one instance of nudity, and discomfort with a general gruesome-ness of genocide. quote, being in the schools, educators and stuff we don't need to enable to promote this stuff. it shows people hanging. it shows them killing kids.

why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? it's not wise or healthy. unquote. reading about historical atrocities is not promoting, them it's creating awareness. it's how we learn. the school boards decision thrust mcmahon county tennessee into the national spotlight, a physical representation of extreme censorship, and an answer to the question, how far can this go? removing maus may not have been the first stone cast in this ongoing ideological battle, but it was certainly one of the biggest stones cast. there will be from the public was swift. public figures, educators, and holocaust organizations condemned that removal. maus shocked to the top of amazon's best seller list, a professor at north carolina's davidson college offered a free course on the book for the eighth graders in mcmahon county, and the velshi banned book club was created. despite the public outcry, maus has not been added back to that curriculum. the irony, of course, is that that discomfort is the entire point. maus asked its readers to bear

witness to genocide, the feeling in the pit of your stomach when you close this book is intentional. students may learn about the holocaust through facts and figures, the number of deaths, the reasons why hitler rose to power. but none of that tells the full story. it's easy to move past 6 million when it's written in a textbook, when you do not understand the extent of the unspeakable pain, the names, the individual names behind those numbers. the chilling reality is that maus tells a story that not everyone knows, one that we seem to be forgetting as a nation and as a society. i've described the reasons that a book maybe banned many times before on the velshi banned book club. it could be the topic, it would be the word themselves, it could be the author. maus has been targeted for all of those reasons, and one more -- than remarkable illustrations. right after the break, i'm honored to be joined by the unparalleled art spiegelman, author and illustrator of the first ever graphic novel to win a pulitzer prize, maus. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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>> joining me now is the cartoonist, the editor, the author art spiegelman. he wrote and illustrated the pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel maus, which is today's velshi banned book club feature. art, good to see you. thanks for being us today. >> thanks for having me, ali. what >> art, a colleague of mine texted this to me. he said imagine, it's incredible that a man who is the child of holocaust survivors finds himself in 2023 speaking about the banning of his own book about the atrocities of the whole cost, and the fact that it is cartoon illustrations at that. i mean, the irony is not ironic. it's a horrible. i just wanna get your thoughts on that. >> well, i think it's why i am here with you today because i never really meant for my book to be made for young people especially.

it was made as educational, to teach me how to come on a planet when my parents were killed late before they conceive me. and it's interesting, i had to get used to it, and the fact that a lot of graphic novels have been aimed at young adults, young adult readers, is a surprise to me. ult readers, is su rprise to me but i felt about the tendencies brought up by this frantic need to control children's thoughts in ways that seem reprehensible to me are indeed, as you are saying, an echo of the book burnings of the 1930s. it's kind of unfortunate. >> in volume two of maus, you depict yourself inundated with interview questions and media opportunities, ironically, from the book on page 200 to. it reads, tell our viewers what message you want them to get from your book. a message? i never thought of reducing it to a message.

i wasn't trying to convince anybody of anything, unquote. again, here you are now on a news show, after a year of pretty constant interviews, defending -- i don't want to use defending maus, because you're not in defending it -- but having to discuss at the banning of maus, where people don't want people to read it. let's talk more about that. that you are now the story about the story. >> yeah, and i have taken great pains to expand it from maus talk about all the other book banning that's been going on. because i've been kind of puzzled by the focus on maus. in general, yes, there is an uptick in antisemitism in america. it's always been a backbeat. but i think that the main victims of the current book banning our people who've done things about race and about gender at the moment. and maus has survived this particular banning of flying colors with my book where the

best seller author, i don't think i mentioned it at my intro here. on the other hand, i have been trying to figure out why maus? why was maus selected as the focus of all this? and it backfired terribly for the mcmahon county authoritarians. but i think the reason is because the book, although it is in granular detail, the story of my parents, and the story of my father's, and their relationship in the wake of the disasters. but i think it has to do something in the dna of maus which started out as something from underground book club called funny animals. for that, i was just trying to find anthropomorphic characters. it started out when i was in a film class, taught by a friend of mine, ken jacobs, showing racist animated cartoons from the 1930s, which is very effective, racist set of characters for all minorities,

including jews, actually. then showing mickey mouse, look at mickey mouse, with a big years at the top. because mickey mouse was once a jazz age figure. and he wasn't the corporate mouth logo that appears at disney world, currently having its battles with one of the over mentioned authoritarians, desantis. because i use these animal figures, i realized, we're not gonna do something about the ku klux klan's and minds, as a metaphor, because i just did not know enough about it, and even though it would not be intended that way, i realized i had a metaphor closer to home, the idea that jews were considered vermin by the nazis, an inferior race. and that dna is in there. so, in a way, i think maus is

still about this very, very granular specific details of the offering and that decimated my family. >> i have got a copy here of something called switch yard. this is the university of tulsa 's semiannual literally publication. it's called tennessee waltz. there's a picture on the front here, showing nazi cat and a jewish mouse. in what ways was this illustration inspired by maus's banning in tennessee? >> probably entirely, but that picture was in the cycle of things i've been doing to try to get my hand back after spending a year feeling like i was running for office. i was on webinars and lectures and endless interviews. by the end, i was barely drawing anymore. i invented something i call -- it's the word for when you project something on to an

electric socket, so it looks like he's, and a mouth, or when you are looking at clouds and seeing things. so, i started doing things where i was making blocks and colors with my watercolor on a sheet of paper. and then turning it around to find images in it. so, for example, i'll pull one out to show you quickly because i had a xerox of the glock before and after. this was the block, and then i tried to find a picture in it, so it became like a homemade test. this was the final result. >> oh, wow! >> i think that way. yes, it became this when i filled in the imagery. and the one on the cover of switch yards was made the same way. it was made by making a bunch of blocks. it was the first time i did anything that was just totally

private in my notebook, i was just making it because a local nonprofit our gallery called the drawing center asked if i was a contributor join for their annual auction to help raise money. and i figured, okay, i should find a block where i could at least have a mouths face, because people would be more interested in putting on it. mouse seem to be the skyscraper about the bundle of the other works i, mean so i figured i do that. but i did not know what was i'm gonna do with it. so i just did the usual, following thoughts around. and once i had the mouse face there, i was just letting it one around, and it turned into a cat scratching a mouse with plants people, burnings, spiked shoes, uncle sam striped pants underneath. so, that was just letting myself run loose. it is not about opening and for public consumption. let's say, it was just me figuring what the hell eye was going through that moment, with my face getting scratched by an

angry wildcat and the arms of a klansmen. so, it wasn't really made as a public statement, and it doesn't cover my full range of feelings about what was going on because i feel like i was scratched, and other people were beheaded, axed, and badly pushed around in ways that i haven't experienced. >> great to talk to you, art. art spiegelman, it art of maus, and featuring today's banned book club. that's it for me. it for me now ports can know where every piece of cargo is. and where it's going. (dock worker) right on time. (vo) robots can predict breakdowns and order their own replacement parts. (foreman) nice work. (vo) and retailers can get ahead of the fashion trend of the day with a new line tomorrow. with a verizon private 5g network, you can get more agility and security. giving you more control of your business. we call this enterprise intelligence. from the network america relies on. (smelling)

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