martin sheen and fellow west wing alum melissa fitzgerald on inside with jen psaki coming up at noon eastern on msnbc. we are going to see you back here next saturday at 8:00 eastern. follow us in the mean time. on social media, at the weekend msnbc. guess what, velshi continues right now. our coverage is done and his is picking up.

>> there's not a normal week for you. you are not done by any stretch of the imagination. i am hoping for a nap, schedule and wheaties. but there's not a nap this week because there's too much to do to talk about important hours of the night. so i'm going to be watching you guys all week and i thank you for everything you're doing and for some amazing shows this morning. and you guys, have a great few hours of breast. >> yeah, write. a couple of hours and we are off. >> have a good one. velshi starts now. good morning, to saturday august 18th. the election is 79 days away and tomorrow democrats will kickoff the national convention in chicago with the wind at their backs. hoping to build on kamala harris' momentum. this morning it was revealed the theme of this year's convention will be for the people, for our future. which borrows from the vice

presidents pass campaign slogan, kamala harris for the people. is going to be s a slightly different affair from past democratic conventions and a very different event from the one organizers have been planning. for one thing there's not much in the way of real business to take care of this year, democratic delegates have already voted and made here is the party's official nominee but it is going to be an opportunity for democrats to consolidate support behind harris' campaign and unify the party after a tense and uneasy summer. donald trump knows this could be a pivotal week for the presidential race always trying to blend harris' momentum with e a series of events of his own. his campaign just announced the former president will hold rallies and press events in a multiple swing states over the next week despite previously saying he didn't need to returnn to the campaign trail until after the democratic convention because he claimed he had a big lead. trump's attempts to steal the spotlight away from the democrats began yesterday when he held a rally in wilkes- barre, pennsylvania, one day

before harris, walz and their spouses were set to embark on a bus tour of the state. during the rally he took particular aim at the economic policies his opponent had just started rolling out. >> yesterday she got up and started ranting and raving that donald trump wants to put a tax on gasoline. the tax on food, a tax on medication. a tax on clothing, a tax on every single thing that was ever invented. your shirt will need attacks. is going to tax your wife, he's going to tax your husband. and i'm saying, i never said anything like that. >> donald trump had better not start taxing hats. of course no one said any of that nonsense. trump is referencing the criticism harris levied against his plan to impose a 10% tariff on all imported goods. trump incest americans will

import a lot of goods will not feel effective the tariffs, only the countries who export goods to america well. but that is what we call in canada, a shipping cart cargo container full of bs. economists across the political spectrum have pointed out companies, always pass the cost of tariffs they pay for imported goods on to customers, resulting in an increasing crisis. will what you might call inflation. the thing he claims he will eliminate, trump is unbothered by criticism, just a few days ago he floated the idea of doubling his initial proposal and proposing a 20% tariff on all imported goods. while harris touted the biden administration's economic achievements on the campaign trail, she has also acknowledged many americans are feeling the strain of the high cost-of-living. that is an issue she says she will tackle by doing specific things like going after the bad act is who are taking advantage of consumers and working to pass the first federal ban on price gouging, on food. >> my plan will include new

penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules, and we will support smaller businesses trying to play by the rules and get ahead. we will help the food industry, become more competitive because i believe competition is the lifeblood of our economy. more competition means lower prices for you and your families. >> during the rollout of her economic policies on friday, harris invoked her middle-class upbringing multiple times. she mentioned it took her e mother well over a decade to save up to buy a house and acknowledged the dream of homeownership has become more difficult in recent years and she has plans to do something about it if she is elected.

>> as president, i will work in partnership with industry, to build the housing we need, both to rent and to by. we will take down the barriers and cut red tape, including at the state and local levels. >> [ applause ] >> by the end of my first term, we will end america's housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals that are affordable for the middle class. >> [ applause ] >> we also know as the price of housing has gone up, the size of downpayments have gone up as well. even if aspiring homeowners, safer years, it is often not enough. so in addition, while we work

on the housing shortage, my he administration will provide ov first time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home. >> [ applause ] >> a lot of economics so joining me is andre perry, senior fellow with the brookings institution, professor of practice economics at the washington university and author of the book, know your price, valuing black lives and property in america's black cities. good to see you again. od it's been a while but i thought of you because their stuff in there that we need to make sense of. how are the things that kamala harris is proposing to do, going to have an impact on people who can really benefit from this? we live in an unequal society and some of the things she is proposing are meant to make things unequal. >> first, the target of her policies are correct.

that we have to increase density. we have to increase the amount of supply. right now, there's no current federal policy around that would create that supply, so i think it is right to do that. but i also think that there are more efficient ways to get to supporting everyday people. we currently have special- purpose credit programs, financial institutions can change underwriting criteria that will enable people to get into their home at a reduced cost, at closing. and what that means is, you can actually create new products, new mortgage products that people can get in. we have thousands of renters and in every market, who have everything except the down payment. so we are -- harris is absolutely correct, they need the extra bump to get over it. but if you don't have supply and you are giving people $25,000, you can actually have

the contrary -- contradictory effect of increasing prices and inflating prices. so you've got to focus on the supply first. and you realize the tools that you already have at getting new mortgage products to get people into those homes. >> i want to ask you about criticism of some of her policies. the washington -- editorial board at washington post had harsh words about the policies. they said in an op-ed headlined, the times demand serious economic ideas, harris supplies gimmicks. the board wrote, her ideas would cost money that she insisted in her speech that she would hold to president biden's pledge not to raise taxes on any household or dates earning $400,000 or less annually. to be sure, every campaign met expensive promises that will not come to pass in a divided congress. remember mr. biden's pledge to make community college free,

even adjusting to the pandering standards for campaign economics, it ranks as a on disappointment. talk to me about that. that criticism. >> i think that the fear criticism is that we are constantly working on band-aid solutions to the enduring problems. i don't think anyone can argue that people want medical debt cancel. i don't think anyone can argue that student borrowers need relief, and their families need relief. but if you don't change or transform the health care system and a postsecondary system that eliminates the need for that kind of debt creation, you are just kicking the can down the road, so to speak. there's a lot of populist solutions and they are, and certainly, consumers need relief. and that is what she is offering. but i think, from a policy perspective you want more upstream solutions, you really want to get at the deeper causes for these issues.

that she is really opening up an opportunity to talk about these issues. to talk about how to really get at price gouging, if you can. to talk about student debt and local debt cancellation. and one of the more promising aspects of her proposal, is around the child tax credits. is a very popular, and effective tool to reduce poverty. so there's some good stuff in there. but i would look at it, this is an opportunity, in every election to get at deeper policy solutions by the end of the day. >> friday was the second y anniversary of the inflation reduction act, which is why she used it as the opportunity to talk about that on friday. she talked about prescription drugs. let's listen to this. >> we let medicare negotiate lower drug prices for seniors and just yesterday, and just yesterday, we announced that we

are lowering the price by up to 80%, for 10 more life-saving drugs. and i pledge to continue this progress. i will lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone, with your support. not only are seniors. and demand transparency from the middlemen, who operate between big pharma and the insurance companies who use opaque practices to raise your drug prices and profit off of your need for medicine. >> inequality, we often think about wage inequality, that working-class people get low wages compared to the rich but inequality is 1 million things and this country in particular, compared to every other developed country in the world,e ethical and health costs are probably one of the greatest causes of inequality. >> absolutely and even small

business owners, the thing that really hurts small business owners, the health care costs are not assessable. they people -- the people skip on health care. employers get sick, employees get sick and businesses stumbles. they have to get audited as a result and so help care is one of these issues that we really do need a comprehensive overhaul. i know obamacare is not talked about enough but the next phase of obamacare in most people's mind is some kind of single- payer system, and we need again, a comprehensive approach , to looking at description drugs. certainly, i think we all can agree that expanding the benefits that medicare recipients received to all folks, who need it but there is needing overhaul of the health care system in general. >> it is the beginning of an

important discussion. as always, thank you. andre perry is author of know your price, valuing black lives and property in america's black cities. with the election less than 80 days away and our electoral system under threat, will talk to the secretaries of state jocelyn benson of michigan and adrian fontes of arizona about how they are fighting back against the surge of distant rg imation threats and election to nihilism. a russian court has sentenced a dual citizen to --. the 33-year-old los angeles- based ballerina was visiting family in february when she was arrested and charged with quote, high treason. for raising funds for ukraine. in a statement, her employer said she donated $51.80 to ukrainian charity. that is high treason and in russia. up next, my important conversation with a person who unfortunately knows the hellish conditions she is about to phase.

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it is nine -- 905 of russia's invasion of ukraine. back in april of 2022 on day 46 of the work, i was in ukraine, in the western city of levee. it was the final day of my trip to eastern europe covering the war and on that day right here on velshi i spoke to my friend, russian politician vladimir kara-murza. kara-murza had been outspoken on the show and elsewhere against russian president vladimir putin and his invasion. that is illegal to do in and russia but nonetheless kara- murza, who had been traveling outside russia but was in moscow for our interview was insistent he be there. telling me he had no choice, telling me it was important because he was a russian politician and russia is his country and his home. the very next day he was

arrested on charges including treason and speaking out against putin. he was subsequently sentenced to any five years in a siberian prison. despite being held in conditions hard to fathom and suffering from multiple health issues, as a result of two attempts to kill him by poisoning, kara-murza remained defiant and published numerous pieces in the washington post while in prison. even won a pulitzer prize for his work. earlier this month, kara-murza was released from prison in a historic prisoner swap. late friday i had the privilege and honor of speaking to my old friend for the first time since april 2nd, 2022 and he remains as defiant as ever. >> i just want to reach through the camera and give you a hug, first of all. i truly, and bill knows this, and your wife knows this, i didn't think we would have this conversation ever. welcome back. >> neither did i. up until

three weeks ago i was certain that i was going to die in a siberian prison and it is like a miracle and frankly it feels like i've been watching sort of a movie that's a good one but it feels very surreal, and i just want to thank you for having me back on the show. it is good to be back on your program. the entry that you just had, was my last television interview before my arrest and it has special meaning to be back on msnbc and i want to thank you and thank everyone, all of the past 2 1/2 years, that continued their efforts, continued to speak out, continued to remind people of the plight of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, who are languishing in putin's gulag, for the only quote unquote crime of opposing putin's dictatorship and opposing his criminal aggressive war against ukraine. and let's not forget while 16 of us have been snatched from

hell, many others are still there and this historic his strange have been two weeks ago, showed very clearly that at the end of the day, public opinion in the free world is stronger than any -- propaganda machine. i was grateful to have the opportunity yesterday to personally take the president of the united states and the role he played in that exchange, and in saving the lives of 16 people, 16 human beings, 16 human souls. to me, the difference between a democracy and dictatorship is -- for democracy than human life. and 16 human lives were saved in that exchange. and i think despite the stereotypes, despite the usual drumbeat of cynics and skeptics, that decision, that exchange, showed that they thankfully

have room for principles and values in political decision- making. >> if someone didn't know you had been in jail the last 2 1/2 years in prison, they may not know you. you look slimmer than you did back then and i know you've got health issues that didn't make doing hard time good for you. tell me what it was like. you were in isolation the entire time. >> yes, i spent probably 2 1/2 years in prison. almost 11 months in solitary confinement were essentially sitting in a small cell, a small covered, two by three meters, seven by 10 feet. nothing, you have nothing on you, just a small window. your attached to the wall and 5:00 in the morning until 9:00 p.m.. you don't have anyone to speak to come you don't have anyone to do. you have nowhere to go, only can do is just walk around the cell as much as you can in and that confined space. you aren't given pen and paper

to -- another 19 minutes, you are taken out for so-called walk, which is essentially walking around in a small courtyard, not much larger than the cell, and on top of constantly being in an confined space, on top of complete isolation from any human contact. and by the way, there is a reason according to international law the united nations minimum standard rules for prisoners, solitary confinement more than 15 days long is officially considered a form of torture or inhumane treatment because aristotle said human beings are social animals, we need interaction, we need human contact is much as we need food or water or oxygen to breathe. and when we are completely deprived of that, frankly it is extremely difficult mentally and psychologically. it is psychological torture and on top of all of that, i was

forbidden from calling my family during the 2 1/2 years in prison, i was only once able to telephone my wife and twice, my three children. i was forbidden from going to church. and you know, it was funny -- perhaps is the wrong word in the situation but i'm using it at least, so many people around the world take this sort of propaganda line that somehow vladimir putin is defender of traditional family values, traditional christian values, that is how he asked to betray himself. when anybody in the western repeats that propaganda line i hope they remember the fact that clinical opponents of putin, political prisoners of putin who are confined to the prisons and penal camps, are not allowed to call their wives and their children, not allowed to go to church. the same situation as i was, so

much for traditional family values. hypocrisy is the cornerstone of the putin regime in and everything that they do. up next, we turn our attention to the battlefield in ukraine which has crossed the border into russia. what ukraine's incursion means for the future of the war and president vladimir putin. that is after the break. break. y ew i n to do something so i started taking prevagen. i realized that i was much more clear, much sharper. i was remembering the details that i was supposed to. prevagen keeps my brain working right. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. my mental health was better. but uncontrollable movements called td, tardive dyskinesia, started disrupting my day. td felt embarrassing. i felt like disconnecting. i asked my doctor about treating my td, and learned about ingrezza. ♪ ingrezza ♪ ingrezza is clinically proven for reducing td.

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almost two weeks. the bridge in question is 40 miles from the town which ukrainian forces control. ukrainian president zelenskyy says ukrainians set up a command center. within ukraine however, russian forces are making advances in the region. the video is from the aftermath of a russian attack on friday. but ukraine's movement into russia is significant, strategically and politically. we just aired part of my interview from friday with my friend the russian opposition politician, recently freed vladimir kara-murza . later in our conversation i asked him, what ukraine's incursion into russia means for vladimir putin. here's what he told me. >> it is a complete affiliation for vladimir putin. don't forget when he launched his invasion of ukraine in february 2022, the plan was to take kyiv in five days. that is what the military leadership promised to vladimir

putin and not only did he not take kyiv in five days or five months, not only did ukraine survive, as a sovereign and independent state thanks to both resilience of its own people, and its own military and the supporting solidarity of the entire democratic world, but also now we are seeing are the first time since the invasion from germany in june of 1941, foreign troops on actual real territory of russia, not annexed occupied territory but the legally recognized russian territory. it is not just a slap in the face, it is a public humiliation. and if we go by russian history, and i -- as you know, it was very often, filled aggressive wars, humility -- humiliating defeats and aggressive wars in russia that were launched by dictators --

in soviet times. that served as triggers of political change at home and installed the end of the dictatorial regimes. >> joining me is a pulitzer prize-winning historian and staff writer for the atlantic. she is author of the book i toss agree -- autocracy in, the dictators who want to run the world. it is out now. i wouldn't mind your take on what vladimir said or your analysis about this ukrainian incursion into russia. because it is small and can be fought back but what does it mean in the grand scheme of things? >> remember that this war is over when the russians decide it is not worth fighting anymore. when they say, ukraine is a solvent -- sovereign state, it is too much trouble, it costs too much and we've had enough. that is the moment the war ends, when russians say we don't want this and we will go home.

it is the moment when the french decided algeria was no longer france or when the british decided ireland was no longer britain and said these are separate countries and we don't want part of it. and that moment will come, and what this invasion is designed to do, among other things, because it has some strategic and tactical significance as well. but mostly it is designed to remind russians that the cost of this war are only going to rise and the cost of the invasion will become more and more significant and it is time for you to change your mind and vladimir kara-murza is right. change in russia almost always follows some kind of defeat and it doesn't have to be a spectacular defeat, it doesn't have to be the occupation of moscow. that when they start to lose, whether it is the russian japanese war in 1905 or the polar soviet war in in 1920 or the war in afghanistan, when they start to lose and people russian the purpose of it, the war is over and i'm hoping this will be out of the process. >> as the author of a new book

on autocracy, which is the scourge and intractable issue of our time, what is the -- what is the tipping point? did vladimir putin look at this and saying failure after failure after failure and what happens to trigger that, do you think? >> i can't make a prediction, it will depend mostly on the people around him. there will be people who say this is enough and it may happen inside his own head. but there will come a moment when the cost of the war, economic cost which are much higher than we have been crediting and the cost of russian influence around the world and russian status and the cost in terms of russians own alliances. how long are the chinese going to want to support this terrible tragic war and how long are other countries going to go in training with russia? russian companies run into greater problems. they will come a moment when there will be enough people

either around putin or putin himself will have to acknowledge it can be won. that is the moment when it begins to end. >> there is one external factor and that is the u.s. election in 79 days. all over the world people are waiting to see how that is going to play out. summer allies in nato and elsewhere around the world. some are ukrainian. one of them is russia, and if donald trump wins the election, does that change the calculus? >> the russians think so. there is no question they have been holding on for the u.s. election. no question russian propaganda was designed to promote the idea of ukraine fatigue in the u.s. trump himself has made a series of comments about how i will do a deal with russia. it is never really clear what that means but they are surely interpreted by moscow as meaning that trump would stop american aid to ukraine and would be happy to let ukraine fall or ukraine be divided or ukraine maybe can cease to exist

as a sovereign state. there's no question the russians have been waiting for the election and that they will make whatever efforts they can, to help trump win. i don't know what that will look like. we saw a version of it in 2016 when the russians played games on the internet, promoting and downgrading clinton or upgrading trump, using fake social media sites and so on. there may be different tactics used this time but they are waiting because they assume the continuation of -- a continuation of the biden/harris policy which has been to support ukraine, and to make sure ukraine remains viable will continue after the war. so yeah, they are waiting. >> it is always an honor to have you on the show. and appelbaum is staff writer at the atlantic, and author of multiple important books including the brand-new autocracy inc., dictators who want to run the world. still to come, --

>> the radical left democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we are not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024. >> donald trump already undermining results of the upcoming election, will talk to secretaries of state jocelyn benson of michigan and adrian fontes of arizona who states trump and his cohorts targeted 2020 about how they are fighting to uphold america's election integrity. election integrity. flexdisc contours to it. so the five blades can get virtually every hair in one stroke. for the ultimate gillette shaving experience. the best a man can get is gillettelabs.

tomorrow is day one of the democratic national convention and that means special coverage. msnbc special coverage of the dnc kicks off tomorrow evening at 6:00 eastern with my colleagues, joy reid and alex wagner. at 8:00 they will join rachel

maddow as they break down day one of the dnc and what it means in the run up to election day. up next, we're still reading project 2025, so that you don't have to. and trust me, that is a good thing. today we are turning to the chapter on education. ter on ed looks like you need a break. the general gives you one with flexible payment options. look, a chemical reaction! oh! [robotic sound] quick question, does that thing have an off button? for a great low rate, go with the general. hit it again, gen! ♪ [suspenseful music] trains. [whoosh] ♪ trains that sense what isn't on the schedule. ♪ trains that use the power of dell ai and intel. ♪ to see hundreds of miles of tracks. ♪ [vroom] [train horn] [buzz]

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project 2025, the far right nationalist plan for the republican presidency and we are looking at chapter 11, which is the department of education. now the first proposal is simple enough, it is from the first sentence of the chapter it says, ultimately, the federal department of education should be eliminated. but it is not so simple. the chapter goes on to outline a long list of radical action to reshape this country's education system from top to bottom. that list includes dismantle the department of education and the head start program for young children in poverty and cut, title i funding for schools serving low-income children, recent federal civil rights protections for lgbtq+ students. undercut federal capacity to enforce civil rights law. reduce that all funding for students with disabilities and remove guardrails designed to ensure these children are adequately served by school. privatized the federal student loan portfolio and end student

loan -- student loan forgiveness and promote universal private school choice. let's talk about the last one, what they mean by universal private school choice. what it means is vouchers designed to help families pay for private school if they don't want their kids in public school. on the very first page of the chapter on education, the author calls out arizona school choice voucher model as the model for the rest of the country to follow. so let's take a look at the arizona voucher program. estate promised families in the program an average of $7000 a year to spend on the private school of their choosing, or other nonpublic options, which include homeschooling, tutoring, or charter schools. at the arizona center for investigative reporting found roughly 60% of vouchers were going to students whose children were deschutes families were already paying for private school education meaning taxpayer dollars are subsidizing private school

education for families who can already afford it while siphoning money out of the public school system. quote, arizona has taken hundreds of millions in a new spending for kids who were already attending private schools, a trend that contributed to a $1 billion plus budget deficit this year. plus, a regent -- recent analysis found the arizona schools that posted tuition rates publicly, nearly all of them raised tuition the same year those vouchers became available, making the schools far more expensive than what is covered by the vouchers. that means many low income families were left with thousands of dollars in tuition they suddenly had to cover themselves, with no notice. so-called school choice programs, also appeared to disproportionately benefit legit schools, what a shock. according to the washington post, and analysis of voucher programs, 87% of arizona's money went to religious schools , while arizona has the

nation's most expansive voucher program, 10 other states have similar programs, 17 more states have smaller voucher systems. the same washington post analysis found in those 28 states, that provide public funding for private school vouchers, the vast majority of the money ends up going to religious schools. what a shocker. which translates to billions of dollars of public education funding being lost. in some states as much as 98% of voucher funding, goes to religious schools. so to recap, arizona gave students the school choice program nearly $7000 each, made up of funding that used to go to public schools in order to allow them to choose their own nonpublic options but the voucher doesn't cover the full amount of tuition at those schools so families who already pay for tuition at a tuition break while families who can't

pay the tuition are forced back into public schools where they are now receiving even fewer resources. plus, students of special needs are no longer guaranteed spots because nonpublic schools don't have to admit them. jan privatizing schools, and eliminating most of the protections for disadvantaged students, project 2025 seeks to take on the so-called woke agenda in an education. woke is all through this document by the way, even the regular people don't use the expression. as heritage foundation president kevin roberts put clearly in his forward, quote, the noxious tenets of critical race theory and gender ideology should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country, end quote. as ever, project 2025 clearly seeks to increase rights and access for certain people while removing protections for other people. the chapter on education specifically calls to eliminate protections for trans and non- binary students , maintaining the trend of attacking transgender people. it recommends putting the department of education office of civil rights, which was

established under the civil rights act in order to ensure that schools and programs that receive federal funding comply with civil rights laws under the control of the department of justice. but you may recall, from our earlier reporting on project 2025, it wants to put the doj under more direct presidential control which means, that under project 2025, the office of civil rights in the education department would likely fall under direct presidential influence. so yes, if you have money to spend and children with no special needs and no learning differences, and you live in an urban area, you may have more choice for your child under project 2025. but for students with special needs, objects -- options are limited for well resourced families. emilys report being turned away from private schools, religious rules and special ed focused charter schools because under voucher systems it is the schools that have the power to choose their students.

not the other way around. are department of education was designed specifically to ensure that all children in this country have equal access to quality education. i agree. that doesn't always come to pass, but that is the point of the exercise. project 2025 aims to dismantle that for what they say is the promise of freedom and choice. freedom and choice for who? one arizona mother of an autistic boy who was interviewed by the passenger report as he was turned away from every school she approached and she was forced to homeschool her son for two years despite also working full time. she used his school voucher to pay for reading tutor and ipad but he missed out on social opportunities. she finally found a school that admitted him but it is too severely underfunded. she said quote, when all the public schools are closed and you can't get a private school to accept your child, what will you do? you do?

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before the break we told you about project 2025's plan to dismantle the department of education including a series of policy proposals that take away funding and protections from the most vulnerable students. particularly low-income students and students with disabilities. 20 me is randi weingarten, president of american federation of teachers, the largest teachers union in the country. thank you for being here. project 2025 is a mess. it is a hot mess, it is organize things so it is hard to organize thoughts and translate it into normal people speak. but we have tried to do that and i want your take on that. have we missed anything or is there something else you want to bring up to our audience? >> first off, you would get an a+ plus, plus, plus if you are in my ap government course because you said it. it was brilliant the way in which you rolled it out, and in very plain english. but let me say it, let me try

to say this way. we live in a capitalist society and competition and choice are part of what is in our capitalist democracy. but we also live in the -- in a society that believes we have to educate our kids so we have to create a letter of opportunity for all kids that includes kids with special needs, that includes kids who are poor, kids were middle- class, kids who are rich. and what project 2025 does, is it basically takes the ladder of opportunity and it crashes and burns it. it basically says if you are already in a family that has means, find, you have a lot of choices. everybody else, we are -- with funding public schools and we are giving money to private schools or to religious schools. private schools that then hike up the tuition, so it essentially means that only the rich can have those choices. that is essentially what it is doing. so that is what we are saying

in arizona, we are seeing it in iowa, seeing it in florida and these other places. so it completely takes away and abolishes this notion of opportunity for all and of knowledge for all. so that is on the economic side. on the side about the culture wars, it is even, as more venal than that because it is essentially saying we are not going to teach honest history. we are not going to teach critical thinking. we are not going to see all of our students. we are going to have a very, very vacated, binary way of saying either you are this way, or you don't matter and the third thing i would say, is it is afraid of actual real knowledge. why would you be afraid of teaching honest history to american schoolchildren? why would you be afraid of saying, this is good for

america and this is what others have tried to change. and why would we not teach american kids all the things that they need to know, to actually live their lives and why would we not allow kids to go to college, even if they are poor. so it really takes away opportunity from every child, who doesn't come from a rich family. >> school choice sounds great, as you said, we are in a capitalist society. but if you live in a way, often school systems work better in places where there's hiring -- higher income, taxes or higher, you can pay for or things. if you live in a place where you would like public education to be better, and you take each student who isn't going to be in the public education system and you take funding for them out of the system, you are not making that district better. you are empirically making it worse, for everybody else left behind. >> and this is what happens, because it happens in rural

areas and it happens in urban areas. if you take -- say you have a whole with 100 kids and now all of a sudden you have 95 kids. you took that money from those five kids or you did it in whatever arizona is doing it or other ways of doing it, this is what happens. you get rid of the librarian or you get rid of the gym teacher or you get rid of the art teacher or the music teacher. because we are still going to have classes, that have english and math. so the things that really resonate for kids, you get rid of. i taught in new york city, and in the 1990s during a recession, and we --. we tried to keep the ap government course i'm teaching. we tried to keep the health courses we were teaching so we have pathways for kids to go into career technical or health. but schools across america are making these choices all the time. time.