of "velshi", inauguration day is coming, and with it, an unmoral donald trump. ben rhodes, former national security adviser under president obama joins me to talk about how we should approach this new era and how we should prepare for a second trump administration, which will be operating with far fewer guardrails than the first term. plus, the atlantic top nichols calls the toasty gabbard nomination in national security risk, but also believes that the senate can't stop it, tom nichols joins me to discuss how the most dangerous trump cabinet pics can be rolled back. she was one of the most successful and popular authors writing today, she is also the author of the most banned book of the last school year. jodi picoult joins me to discuss her road map for the growing threat of censorship, the special edition of the book club is ahead and another hour of "velshi" begins right now.

good morning to you, it is saturday, november 16th, 65 days until donald trump's second inauguration. and this time, he is going to enter the white house with fewer checks on his power than ever before. when trump this one into office on january 20th, his party will also hold narrow majorities in both chambers of congress and the highest court in the land is now stocked with a conservative super majority that he built in his first term, one that has already handed trump major historic victories, including perhaps most importantly for this new trump administration, a vast expansion of the powers of the executive branch, by ruling that presidents enjoy a near absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions that are taken within the core constitutional powers. there is much we can learn about what to expect from this new trump term as the transition moves forward and asked the outlines of the new administration began to take shape. trump and his team have already announced more than two dozen

people that they expect to join his incoming administration, and the list includes a number of controversial cabinet picks, all of whom would traditionally be subject to a confirmation process by the senate, which could be the first true test of trump's power and influence over the incoming republican- controlled congress. so far, trump has tapped matt gaetz for attorney general despite the fact that the ex- congressman was recently the subject of a federal, criminal investigation led by the department of justice, which he would lead. that investigation did not lead to any charges and gaetz has denied any wrongdoing, but is inexperienced and his past scandals reman an obstacle to his confirmation. trump's pick for secretary of defense, fox news host and military veteran pete hegseth also facing opposition giving his lack of experience in any sort of senior command parole, or in managing a large organization or in managing a tiny operation, as well as his vocal support for a trio of servicemembers who had either been convicted or charged with war crimes. trump's other eyebrow raising

picks include robert f. kennedy jr., an anti-vaxxer who has been tapped to head america's main public health agency, and the former democratic congresswoman told republican tulsi gabbard who could be the director of national intelligence and has been accused of echoing kremlin propaganda. these picks have been likened to a shock and awe campaign that is meant to unsettle bureaucrats and civil service members across all levels of government, causing them to quit. as trump and his allies make good on their promises to got the entire federal government of the so-called "deep state." but, these controversial choices also set up an early test for the incoming republican-controlled senate which ordinarily would be tasked with vetting and confirming trump's nominees. but, trump wants them to give up their constitutionally guaranteed right to advise and consent on his nominations, and at least some republicans seem to be okay with that.

trump has called for the senate to allow him to make recess appointments, which would essentially allow him to install anybody he wants to various positions across the government without having to subject those appointees to the normal vetting or confirmation process. those people could stay in office, in cabinet positions, until the next congress is sworn in. not the one that is coming in, in january. the one that is coming in, in two years from january, which means they could stay in their positions for up to two years without senate confirmation. since he launched his first campaign for president, trump has dismantled possibly every possible norm and tradition in american politics. nearly a decade later, he is continuing to employ the same tactics, chipping away at our democracy little by little until it is no longer recognizable as the former government that the founding fathers set off to create, 248 years ago. joining me now is ben rhodes, the former deputy national security adviser under president barack obama and also cohost of the podcast "pod save the world," a msnbc political contributor and author of the book "after the fall: the rise of authoritarian in the world

we made." you are an important person to talk to because of your government experience, because you have studied this and written a book about it, so i wanted to sort of bring you in to talk to my viewers about looking at this list of potential appointees, the list of people trump has chosen to join his administration, with questionable backgrounds, like matt gaetz, and tulsi gabbard, and rfk and now he is offering to give up advice and consent. what is your take for how this is unfolding? >> well, ali, i think one of the useful things to do in this context is to almost think about the united states as if you were thinking about it from the outside in. we are so accustomed to certain norms in this country that we are losing sight of the fact that what is happening here is the kind of state capture that has happened in other democracies around the world. we have seen right-wing nationalists, populists, autocrats take power and methodically make the government in their own image and that is what is happening

here. trump learned from his first term in office. if you compare the appointments in his first term, he didn't really know almost all the people he appointed to some of the key positions you are pointing to. genetics is the secretary of defense, conventional views as a longtime general. rex tillerson tapped to be secretary of state, national security advisor jamie mcmaster in 2017 another general he didn't know well. john kelly, his secretary of homeland security -- those people aren't here this time, none of these people are here this time because those are not people that would do whatever he wanted. if so, what you have here is a mix of people, some of whom with more conventional resumes like marco rubio but even rubio is someone who has completely remade himself into a maga devo tape. he has communicated in his public actions and i'm sure in his private communications with trump that he will carry out whatever order is given. and then you have people like a matt gaetz or a tulsi gabbard, who are there to wreck those

agencies. they want there to be a mass exodus of civil servants, they want there to kind of the chaos, they actually probably want there to be a big fight over whether these people are appropriate because they are going to go after the "deep state." this is what he wants. he wants to remake the government in the image of maga. he wants to empty out the civil servants and agencies he doesn't like, like the department of justice, that he has a vendetta against. and he wants to have free reign to do whatever he wants as president of the united states, and there are not a lot gargoyles to prevent him from doing that. >> in the first term, we used to talk to some people about why they were doing it on or off the record and they would say, my country needs me, or these are people that will be guardrails around trump, they will keep him from his worst impulses. now that that is gone, that doesn't lessen the responsibility for the rest of us who are not in government, but it can be un-motivating, so what do you say to people who are feeling like, i don't have this fight in me, i don't want to keep going, i don't know --

i don't even know what keeping going looks like in this environment. he said look from the outside in, i talked to maria russet in the last hour and it was pretty encouraging because she talks about the philippines and their perspective, what you say to people right now because i am sure people are asking this? >> yeah, people are. first of all, just to put a point on it, the supreme court is different than it was eight years ago. the republicans in congress are different. he has remade those institutions in his own image, too. so, there is this lack of guardrails, that can be very demoralizing to people. and frankly, i don't think the answer is to rerun the playbook from 2017, when a lot of the democratic messaging, or the "resistance messaging" was about what an interloper donald trump is, what an outsider he is, how much he doesn't belong at the center of power. he is the center of power, he is the new establishment in this country, him and elon musk. i think what that has to say to the rest of us, people can be demoralized -- this is not

forever. this is not forever. there is a midterm election in two years. donald trump is term limited in four years. something is going to emerge on the back end of this. you know, i don't believe that donald trump is going to somehow magically change the constitution at age 82 and stay in power forever. that is not something that is easily within his grasp. so, the message for us is, okay, yes, there are some immediate steps that need to be taken to protect vulnerable people. i think state governments, we live in a big, complicated, sprawling federal republic. a lot of the powers are at the municipal and state level and a lot can be done by democratic governors, republican governors maybe don't like this, or people at the local community level, as well. at the same time, i think that there are checks in terms of public opinion, checks in terms of protests, checks in terms of journalism. all those things can kind of hold the line of truth and reality in the midst of the blizzard of disinformation, and misinformation, and activity we are going to get from trump. but at the same time, i think we have to be building back a

different alternative that the democrats have not done in the last eight years, about what is a different form of populism? what is a different criticism of the manipulation and corruption of power x because we will see plenty of things over the next few years here, so we are prepared to seize that opportunity when there are elections again in one year, two years, in four years. >> you are a government official, you are a senior adviser, you also have a role in the media, you have a very important podcast, you are a contributor for us, you write a lot. let's talk about particularly the attack on the fourth estate and journalism and journalist's. steve bannon named a record for us at msnbc, keep your records, we are coming after you. cache patel, we don't know whether he is getting a position in the government or not, he specifically said they will come after journalists, there are enemy list floating around with our name on it. what you say specifically about the role journalism has in preserving democracy, and speaking truth to power in this moment? >> well, this speaks to your last segment -- which i thought was excellent -- because the reality is, they want us to create new ecosystem

information and they want americans to do with it. they want platforms like x to be these turbocharged vehicles for conspiracy theories, for their version of reality, and then they want to try to silence people, investigative journalists, people that are doing the kind of work to expose corruption, they want to either discredit those people, intimidate those people, harass those people -- if you look at what has happened again in other countries, which can be useful because i'm sure the trump people have studied these types of tactics, you know, there are investigations into people, there are tax investigations, there is, you know, audits, just kind of pure harassment, to make life more difficult. i think what has to happen is there has to be a kind of collective will among that fourth estate. to report on the truth, to not be intimidated. there is going to have to probably be support for citron people that may be wrongfully accused of things, but the reality is i also find everywhere i go, people want to understand what is happening. i think we have to not follow trump, everything he says,

everything he truths or tweets, he wants us to be talking about that kind of thing, the outrage of the day. we should not be talking about, you know, this time around, ali, if he draws with a sharpie on a picture of a hurricane, you know, that is not the main story. the main story is the fundamental corruption of our federal government at the interest of one person. and i think telling people the truth about what is happening, connecting the dots for people, being very clear about what the stakes are, this is the kind of reporting and the kind of messaging that i think americans are looking for right now, to understand what is happening. and not the kind ofand back for the fourth, in the political realm that trump thrives on, because that is what the once the focus to be on commit everyone is arguing, everyone is polarized, maybe that means everyone is the same. >> i think you are right about that. >> something very unusual in

american history is happening and people need to shine a light on it. >> november 8th, three days after the election, you wrote an article titled "i know guys like trump, there is a reason they keep winning." he said, donald trump won the presidency, but i don't think he will deliver on his promises. like autocrats, his remedies are meant to exploit problems instead of solving them, and he is surrounded by oligarchs who want to loop the system instead of fixing it. so, you said this might get in his way that he is not likely to be successful in these efforts, to be successful? >> yeah, i will just give you a couple of examples. one of the two things that we hear about more than anything else that he wants to do, mass deportation of undocumented people in this country. and tariffs, huge, across-the- board tariffs on goods that are coming into this country. you have studied markets, those are probably about the two most inflationary things that you can do. that is going to drive up costs in this country, so if the reason he was elected in large part was the satisfaction with

cost of living in this country, the revenues he has it are more about his ideological agenda. america first, tariffs. america first, deportations. those are going to make the things that angered a lot of voters much worse. if he comes in and gives a massive tax cut to wealthy people, to billionaires and corporations in this country, those things are going to exacerbate the inequality that is part of what has made people lose faith in the systems in this country. so, the plans that he has are not going to remedy the injustices, or the sense of grievance that a lot of people felt motivated by when they voted for him. and so, that is why when i talk about not focusing on the crazy things he says, focus on what he does. that is what we have to do this time around, because the things that he is going to be doing are going to be making the distrust in institutions, and the sense of the future not being as hopeful as the past, he is going to make those

dynamics worse. but, rather than arguing about some crazy thing he says, we need to be focusing on, what is he doing? >> good advice, my friend. thank you for being with us this morning. ben rhodes, former deputy national security adviser, msnbc political contributor, author of an important book "after the fall: the rise of authoritarianism in the world we made." coming up, more than unqualified, some trump cabinet picks are being deemed by even some republicans as dangerous to our democracy and our defense apparatus. while my next guest believes they can't be stopped. and jodi picoult's bottle book "19 minutes" was the banned book of the year, the velshi banned book club is ahead. ahead. which is why downy does more to make clothes softer, fresher, and better. downy. breathe life into your laundry. do you have high blood pressure? if so, you're at greater risk of developing afib, one of the leading causes of stroke. detect afib with kardiamobile, the world's most clinically-validated personal ekg.

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in this week's flurry of cabinet announcements from donald trump, i want to draw your attention to two of them, the two names that stand out is

not just unqualified but in the words of tim snyder, anti- qualified and dangerous because of the threat they represent our nation's defense and infrastructure. on wednesday, trump named tulsi gabbard as his director for national intelligence, a position that oversees all 18 of the nation's intelligence agencies and advises the president on the most sensitive of matters. gabbard is a former congresswoman from hawaii who ran for president as a democrat in 2020 and then switched to the gop this year. she served in the army during the iraq war but has zero experience, zero, in intelligence. the office of the dni, which was created after 9/11 was designed to prevent future intelligence failures by streamlining interagency cooperation. if gabbard is confirmed by the senate next year, this very important office will be handed over to someone who has echoed kremlin propaganda, including defending russia's unprovoked invasion of ukraine. she says it was not unprovoked, by the way, she says america provoked it. devon's longtime affinity for russian president vladimir putin has led to some people

questioning whether she is capable of protecting u.s. interests. even the former national security adviser, john bolton, who served in donald trump/the term, says that gabbard would be a "serious threat to national security," and has no idea what she is doing. >> i don't think she has the qualifications for the job. she doesn't have any experience in intelligence matters. she has demonstrated repeatedly that she doesn't understand international affairs. she has been quoted as saying that, effectively, putin was justified in having russia invade ukraine, because there were secret american biological weapons laboratories in ukraine. i mean, this is fantasyland stuff. >> put a pin in that for a second, we will talk about it in a minute. let's move on to trump's choice for secretary of defense, equally controversial, the former fox news host, pete hegseth. he is an outspoken antiwar

crusader with ties to an extremist christian sect linked to white supremacy and women's suffrage. hegseth is a combat veteran, previously served as a captain in the army national guard but has no senior command experience, no government experience and no experience running anything at all. hegseth has openly opposed women serving in combat and has a major fixation with the military about diversity. his appointment raises a spectrum for a potential ban on women in combat, which underscores precisely what is at stake. experts worn a rollback of women's participation in the military could severely harm our nation's military readiness, not really about diversity. today, women make up over 17% of the military's active duty force, according to the defense department. despite a nearly 3% overall decline in service members in 2022, the percentage of women in the military has continued to rise. the illinois senator tammy duckworth and iraq veteran, purple heart recipient called the appointment "dangerous, plain and simple."

two crucial checks could limit trump's ability to appoint these two deeply unqualified candidates. senate confirmation hearings, and fbi vetting. and no surprise, both avenues are being actively undermined by donald trump's team. well senate confirmation requires a majority vote, trump is pressuring senate republicans to declare a recess, which would allow him to make unilateral appointments without any hearings and have those people in those positions for up to two years. while the constitution provides a mechanism for presidents to make appointment strengths and it breaks -- and there are some valid reasons to do that -- what trump is demanding goes beyond this exception, trump is not taking advantage of the fact the senate is not there, he is actively pressuring senators weeks in advance to step aside willingly, telling them to effectively surrender their constitutional role to advise and consent on senior governmental appointments. michael waldman, the president

of the brendan center for justice, said he thinks this is trump provoking his first constitutional crisis, just eight days after winning the election. along with allowing him to rush through these deeply unpopular and dangerous appointments, trump's demand to senate republicans is a show of force, it is a warning. he is in charge and they better all fall in line. and newly elected republican senate leader john thune appears to be seriously considering bending the knee, telling reporters on wednesday that the senate would explore all options to expedite trump's appointments. trump's team also has reportedly been sidestepping the fbi vetting process, turning instead to private companies to screen cabinet picks, according to cnn. the fbi has traditionally vetted cabinet nominees, looking at their criminal history, their financial conflicts, and other areas that could make them vulnerable to espionage. if confirmed, these appointments threaten to institutionalize trump's vision of loyalty driven governance, and they might well come at the expense of our democracy, our civil rights, and global

security. but, if the soon to be republican senate does its job properly and serves as a backstop, as atlantic staff writer todd nichols points out, the body will come to the conclusion that most everyone else has already, that these folks are completely unqualified, they will draw a hard line, no, and reject these cabinet choices. i will discuss it all with tom nichols himself, after the break. break. giving. [♪ you've got to give a little ♪] [♪ take a little ♪] giving without expecting something in return. ♪ giving that's possible through the power of dell ai with intel. so those who receive can find the joy of giving back. ♪ [♪ that's the glory of love. ♪] have you compared your medicare plan recently? with ehealth, you can compare medicare plans side by side for free. so we invited people to give ehealth a try and discover how easy it can be to find your medicare match. this is pretty amazing. i can go on a vacation with this money.

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25 years, the author of "our own worst enemy: the assault from within on modern democracy." tom, you have been writing about this literally all week, trying to keep up with the mess of nominees, but you have written things very particularly about tolls he gabbard. you call her a walking christmas tree of warning lights, when it comes to national security risks. i would argue that many of our americans don't know what the dni is and how much of a risk this is to our intelligence community and what that means to us as a people. help us with this? >> sure. so, people know what the cia is, right? our big spy agency. they have probably heard of the national security agency, the agency that listens around the world. there are something like 18 different intelligence agencies that all talk to each other and try to coordinate information and that is pretty unwieldy. think of it this way, the dni sits on top of all of those, and

literally can just draw from all of them and is supposed to coordinate them and present an intelligence community evaluation, and estimate, advice, to the president of the united states. so, this is somebody who has not just access to the secrets of the, let's say, the central intelligence agency, she would have access to all the secrets, to everything we have. and that is just incredibly dangerous in somebody who thinks that vladimir putin and zelenskyy should embrace the spirit of aloha, and let putin just have his way in ukraine. i mean, this is somebody who wouldn't be able to, i think, pass a clearance for senior jobs in some of those agencies, certainly not for the dni. >> and that is the important point. if i was nominated for it, you could say, he is unqualified, but she has actually expressed views that are unusual with syria, with vladimir putin, so there is that problem. the issue here is, what do you

think -- how do you think this should go down? because right now, the senate is preoccupied with the idea that they might not approve matt gaetz because it is so egregious. as a result, will the senate be prepared to do this another time for tulsi gabbard or another time for pete hegseth, as we will talk about? are you suggesting that the only way to do with this right now is that the senate refused to approve these candidates? >> well, in a sane world, senior republicans would go to donald trump and say, before thanksgiving, before this even gets to the senate, you just have to step back at least four of these nominees. i would say the four obvious choices here are gaetz, rfk jr., gabbard, and hegseth, those are the four most dangerous nominations she has made. if he refuses to do it, because he is donald trump, and he doesn't really care about things like national security, then, yeah, the senate is the

only line of defense. and what worries me, is if someone like gaetz was thrown in there like a political flash bang grenade meant to disorient and blind everybody for a minute so that finally trump says, okay, fine, you can have gaetz but i get everybody else, and in some ways, as awful as gaetz is, in every way, he's actually less dangerous than gabbard and hegseth. >> let's talk about hegseth for a second. if confirmed as defense secretary, pete hegseth, was a fox news host -- no disrespect to tv hosts, but that is not the qualification necessary for defense secretary -- as far as military matters, he might be one of the least experienced in u.s. history to be nominated for that position. it comes at a time when technological threats are rapidly evolving. we have real issues, space exploration, weaponization of

artificial intelligence, he is preoccupied with other things that may be important, but the pentagon, the defense institution establishment in this country, whether you like it or not, is massive, huge, hard to manage, suffering from the fact that they have to recruit people. this is, in your opinion, there is nothing right about this? >> right. this is -- i mean, honestly, you know, i used to joke about pete hegseth auditioning to be secretary of defense, because i still thought i was living in a country were no serious human being could talk about this and mean it. you know, there is just absolutely no qualification here. but also, again, and let me paint a kind of nightmare scenario, it is not just that hegseth is going to walk around the ring and yell about diversity and women in combat, and who should have tattoos, and -- i mean, that is bad enough. but, imagine a significant international crisis with china, or russia, something involving nuclear weapons and the people surrounding donald trump in the oval office, where

he is asking for their best advice about possibly averting armageddon, is going to be marco rubio -- great. an adult in the room. and then, who does he turn to? if fox news host who is now in the nuclear chain of command? and that his information, he turns to tulsi gabbard, who has no idea what she is doing, and one cannot assume that in a conflict with russia she is actually on our side because she so admires putin so much? these are the people that are going to be in the oval office trying to help the president of the united states, chosen by the american people, legitimately the president, is going to have to work his way through this without blowing up the planet, and it is going to be like this fox panel of talking heads who have no idea what they are doing. i mean, this is incredibly dangerous, and i don't think people -- i think the maga

voters love this because this is a show, that is what they voted for, they voted for a carnival. i think a lot of people voted for donald trump thinking, make my life better, bring down the price of eggs, get the economy where i want it to be. i don't think they voted for their lives to be in danger during an international crisis because there is a clown show in the oval office. >> well said. you have been writing about it in great detail and we appreciate it. good to see you, tom, second time in 12 hours you and i have talked. tom nichols, staff writer at the atlantic, he has been covering this in detail, it is worth reading his articles. he is author of multiple books, including "our own worst enemy: the assault from within on our democracy." and "the depth of expertise." tomorrow, i will be joined by senator chris van hollen of maryland, we will continue to discuss this brewing constitutional crisis on donald trump's effort to circumvent senate confirmation hearings for his cabinet picks. that is tomorrow morning 10:00 eastern on msnbc. more "velshi" after the break. dad, is mommy a “finance bro?” she switched careers to make money for your weddings. ooh! penny stocks are blowing up.

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40 million people in the northeast of the united states are now at risk for fires as officials work to contain the wildfires in new york and new jersey, some of which have been burning for months. a drought monitor on thursday shows 58% of the northeast region is in a state of moderate drought, or worse. the drought is particularly extreme in new jersey, which has had its driest conditions

in nearly 120 years. that is posing a major threat to residents of worsening fires. nbc news correspondent emily ikenna reports. >> reporter: smoke covering over new york and new jersey as firefighters make headway on the jennings creek fire. but, officials cautioning the wildfire risk for more than 40 million remains. forecasted 30 mile-per-hour winds could spark new flames this weekend with crews from across the country now joining the fight. it is welcomed to help an unrelenting fire season. of the roughly 13,000 wildfires in new jersey this year, nearly half of them have broken out in just the last six weeks, including this one now encroaching on homes just 50 yards from here. all while crews are still battling some fires from months before. have you ever seen a firebrand this long? >> i have not, no. >> reporter: we filed -- followed fire warden ben break into the state forest to monitor a fire burning since july, thriving in the parched

roots and debris underground. >> never got rain storms, the tropical moisture this year we normally rely on for the summer months. so, we have this on our hands now among other incidents. >> reporter: those dry conditions prompting drought warnings and watches across the northeast, where officials are urging residents to conserve water. jim mcgill's family relies on well water in hobo junction, new york, and now rotates shower days. >> one of us would sit in the shower, and the water stopped because the well had run dry. >> reporter: griffin pump service says they are not alone. >> we haven't seen this many existing wells go dry and not come back in a very, very long time. >> reporter: rivers and reservoirs are drying up, too, limiting where the firefighters' helicopters can pool water from to douse flames in hard-to-reach places. >> we are stretching our resources to the limit with all the fires we have had, not one at a time, but they all seem to be following each other.

>> emily ikenna reporting. straight ahead, i will call to order this week's "velshi" banned book club, jodi picoult author of two banned books, including the most banned book of the school year last year, talking about ways to combat book banning, next on the show. . undo it with pepto fast melts. so you can keep on rolling. [bowling pins knocked down] when you overdo it, undo it with pepto bismol.

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jodi picoult begins her new york times best-selling novel "nineteen minutes" by quantifying time. "in 19 minutes, you can mow the lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. in 19 minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist, you can fold laundry for five." if you can do that for 19 minutes, how much can you do in an entire school year? or better yet, how much damage could you do? how much harm could you reap on a group of students or readers,

for back-to-school night or summer break? according to penn america, a nonprofit organization dedicated to literary freedom, you can do an unthinkable amount of damage. three school years ago, pan america recorded 2532 instances of book bans and challenges across the country. 2 1/2 thousand. two years ago, that number rose to 3362. and last school year, the number exploded. last year, there were 10,046 instances of book bans across this country. 10,046. with 10,046 bans, what damage can you do? you could alienate black and lgbtq+ readers, you can stifle critical conversations around sexual assault and "velshi banned book club", with 10,046 book bans, you can craft on critical thinking, and suppress empathy. what was the most commonly banned book during the last school year according to penn america? "nineteen minutes" by jodi picoult. her best seller, a previous book club feature follows the

events before and after a deadly school shooting rocks a small new hampshire town. it isn't, by the way, being banned for the visceral shooting scenes. however, it is being banned in large part for a single passage referring, not in a gratuitous or salacious way, to a date rape. 19 minutes is not the only novel from picoult best-selling tenant to be targeted or successfully banned come out of her nearly 30 books and stories, 20 has been targeted, including what many consider to be her magnum opus, my sisters keeper. picoult is prolific and beloved, her novels are fast- paced, well researched, character driven, her work grapples with topics americans want to read about, topics americans are generally dealing with including abortion, 27, fertility, lgbt plus rights, suicide, religion, and of course,'s shoe school shootings. about midway through "nineteen minutes", there is a line that stuck with me since i first read the book in june of 2022. "we are defined by our actions, not our thoughts." i urge every member of the

velshi banned book club, every student, every reader, and every american who doesn't believe censorship should ever occur on our country's soil, to act. right after the break, i am joined by the seminal jodi picoult. don't go anywhere. n't go anywh. . breztri gave me better breathing, symptom improvement, and reduced flare-ups. breztri won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. it is not for asthma. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. don't take breztri more than prescribed. breztri may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ask your doctor about breztri. my name is brayden. i was five years old when i came to st. jude. i'll try and shorten down the story. so i've been having these headaches that wouldn't go away. my mom, she was just crying. what they said, your son has brain cancer.

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i'm joined by an author that i did an introduction for but she doesn't really need one, jodi picoult is the author of 30 acclaimed novels and stories including the velshi banned book club feature "nineteen minutes". and her other banned book "by any other name." welcome back to the velshi banned book club. we are talking about hope, things people can do, opportunities that exist in front of us, everybody has had a little time to digest what happened last week. what is it about you? why do so many of your books get banned and challenged? >> well, theoretically, if you ask the book banners, apparently i am writing porn, spoiler alert, i am not writing porn. in fact, many of the people who have been my books have not read my books and i accept that, when they banned them. we don't have to read a book to bend them in america anymore. and i think the reason my books tend to be banned is because like a lot of the books that have been banned by lgbtq and by poc authors, what they tend to do is encourage readers to think for themselves and that

is a very dangerous thing. >> i mean, that's -- that's what we need, right? >> does exactly what we need. >> if you look at our political recent history, and all over the world, we could do with a little more critical thinking and that is all you are inviting people to do. you are giving people information and asking them to think. >> absolutely and particularly in a school setting. talking about a lot of ban happening at the school library level. it is terrifying to think for parents that their kids might be exposed to ideas different from the ones they believe because if the kids grow up and think differently from them, then we actually have progress in this country. >> i've got "nineteen minutes" here. one might think given the topic here, school shootings, the reason this book is so frequently targeted, if one didn't know, because you say a lot of people who banned books don't read them, why do you think this book gets banned so much? because it depicts school shootings, and i get that parents might not want their kids exposed to that even though they are, that is not the point. this book is mostly challenged because of a reference to date

rape. talk to me about that? >> there is a single page, page 313, and the word " " is on it, and it is a date rape. it is absolutely endemic to the anti-bullying theme in the book. it is not gratuitous, salacious. but, this is what book banners have moved into. they started with lgbtq books and authors and poc books and authors, now they are starting to look at what they call "mature content," which is anything they find objectionable. the reason this is dangerous, for most of the people watching your show, is because they are not just stopping at the school library level. public library challenges, at least 92%, they are coming for the books that you read. fantasy, romanticism, romance, mystery, thriller, anything that they deem objectionable, they are trying to pull off the

shelves. not just in schools, but also now in public libraries. and that is why you really should care and do what you can to stop it. >> right, and it doesn't really have to do with books you like or want, it is conceptually what is going on there. i think there are a lot of parents who say, i should have input into what my family consumes, i have no objection to that. i think there are a lot of parents that would benefit from the fact that these books appear in school libraries, public libraries, where the librarians have masters degrees and can help curate your child through that experience, right? >> absolutely. i mean, these are people who are educated and trained to decide what is age-appropriate for children at a given time. there is nothing wrong with a parent monitoring what his or her child reads. there is a big problem with that parent making decisions for anyone else's child and that is why these parental rights laws that are so poorly

worded have become so dangerous and it is why we have 10,000 individual titles banned last year alone. >> well, you obviously in addition to being a prolific author, you engage a lot in communities, with teachers, with students. tell me where you think we are in this, as you see the numbers have quadrupled from a few years ago in terms of individual titles being banned, is it -- is the pushback getting better? is it harder? tell me where we are? >> well, i am sad to say that i think with the incoming administration, things are only going to get worse. we are going to see more legislatures passing parental rights laws that again are so poorly worded that it allows any parent to go to a school board meeting and say, i don't like this book, it is being taken off the shelf, and have it removed from students' access. that is really problematic. i think we are going to see more of that and because of that, i think we have to see more people speaking out. the vast majority of americans do not want books banned. it is a very small group of individuals who are making this happen. we just need to be a lot lower than they are, and there are actually action steps that you can take, if you, as a community member, want to do

something to fight book bans. first thing you should do is talk about this information whenever you can, nip that in the bud. if i had a dollar for every time someone said "a school book ban isn't a real ban, you can buy that book on amazon." those are true. but, guess what? a school book ban is a ban. any time you take a book off of a shelf, it is a ban. even if it is temporary, it is a ban. make sure you correct that language when people come at you with that. plus, there is a reason we have school libraries, there are places in this country where people cannot afford to buy books or cannot access a public library because of distance. that is why school libraries exist. if you can run for school board, we need voices of people who oppose book banning to be on school boards because that is how this all came about. we had a lot of moms for liberty running for school boards, they are the ones who are instituting a lot of these book bans. if you don't have the time to run for school board, go to

school board meetings and speak out against book bans. you can send letters to your elected officials. i should mention, too, that pen america is a terrific resource for all of this. if you go to pen.org/action, you will find scripts that you can speak at a school board meeting, if you don't want to come up with your own words. you can find letters, templates that you can send to your elected officials. it takes absolutely no time. if you are a kid, start a banned book club in your school. and if you have the resources, by a bunch of banned books and stuff them in those little free libraries all over your community so people have a chance to read them and start talking about them. but, above all else, speak out. don't just sit there and wait for the bans to come to your community, because they will, eventually. even in very blue areas, we have had challenges. speak out now point an amazing, amazing advice, empowering things people can actually do. jodi, thanks. we will always have you back. jodi picoult, one of our favorite members of the velshi banned book club, author of over 30 novel novels including "nineteen minutes" and that is it for me, catch me at 10:00