ethics with civil rights and racial equity. but it wasn't always that way. r. but it wasn't always that way. >> if you look at the journey from this boyhood in the jim crow south, where he was barefoot for most of the year and take all the way nearly 100 years later to where he's a global icon, and has taken the civil rights movement that he didn't actually participate in as a young man, and he's turned it into a global, human rights movement. a very consciously taking that civil rights movement that he witnessed in the south and in some ways making up for his failure to stand up more when he was young. in some sense almost atoning for it. doing it in the second half of

his life what he did not do in the first half. but he was much, much more liberal than almost anybody in that area. while his father was a segregationist, his mother, ms. lilian, viewers might remember when she would go on johnny carson, very amusing, colorful woman. she was a nurse. and she treated black patients for free. and she was the only woman in that entire area in sumter county who had anything nice to say about abraham lincoln. and then there was a third parent, a black woman farm hand whose husband was the foreman of the carter farm, lived on the property that you're seeing right now. her name was rachel clark. and she gave jimmy carter much of his love of nature and help to contribute to his deep faith and the fact that from the time

he was a boy and had black play mates to him defending the first black midshipman at the naval academy from abuse from his efforts to integrate the church in plains, georgia, unsuccessful efforts, carter was always on the liberal or you might say more moderate end of these questions. nobody ever remembered him saying anything racially offensive. even though almost everybody in that era used the n word on a daily basis. not jimmy carter. having said that, having said that, he had a choice to make about whether to be in politics or be in the civil rights movement. and this is something that i discussed with him on a number of occasions. by the way, that home you're seeing there, that's the boyhood home. it was built from a sears

catalog kit, arts and craft, and that tennis court, which jimmy carter's father built and jimmy carter eventually became a very good tennis player, red clay of georgia on that court. but, the racial journey that he went on had these bumps in the road. and he did make a decision at one point that he wanted to get into political office so that he could do good, especially on education. but he couldn't get there if he was a civil rights activist. there would have been zero chance of him getting into politics. so he did sometimes pack a little bit away from the liberal position and say things in support of -- or friendly, somebody like george wallace, although he despised him

personally, in order to get into office. and so he never actually met dr. king. but later became close friends with coretta scott king and daddy king and he hung the portrait of dr. king in the georgia state capitol and integrated georgia government when he was governor. and then he moved the united states government from tokenism to true diversity when he became president. and became the great figure of racial justice that we know today. but it was a journey. and american history is complicated. and i think it's important when you're assessing president that you see him in full. >> the motorcade has left now. it is now not going to stop again until it reaches atlanta. reza, among other things, you're an expert on many things, one is religion. jimmy carter was the first evangelical president of the united states. you could say that back then and wasn't a thing that implied anything other than a

religious -- set of religious beliefs. it means something very different in american politics today. but he was an evangelical. >> he was. and as jonathan mentioned, you know, he fully integrated his religious beliefs and his values into his domestic policy and into his foreign policy. now, interestingly enough, although he was the first evangelical president, this was before evangelicals in the united states had been deliberately formed into almost a single voting block. and the campaign that was perhaps most successful in doing that was his rival reagan, who managed to actually take what would have been a natural constituency for jimmy carter and to use it against him by inserting into the american evangelical community, the white

evangelical community i should say, these culture war issues that have become so much a part of our politics today. but, you know, to jimmy carter's credit, this was a game that he was just simply not interested in playing. he was deeply religious. as we say, that religion was active in his politics. but he didn't have that kind of skeptical attitude towards it where he used it as a means of accumulating power, of getting votes. it wasn't in his nature, if you will. >> but to your point, it was ultimately used against him to his detriment in the election in which he lost. guys, thanks so much for helping us through this. reza, distinguished professor of creative writing at the university of california riverside, author of a kids book about israel and palestine.

jonathan alter, "jimmy carter:his life." we will continue to follow the motorcade as it makes its way to atlanta. another hour of "velshi" begins right now. ♪♪ good morning. it's saturday, january 4th. i'm ali velshi. we just watched as the motorcade carrying late president jimmy carter travel from americus, georgia, through his hometown of plains to nearby boyhood home of archery. the motorcade is making its journey to atlanta where carter will lie in repose at the carter presidential center until tuesday morning before his body makes its way to washington, d.c. next week. and we will follow these movements throughout the day. but we begin this hour with the latest from capitol hill where republicans have now officially taken control of both the house and the senate as the 119th congress gavelled into session yesterday. republicans got off to a much

smoother start this time around than they did two years ago when the house was brought to a standstill for days because of a bitter and protracted battle for the speakership. kevin mccarthy ultimately won that election after 15 rounds of voting, but he would be booted from the chair just 269 days later. the third shortest tenure in speakership history. his successor, mike johnson, managed to avoid a long, drawn out contest in order to win re-election as speaker yesterday, but by the narrowist of margins. already some signs of trouble for republicans signaling that this is still the same dysfunctional and divided house gop conference that has caused chaos on capitol hill for the past two years. although johnson did technically win the speakership on the first ballot, three republicans initially voted for someone else and six others with held their votes when their names were called. all but one of them ultimately voted or changed their vote for johnson before the first round of balloting closed. the lone republican defector who did not vote for johnson was

this man, congressman thomas massie of kentucky a very vocal critic of johnson leading up to yesterday's election. but minutes after johnson's victory, the ultra conservative house freedom caucus published an open letter outlining its demands and expectations of the speaker and added they voted for johnson, quote, despite our sincere reservations regarding the speaker's track record over the past 15 months. johnson told reporters for his part that he wants this congress to be more member-driven and that he's been, quote, aiming to decentralize the speaker's office's power, end quote. yesterday's events illustrated just how small and delicate the republican majority in the house truly is and there's some big and important issues they have to tackle in the coming months, including funding for the federal government, border security, and addressing the debt ceiling. but it appears that there are still deep disagreements within the republican party regarding process, procedures and policies. and there won't be much room for error if they want to advance donald trump's agenda without

working or compromising with house democrats. republicans will need to stay remarkably tight and united, which is not exactly what this group of republicans is known for. joining me now is the democratic congresswoman debbie dingell of michigan and former republican congressman charlie dent a senior adviser to the organization our republican legacy and the executive director and vice president of the congressional program at the aspen institute. good morning to both of you. thank you before being with us. we might dip every now and then to the carter motorcade. generally speaking it's on its way to atlanta. there probably won't be any stops along the way. congress woman dingle, it's interesting. there's generally no dispute about the fact when a president or dignitary at the level of the president dies, the flags are at half-staffed. donald trump seems to have some beef with this. it's going to wreck his january 6th and spoil the excitement about being donald trump right now apparently. >> it's unfortunate. there are rituals and traditions

in the history of this country that i think are deeply important to respect. and when jerry ford died we did the same thing and that was one of the most memorable weeks of my life, given his friendship and relationship to my husband at the time. donald trump is not exactly a man who respects rituals. i'll leave it at that. i hope the staffs remain at half-staffed. >> that is something that supersedes politics in this country, as well it should. charlie dent, let's talk about what's going on here. the republican -- kudos to mike johnson. he got it done. and got it done in the first -- on the first round. but he took two of the guys who voted against him, took them to the cloak room. they got on the phone with donald trump. donald trump talked them into it. and then he won the ballot. what does this portend? >> well, clearly this does not

bode particularly well for the new congress. the good news for mike johnson, he only lost one vote and congratulations to him for winning. but this session unlike last session he will have donald trump there to help him corral some of his real wildcats, as what happened yesterday. but if i were speaker johnson, i would still keep hakeem jeffrey's cell phone number on speed dial because he's going to need him. he's going to need him to do all the things that must get done because he has a group of members who will never vote to fund the government, who will never vote to raise the debt ceiling even with donald trump as president. he'll need democrats just has he did in the last congress to get the work of government done. he'll try to do some reconciliation bills probably, too. and those will be done likely on a partisan basis. and we'll see what those look like, whether it's on the border or on tax changes. that's what's going to happen. but right now, i still think you're going to see a lot of chaos. you're never going to lose money

betting against chaos in the house republican conference. >> well said. congresswoman dingle, look, some things the democrats might not be interested in helping mike johnson on. some things have to happen, the debt ceiling, appropriations, hopefully a border bill of some sort. they're going to have to be involved. what does that look like to you? you spent a good deal of time in congressional leadership. charlie is right, at some point and maybe many points, mike johnson needs hakeem jeffries and the very disciplined democrats at the moment. >> first of all, i want to say i think hakeem and the speaker have a very good relationship. and have tried to communicate regularly. and been blunt with each other about what the dynamics are of each other's caucus. and i think that is very important. i think hakeem made it very clear yesterday that we want to reach across the aisle. we want to work together in a bipartisan way to address the issues that people want us to

address, lowering the cost of groceries, making housing more affordable. i believe go on. the issues you must mentioned will be the toughest and most difficult. i think the republicans will have a very hard time finding common ground. and democrats have made it very clear, we are not going to bail them out every time. so, these are issues that have to be addressed, but do me a favor and figure out what you can get through your own caucus before you talk to us and back out on another deal. >> charlie, debby makes a really good point. hakeem jeffries and mike johnson have made a thing of the fact that they do talk. they -- i don't know if you would describe it as warm but they have a relationship. they understand certain things have to get done. so, what has to happen here? because there are lets call it 38 republicans, that's the number that voted against the continuing resolution who are prepared to some degree thumb their nose at both donald trump and vice president musk and mike

johnson at some point. there are probably about 20 republicans who are never in that camp. always happy to work in a bipartisan fashion to try to get things done. and there are all the democrats who seem to be pretty well aligned with whatever they have to do, the discipline that is required to be a political party. talk to me about if you're mike johnson in this world, what does this look like? and how do you move forward and not torpedo the place? >> well, debbie made a fair point, if speaker johnson is going to enter into negotiations in good faith with hakeem jeffries and reach an agreement, as they did on the continuing resolution last month, just can't walk away from it and blow it up. because that really sends a bad signal to the other side that you are not operating in good faith. same thing happened with speaker mccarthy, they had a budget agreement about a year and a half ago and they all reached it, became law and walked away

from the numbers they just agree ed to on the republican side. speaker johnson has to really push back on those within his own conference who are trying to blow up these compromises. he'll take heat for that. frankly he'll need donald trump to back him up. and not kneecap him like musk and donald trump did just a few weeks ago on that deal. >> yeah. >> so that's going to be the challenge. he needs donald trump to back him up when he does enter into these negotiations. trump is very volatile and erratic and you never can predict what he's actually going to do. we seen it in trump 1.0 after we negotiated big omnibus bill which he supported until that's minute and said he was going to veto it. he ended up signing it, but that's what you deal with in trump world. >> yeah. important to note that that continuing resolution that failed that almost led to a government shutdown was musk and trump. mike johnson had come to an agreement with his conference and with -- at least with democrats on this. congress woman, mike johnson said yesterday that he wants to decentralize, he wants to make

the conference more member-driven and decentralize the power of the speaker's office. might be an interesting idea. probably not what he needs in this moment. if anything, i would think you need a stronger speakership and a level of discipline to get us through the next two years. >> so, i have a mixed reaction to that. there are those like my husband who did believe very strongly that the committee should have the power of looking at these issues, doing the hearings, drafting the legislation and moving it forward. and by the way, i think we need more of it. the first 12 bills in the rules package yesterday are not going through any regular order or process and that's not right. but i also think that he is going to have to find a way to bring his caucus together. members want to be more involved. they don't want to be dictated to, an issue on the republican and democratic side. we come from districts and you want to have a say in what's going to be driven. so he has to find the balance

there of members feeling involved, engaged, chairman being able to apply the policies they're putting out but getting to the floor and getting the votes that he needs is going to require discipline. >> charlie, president biden just blocked the japanese company nippon steel. you support. we have all seen "flash dance." it's important to you and your constituents. same thing to you, congresswoman, in michigan. tell me why you support that decision, charlie? >> i oppose what the biden administration did here in blocking the nippon/u.s. steel agreement. by blocking that deal, it's likely that many steel jobs in western pennsylvania and in indiana will be lost. this is -- japan is an ally. and japan steel has a lot of fresh capital and the best technology. they're going to buy u.s. steel, which at one time had over 300,000 employees.

down to fewer than 20,000. the trajectory is not good. we need this money to modernize those plants. and the biden administration basically deemed japan to be a national security threat. only two days ago the state department approved the military sale of essential hardware to the japanese government, as they should have. so two days ago japan was a key military and national security partner. and yesterday they're a national security threat. but the bottom line is a lots of steel workers are going to lose their jobs. and if this company falls into the competitor's hands, prices will go up, i suspect the automotive sector and others will be deeply concerned about the impact on steel prices as other key users of steel will be. i lived this before. i saw the same thing happen in bethlehem, pennsylvania, when british steel would come in and do a joint venture and said you won't have any work. the company shut the plant down. the company went into chapter 7.

this is where we're going. the biden administration made a terrible decision here and i hope the trump -- i hope the trump administration reverses it, but he's kind of in the same place where biden is. >> debbie dingell, i see you nodding your head. >> i love charlie. he and i are very good friends. we are losing our manufacturing capability in our country. not only an economic security issue, it's a national security issue. and we're seeing these other countries, japan, china sporting, helping to invest in their skilled companies. we should be investing in our skilled companies, making sure they survive. but we cannot remain a strong, viable company with having no steel -- not owning, not having a steel industry in our own country, owned, operated by america. i feel very strongly about this. i think we need policies that are supporting this. this is where donald trump and i totally, totally agree.

we have to bring our supply chains back. we have to keep manufacturing capabilities back. we have to use tools in the tool chest and i will work with donald trump everywhere i can for this. >> i suspect we're going to bring you both back for more of this conversation. unfortunately i have to go because we have to continue to cover the state funeral of jimmy carter. happy to have this conversation with you both again and i appreciate you both bringing your views to it. democratic representative from michigan, debbie dingell and former republican representative of pennsylvania charlie dent. coming up, chinese hackers could have your text messages and phone calls. fbi director chris wray is calling sit most significant cyber espionage campaign in history and has so far targeted nine american telecom firm. we'll talk about who is behind it who is likely affect and how the stolen data could be used. then a life of service and of faith. we continue to remember and honor former president jimmy carter's legacy, including his historic impact on the federal judiciary. you're watching "velshi."

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tushing now to new orleans where investigators with the fbi and atf say that shamsud-din jabbar planned to use a detonator where he placed nearby the bourbon street. those devices were not detonated. investigators say that jabbar set fire to a short-term rental house he had in new orleans where bomb making material was found in a, quote, effort to destroy it and other evidence of the crime. that comes as we continue to learn more about the victims of the new year's attack. joining me now from new orleans is nbc news correspondent kathy park. what's the situation? >> reporter: ali, good morning to you. i can tell you that bourbon street is back open for business. this road, this iconic street

reopened thursday afternoon. i can tell you there is certainly still a somberness in the air, especially when you get closer to the memorial, you see flowers, candles honoring those 14 lives lost. but the investigation presses on, ali, as you were mentioning earlier. right now the fbi is saying they received nearly 1,000 tips so far and these leads are coming in from all across the country. we saw fbi agents actually go back to the home in huge registered to jabbar. a point we saw a gray sedan being removed from the property. it's unclear if there was any sort of connection to the suspect. but they're combing through several pieces of evidence at that home as well as the short-term rental here in the new orleans area. they uncovered bomb making materials at both of these locations and they will continue

to process this information. the younger brother of jabbar has been speaking to media. he said there were no red flags before the attack. he said that he is a father of three. and everything that has happened so far is a shock to him as well. meanwhile, there is greater scrutiny over the security system, the barriers here on bourbon street. in fact, there was a security assessment, analysis that was taken place in 2019. the conclusion was the barriers that were currently in place were just not good enough. and they urged and recommended that those barriers be replaced. meanwhile, going back to those victims, there is a prayer service happening right now, ali. faith leaders from across the region as well as community leaders are coming together, remembering those lives lost. the president also announcing that he will be in the area on monday with the first lady, ali? >> kathy, thank you for your

reporting. nbc's kathy park for us in new orleans. coming up, i'll tell you the most important news story you haven't heard enough about, hackers linked to the chinese government reached nine telecom companies in at&t and verizon the most significant cyber espionage campaign in history. p.

♪♪ i want to turn now to a hugely-consequential but largely overlooked store y that's been unwinding. on friday, the u.s. announced sanctions against china's integrity technology group, a beijing-based cybersecurity firm over its alleged links to hacking group flax typhoon, which has been accused of carrying out a litany of cyberattacks on americans in recent weeks. american officials accuse the company of providing the infrastructure that enabled chinese hackers to launch

attacks against u.s. targets. it comes after the u.s. treasury department disclosed earlier this week that flax typhoon had stolen unclassified documents in what it described as a major incident. flax typhoon specifically targeted a high--sensitive office at treasury, the office of foreign assets control or ofac which administers economic sanctions a key tool in america's national security arsenal. the attack also targeted the office of treasury secretary janet yellen. targeting underscores beijing's determination to acquire intelligence on its biggest rival, according to officials who spoke to "the washington post." china's growing cyber espionage operations fbi director christopher wray called the most significant campaign in history, largely flew under the radar in 2024. but experts warn that such attacks are likely to increase as beijing seeks to gain a competitive advantage in

technology, economics and security. friday's sanctions are tied to a previous cyber hacking operation in which flax typhoon seized control of more than 260,000 internet connected devices, including cameras and routers which u.s. officials say the chinese government used to spy on sensitive organizations. flax typhoon has been active since at least 2021, but u.s. officials say they were only able to rest control of the devices from the hackers in september. the chinese operation infiltrated numerous sectors including university, media organizations and government agencies causing significant financial loss as organizations scrambled to replace their infected hardware and their software. at the time, the fbi director characterized the operation to shut the network down as one round in a much longer fight. and just last week, a ninth u.s. telecom company was confirmed to be hacked in a separate espionage campaign. this one called salt typhoon,

targeting the u.s. telecom network. the infiltration of nine telecoms also led to the theft of significant amounts of american data including call records, text messages, phone calls themselves and potentially sensitive government communications. according to the white house, chinese hackers were able to geo locate millions of people and record phone calls at will. u.s. officials say the breach mainly affected u.s. officials and other high-profile political figures. earlier this week at&t and verizon said they no longer detected chinese hackers on their networks. in the past year, authorities have traced several major hacking operations back to beijing, including the illegal collection of call data from the trump and harris campaigns during the election. 2024 intelligence assessment by the director of national sbenls warned that, quote, china remained the most akive and persistent cyber threat to the u.s. government, private sector and critical infrastructure

networks. with more on this i'm joined by china cyber expert, sam sacks, senior fellow. sacks testified numerous times before congress on china's technology and cyber policies. sam, good to see you. thank you for being with us. >> thank you, ali. >> china says these are groundless, accused the u.s. of attacking their own cyber attacks. is this something that's as serious as what i just read sounded? >> i think we're entering a period where cyberattacks are ramping up as the u.s. and china enter a period of uncertainty in their relationship. but what's notable here is the level of sophistication we're seeing by chinese hackers. you mentioned the dizzying a array of salt typhoon, vault typhoon, flex typhoon, they were prepositioning critical infrastructure, we can shut down

power and water systems. right now we're in a period of potentially significant uncertainty in the relationship and china's capabilities have certainly improved in ways that have. >> reporter: concerning to u.s. officials. >> yeah, vault typhoon you just talked about, this is interesting. when we talk about the major conflict, at the moment we have a potential trade war with china. what does major conflict mean? china goes into taiwan and the u.s. decides to stand up for taiwan, that china has potential ability to disrupt infrastructure in america? >> we have to look at cyberattacks as an extension of military power. in the event on an armed confrontation between the u.s. and chinese militaries, i think that cyber tools would certainly be on the table. and by showing up in utilities companies that are in places like guam, the west coast, what this signals is that in the event of a conflict, those west coast assets would very much be in play. and cyber is going to work in

conjunction with sort of traditional military powers and so this is something that we have to be sort of very cognizant of. >> there are a lot of calls, growing calls for lawmakers and for the federal communication commission to regulate the cybersecurity of tell low come companies. i'm surprised that it's not regulated. tell me how that would work? is that something we should absolutely be doing and why haven't we if we haven't done it yet? >> the telecom system is built before an era of digitization. it's the premoderner ra. that's one of the reasons why i think our systems are so vulnerable. the problem is hardening the telecom system would require essentially rebuilding it from scratch. how do you do that? there's a separate issue around critical infrastructure, the power and the water systems. that is something where i think traditionally we've relied on companies to make their own assessments of how much to invest in cybersecurity, in part because of the legitimate

argument that the private sector may be more quick to respond to changes in the technology. so government regulations could be outdated before they're even effective. i think now there's a real debate. do these cybersecurity requirements -- do cybersecurity standards need to be required, particularly when we're talking about our water, our power systems, our aviation, our rail? or is this something we need to leave up to industry to take a more flexible approach? that's a source of debate right now. the other issue is encryption. the u.s. government is now calling for ordinary americans to use encrypted communications devices. something the fbi for a long time has been hesitant to do because of the problem of going dark in the national security implications of that. so we're in a new realm here. i think there's important debates playing out about how do we secure our systems in an era of strategic competition between the u.s. and china. >> is that -- is there leadership on this? because i remember struggling since 2015, 2016 to figure out

whether we should be regulating security in social media and we had korpgal hearings where people didn't know how to use their phones. are we having real discussions about this that we should be having? or are you and i just having this discussion? >> you know, the biden administration took significant steps to increase cybersecurity standards. the question now as we go into the trump administration is what happens? an era where i think there's a lot of questions about what does it mean to take sort of hardline approach on regulation in these emerging technologies. in some cases these are technologies we don't even know what the implications of them are going to be in the future. so how do you regulate that? one of the questions i've had son federal privacy law. this is where privacy and cybersecurity intersect. so, for example, the previous era of china hacks, ek kwi fax, office of personal management the day that that was exfiltrated was not secure. so do we need to have requirements on how sensitive

data is stored. how long can it be kept. and that's a separate question. will congress move forward on federal privacy law. >> sam, good to talk to you about this. sam sacks, thank you. still ahead, republican mike johnson was re-elected as speaker of the house yesterday in a dramatic vote. new republican congress begins. my next guest says the speaker fight is over but keep your popcorn close. democratic congressman of georgia hank johnson joins me. you're watching "velshi." me. you're watching "velshi. out the? looks right. nooo... nooo... quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty absorbs spills like a sponge. and is 2x more absorbent so you can use less. power outages can be unpredictable, inconvenient, and disruptive to your life, posing a real threat to your family's comfort and safety. when the power goes out, you have no lights, no refrigeration, no heating or air conditioning.

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♪♪ the day's long remembrances for late jimmy carter have begun in georgia. last hour a motorcade traveled from americus to plains, georgia. briefly stopping in archery, georgia. joining us is priya sridhar. good to see you again. what's going on? i think the motorcade is not stopping until it gets to atlanta at this point. what's the rest of the schedule look like? >> reporter: yeah, that's right, ali. the motorcade carrying the former president's remains is on its way here to atlanta where it will briefly stop at the georgia state capitol and governor kemp, along with other local leaders, will be leading a moment of silence before it ultimately comes here to the carter center where there will be a private service with carter's family members and, of course, some

long-time staffers of the carter center. after that, he will lie in repose here and beginning at 7:00 p.m., members of the public who want to pay their last respects can do so here at the carter center until tuesday morning at 6:00 a.m. when his remains will be flown to washington, d.c. at that point, there will be another processional with a motorcade. and it will stop by the navy memorial briefly for a moment of silence, honoring, of course, his navy service. and then his hearse will be transferred to a horse-drawn carriage and ultimately taken to the capitol rotunda where he will lie in state. any mourners who want to pay their last respects can visit him there. now the national funeral services will be taking place at the national cathedral in washington, d.c. on thursday. president biden has declared that a day of mourning. he's expected to deliver a eulogy at those services. we're also expecting

president-elect trump to be there. and ali, i can tell you having been here at the carter center for the days following his passing, i had the opportunity to speak with several mourners. you can see some people behind me here putting flowers and candles. he really -- his life really resonated with so many people. and we're expecting that we'll see several of them here wanting to pay their last respects. ali? >> priya, thank you very much. nbc's priya sridhar at the carter presidential center in atlanta. joining us now is hank johnson, democratic congressman of georgia. member of the house judiciary committee. congressman a lot of politics and congress stuff to talk to you about, but let's start with jimmy carter. his funeral procession moving through your shared home state of georgia as we speak. let's talk about jimmy carter. we talked about specific life presidency and post presidency. one we haven't talked a lot about his record of diversifying the judicial bench. it's a underrated part of his

legacy. >> yeah, it is. you know, when president carter came into office in 1976, across the nation's history up to that time only eight women and 31 people of color had been appointed to serve in the federal courts of this country. and in four short years with 262 overall appointments to the federal bench, president carter diversified the bench by appointing 40 women and 57 people of color to the bench, including ruth bader ginsburg who ascended to the supreme court. and also, gosh, another justice stephen breyer was one of president carter's appointments. he made it to the united states

supreme court. president carter was one of the only presidents who did not get an opportunity to make an appointment to the u.s. supreme court. but he certainly made his mark in terms of diversifying the federal bench. and that trend continues to this day. you can chalk it up to him being the first one to do it. >> yeah. and it's interesting because his heritage and his upbringing didn't always suggest that would be the case. he -- it's almost like, jonathan alter was saying, it's almost like he made up for it later in life. he doesn't think he was on the right side of the history when he started and he decided he was going to live out civil rights and equality when he got into positions of power starting as governor of georgia and then ultimately in the presidency. >> well, you know, he was raised in a poor family, a farmer, a family of farmers.

his daddy was a segregationist, but his mother, lilian, was a progressive, caring woman and she taught jimmy to not look at black people as being subhuman. he was not a racist and neither was she. and so, you know, i think those kinds -- he made clear choices as a young person, you know, which side of the fence he was going to be on. and he chose his mother's side of the fence to be on, to his credit. and his life -- i mean, he made such an impact on the continent of africa. >> yep. >> when most presidents would not be concerned about anything going on in africa. but president carter visited africa, as president. and he continued his care and concern about the people of

africa and human rights throughout africa, throughout the remainder of his life, even to the point of eradicating the guinea worm, which -- it's pretty much eradicated just based on jimmy carter's effort to eradicate that disease, which afflicted so many people throughout africa. >> yeah. there were -- i don't know how many millions of cases there were in 1986 around last year there were 14 cases of guinea worm in the world. in fact, i met jimmy carter on a flight to nelson mandela's funeral in 2013. he was -- he took a very strong position in favor of the anc and nelson mandela. nelson mandela was subsequently allowed a terrorist even after he was elected president of sou africa and was not allowed to get a visa. >> that is one of the things that president carter should be known for. he was a visionary and he

actually was way before his time on certain things, like apartheid in south africa. like climate change. like the need to diversify the federal bench. like peace the middle east. so many things that he acted on out of a visionary state of mind may not have been popular at the time, but yet over the course of time, we now see that president carter was so on top of things and such a great leader even though his reputation at the time and even all the way up to this time has been that his presidency was a failed presidency. >> right. >> but actually the man was a visionary before his time. if we had continued with rolling

out solar panels not just on the white house. >> right. >> but on everybody's house, can >> we would be in a different place. >> how far we would have advanced. yeah, that's exactly right, economically and environmentally. >> congressman, we have to talk about congress, but we have to leave that for another time. that's okay. you and i will have lots of opportunities and a lot of stuff going on in congress for us to talk about. i appreciate you joinings today to remember jimmy carter. democratic congressman hank johnson of georgia. still ahead, huge meeting of the velshi book club next weekend. i'll reveal the title and the guests after a quick break. i'm going to give you a hint. it's the most famous book about book banning ever. ♪♪ ♪ i'm amy grant, and i want to talk to you from my heart about the heart. i would have been the last person on the list to say this woman has a problem with her heart. so, no, there was nothing about my life that said, you have a ticking time bomb in your chest. but i did.

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z's bakery is looking to add a pizza oven, arissa's hair salon wants to expand their space, and steve's t-shirt shop wants to bring on more help. with the comcast business 5-year price lock guarantee, they can think more about possibilities for their business and not the cost of their internet. it's five years of gig-speeds and advanced security. all from the company with 99.9% network reliability. get the 5-year price lock guarantee, now back for a limited time. powering five years of savings. powering possibilities™. . there are some books that have come to represent this era of censorship and book banning in america like the hands made

tale and all boys aren't blue by george jauns. there's another book, though, that incapsulates the insidious realities of a society without books, without intellectual curiosity, without critical thinking. a book that warns us what our world would look like under totalitarian control. i'm talking about "fahrenheit 451." published nearly 75 years ago it takes place in a bleak near future where books are banned and burned by so-called firemen. it reads as eerily prescient. it's also a feature film. >> can you read any book? >> sir, any book, sir. >> the bible to the white house and moby dick.

this is all you need to know. anything else will make you sick and crazy. and that's why we're here, to protect you and to keep you safe and happy. understood? >> yes, sir. >> please rise. >> self is strength. boo. >> don't worry, don't worry. these are for training purposes only, okay? now, have any of you guys ever seen one of these bad things for real? we burned almost every physical book in the country, so by the time you guys grow up, there won't be one book left. he should probably raise his hands a little higher, right? i might miss.

>> now, surprisingly this is a book we've not yet covered on the velshi ban book club despite it being the book about book banning. so next week we're finally opening the pages of fahrenheit 451. between now and next weekend open up your copy of fahrenheit 451 even if the last time you read it was in high school english class. then write to us at my story at velshi.com with your reactions and questions. that does it for me. thank you for watching. i'll be back tomorrow morning from 10:00 a.m. to noon eastern. if you missed anything from today's show, velshi is available as a podcast. you can always find velshi content on youtube at msnbc.com/ali. i