>> 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 promise the link does in fact

go to youtube. stay where you are. the katie phang show begins right now. this is the katie phang show live from telemundo studios in miami, florida. felon in chief? less than one week from today donald trump's sentencing in a manhattan courtroom. the ark of justice is struggling to survive. and past is prologue. what history could teach us about the grave threat posed by trump's promise to pardon the january 6th insurrectionists. then speaker mike's margin. mike johnson may have won his re-election by house speaker by the skin of his teeth. through the smallest majority in nearly a century, can he get anything done without the blessing of democrats? plus, final good-bye. former former president jimmy carter's funeral gets under way today.

and then confession. what happens with authority figures that are hell bent at getting what they want? all that and more is coming up. on january 20th donald trump may be the first convicted felon to take the oath of office of the president of the united states. yesterday judge juan merchan announced the sentencing date. in an 18-page decision merchan denied trump's attempts to set aside the jury's verdict finding him guilty for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. 34 felonies. but, at the same time, merchan also signaled that he is likely to impose a unconditional discharge, which means no jail time or even probation for donald trump. although, his felony convictions

would still stand. joining me now is joyce vance, co-host of the sisters in law podcast. you have talked to me off a ledge many times when it comes to my anger and ire. merchan is considering a sentence of unconditional discharge, as i just noted for our viewers no jail time, no probation. why not just sentence him for the 34 felonies that a jury found him guilty for and just hold it inned vance until he's done serving in office? >> so let me try to talk you off the ledge of this one a little bit, katie, and we'll see if it works. i think what the judge is doing here is he's trying to send a final message about the rule of law to a country that disregarded it when it voted to re-elect donald trump. and here's the technical legal skinny behind what he's doing. almost certainly if he had

sentenced donald trump to custody and tried to incarcerate him, that sentence would have been suspended. and even if he imposed the conditions that we traditionally associate with a criminal conviction, fines or a term of probation and supervised release following pronouncement of sentence, those two would have been reversed on appeal by an appellate court because they would have infringed on the presidency. whether we like it or not, that's how the law would look. . by issuing this clean situation where he'll have the opportunity to lay out trump's conduct, to condemn it and explain why he isn't receiving a custodial sentence i think this is merchan trying to do the best he can in a difficult situation. and, you know, not for nothing. one of donald trump's lawyers in this proceeding will be the number 2 official at the justice department. this is an opportunity to give the public and those lawyers an

abject lesson in the rule of law and accountability even though donald trump won't face what you would, and i, too, frankly would determine an appropriate sort of punishment for this conviction. >> okay, but, joyce, not all cases are the same. i get it. justice, though, supposed to be blind. how does this outcome, the only one that we have seen in terms of accountability in a criminal case for donald trump not spitting in the face of the grand jury that returned the indictment, not spitting in the face of jurors who sat in service for seven weeks. unanimously i would remind people because of fears of harm by trump and his supportersch how does this not mean then or send a message that you can buy your way back into the oval office so that you can attain some measure of immunity? i know merchan rejected the president-elect immunity, but post-scotus, post this idea you can have this immunity, why would any criminal not want to just buy their way ala elon musk

into the oval office so that they can do things without impunity -- with impunity? >> yeah, i think the argument that you make is a powerful one, right? anyone with the ability to inch their way into the oval office can apparently avoid virtually all accountability for criminal conduct. and it's worth remembering that the charges in this case, the manhattan d.a.'s case involved conduct that predates the presidency. this is cleanest case. this is a case where trump doesn't have any form of presidential immunity. the judge has rejected his bogus argument that because some of that conduct continued into the white house he somehow is able to back plus it. but that cleary didn't work with judge merchan or the new york courts. and the problem as you say is what does this teach us about the rule of law going forward? and it's hard to avoid this negative message that donald trump has outrun justice. so i think in the final moments that are left to him, judge

merchan is doing the best he can in a really terrible situation that none of us wanted to be in to try to at least send home a message that there is still, if not accountability for donald trump, accountability for others, that the criminal justice system can be used in virtually all case. look, i know neither one of us finds that to be completely satisfying, and i think we need to acknowledge that that's a problem here. but this is a judge who i think still has another couple of tricks up his sleeve. >> we're going to talk about accountability for others in a moment, so just hang out because i'm going to talk with you in just a minute about trump's day one initiatives. so president-elect donald trump has threatened to enact sweeping changes on the first day of his presidency including pardoning most if not all of the january 6th insurrectionists. >> we're going to look at everything. >> everyone. okay. >> but i'm going to be acting

very quickly. >> within your first 100 days, first day? >> first day. >> more than 1,500 have been charged, more than 1,200 have been convicted or have pleaded guilty. but these numbers, they pail in comparison to another mass pardoning. president andrew johnson pardoned the entire confederacy. first it was just former confederates who owned less than $20,000 in property. that's nearly half a million dollars today, provided that they took an oath of loyalty to the union. wealthy confederate officials had to make a direct appeal to the president. johnson personally granted all of them, more than 13,000 pardoned petitions. then finally on christmas day, december 25, 1868, johnson proclaimed the following. unconditionally and without reservation a full pardon and amnesty for the offense of

treason against the united states or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the constitution and the laws. thus, the confederates found all of their rights restored without requiring a loyalty oath. convicted felons have their right to vote and to hold office revoked, but due to johnson's unconditional pardon, these former confederates were free to remake the south in their image. they enacted laws to erase reconstruction reforms, and they utilized violence and intimidation to terrorize black communities, leaving ramifications still felt by this generation more than 150 years later. joyce vance, back with me now. so, joyce, we know what happened post-reconstruction. you did a fantastic article for the brennen center in which you wrote, the january 6th

defendants returned give a boost to the white supremacist and domestic terrorist groups, many of them participated in before they overran the capitol, and it would severely dampen the deterrent effectf our laws against future aggression. we talked about accountability for others, joyce, just a minute ago. talk about this accountability for january 6th insurrectionists. >> it all bleeds together, right? we are now facing a moment where a president who has outrun accountability for the insurrection would, in effect, pardon the people who made that insurrection possible. and trump has said he intends to issue these pardons. he said he might do it within the first minutes of his new administration. katie, you and i both know how the pardon process works. typically people file applications. they're considered individually. people who were violent, an ongoing threat to the community aren't up for pardon. and trump is turning that broad

power he has on its head by considering restoring these people -- as you pointed out in earlier cases these are people who have never been accountable for their conduct, and throwing them back into communities, which is the ultimate gesture of thumbing trump's nose at the rule of law. >> joyce, do you consider whether or not we're going to see a party for seditious insurrectionists. with trump all bets are off, right? >> it's not at all clear. his transition team has not ruled out pardons for the oath keepers or member of other groups that openly engaged in sedition, were convicted of those crimes probably the zenith on january 6th. if trump were to do that, the question we have to ask is would that be a bridge too far for

some republicans? i think memories in this country are short. the horror and outralk we seemed to experience as a unified country on january 6th has subsided. at this point post-election it might be too little too late. >> you know, joyce, before i have to let you go, the oath of office for the president of the united states talks about defending, protecting the constitution of the united states. what other remaining safeguards -- what do we have left for the guardrails? your piece for the brennen center talks about how this was all have personal gain, this january 6th, these insurrections, and yet he's going to raise his right hand and swear he's going to protect and defend the u.s. constitution again. >> well, i expect he will do that unichronically with the sense that protecting the constitution means protecting donald trump. but, look, most of the

guardrails are broken, right? congress is now in donald trump's hands. he has a majority in both houses albeit a slim one, and the question is whether new guardrails will reemerge. i teach and study in the area of democratic institutions. nature abhors a vacuum, and shg we have to do as americans is figure out how to rebuild the guardrail. whether that means looking at mid-term elections or returning majorities in both congress that would return a balance to this increasingly imperial presidency or whether a new voice will emerge that can check trump. >> at the end of your substacks or end of of your piece you talk about how we're in this together. i'm with you and everyone else tuning in. i appreciate having you here, my friend. coming up next on the katie phang show, the hand that feeds as republicans confront their

dwindling majority in congress how will mike johnson avoid blow back for the deals you and i both know he's inevitably going to cut for hakeem jeffries? keep it right here. hakeem jeffs keep it right here when we started feeding bogie the farmer's dog,

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gavel, but his win was not without some signature republican dysfunction. a trio of conservative rebels, shall we call them, initially voted directly against johnson, but then donald trump put his thumb on the scale working those holdouts to reverse their votes. two of the three eventually relented handing johnson the 218 votes he needed to secure victory. but now johnson's job gets even harder. with the house majority set to shrink as two members are set to leave to work in trump's administration. so coupled with matt gaetz's unceremonious exit, republicans will have just a 217-seat majority, so just one defector would be enough to kill a bill. joining me now is congresswoman sarah jacobs of california. congresswoman, happy new year. thanks for joining us. look, this is going to sound like a broken record because we kind of went through this with the 118th, but house

republicans, they've got their work cut out for them. they've got to fund that government, fund trump's immigration and taxes and extend the debt ceiling with warnings from janet yellen already about a debt crisis. what are the thauds they're going to get things done with such a razor thin margin? >> look, i think what yesterday showed us is that this republican majority is just like the one we had in the 118th. they are unable to govern, and they are not serious about actually making progress on the issues affecting the american people, and so, you know, house democrats remain ready to have bipartisan conversations, making sure that we are doing the work of the american people. i know i was represented -- i was elected to still get things done for my community even amidst all of this chaos, and that's what we're going to keep trying to do, but i think it's clear that donald trump controls the republicans in the house and that, you know, they are going to be having just the same chaos and dysfunction that we've seen for the past two years.

>> congresswoman, new year, hopefully some change. i understand that we might be stuck in a rut when it comes to the dysfunction on the other side, but let's talk about this. according to nbc news analysis, this 119th congress, it's the third oldest since 1789 with an average member age of 58.9 years old. you were the youngest representative from california when you took office in 2021. so with congress getting older, what are you doing? how are you working to give the younger generations a much needed voice in congress? >> you know, this is such an important point, and, you know, i think young people really are a big part of what happened in this election, and i think what we need to understand is that for folks in my generation, in genz, the generation younger, a lot of us we grew up under the haze of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, the forever wars. i was ipmiddle school when september 11th happened, and then we survived the great

recession and then covid happened. and i think making sure that we're actually showing that government can deliver on the things impacting young people, you know, i know for a lot of folks that's the cost of living, particularly housing, and now for my generation child care, and making sure that we're actually talking about the things that matter to young people is going to be important and showing we understand. katie, i think wave talked before. one of my signature bills is called the my data, my data act and it's all about protecting period tracking apps. that's important because i use a period tracking app myself and i realized this data wasn't protected. we can get together and figure out how we can continue being that voice even amidst the situation we're in right now. >> quickly before i let you go now, i do want to follow up with that. it's one thing to have a conversation with me and other younger members of congress and other constituents, but my

question is how is it being received internally, being received with members of congress within your own party to try to effect the change that this election clearly show we need? >> you know, it's a good question, and i will say i have had some very interesting conversations with my colleagues. for instance when i was introducing this bill i became the first member of congress to talk about my own periods on the house floor. yes, we track our periods. yes, there are apps to help us do that. among the democratic leadership i have found real interest in reaching out to younger folks and making sure they understand what we are hearing from our peers because i think we all understand that young people deserve a voice, they need a voice. and if we don't give them a voice, we'll continue seeing the kind of elections we just saw. >> congresswoman sara jacobs, i'm always grateful for your advocacy. i do know you're always fighting the good fight for all of us, so thanks for being here. i appreciate it. >> of course.

thank you. and joining me now is natasha alford, senior vice president of the greo and author of american negra. natasha, trump pushing a lie in the wake of the horrific new orleans attack linking that to the border and immigration saying it was an illegal immigrant, quote-unquote despite the truth the perpetrator was an american citizen born and raised in texas who served for more than a decade in the united states army. how dangerous is this his rhetoric goes unchecked and uncorrected often when there's this kind of level of violence involved against our own americans? >> it's extremely dangerous, katie. it's not only dangerous, but i think what i fear is that it's become so normal that people in some ways expect it and perhaps are desensitized to it. this is part of a larger phenomenon in politics,

particularly in the trump era where donald trump cherry picks events to fit narratives that are exploitative, that are politically advantageous but not necessarily true, right? and we know that the truth is complicated, it's nuanced, but there's no room for that when donald trump is trying to promote a narrative. and so this was extremely dangerous and also deflects from the reality of domestic terrorism which is very real. in 2021 president biden issued a national strategic response to adomestic terrorism, and it was about not just talking tough but getting to the root of the problem. and so in this second trump era that we are about to enter, what is scary is that you will hear a lot of talk -- tough talk about how we address the issues of terrorism or who the supposed threat is, but it's not necessarily going to get at the

root problem. and so like a hydra you can cut one head off and two more will grow. just because donald trump says he's going to take a tough approach to terrorism, in many ways a lot of the rhetoric and approaches that he takes may actually feed and radicalize even more people against the government. >> natasha, i got less than a minute, but i do want to ask you about this. anne tellnis, and i apologize if i pronounced her name incorrectly, a cartoonist at "the washington post" recently quit the publication after they killed a cartoon she was going to post that she drew of billionaire tech and media executives like jeff bezos trying to curry favor in this president-elect trump. in this trump 2.0 era we're about to get into, doesn't it seem like the free press is even more danger now? >> i mean, if you can't on journalists to be able to speak the truth, and particularly those who work in the editorial space should be able to speak

their truth, what do we have, right? we are looking at an era where everyone has a microphone, but our sort of final line, the people who are supposed to hold the line are these institutions of journalism. and so it is sad, it's scary, and it's a reminder of the times that we're in. but the courage of her to step away, to make a statement, to not just quietly go away is what i think everyone should be tapping into in this time. >> natasha alford, it's good to see you. thanks for being here. happy new year. >> happy new year. still to come, final firual. we're going to go live to georgia where today former president jimmy carter's motorcade is making its way from his boyhood home to the library in atlanta. stay with us as the nation prepares to honor the long life and legacy of our 39th president. and legacy of our 39th president. vapocool drops? it's sore throat relief with a rush of vicks vapors. ♪ vapocooooool ♪ whoa.

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today kicks off nearly a week of events honoring and celebrating the life of former president jimmy carter. earlier this morning the 39th president's family gathered at phoebe sumter medical center in georgia to escort his body to waiting motorcade. the motorcade then drove through plains, georgia, where carter was born and spent most of his life, stopping briefly at his family farm. they are now headed for atlanta where there will be a moment of silence held at the georgia state capitol. joining me now is nbc news correspondent priya sridhar live from the carter center in atlanta. what other events are planned for later today? >> reporter: that's right, katie. well, the hearse that's carrying the former president's remains is on its way to atlanta in a motorcade being escorted by both former and current secret service agents that were part of the carter protective division. and as you mentioned, they'll be

stopping first at the georgia state capitol at around 3:00 local time for a moment of silence led by governor kemp and other local and state leaders before they ultimately get here to the carter center where a private service with family members and members of the military will be held at around 3:45. we know that the moorehouse glee club will actually be singing the battle hymn of the republic and navy hymn and some long time staff members of the carter center will also be there at the request of the family. and ultimately, the former president will lie in repose. and beginning at 7:00 p.m. it's open to the public for mourners that want to come in and pay their last respect until 6:00 a.m. on tuesday morning. at that point his remains will be flown to washington, d.c. where another motorcade will have a processional that goes by the navy memorial and pause there for his role as commander in chief during his presidency and also his time in the navy.

his remains will then be taken to the capitol rotunda where he'll lie in state for a few days until thursday, and members of the public can also go and pay their respects in the nation's capitol. and ultimately, his funeral service will be held at the national cathedral in washington, d.c. on thursday. president biden, of course, has declared that a day of mourning, and he's expected to deliver a eulogy at those services and also expecting president-elect trump will attend and all of this two weeks before inauguration day. >> joining me now is jonathan alter, msnbc contributor and the author of the amazing biography "his very best, jimmy carter a life." jonathan, i know you've had your hands full the last few days. grateful you had some time for us today. we spent the last week hearing incredible stories about the life and public service about

jimmy carter. i did want to ask you because you knew him so well, what's one thing most people would not know about jimmy carter? >> well, i think they might not know that the -- the kind of very warm, grandfatherly carter that they might see on tv with a ready quip and a big smile and the jimmy carter working as you're seeing on a habitat for humanity site and all the astonishing other accomplishments of his long and astonishingly productive life, that they are the product not just of faith but of a spirit of intensity that is hard to see from far away. i asked his son jeff once, his third son, can you give be one word to describe your father? and the word he used was

"intense." this man offered a kind of master class in making every minute of your life count. and andrew young, the top aide to martin luther king and he was jimmy carter's u.n. ambassador, he told me once, you know, he so reveres and loves jimmy carter, but when he's in his presence he feels a little inadequate because this is somebody who is truly not just talking the talk but walking the walk in everything that he does. he's all in. he was never on miller time even when he was recreating, fishing. he was making peace between war and leaders, doing it with

persistence and an attention to detail that he was sometimes criticized for but that actually is what really made the difference in getting to success. now, you just saw a moment ago his teaching sunday school class, and i was fortunate enough sometimes even before or after an interview to attend several of his sunday school classes at marinatha baptist church in plains, georgia. and these were just superb lessons. he wasn't preaching. i think people sometimes think he was sanctimonious. he wasn't. but he was so enormously knowledgeable, and the spiritual quality of his view of life came through so that the people who had camped out all night, sometimes see him cutting the grass or rosalynn vacuuming the sanctuary, when they got in to

listen to the sunday school class, it was kind of a bucket list experience for them. and so this was a moral exemplar for our times, and he led what can only be described as an epic american life. >> jonathan, it's hard to talk about jimmy carter. we've just been showing so many images of him without mentioning his wife rosalynn. 77-yearlong marriage. people called her his secret weapon as he campaigned and elected to the white house. when she passed away he wrote rosalynn was my equal partner in everything i accomplished. talk a little bit briefly about their relationship and how important she was to jimmy carter. >> well, they knew each other for 97 years, if you can believe that. so jimmy carter's mother, ms. lillian, who entertained everybody on johnny carson when he was president, she was a nurse, and she took care of

black patients for free. and her husband, jimmy's father was a segregationist, so it's a really interesting background that he came from. and ms. lillian, as she was called, delivered ms. rosalynn smith in 1937, and then brought her toddler jimmy around to see the baby a couple days after she was born. and they started dating when jimmy was at the naval academy, and she became arguably the most influential first lady in american history. now, you might say how can that possibly be true? how about eleanor roosevelt and hillary clinton and so forth? but if you define her influence on her husband who considered her his partner and his closest advisor, and she had better political skills than he did, she was enormously accomplished, got the first mental health legislation through, first immunizations for children, a huge variety of accomplishments

they did together even though they went through very difficult times politically. and of course he lost when he ran for re-election. but this was one of the great partnerships ever, if you actually study what they did together. and almost nobody was married -- has been married for 77 years. you can count on two hands the number of americans who can claim that. >> jonathan alter, i want to thank you for this insight. i invite everybody to read your biography. and i do note as we're about to emp bark on this 47th presidency administration, this is kind of a sobering remind about what a presidency and a man and a marriage of humility and decency and morality, what that looked like. thank you for joining us. >> thanks, katie. coming up next, a complete shock. how a former u.s. army commander working in corporate accounting

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so we're learning more details about the plan of the new orleans attacker who killed 14 people by plowing into a busy bourbon street on new year's day. in a joint statement by the fbi and the atf, authorities say shamsud din jabbar planned to use a transmitter to detonate two explosive devices that he had placed nearby. the transmitter and two guns were recovered from jabbar's truck. meanwhile, nbc news has learned that a search of his houston home turned up remnants of bomb making materials that authorities say include a very rare explosive compound not seen

before in a u.s. terror attack. officials are still trying to find out what led jabbar, a texas-born u.s. citizen and army veteran to carry out this isis-inspired terror attack. for more joining me now director of the polarization and extremism research and innovation lab and the author of "hate in the homeland, the new global far right." thank you for joining us and lending your insight. i have to ask you about this. we noticed there was that cyber truck explosion in las vegas, this attack in new orleans. both united states veterans. you know, former service members sometimes they are radicalized it seems more easily. is there some type of connection to their service in the military and this idea that they can be radicalized? >> there is, unfortunately. first, you have to say the vast

majority of veterans, the vast majority of active duty military service members do not get radicalized, are not going to go down those pathways. but there is a type of vulnerability or exit from the military that can make people more susceptible when they lost something that gave them such meaning, such a sense of heroic duty, of purpose in their life, when they become more vulnerable at that moment to propaganda that comes from groups that offer that to them, whether that's the oath keepers or that's isis. >> in a post tomist #.com you call this an urgent national warning. in fact, the fbi had issued a warning to law enforcement on december 6th to prepare for low tech vehicle ramming attacks on outdoor crowds during the holiday season. was there a failure by law enforcement here? >> well, i think we put a lot in the hands of law enforcement. if our expectation is that

they're going to be perfect every time in a moment when all you need is a heavy vehicle and a crowd of people at an outdoor market or a holiday celebration, i think what i argued in that piece and what i have continued to argue is that we put too much emphasis on the law enforcement side of things, on the securization of our lives, of trying to keep ourselves safe by bidding better barricades instead of investing the more human components of intervention determining why people are searching for something, what they need in terms of a sense of community, of purpose, and how we can make them more media and digital literate so that they recognize propaganda when they encounter it. >> sinth cynthia, i read someth. he wrote people pick their own ideology to suit their grievances but it's not the

radicalization but the mobilization to violence. i thought that was fascinating, this idea you could be radicalized by a movement, by a meaning. but it's not so much the radicalization as it is the mobilization to the violence. >> yeah, this is -- john's right. there's two different components here. one is the radicalization to the ideas and the other is mobilization to violence based on those ideas. the u.s. historically has been concerned with the second thing, which is it's okay for a person to become radicalized. that's their free speech, their right. what we want to make sure is a radicalized person doesn't pick up a weapon and harm anyone. i think that's a mistake leave ourselves in the hands of expecting law enforcement every time. it's an impossible ask. we have to start thinking a little bit more how we invest in the first part of it. what would it look like to equip people with more information? >> cynthia miller, i want to thank you for joining us.

i wish i had more time. want you to come back. i want to urge everybody who's watching right now and listening, please read the piece that you wrote -- that cynthia wrote because you talk about primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, which you just mentioned right now, this idea that maybe we need to start at the beginning to stop this from even happening so that we can save more lives. thank you for being here. i appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. coming up next false confessions. what would it take to get you to confess to a crime you know you didn't commit. amanda knox takes us inside the interrogation room. you're watching the katie phang show only on msnbc. the katie ph show only on msnbc

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even though president-elect donald trump was convicted of 34 felonies, he may never serve a day in jail. but many innocent people do end up behind bars for decades. according to the innocence project 25% of wrongful convictions that were overturned by dna evidence involve a false confession. joining me now is amanda knox who spent nearly four years in an italian prison and nearly eight years on trial for a murder she didn't commit. she now co-hosts the podcast labyrinths. she's also the author of the forthcoming book "free, my search for meaning." amanda, thanks for joining us. since your acquittal and your release, you've used your platform to advocate for the wrongly accused.

talk about why it was so important to do this. why relive part of this process you also walked in terms of your own journey? >> that's a great question, katie. to be honest when i came home from prison i really wanted to go back to the life i had before i was wrongly accused and thrown into prison, and i realized that wasn't really an option for me. not just because the media would not leave me alone but also because i was deeply changed by this experience. i now knew something about the world and about the criminal justice system that i had no access to before it happened to me. i was raised to trust police, to have faith in the system, and i was ignorant. i didn't know a lot of what i knew today. and after meeting other wrongly convicted people, i realize that because my case was so huge in the media and because i don't look like your typical

wrongfully convicted person, i could be a bridge between the kinds of people who end up being victimized, and the kinds of people who like me remained ignorant about the system. and so i felt like i had this important role to play in not just shedding light in what happened to me but on shedding light on what's happening to see many people behind closed doors. >>, you know, amanda, you have justifiably criticized the media and the press for being, quote, first and loudest when it came to coverage about you, your case, and what's happened with you. it's important for people to read beyond the headlines, beyond the click bait, right to be able to critically think for themselves about what's real. is that part of the reason why you also decided to write a book about what you've experienced? >> yeah. i think that inevitably these wrongful conviction cases are not black and white, and i think that's a really important thing to remember about crime in general is that when these things happen, it's not just

because there are good guys and bad guys and nothing in between. it is a complicated mess. and untangling it involves more than just sound bites and headlines. it really is just digging deep not just into the facts but also the psychology behind a lot of these things. and a huge factor in my own wrongful conviction had to do with the false confession piece. i think a lot of people despite the fact there was zero evidence of my involvement in this crime, they could not get past this counter intuitive idea that an innocent person would never implement themselves or others in a crime they had nothing to do with. and so my biggest thing i advocate for in the wrongful conviction arena is what is happening in police interrogation rooms, and what can we do to prevent innocent people from being coerced into implicating themselves and others. >> yeah, i read an interview, and you said that you thought that the police in your

instance, they were under a lot of pressure to come up with answers. that's got to be true, right? they have to be able to, quote, solve the crime and so they're hell bent on making sure that they get that. >> yes. in fact, the supreme court in their document that acquitted me definitively of having to do anything with this murder, they cited the pressure that the media was putting on these local police people to solve the crime immediately and to provide the public with that reassuring answer that they have the case closed. and, unfortunately, that led them to make very hasty decisions in arresting people before they had any evidence available to them. and it encouraged them to use these interrogation techniques against an innocent 21-year-old girl to try to force her to provide answers that she didn't have. >> amanda knox, i wish i had some more time. i would love to have you come back, because you wrote about this single victim fallacy, which was illogical, and i was

really fascinated by it. but thank you for spending the time today and i appreciate it. >> yeah, thank you for having me. and please check out my work on amandaknox.com. and if you want to learn more about false confessions you can check out my podcast lan rngts. >> and i'm going to remind everybody your book is coming out in march. i want to thank all of you for joining us today. msnbc reports with alex whit is next. today msnbc reports with alex whit is next when the power goes out, you have no lights, no refrigeration, no heating or air conditioning. the winds are not letting up at all here. we're going to see some power outages. number one thing to prepare for is extended power outages. are you prepared? you can be with a generac home standby generator. when a power outage occurs, your generac home standby generator automatically powers up, using your home's existing natural gas or propane, so your life goes on without disruption. you and your family are comfortable, safe, and secure. stay tuned, to get over a $500 value free

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♪♪ good day to