disasters. but you got to understand, this is a nakedly partizan action. you didn't hear these guys saying, well, i want to look at the emergency response in florida or, you know, to condition aid because they didn't get the truck, the taco truck there fast enough after the hurricane. they're not doing that. this is an attack on american people who made a voting decision that donald trump doesn't like. and by the way, the irony in my in my state, adding insult to injury, when i went to help these folks, there was trump signs all over town. these are people who voted for donald trump. but because the state happened to vote for a democrat, he decided to punish these americans for their voting behavior. that is what is going on. and we got to stand against this every way that we can. and martin luther king, he's going to take the office of a guy who understood, you know, one of my favorite quotes from king was,

you know, we're all part of an inescapable network of mutuality. we're in a single garment of destiny. we're all humans here. and to be treated in an inhuman fashion on martin luther king day, we shouldn't stand for that. we should be emboldened against this guy not cowering in front of him. >> well, said, james lee, good to see you as always. you are always welcome on our show as you have been for many years, and i know you get up awfully early on the west coast to talk to us, so we appreciate it. jay inslee, the former very newly former democratic governor of washington state and a soldier for democracy and the climate. another hour of velshi begins right now. friday, january 18th donald trump's second inauguration is in two days, and we have every indication that he's planning to get started on an ambitious agenda right away. this week, senate committees held confirmation hearings for 12 of his cabinet picks. a sign

of republicans intent to move quickly through the nomination process. the list of people who appeared for hearings this week include the likes of marco rubio, chosen to be secretary of state, john ratcliffe, who could soon lead the cia. both men appear likely to sail through the process. they could be confirmed by the full senate as soon as inauguration day. trump's choice for attorney general, pam bondi, also sat for two days of hearings this week, as did south dakota governor kristi noem, who's been tapped to lead the department of homeland security, a key agency that will likely play a crucial role during trump's second term as his administration looks to overhaul the country's immigration and carry out what trump has promised is going to be the largest mass deportation in u.s. history. more of trump's cabinet picks are expected to appear before senate committees after the inauguration, although some of his more controversial choices, like tulsi gabbard and robert f kennedy jr, have yet to be scheduled for a hearing. but this week kicked off with a contentious hearing over one of trump's most closely watched

picks. ever since the president elect announced pete hegseth as his choice for secretary of defense. concerns have been raised about his qualifications and his ability to lead one of the country's most powerful agencies. many americans probably know hegseth best as a fox news host, but before that, he was in the military. hegseth is an army national guard veteran. he served two tours of duty in iraq, afghanistan and guantanamo bay. he rose to the rank of major. he earned two bronze stars, but he hasn't led a large organization before. and yet, if confirmed, he will be in charge of the department of defense, which employs nearly 3 million people and has a budget of over $820 billion with a b. during the hearing, democratic lawmakers like senator elizabeth warren took him to task for some of his more controversial views, including his many past statements about women's inability to serve in combat. >> i want to be clear here for 12 years, you were quite open about your views, and your views

were consistently the same. >> women are inferior soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and guardians. and in case anyone missed the point, and these are your words from ten weeks ago, women absolutely straight up should not be permitted to serve in combat. and i notice on each of these quotes, those are said without qualification. >> it's not by how much you can lift or how fast you can run. >> they don't belong in combat, period. >> now, at his hearing, hegseth clarified that he doesn't oppose women in combat roles, but maintained that the standards for doing so must be, quote, equal and high. additionally, lawmakers on the senate armed services committee grilled hegseth over some of the allegations that have recently surfaced about him that have raised concerns about his personal and professional conduct. those allegations include an accusation of sexual assault dating back to 2017. now, in that instance, a police

report was filed, but hegseth was never charged and maintains that the encounter was consensual. his attorney told nbc news that hegseth agreed to pay his accuser as part of a nondisclosure agreement in 2023. his hearing has raised concerns about the confirmation process itself, in particular how the fbi performs background checks on these appointees. ahead of hemsworth's confirmation hearing on tuesday. some democrats on the senate armed services committee spoke to nbc news about their frustration with an apparent delay in receiving the fbi's background check. there were also concerns that it wasn't thorough enough. the report did not include interviews with his ex-wives, nor the woman who accused hegseth of sexual assault in 2017. but it's unclear whether the fbi attempted outreach to these people, and they just decided not to participate, which would be within their rights to do. while it's standard protocol to interview current and former spouses, it's also contingent on whether or not those interviewees want to

cooperate. now, despite an intense round of questioning from democrats on the committee, hegseth appears to have come out of the hearing largely unscathed, and his path toward confirmation remains on track, especially now that he's earned the public backing of iowa senator joni ernst, a key republican military veteran and survivor of sexual assault, who was seen as an important vote in ensuring that his nomination moves forward. joining me to discuss all of this is tom nichols. he's a staff writer for the atlantic. he's the author of the atlantic daily news newsletter, and he's the author of our own worst enemy the assault from within on modern democracies, also professor emeritus of national security affairs at the u.s. naval war college. he writes and knows a lot about this stuff. tom, where are we at this point with pete hegseth and what, if anything, worries you about how this last week has unfolded? well, one thing that worries me, ali, is that people are focusing on the culture war aspects of this

nomination. you know how he feels about women in the military. >> the clip you just played of elizabeth warren. >> you know, these are important questions, but i think what's getting lost in that is he will be the secretary of defense, one of the most important national security, national defense positions next to the president himself and the secretary of state and the secretary of state doesn't have, you know, an army and 3 million people working for him. he is completely unqualified for this. >> and instead of worrying about some of his sillier statements in his books, which, you know, he was writing to sell books, i guess think of the day when there's a serious crisis with russia or china or iran or some other part of the world. >> and pete hegseth is supposed to be one of the people in the room advising the president.

>> the background for this? >> yes. he was a major in the army. i taught at the naval war college. >> i taught dozens and dozens of young majors. >> they are fine men and women, but that doesn't make him qualified to be advising the president in the middle of a crisis or potentially even a nuclear crisis. >> the secretary of defense is a job that that is always reserved for someone who can meet both the intellectual experience and character standards that's required to be at the top of the pentagon. and i'll just remind people, john tower was a republican senator from texas. yes. had his nomination bounced because of allegations of drinking that were far less serious than the many allegations against pete hegseth. >> i mean, it really is remarkable that we're at this point, and i and i worry sometimes that people are focusing on the wrong thing, which is that pete hegseth has these very retrograde beliefs about a lot of things related to the military, when in fact the

real danger is he will have to be in the room during something terrible when we're going to need someone who actually knows what he's doing in there. >> you've written a lot about this and about tulsi gabbard, and both concerns are similar in that we are in a dangerous place in the world. we for once, don't have active troops fighting in wars around the world. but we have american troops all over the place, and we've got dry tinder all over the world that could explode into wars at any moment, despite the cease fire that we will see hopefully within the next 14 hours in the middle east. the middle east is not a calmer place generally. as a result, russia, ukraine is not a calmer place. north korea is not a calmer place. you're right, there's real nuclear china and taiwan. it's not a calmer place. there's real threat of real bad things happening in the world for which we need the people who have the best and most sober judgment and the most sober temperament. and i don't mean that as a pun on the allegations of drinking. i mean a level and steady temperament. and i don't think

there's any evidence of that with with pete hegseth, who again, other than having served in the military and been a morning talk show host, has no business being secretary of defense. >> and, you know, you can say this without it being personal or partizan, because i also don't have qualifications for it. >> like, that's just that's just the way it is, right? right. >> it's just the way it is. >> it's also. so here's the one, the one possible silver lining here. 3 million people, many of them are high ranking people, colonels, generals, many of them have a spine. these are people who have given their lives and risked their lives in the safety of america. he probably can't roll most of them. >> yeah, but you know, the i suspect that what will happen is the pentagon will run without him. >> his deputy at this point, the normally the secretary of defense when he's busy, the guy

who runs the pentagon is the deputy secretary of defense. >> this nominee for deputy secretary has no experience either. so this is going to devolve into a bunch of fiefdoms and offices and little principalities who are going to pretty much, you know, run either on autopilot or, you know, trying to figure out which undersecretary or assistant secretary they should listen to. >> but that's bad, too. you don't want to have a pentagon where people say, oh, the secretary of defense said some stuff, but you know who listens to him? >> you had a similar problem when jim mattis was secretary of defense, and donald trump would call him up and say, here are things i'd want to do. >> and the secretary of defense, even though mattis's instincts were right, i'm uncomfortable with the civil military relationship where the president calls the pentagon and the secretary of defense says, we're not going to do that, or in this case, the secretary of defense says, sure, whatever you want to

do, mr. president. >> and, you know, i'm not really an advisor. i'm just a guy who executes your orders. >> this is really bad in every way, and i hope that some somehow sanity prevails here. >> and the trumpet there are republicans who are perfectly credible nominees to be secretary of defense. it's not like you can't find a real republican defense expert. joni ernst is sitting right there, among others, you know, but this is apparently and her name was suggested at one point. and it is interesting because democrats have had republicans as secretaries of defense. like it's actually not the world's most partizan job, but it has to work. and as a as a professor, you have learned in all sorts of countries around the world, including today, when you have those fiefdoms and you have that separation in the defense department, things can go really wrong and people can die. tom, thanks for your your analysis and your writing on this. thank you. we appreciate it. tom nichols is a staff writer at the

atlantic. he's the author of the atlantic daily newsletter. he's the author of our own worst enemy the assault from within on modern democracy, among other books. coming up, a temporary ceasefire in gaza is set to go into effect in just hours. i'll explain what that could mean for displaced palestinians, palestinians, for israeli hostages and for a region, a region that is destroyed by brutal war. plus, firefighters continue to battle deadly fires, destroying neighborhoods in los angeles. some, but not all, of the fires have been contained. we'll get a live update. then today's meeting of the velshi banned book club will feature a book that is as close to the great american novel as has ever been written. it's galvanizing, it's infuriating, it's heart wrenching, and it's beautiful. it's both the story of one family and a nation devastated during the dust bowl migration of the 1930s. it's a novel that reminds us how far we still have to go. john steinbeck's the grapes of wrath is today's velshi banned book club selection.

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it done. >> the wildfires have continued to wreak havoc in california this week, scorching dozens of square miles and bringing the death toll to now at least 27 people. the palisades fire is currently 39% contained. now, what that means is that firefighters are in control of 39% of the area of that fire and conditions in that area, that 39% will not get worse. this particular wildfire has burned just over 37mi!s of the pacific palisades area. meanwhile, the eaton fire near pasadena is 65% contained. the damage is stretched, i'm sorry, stretched across 22mi!s of the altadena area. joining me now from altadena, california, is nbc news correspondent maggie vespa. maggie, good morning to you. at one point, there were 200,000 people under evacuation orders

there. by tuesday morning, that number had come down. there are still about 88,000 people, or at least there were under evacuation orders. so that area that you're in is not out of the woods yet? >> no, it's definitely not. >> i mean, it's still closed. and when you look at the devastation or what's left, frankly, behind me, it's easy to understand why. i mean, these were someone's cars, right? this was someone's home. all of it completely scorched, completely gone. you can see, just like that lonely brick chimney in the middle of the devastation. this area, altadena, was burned by the eaton fire. this is still closed. you talk about those evacuation numbers. >> that 88,000 number was as of tuesday. i got to be real with you, though. there's some confusion around that number this morning. my producer just hung up with a spokesperson for the l.a. county sheriff's office who said they're working on getting us an updated evacuee total after they weren't able to give one yesterday. >> just saying. >> some areas are reopening. >> so we can tell you that it seems like that number is going down. >> and slowly but surely people are able to get back to their homes to see at least what

remains of their homes. the reason this is so slow. >> you talked about the death count at 27. there are also dozens still missing and first responders are going door to door, site to site, looking for the remains of people who may not have been able to make it out alive. as you can imagine, you look at the video of the damage that is a painstakingly slow, careful, meticulous process. >> and for that reason, while they're still searching certain areas, they don't want to let people back in. increased traffic on the roads have people walking around these sites that may still be needed, still need to be searched. so ali, it is a long road ahead, potentially days more, if not in some cases weeks more. >> because as you said, the footprint of these fires is massive and there are areas that are still burning. >> so we'll let you know when we get that updated count. >> but a little bit of confusion around that one. >> i appreciate you clarifying that, because there is a great deal of confusion out there, and it must be very, very hard for people who are trying to figure out, can i go home? do i have to leave? am i still ready to be on guard for evacuation? exactly.

what a tough few weeks it's been in southern california. maggie, thanks for your great reporting. maggie. vespa in los angeles. all right, coming up, we'll head to the middle east, where a cease fire between israel and gaza is just hours away from gaza is just hours away from taki mom where's my homework? mommy! hey hun - sometimes, you just need a moment. self-care has never been this easy. gummy vitamins from nature made, the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand. but st. jude has gotten us through it. st. jude is hope for every child diagnosed with cancer safety concern? because the research is being shared all over the world. >> are you worried about the cost of a bathroom remodel that could go on for weeks and weeks? >> well, now you can have a gorgeous new bath or shower with a one day jacuzzi bath remodel

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progressive makes it easy to see if you can save money with a commercial auto quote online so you can get back to all your other to-dos. absolutely not. get a quote at progressivecommercial.com. >> right now to the middle east. we're in just under 14 hours at 1:30 a.m. eastern time, a ceasefire is set to begin between israel and gaza. right now, ambulances, you can see them here. and aid trucks are gathered at the rafah border crossing that connects gaza and egypt, waiting to enter gaza at the start of the ceasefire. it will be the first stop in the fighting since a week long truce ended on december 1st, 2023, more than a year ago. this new fragile deal follows months of intense negotiations between qatar and egypt, who act as mediators for hamas and the

united states, led by the biden administration's representative brett mcgurk. president elect trump's incoming middle east special envoy, steve witkoff, also played a role in the final stages, getting the agreement across the finish line, according to all involved. now, this deal has three phases and is almost identical to a framework announced last spring in may by president biden, a matter that hostage families and palestinians alike find deeply frustrating because of the number of people who have died since that deal was first agreed to. phase one consists of a six week halt in the hostilities and the gradual release of 33 hostages held by hamas, mainly women, the elderly and the sick. women will be the first released tomorrow. two americans will be included per the biden administration, as will two french israeli citizens, per the french president macron. israel will gradually release 737 palestinian prisoners, in addition to 1167 gaza residents who were arrested during the war

on sunday, no earlier than 9 a.m. eastern, maybe closer to ten. three female hostages are expected to be freed in about 24 hours from now, in addition to about 90 to 100 palestinian prisoners. the hostages are expected to be handed over to the red cross in gaza and taken to an israeli reception point outside of gaza, before being translated, transported into israel. israeli reception points have been set up at the kerem shalom crossing in southern gaza, at the erez crossing in northern gaza and at the reem idf base near central gaza. seven days later, four more hostages are set to be released, with releases to be conducted every seven days. israel has laid out a formula noting how many prisoners will be released per hostage, with differences based on age, gender and other factors. also during phase one, israel will also gradually withdraw from populated areas in gaza, allowing gazan civilians to return. there will be a major

increase in the amount of daily humanitarian aid allowed into gaza, and critically, israel and hamas will begin negotiations for a permanent end to the war, which would be implemented at the start of phase two. and if that process does take longer than six weeks, the ceasefire will continue as long as negotiations continue. that's according to president biden. joining me now is akbar shahid ahmed. he's a senior diplomatic correspondent with huffington post. this week, akbar won a writers guild association award for his digital journalism for his piece what is hamas thinking now? akbar, it's good to see you. we've been discussing this for far more than a year. i want to discuss this new deal. it's not perfect. neither side is fully happy. it is very much the same deal that you and i discussed in may, but for the moment, everything is very fluid. for the moment it looks like in the next 14 or so hours something may happen. >> it's absolutely significant,

ali, because a major factor in any of these negotiations is will either side deliver. >> right. and we haven't actually seen israel and hamas have any kind of demonstration of good faith now for more than a year, right, since that 2023 truce. so if we can see the conditions where they can say, look, it's hard. we don't like each other, we don't want to necessarily be living alongside each other, but we can get something out of this. that's what creates an environment for moving forward. but, you know, as you outlined early, this is such a fragile and really detailed process. a lot can go wrong. and as we know, the biden administration is leaving on monday. this is now very much in the hands of the trump administration. that is unpredictable. that does have a much more hard line approach and a much more anti-palestinian approach, which makes dealing with hamas in particular, harder. so i don't know that we're necessarily going to get to that second phase. but i do think there's a lot of hope, given that we have the two

sides, the two parties, including the israeli government, which is extremely right wing, approving this for now. >> yeah, and including people within the israeli government who have tried very hard to make this deal not happen. you posted on social media that the biden administration, quote, hopes to salvage its legacy on gaza with a cease fire. but the story of what it's helped israel do for 15 months is bigger than the current headlines. tell me what you mean by that. >> right. so i think i think it's so important to remember that we have had a possibility of a hostage release, of increasing aid for more than a year, you know, and i'm working on a book on the biden administration and gaza. so i'm talking to a lot of the senior officials who are in the room. right. who were having these conversations. a lot of them are now feeling regret and are feeling we could have gotten to this point earlier. we had the tools, we had the information. we knew that what israel was trying to achieve in terms of weakening hamas wasn't happening. and you saw secretary of state blinken confirm that this week, saying hamas has

surged back in part because of the tactics the israelis are using. so i think as we move forward into the trump presidency, look, it's almost certain to be a highly damaging policy under trump that could instigate more violence in gaza. it could instigate more violence in the west bank, which has seen an increase in violence and, frankly, could escape more violence with iran. but as we look at that tinder box, the tinder, the firewood was provided by the biden administration in terms of the weapons that they've been sending the israelis in terms of the sense of impunity that a lot of the hardliners in israel have received, the more moderate voices within israel, folks in the military establishment, folks who are opponents of netanyahu, they have felt very much left out to dry by the u.s. right. what they've been saying, how can you let netanyahu drag along these ceasefire negotiations when he seems to be the obstacle? and i don't think the biden admin has given a good answer to that yet. they've blamed hamas throughout, but now you've seen them come out and say, well, it was really the

israelis that needed a nudge. and it was president elect trump who was able to nudge the israelis in a way biden didn't. >> yeah. and there have been reports all around that that that president trump's envoy was helpful to this process. so we'll continue to watch how this unfolds. akbar, thanks very much. akbar ahmed is a senior diplomatic correspondent at huffpost. up next, the clock is counting down for tiktok with the future holds for the popular social media platform. after the supreme court's decision to allow a congressionally passed ban to go into effect starting tomorrow. we'll talk about it tomorrow. we'll talk about it after the break. dry eyes still feel gritty, rough, or tired? with miebo, eyes can feel ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪ miebo is the only prescription dry eye drop that forms a protective layer for the number one cause of dry eye: too much tear evaporation. for relief that's ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪ remove contact lenses before using miebo. wait at least 30 minutes before putting them back in. eye redness and blurred vision may occur. ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪

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penny that you pay for it. this product changed my life. >> available at major retailers or online@navage.com. to avoid digital threats, just turn on nordvpn. improve your protection against trackers, malicious against trackers, malicious websites and malware ridden [clears throat] sounds like you need to vaporize that sore throat. vapocool drops? it's sore throat relief with a rush of vicks vapors. ♪ vapocooooool ♪ whoa. vaporize sore throat pain with vicks vapocool drops. eastern five nights a week, monday through friday. we will watch what they do and not just what they say from now on. and for the first 100 days and for the duration. but what they are saying thus far, and what they are doing thus far, have both been utterly shambolic. and none of us should be afraid to

say so. and none of us here are so for these first 100 days, you and i, we are going to spend a lot of time together. >> just one day after the supreme court decided to uphold the congressionally passed ban of tiktok in the united states, the biden administration is now saying that it won't try to stop the ban, scheduled to take place tomorrow, and says that the implementation will now be up to the next administration. nbc's savannah sellers has more. >> in a unanimous decision, the supreme court said the tiktok ban stands the court upholding the law passed in april, that says the video sharing app had to divest from its chinese based parent company, bytedance, or effectively be shut down in the u.s. as of tomorrow. >> always remember this moment when you think of the future. oh, is the government going to do the right thing? no. >> some tiktok users quick to make their feelings known. >> all nine supreme court justices. you guys are mean bullies. but the supreme court

said tiktok's very popularity is part of what makes it a threat to national security, noting a foreign adversary's ability to leverage its control over the platform to collect vast amounts of personal data from 170 million u.s. use >> and while the court's ruling was clear, what actually happens next is anything but, the biden administration saying tiktok should remain available to americans, but simply under american ownership, with a sale by sunday seemingly all but impossible, the administration says now it won't implement the very law president biden himself signed. rather, it will punt next steps to the trump administration. but tiktok warning overnight it would be forced to go dark unless service providers were given assurances the new law would not be enforced. the company ceo, hopeful about the future of tiktok under a trump presidency, posting this message friday. >> i want to thank president trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps tiktok available in the

united states as president. >> in his first term, trump tried to ban tiktok but has signaled support for it. more recently, trump says he spoke by phone with china's president xi about the app and posted to social media that his decision on tiktok will be made in the not too distant future. >> that was nbc's savannah sellers reporting. all right. coming up, today's meeting of the velshi banned book club is just moments away. today's feature is not just a crucial part of the american literary canon. it's part of the american identity. this book has inspired songs, movies, novels and generations of readers. i'm talking about john steinbeck's talking about john steinbeck's the grapes of wrath. it ain't my dad's razor, dad. ay watch it! it's from gillettelabs. this green bar releases trapped hairs from my face... gamechanga! ...while the flexdisc contours to it. so the five blades can get virtually every hair in one stroke. for the ultimate gillette shaving experience. the best a man can get is gillettelabs.

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with better nutrition, too. we love our eggs any style. as long as they're the best. eggland's best. hamas will enter a ceasefire in the nation's capital. >> philadelphia, el paso, the palisades from msnbc world headquarters. >> stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the msnbc daily newsletter. get the best of msnbc all in one place. sign up for msnbc daily at msnbc. com. >> tom joe just finished serving four years in mcalester prison, the state penitentiary in oklahoma, for killing a man in self-defense. he's finally going home to his childhood farm in oklahoma. however, he will not

find his family there. their farm, hit by the severe dust storms that buried the american prairie in the 1930s, has been repossessed by the bank without any other option. tom joins his family on route 66, crowded with other desperate migrants carrying their worldly possessions on their backs westward toward california. this is the backdrop of the late john steinbeck's award winning novel, the enduring american classic the grapes of wrath. steinbeck is one of the most celebrated american authors of all time. over the course of his career, he wrote some 33 books, including of mice and men, east of eden, and his magnum opus, the grapes of wrath. his books are not just a critical part of the american literary canon, but they are intrinsic to american identity itself, with every ordinary and deeply relatable protagonist. steinbeck was able to capture the realities of this nation. the grapes of wrath was inspired by a series of articles written by steinbeck in 1936 for the san francisco news about the

plight of migrant farm workers in california. when it was published in book form three years later in 1939, it was a sensation. it was a bestseller, it was debated, it was banned and burned, it was contested, it was celebrated, and it was discussed across the country. and it still is. the grapes of wrath is a masterclass in storytelling, told in steinbeck's trademark empathetic, colloquial and observational style. the grapes of wrath is a story of strength, of suffering, of family injustice, of humanity. it's a story of hope. the book is divided between chapters that tell us the joad family's story, and others that tell us about their world. steinbeck's literary depiction of the joads is both urgent and lyrical, as though he wrote it in one single draft with the animal imagery, the religious references, the character complexity and the sensory adjectives perfectly executed. the interval chapters are dark and sorrowful vignettes. they're some of the most intensely emotional of the

entire novel. the grapes of wrath begins with one such vignette describing the land of oklahoma choked by dust. quote. the dawn came, but no day in the gray sky a red sun appeared, a dim red circle that gave a little light like dusk. and as the day advanced, the dusk slipped back toward darkness. and the. the wind cried and whimpered over the fallen corn. men and women huddled in their houses, and they tied handkerchiefs over their noses. when they went out and wore goggles to protect their eyes. when the night came again, it was black night, for the stars could not pierce the dust to get down, and the window lights could not even spread beyond their own yards. end quote. when the joads finally reached california, the so-called promised land, the interval chapters shift in tone. they become more indignant, more direct, and more passionate. steinbeck's message is clear. quote there is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. there

is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. there is a failure here that topples all of our success. the fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks and the ripe fruit. and children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange, and coroners must fill in the certificate, died of malnutrition because the food must rot, must be forced to roti banned book club that feel prescient. works like those of margaret atwood or octavia butler, for example. but the grapes of wrath is not one of those novels. it's not telling us what might become of our country and fellow americans, our fellow americans and our land. it's telling us what's already here, what's already happening in the 85 years, the decades since the dust bowl, since the great depression, since the publication of this book, not enough has changed. americans still face inescapable ecological disasters and

discrimination and poverty and a breakdown of community. and yet still we're the people. we're the people that live. and we will go on. after a quick break, i'll be joined by two guests incredibly suited to discuss the grapes of wrath. the author, emily danforth, a member of the velshi banned book club who's been inspired by john steinbeck's work. and bruce robbins, a literary scholar and author and professor at columbia author and professor at columbia university. watch your step! that's why visionworks makes it simple to schedule an eye exam that works for you. even if you have a big trip to plan around. thanks! i mean, i can see you right now if that's...convenient. visionworks. see the difference. feeling backed up and bloated? good thing metamucil fiber plus probiotics gummies work harder for your digestive system. with fiber to help promote gut health. and probiotics to help relieve occasional bloating.

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value from your life insurance when you need it with abacus. >> today's meeting of the velshi banned book club is officially underway. we are discussing a novel that is synonymous with american culture and literary identity. a winner of the national book award, the pulitzer prize, and the nobel prize in literature, the grapes of wrath by john steinbeck. here to discuss it with me, emily danforth. you will, of course, remember her. she's a member of the velshi banned book club. she is the author of the famous miseducation of cameron post. she's been inspired by john steinbeck and bruce robbins, who is a literary scholar and author and a professor of humanities at columbia university. welcome to both of you. thank you both for being with us for this important discussion that we're so excited about. emily, welcome back. let me start with you. arguably the most recognizable passage in the novel is the moment when the protagonist, tom joad, says goodbye to his mother after jim

casey dies and he knows he must leave. quote. wherever there is a fight so hungry people can eat, i'll be there. wherever there's a cop beating up a guy, i'll be there, i'll be in the way. guys yell when they're mad. i'll be in the way. kids laugh when they're hungry and they know their supper is ready. and when our folks eat the stuff they raise and live in the houses they build. why? i'll be there. end quote. this quote encompasses many of the key themes in the grapes of wrath. tell me more about this. >> well, first of all, thank you for having me back. it's good to be here. i think that that that quote gets at the dignity and shared humanity in solidarity and collective action. it also does, in one quote, sort of the thing that the novel does so brilliantly across all its pages, which it it gives us the character of tom joad at the microscopic level, while at the macroscopic level, giving us these larger themes that, you

know, the novel gives us back and forth with its with its alternating chapters. and so in that one quote, you've sort of encapsulated everything that occurs over the pages. and yeah, it's marvelous in the way those chapters sort of change character. >> bruce, i want to read from chapter 14, which is not only powerful, but particularly relevant to today's reader. paul borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the land, the land company. that's the bank. when it has the land, wants tractors, not families on the land. one man, one family driven from the land, this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. i lost my land. a single tractor took my land. i'm alone and bewildered. and in the night one family camps in a ditch. and another family pulls in and the tents come out. the two men squat on their hands and the women and children listen. here's the node. you who hate change and fear revolution, keep these two squatting men apart. make them hate, fear. suspect

one another. here is the knowledge of the thing you fear. this is the zygote. for here i lost my land is. hang on a second. changed. a cell is split and from its splitting, grow grows. the thing you hate. we lost our land. that's the end of the quote. i find this very interesting because it is this idea that that we still do. we did this, by the way, before 1939. we did it during the second world war. we still continue to do this. we drive people to think that they are individuals suffering, not collectively. >> one of the things that make this a classic, as you say, is that it's about a moment in american history, but it's not just about that moment in american history. >> it's about an experience that has continued happening and happening and happening. and it's the experience of eviction and dispossession. >> it's also, i think, applicable to experience today in in ways we might not immediately have thought of, like the situation of other migrant workers, other refugees around the world.

>> i mean, it's a classic in that sense. it keeps generating new meanings, you know? i mean, it talks about the things that are that are clearly there. and then suddenly you say, oh my god, it's about more than that. absolutely. i'll just add one little thing. i mean, you could very easily think tom joad is the hero of this, and it's going to be tom joad story. i think ma joad is actually more central to it than her son is. i mean, and she's got some great philosophical, but she's also the force that keeps the family going and keeps the family together. >> sorry. >> no, that's that's i'm glad you said that because i want to ask emily about ma in particular and her place at the at the very center of the joad family. i'm going to read a quote from the book. she seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position. the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken imperturbability could be, could be depended upon and from her great and humble position in the family, she had taken dignity and a clean, calm beauty. from her position as

healer. her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet. from her position as arbiter, she had become as remote and faultless in judgment. as a goddess. she seemed to know that if she swayed from the family, she swayed and the family shook. and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired, the family would fall. the family will. will to function would be gone. tell me more about this. >> well, and of course, over the over the course of the novel, the family is not just the joads, right? the family begins as the joads, and then the family becomes the collective. and so ma saying that if she wavered, the family would falter. she is the symbol of hope for me as well. when i read the novel, and when i think of my first time reading it in high school, the memories that still resonate for me, you know, too many years later are ma joad in the kitchen frying up dough? it's. it's ma joad having conversations with rose of sharon and being that sort of dignity that that symbol of hope in the face of such adversity

and such dehumanization. it always goes back to ma for me. >> bruce, you have a forthcoming book is called atrocity a literary history, in which it explores the literature of suffering. as as emily just said, and you have pointed out, grapes of wrath is not about a single family's struggle. it's about systemic poverty. it's about discrimination. as you said, eviction, displacement and ecological disaster. you and i discussed in the break before we started. it's not like margaret atwood in that it was prescient. it wasn't happening at the time. and now what margaret atwood wrote about is happening. this was happening then and continues to happen now. and yet there are people who would prefer that their children do not read this book in school. >> yeah, that's it's hard for me to get my head around. i mean, there are obviously people who object to the what they called at the time, socialism, which is more like collective action, i think. yeah, we said it and some

of the most incredibly moving things. i can't imagine anybody objecting to this. the theme of the poor helping the poor. this is for those who got to the last scene. it's one of the strongest scenes, i think, in all of american literature. but when i think of mahjong, i think of her trying to make a family meal with almost nothing, and then seeing the kids who are not from her family, sitting around and not being able not to share it with them. she knows it's nothing, but she has to share it. >> what an interesting message. we're about to be at martin luther king day, and at the time of his death, he was making that point that if they stopped driving us apart, we'd actually be able to fix these things because we're all suffering from the same stuff. emily, in the miseducation of cameron post your remarkable book, the land almost functions as a secondary character. the same can be said of the grapes of wrath. by the way, talk to me about the significance of land in the grapes of wrath, the mojo. they talk a lot about the land. this is a story about land and peopl,

certainly. >> and the passage you begin with the dust, it's, you know, you feel how the land has been choked, how nothing can grow there that drives why they have to leave, right? why they become migrants. and then and then the land is such a character when they get to the sort of lushness of california and they see the golden citrus that they then cannot touch, that cannot be eaten. the other passage that you share, the land becomes such a character in the novel. and again, it's just it's that that sort of placement between the joads as the family that we're following, and then this larger sort of sense of the land that they're working, the land that's working against them, and then the passages are so lyrical and evocative. >> this needs to be a three hour velshi banned book club. it is fantastic. there's so much in this book, and you two are so wonderful. thank you for doing this for us. the velshi banned book club member emily danforth is the author of the books the miseducation of cameron post and plain bad heroines. and bruce robbins is a humanities professor at columbia university, a literary scholar,

author of numerous books, including the forthcoming atrocity a literary history, which we'll have to have you on to talk about. thanks to both of you. and that does it for me. thank you for watching. i am going to be back tonight at 9 p.m. eastern for a special edition of velshi previewing the inauguration. of course, i will be back here tomorrow morning from 10 a.m. to noon eastern. we will be watching and hoping that that that cease fire and hostage and prisoner exchange will be underway. by the time i see you in less than 24 hours. but go nowhere right now. the katie phang show begins right now. >> this is the katie phang show live from msnbc studios in washington, d.c. major moves just under 48 hours until convicted felon donald trump becomes the 47th president of the united states. the big shakeup to move the inaugural ceremony inside the capitol, and why that's left countless trump supporters very upset. >> then half a