as his administration enacts swift, sweeping changes that are aimed at fulfilling his campaign promise of retribution. for one thing, a purge of civil servants is happening across all agencies and departments across the federal government. there's brand new reporting this morning, led by the washington post, that at least 12 independent inspectors general in major federal agencies were fired late last night. they were told that they had been terminated immediately, the post notes, which appears to be a violation of federal law because congress is required to get 30 days notice of any intent to dismiss a senate confirmed inspector general. although not all inspectors general are senate confirmed. the inspectors general of the. the biggest agencies and departments are. that's in addition to a memo, by the way, that was also sent out last night instructing the heads of every agency to terminate all die offices and positions in the federal government within the next 60 days. none of this a big surprise, by the way, remember

when i used to carry that that book around the project 2025? this was all written about. additionally, donald trump sent out a clear message out on day one about his priorities when he followed through with his promise to issue a blanket pardon for every single person charged in connection to the january 6th insurrection, more than 1500 in all. the sweeping order of clemency means that people who were convicted of violently assaulting law enforcement officers at the capitol are now free and will have their voting rights and their gun rights restored. the release of some of those offenders from prison is understandably causing some people to fear for their safety. shortly after january 6th, jackson reffitt, who was only 18 years old at the time, contacted authorities to report that his father, guy reffitt, had taken part in the riot. now that his father has been freed, jackson is terrified about what that means for his personal safety. he told msnbc this week that trump supporters feel validated by this new administration, that he gets, quote, death threats by

the minute. now, former dc police officer michael fanone shares similar concerns. fanone served in law enforcement for more than 20 years. he was one of the many officers who was assaulted at the capitol on january 6th. five men pleaded guilty to assaulting him that day. pleaded guilty. now those five men are free. fanone is now trying to get information about the five men who assaulted him in order to file protective encountering obstacles. here's what he told my colleague joy reid the other night. well, that. >> doesn't do very much. >> in order for the protection order to take effect for a full. >> two years. >> these individuals. >> have to. >> be served. >> well. that requires. >> me to. >> know their home address. >> when i reached out to. >> the department of justice initially. >> i was told. that they would. >> provide me with that information. 9:00 this morning. >> i get a phone. >> call. >> and i'm. >> told that because. >> the cases were pardoned. >> there is no.

>> longer any criminal. >> charges. >> and i'm not entitled to that. >> information as i. >> am no. >> longer a victim. >> according to the department. >> of. >> justice. >> the department of justice is one of the many agencies that has been undergoing major change since donald trump took office on monday. within hours of taking office, the trump administration fired four top officials at the justice department's executive office of immigration review, which oversees u.s. immigration courts. it's also ordered the doj to step up its immigration enforcement efforts, and the acting deputy attorney general, emil bove, instructed federal prosecutors to investigate and potentially prosecute local officials who obstruct the administration's mass deportation efforts. but perhaps most troublingly the doj this week ordered the civil rights division to halt its work. it's been told to stop working on many of the ongoing biden era cases and not to pursue any new complaints or take any new actions until further notice. the civil rights division of the

department of justice has historically been tasked with enforcing laws regarding discrimination of all kinds, including cases involving race, sexual orientation, immigration, and disability rights. former attorney general eric holder once described the division as, quote, the conscience of the justice department, end quote. its lawyers have played critical roles in pivotal cases like the school integration efforts during the civil rights movement and the prosecution of the men responsible for the 1963 church bombing in birmingham, alabama, that killed four young girls. just weeks ago, the biden administration finalized consent decrees to reform police agencies in louisville, kentucky, following the fatal police shooting of breonna taylor, and in minneapolis, minnesota, after the murder of george floyd, both of which sparked nationwide outrage in 2020. joining me now, joyce vance, former united states attorney for the northern district of alabama. she's also a senior fellow at the brennan center for justice and msnbc contributor and columnist and co-host of the sisters in law

podcast. elie mystal joins us as well. he's a justice correspondent for the nation and the alfred knobler fellow at the type media center. he's also the author of the upcoming book, bad law ten popular laws that are ruining america. good morning to both of you. thank you for being here. there's a whole lot to talk about, joyce, but i want to just start with this. this civil rights division of the department of justice. it is not common parlance to most people, and many people don't know what it is or that it exists, but it has played a critical role in the preservation and upholding of civil rights in this country. >> right. you know, eric holder called it the conscience of the department. it's also referred to as the crown jewel of the justice department, because so much of the work that central to justice in america and to the rule of law is done there, it's really symbolic that donald trump would bring that work to a halt. and it's. important to note that the division does civil and criminal work. and in

every new administration, there's a change in priorities and in emphasis, and it's legitimate for a new administration to define different priorities. what's troubling here is an end to the work. in total, much of the work that's ongoing includes, for instance, these long term multiyear investigations into prison conditions in alabama. the investigation that i initiated took years before it got to the state of being a complaint. there's a lot of work, a lot of moving pieces. by bringing all the work in that division to a halt. >> that means cases. >> like that one go off the rails, police excessive force cases that are being administrative, being investigated and leading to these pattern and practice consent decrees that mean that police departments across the country have to bring their standards up and engage in constitutionally sufficient policing, all coming to a halt. and, of course, predictably, protections for people in the

lgbtq community, all sorts of other issues. >> it's really. >> hard, i think, to give outsiders a sense of how important the civil rights division is to the work of the justice department. it's really, in many ways, our lifeblood. it makes everyone feel good about the work that they do. and the civil rights division, although it's in main justice in washington, they work with all of the 93 u.s. attorney's offices out across the country to make sure we're living up to the goals of the constitution. >> ellie, it's been a fire hose of stuff going on in the federal government, generally in the department of justice, fairly specifically this week. some have described it as a shock and awe campaign, which might be what it is. i guess the danger is in covering trump 2.0. how do we deal with this? affected by s not an abstraction. >> we tried to tell y'all.

>> i mean. i ali. >> i wrote specifically about this issue, what he was going to do to the department of justice multiple times during the election cycle because, as you pointed out in your open, this was all written down. so i don't like the shock and awe version of this, because if you've been paying attention, they wrote it down. they told you exactly what they were going to do and exactly how you were going to do it. and a majority of white people voted for this. this is the disgusting version of america that people want. and oh, by the way, eggs are still more expensive, so you don't even get that. great job, white folks, in terms of how we cover it. as as a media or as a media group, right? we have to stop acting like any of these things have any basis in reality. right? your earlier segment about birthright citizenship is a perfect example of how you should cover it. there is no question about whether or not birthright citizenship is constitutional. it just is right. there is no question about whether or not the civil

rights act should apply. it just does. and every time the media tries to say, wash, trump, whitewash trump, explain trump, defend trump, what they're doing is muddying the waters on these issues that we have already decided. right. and i'm not saying that there's not a place for nuance. i actually wrote in the nation about how if trump wants to end dei programs, that's legal. he dei is a policy. dei is a policy invented by white folks to try to stop other white folks from being racist if they want to end the policy. the next media question shouldn't be like, oh my god, you're ending dei. the next media question should be, okay, so what are you doing to combat racism in employment and hiring? what are you doing to combat sexism in employment and hiring in the federal government? the largest employer in the in the country? because if the answer is nothing, well, then that becomes illegal. well, then that violates the civil rights act.

that violates the 14th amendment of the constitution, the equal protection clause. so the question has to be what? you want to end the act, what's next? right. it's all like you're going to repeal it. what are you going to replace it with? because just going back to antebellum racism, that's what's illegal. >> that's an interesting point. i, my stage manager, joe, has been looking, listening to you thinking. and he's got a look on his face and says, does ali think he's going to get an answer to that question? so but i appreciate that you're offering that. we ask it. joice ali makes an interesting point on a few points. the civil rights division, the 14th amendment of the constitution, birthright citizenship, these things to normal people are just. there's right and wrong. there's obvious, there's correct, there's incorrect. doesn't seem to matter around here. one of the things that is getting a little bit of pushback from a couple of republicans is the release of all these january 6th convicts, including some really violent ones, including the heads of the proud boys and the oath keepers, who are now claiming that they're part of a

comeback. >> yeah. >> so look. here's how we can understand how off the rails these releases, these pardons and commutations are. you know, typically one of the important. criteria for giving someone a pardon and releasing them back into their community is to make sure that they're not dangerous, to make sure that there's someone who's been rehabilitated in prison, who's remorseful, who wants to go back and have a second chance and lead a productive life. and just from your open, ali, we know that that's not the case here, right? there are people who are concerned, people who need protective orders against some of these people who donald trump has pardoned. those pardons were transactional. they were about rewarding people who supported him when he lost an election and was willing to resort to violence, to try to hold on to the presidency. i don't think that we should make any effort to both sides, that i think that we have to be. to your larger point here, very clear about

truth and falsity. you know, early on in trump's first administration, we learned that they believed in something called alternative facts. and that's led us down this perilous path where all too often, right. we're willing to ellie's point to think about, well, you know, maybe we should just be worried about the die policy as opposed to finding a legal solution for it. i think this is a moment, to be clear, to talk about the fact that these pardons are wrong, that donald trump violated the trust that americans gave to him. democrats need to be clear in talking about that at every opportunity, and republicans should be asked about it. and when these people begin to reoffend, we're told that one of the people who's been released has already been taken back into custody on gun charges when they begin to reoffend, when people are threatened, then the accountability needs to live where it belongs. in donald trump's lap. >> ellie. >> i would love for democrats to speak with the clear voice with

this, right? i would love for john fetterman to not be taking pictures with pardoned terrorists. but that's not the democratic party we have right now. so while yes, there are some republicans who are squeamish, i guess, about releasing releasing convicted felons and cop abusers back into the general population, and while democrats generally are like, well, that's that's clearly wrong. we shouldn't do we shouldn't do that. nothing's actually happening with it. nothing's actually going to stop these stop these people. again. this is what trump promised. this is what white folks voted for. and this is what you normalize whenever you talk, whenever you act like trump is a regular, normal president who just has a different point of view than you do. right? so, like, it would be great if we could stand as one and draw a line in the sand and say this far no further, but we're not going to do that. we're our party is always in the on the back foot, always falling back. and republicans are such

pathetic cowards, even as you're saying that some republicans who are squeamish about it, like how many of them are on your show? how many of them are out in public really saying, this cannot happen? i won't vote for anything that trump does if he does this right. and none, none say that we're all they're all willing to accept the unacceptable and that that is what look, trump was clear about what he was going to do. and to quote the inventor of the internet, al gore, we are now entering a time of consequences. >> we are, in fact, entering time of consequences. thanks to both of you. we appreciate all of your wisdom and. and your analysis on this one. joyce vance is a former united states attorney, msnbc contributor and columnist, co-host of the sisters in law podcast. elie mystal is the justice correspondent for the nation, author of the upcoming book bad law ten popular laws that are ruining america. all right. coming up this week, the three richest men in america also happen to own massively influential media platforms were

seated front and center at the president's inauguration. it was a display of the consolidation of wealth, power and information. many americans are understandably concerned about. and some are in fact, taking action. i'll talk to jennifer rubin, who recently resigned from her longtime role as columnist for the washington post, why she did it, and what she's doing next to help us move beyond billionaire owned media. then today's meeting of the velshi banned book club examines our first ever collection of short stories, the consequences, by the award winning manuel munoz. it's an unflinching book about the realities of being an about the realities of being an immigrant in the united states. i brought in ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! —uh. —here i'll take that. [cheering] ensure max protein, 30 grams protein, 1 gram sugar and a protein blend to feed muscles up to 7 hours. ♪♪

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deal, which began last sunday. the released hostages are all female soldiers karina, ariana, daniella gilboa, naama levy and lira alba. they were abducted from an israeli military base near the border with gaza, where they were serving at the time of hamas's attack on october 7th. in a highly choreographed show of force. you're watching some of it right now. this is from much earlier this morning. hamas militants marched the hostages across the stage in gaza. in gaza city, before handing them over to the red cross. red cross then took them in vehicles, took them to the israeli forces, who took them across the border to the idf base. they were then flown by a military helicopter to a hospital in petah tikva, which is north of tel aviv, northeast of tel aviv. really? in exchange, israel has released 200 palestinian prisoners, several of whom were serving long prison terms. 114 of them were released into the west bank, 70 were sent to egypt, 16 were taken to gaza. video shows several who were released into the west bank city of ramallah. here you see them all in those

those sort of gray outfits. joining me now from hostage square in tel aviv is nbc news international correspondent daniele hamamdjian. daniele, it is evening now. it has been a busy and long day in tel aviv. a great deal of jubilation earlier, the red cross says the hostage exchange was a success. however, there is a wrinkle that you and i were talking about when this was happening this morning. israel says hamas has broken a promise, saying that they were supposed to release civilians first and then soldiers. israel says there's a woman named arbel yahud. she's 29 years old. israel says she's a civilian. palestinian islamic jihad says they're holding her, says she's a soldier. what's the issue here? >> well, the issue is that israel is accusing hamas of breaching the terms of the deal. therefore, the hundreds of thousands of displaced who were supposed to be going back to northern gaza today are still waiting at the intersection of

the netzarim corridor and salahadin in gaza. the netzarim corridor runs east to west, splitting gaza in half. the salah al-din highway is the main highway, the main road in gaza, running north to south. and so you've got currently hundreds of thousands waiting at that intersection. we've got the nbc news crew in gaza at the scene, our eyes and ears on the ground, and they have not been given the green light to go ahead. not just that they say that israeli forces have opened fire on the crowd. at least one man, a 43 year old man, was killed. imagine having survived for 177 days, only to die at this intersection, waiting to go back home to northern gaza, where, of course, you've seen the images, ali. not much is left there. but these are people who have. i will tell you, have a painful history of forced displacement and are determined to go back no matter what. now, you mentioned the palestinian prisoners who were released in exchange for

those four female hostages. the soldiers, and they received a hero's welcome in the west bank. there you see them. they are heroes to the palestinians. they are considered terrorists by israel. they are considered to have blood on their hands. some of them have been accused of murder, among them. among those released today are 11 who were actually released back in 2011. you remember the gilad shalit exchange, 1000 palestinian prisoners exchanged for one israeli soldier. 11 of them had been released. they were rearrested and released again today. ali. >> danielle. it is a complicated story with many moving parts. we appreciate you coming in and giving us the clarity that you always do. daniele hamamdjian in tel aviv in hostage square. all right, still ahead x meta. the washington post are not just three of the biggest media platforms in the country. they're all controlled by billionaires who had an actual front row seat to trump's inauguration. coming up next, the story of someone, a friend of the show who's taking a stand of the show who's taking a stand and holding the line.

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>> tucked away in the flurry of executive orders that president trump signed on his first day in office, is one, to quote, immediately stop all government censorship online. cloaked in language about freedom of speech, it's actually designed to repudiate government efforts to fight the spread of misinformation and disinformation. but while conservatives are presenting this order as a fight against censorship, sort of a more freewheeling, lighter touch approach to technology and social media and media in general. make no mistake, hands off is not actually what donald trump is going for. he wants to exert his own power and influence over the industry. it's just the fact checking that he doesn't like. there's no stronger evidence for this than the images from monday's inauguration of the three richest men in america, who also happen to own massively influential media platforms elon musk, jeff bezos and mark

zuckerberg seated front and center at the president's swearing in. literally a picture of the consolidation of wealth, power and potentially a piece of the rising oligarchy that joe biden warned us about in his farewell address. even before trump took office, some tech companies had already started pulling back on their fact checking efforts, like mark zuckerberg did with meta. but crucially, some brave people in the media are holding the line from the west coast to the east coast. we've seen journalists resign over their paper's killing, endorsements or political cartoons or otherwise signaling a fealty to or a fear of offending the new administration. just two weeks ago, our next guest, jennifer rubin, who had been at the washington post for 14 years, resigned from her role as a columnist. rubin has always been ideologically a conservative, but she's also been a critic of administrations, including the administration of donald trump. in her resignation letter, she takes the paper's owner to task, writing in part, quote, jeff

bezos and his cronies accommodate and enable the most acute threat to american democracy. donald trump if trump has taken a tax on the press to an entirely new level, softening the ground for an erosion of robust press freedom, as the post reported, it is because he finds insufficient resistance. instead, owners whose outlets he targets quite literally rewarded him, end quote. but rather than resign and retreat, rubin is launching a new outlet focused on countering authoritarian threats. called the contrarian, its slogan not owned by anybody. jennifer rubin joins me now. she's the co-founder and editor in chief of the contrarian. she's also an msnbc political analyst. i've spoken to you a couple of times, jennifer, since this has happened, but we haven't spoken about this specifically. and the reason to speak about this specifically is the same reason we have maria ressa on our air. people have to see examples of what it looks like to hold the line. so tell me how you got here.

>> well, i think it's been a long. >> time in coming. the washington post, as you know, is a storied outlet owned by the graham family that had a long tradition of standing up to power. one of the principles was that a newspaper owner shall not use the newspaper for his or her own financial advantage, and that is what is going on when you have media owners, including jeff bezos, who sees his own business quite apart from the media, in this case his spacex business, or elon musk's business, that is dependent in large part upon the government. they seem to think that their own press outlet should be muzzled, should be quieted, should not upset donald trump so much. and so you see, for example, the refusal to endorse donald trump, which was the editorial position of both the la times, owned by another billionaire, and the washington post. you also see these billionaires giving money to the president of the united states.

and yucking it up there on the dais. that is not how an independent free press behaves. their obligation is to the public, not to themselves, to advance their own businesses, and certainly not to ingratiate themselves with donald trump. so what happens? slowly, slowly, journalists get the message that their credibility is being frittered away. the public is not necessarily going to see them as the fierce advocates, tremendous journalists on our news side. and some of my former colleagues on the editorial side have left for other papers because they felt they could not do their best work. paul krugman just had an interview with the columbia journalism review, explaining that he was told to write less, that he was being more heavily edited. this is paul krugman, a nobel prize winner and a phenomenal voice on economics, was essentially being muzzled. and if journalists allow this to happen, if they allow owners and large

conglomerations to repress and suppress what they have to say, they are also enabling the authoritarian regime. so i, together with my partner in crime, as it were, norm eisen, decided to form the contrarian. and the contrarian is overtly pro-democracy. we say it. we're not going. >> to let. >> democracy die in darkness or in. plain sight. frankly, we are going to attack authoritarian moves that degrade and that destroy democracy. and one of the things we're going to do is bring in a lot of voices that maybe the mainstream media has overlooked younger voices, voices from people of color, voices from across the political spectrum. and the only thing they have to do is be in favor of democracy, have something interesting and fun to say. and we're also going to talk about culture. we're also going to feature. we sent a goodie bag home with our subscribers over the weekend, a cartoon, a cookie

recipe, and a cat, a favorite pet of the week. why are we doing that? because you have to maintain joy. you cannot let them crush your spirit. you cannot let them have you mope around, give up hope, refuse to engage with other people. joy. culture is one of the ways we fight back against this gray, oppressive, thuggish authoritarianism. >> i've been tired all morning. i work you and i know we were, you know, at work last night. we were up this morning. i was tired all morning. and i'm just suddenly re-energized by that last point you made. we're going to have to remember that in dark times and in bright times, joy culture, there's a lot to be to be happy about in life while you fight for democracy and the preservation of it. we'll be with you on this journey, my friend. thank you as you have been with us for so long. jennifer rubin is a great friend of our show. she's the co-founder and editor in chief of the contrarian. she's an msnbc political analyst. all right, still ahead, president trump plans to send thousands of active duty troops to the u.s.

border with mexico to assist in his planned immigration crackdown. in theory, there's nothing wrong with that. but when the president uses fear to justify the use of the military on american soil, that is actually wrong. and it might actually wrong. and it might actually cross a line. dexcom g7 sends your glucose numbers to your phone and watch, so you can always see where you're heading without fingersticks. dexcom g7 is the most accurate cgm, so you can manage your diabetes with confidence. ♪♪ millions of children

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ms. smith. mr. sullivan. mr. thune. mr. tillis. mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. warner. mr. warnock. agencies to carry out his campaign promises about immigration. that includes activating the department of defense in the effort. and that is the strongest military in the world. on trump's very first day in office, he signed a handful of executive orders, launching his promised crackdown on immigration, and he declared a national emergency at the border to empower the military to support border control. on friday, the first wave of active duty u.s. troops arrived in el paso, texas. military officials tell nbc news that over the next few days, they expect to receive

1500 active duty troops in el paso to help support the 2500 who are already on the ground on the southern border. mission. the trump administration is also using military planes to deport migrants who are already in detention in the united states. the u.s. according to guatemalan officials, the country received three planes full of guatemalan nationals who had been deported from the u.s. this week. trump intended to send at least some of the deportees to mexico, but mexico mexico has refused to accept them. that's according to two u.s. defense officials. according to a briefing document obtained by the washington post, trump plans to send 10,000 troops to the southern border, 10,000 now sending active duty troops to the border is not new, and it is legal. both presidents biden and obama sent active duty troops to the border at certain points in their presidencies, but it becomes illegal when active duty members of the u.s. military start carrying out law

enforcement functions. this is important. there's a federal law that limits what the military can and cannot do on u.s. soil. the posse comitatus act, which was passed in 1878 as a response to the abuse of military power during the civil war and reconstruction, lays this out. it says clearly that federal military forces cannot participate in civilian law enforcement. on paper, that means u.s. military personnel cannot interfere in civilian affairs or execute laws, which would mean, in theory, that the troops sent to the border cannot detain immigrants. they cannot seize drugs from smugglers, they cannot have any direct involvement in deporting migrants. it's not that it's not important work, but it's police work. it's customs work, it's atf work. it is not military work. and that is a very, very important distinction in a democracy. however, the posse comitatus act is vague. it has all sorts of gaps. for example, not all members of the military are covered by the act. despite

its name activated members of the national guard are not actually national. according to the brennan center for justice, members of the national guard are rarely covered by the posse comitatus act because they usually report to their state or territories governor. that means they're free to participate in law enforcement if doing so is consistent with state law. end quote. the law's lack of clarity, combined with the vagueness of some of president trump's executive actions, gives a concerning amount of leeway to donald trump, and one of his executive orders tests the legal limits of using the military to enforce domestic operations. i want to read from one of his executive orders titled clarifying the military's role in protecting the territorial integrity of the united states, quote, it is the policy of the united states to ensure that the armed forces of the united states prioritize the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the united states

along our national borders, end quote, sovereignty and territorial integrity. those words are written in a total of 19 times throughout one executive order, an executive order that focuses on immigration, not physical territory or land borders. under the section titled implementation, president trump orders the secretary of defense to come up with a plan that assigns u.s. northern command, which is the division of the military, which is tasked with providing military support in north america. the mission to, quote, seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the united states by repelling forms of invasion, including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling, and the trafficking and other criminal activities. the term territorial integrity is typically used in regard to border disputes, actual, not fake, invasions and annexations by other countries, like if canada actually tried to take over an american state. in fact,

it's a principle under international law cemented in the united nations charter that says sovereign states have a right to defend their borders and territories from other nations trying to take their land by force. for example, ukraine might accuse russia of disrespecting its territorial integrity by invading its borders and attempting to claim parts of its sovereign land. so you can see how president trump's invocation of territorial integrity as it relates to migrants coming into the into the country are not the same thing. what president trump appears to be doing is equating immigration with territorial integrity in order to justify the use of the military at the border. donald trump has spent years fear mongering about imitating immigration. it dates all the way back to his foray into politics in 2015, and that fateful ride down the escalator at trump tower. he's painted migrants who crossed the border from mexico as drug dealers, criminals, murderers and rapists. and for many people in america, that tactic has worked.

they listened and they believed him. and now he's using the fear that he created to validate the use of the military to deter immigration. quote, ensure that the armed forces of the united states prioritize the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the united states. end quote. migrants, asylum seekers, refugees. you may have strong opinions about them. you may think that they don't belong here. your opinions may be very strong about it. the fact is, they're not actually threatening america's sovereignty or territorial integrity. they are not a risk to our territorial integrity. it's just another fear tactic. and it gets us dangerously close to crossing the rubicon. it's dangerously close to the us military becoming the commander in chief's own personal police force, his own personal militia, using the military to police civilians on u.s. soil, flies in the face of core american values. the situation at the border is a problem that needs

to be addressed, but there are solutions that don't involve compromising the integrity of the united states military and lying about its purpose. appoint more immigration judges and invest in better technology to keep the border secure. build more barriers like he's always talking about best. believe he did not best believe he didn't forget to include the wall in at least one of his executive orders. but at the end of the day, the crisis does not. the demand does not demand the closure of the border with the assistance of the us military. this is not a national emergency. this is not an invasion. this is not a war. >> this is me. >> before santobello. >> and this is after. >> this year. >> lose stubborn. >> fat permanently with sono bello. one visit that removal. i wanted the results of a tummy tuck, but not the downtime. >> i'm so happy. >> i'm loving life. i'm loving. >> my body. i'm loving all my. >> loose fitting clothes. >> my waist is contoured, my belly is flat.

>> there's no boots anymore. >> schedule your free, no nothing is more >> schedimportant than family. obligation a family you're born into, a family you choose or a family you make. i'm padma lakshmi. i came to this country when i was four years old with my mother. we came here because it was a land of opportunity. but for many, that's not the case. immigrant families are being separated. black and brown families are torn apart by a broken legal system. lgbtq people suffer discrimination in adoption and health care. the need to protect and defend the civil liberties we all hold dear is more urgent than ever because families belong together. you can help by joining the american civil liberties union today.

call or go online now and become an aclu guardian of liberty. all it takes is just $19 a month. only $0.63 a day. the aclu has fought to allow lgbtq couples to marry, for racial justice. to stop a family separation. we can't do this work without you. together we can defend our democracy, ensure liberty and justice for all, and keep families strong. so please call the aclu now or go to my aclu.org when you use your credit card, you'll receive this special member kit to show you're part of a movement to defend free speech, protect our civil liberties, and keep families together. i hope you'll join me in supporting the aclu today. because we the people means all of us. call or go online to my aclu.org

to become a guardian of liberty today. >> we don't always choose the literature we feature on the velshi banned book club based on what's happening in the news. for me, the velshi banned book club has become something of a reprieve from the incredibly demanding news cycle. but this weekend we chose a piece of literature with intention. i wanted to read something that brought the humanity back to a group of people that have been relegated to a mass mass deportations, mass raids, mass arrests, mass roundups by the united states government. i wanted to feature a work of consequence. in fact, today's work is called the consequences by manuel munoz. it's a collection of fictional stories inspired, at least in part, by munoz's own experience working in the fields alongside his parents and siblings as a child. munoz's body of work one novel and three short story collections in total, explores

these stories, even included in a swath of removals from the shelves in some arizona schools. after a 2010 lawd mexican-american studies. broken down into ten short stories, the consequences takes place in california's central valley in the 1980s. the frank stories depict mexican and mexican american laborers, their families, their enemies, and their communities. la migra, the informal spanish term for u.s. immigration forces, hangs like a spirit over each story, sometimes seen but always felt in 20 or so pages per story, the reader becomes connected to munoz's characters children too young to be left alone, waiting on front front porch steps, hardened women, naive women, kind men who provide safety with a ride home. men with a build a rich world. the consequences is masterfully written, with subtle details, nuanced characters, and emotion

that builds even before you realize it. the result is a deeply emotional work that can be read in one afternoon, but it's better taken in slowly, one story at a time. so as such, we're going to focus on just one of the ten stories for this meeting. the story is called the happiest girl in the whole usa. griselda is our narrator. narrator and our guide early in the story. she explains how american farm owners call immigration enforcement to have them round up their undocumented workers so that the farmers don't have to pay the workers. quote, we all know what it means to watch the calendar turn to the last day of the month. we know what some of the farmers do on final fridays. we know what to do on saturday mornings. the farmers put their dusty hands on a phone receiver and very calmly place a call to the migra. when the men in green uniforms arrive at the rows of whatever crops are in season, grapes or peaches or plums, and round up the men into vans. end quote. griselda's partner, timoteo is one of the

men who works in the fields. griselda has gone to pick up timoteo after a roundup many times before. she knows where to go. she knows how much money she needs to bring. she knows to wear comfortable shoes when she meets natalia, a young woman who's never made the journey to find her partner before. griselda is confronted with a naivete and a vulnerability that makes her evaluate the person that she's become. at its core, the happiest girl in the whole usa is a story about kindness and a reminder that sometimes the consequences of helping another person is rediscovering a piece of yourself. so right after the quake, the break, i'll be joined by the author of the consequences. manuel munoz is a macarthur fellowship recipient, an english professor at the university of arizona, and the author of three other works. you're not going to want to miss this. >> one. glenn. >> yeah. why are you screaming?

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invisible on the skin. it works like a dream. why didn't someone think of this sooner? >> all right. today's meeting of the velshi banned book club is officially underway. we're featuring our first ever collection of short stories. joining me now is manuel munoz. he's the author of the book the consequences. he's a macarthur fellow. he's a professor of english at the university of arizona. manuel, welcome to the banned book club. thank you for being here. i want to be clear. you didn't write this book because of the moment. you didn't write the book because all we're talking about is immigration. it's a series of stories, in some cases, influenced by by you and your youth and your family. >> that is correct. this is my family history. and thank you

for inviting me to be here and to bring some attention to the lives of people in my community. yes, i'm 52 years old. this is this has been my life and my experience. i grew up working in the fields as young as as a second grader, and it was an experience that was very common to people that i grew up with in my generation. >> and so you've put you've put real meat on the bones because the problem with mass, anything mass deportations or mass roundups or whatever is it takes the humanity out of it. it squeezes all the humanity out of who immigrants are, who migrants are. undocumented document, not a distinction that exists in the second grade for most people. let's talk about the book. i want to i want to talk about a moment in the happiest girl in the whole usa, the story we're focusing on when natalia and griselda are discussing how neither of them is married. quote. he's too afraid to marry me. men are always afraid. no, i say, he's not afraid of marriage. i'm a citizen. i've been telling him for years that marriage would solve a lot of

our problems. when he asks me what we have to do, i tell him we have to go to city hall and get a license. and that's when he gets afraid. like a lot of people, he's scared of the government. everybody should be afraid of the government. maybe in mexico, i tell her. but i was born here and i don't let anybody push me around. natalia looks at me as if this revelation is beyond belief. there's a lot of story in that. in that one passage, right? the story of, oh, he doesn't want to marry her because he's afraid of commitment or marriage. no, he's afraid of the government. he doesn't want to go to the office to get the license. and then natalia saying, isn't everybody afraid of the government? and griselda is saying, no, i'm not. >> yeah, that's correct. again, you know, i come from a family that is of mixed status and that is a shared experience for a lot of people, some who are born here in the us and some who have a family member who who came over undocumented and has been here for many, many years, if not decades. but some of us have learned to negotiate all of the pathways that we have to maneuver in order to get what we

need to support our own families. and griselda is one of these people, certainly has all of those tools at her disposal. so the story of her coming into contact with somebody who is naive and who gives into fear, creates this moment where she has an opportunity to say, i think i know how i might be able to help somebody by sharing the knowledge that i've learned over the years. >> i want to i want to jump to a little at the end of the story without being a spoiler, in which you write 15 minutes, just enough time to dream. timoteo is already fast asleep, his head against the window, and i would do anything to rest my head against his shoulder to nestle there ahead of me. the other women and their men face forward together in stoick, all of them alert to the city streets, to what's passing by and what's coming. it's still love. the back of their heads seem to say to me. not one woman is resting her head on her man's shoulder. so i sit upright and i look straight out into the distance. what is this metaphor?

>> i think sometimes. well, going back to your introduction about thinking about not masses, but individual lives, unique lives, it gives us license to start to remember and recall that each person has an inherent dignity and the dignity and the dignity of the emotion, whether that be love, compassion, kindness is something that we don't always get to witness as much as we need to. and that's what's going to happen. i think, with hopefully when people come across griselda is that, you know, she has a tough exterior and she has very difficult circumstances that she's trying to navigate. but in the end, she's also a human being, and she's thinking about the ways in which she can openly express things that are important to her showing love, showing love, kindness, showing tenderness. and that's something that is pervasive. i think in a lot of my stories, there's a term that

goes around in literary circles humanizing. but that's what exactly what it's lending our attention to. we're unique individuals and we are deserving of dignity and compassion. >> and of the recognition of the complexity that you write about. right. because so many the stories in the consequence grapple with choices that we all make that are nothing to do with your legal status anywhere about kindness and cruelty or indifference. you are you are simply telling stories of people. it doesn't feel there's nothing political in the agenda of what you've written. >> yes and no. i mean, on the one hand, no, but on the other hand, yeah. meaning anytime we have a story going, i firmly believe once you hear a story, you can't unhear it. so storytelling, memoir writing, essay writing, all of those communications are inherently political. we're going to be able to share an experience and open the eyes of a, of a reader who maybe has never encountered

those particular narratives. so, yeah, underneath it, all of it, it may not seem political, but the very act of confronting one human being and understanding their situation. absolutely. >> that was the best answer to a trick question i've ever heard. because you're right. everything we do is inherently political. it's who we are, it's what we believe, and it's the furtherance of those beliefs. so thank you for that, i appreciate it. what you just said can kind of apply to so many things that we're dealing with right now in life. so thank you for your book and thank you for joining us. and thank you for being the newest member of the velshi banned book club. manuel munoz is the newest member of the banned book club. he is, of course, the author of today's feature, the consequences. that does it for me. thank you for watching. catch me back here tomorrow morning from 10 a.m. to noon eastern. it's almost lunchtime. i'm told there's rotisserie chicken o'clock, but as i go to figure that out, you all stay put because the katie phang show starts right now.