familiar. >> they're talking about. >> restoring germany's greatness. they're talking about cutting immigration. >> but some of the more extreme. >> members are. talking about. stripping citizenship away. >> from. germans who. >> are. >> of foreign lineage. >> lineage might have been born overseas. so this. >> is an election. >> that is being very closely followed, not just here in europe. >> but really. >> around the world. and, alex, the afd, going. >> into this. >> election with the. >> backing not. >> just of elon musk, the. >> world's richest. >> man. >> but also. >> the stamp of legitimacy. >> from the. >> vice. >> president of. >> the united. >> states, jd vance, speaking here in germany last week, said that the mainstream parties need to end their. practice of not cooperating with the far right, a practice that's been in place since the second world war. alex. >> one word reaction. stunning. thank you. ralph. we'll check in with you tomorrow. and that's going to do it for me on this edition of alex witt report. see you tomorrow, 1 p.m. eastern. up next, the beat weekend.

>> we begin. >> with the. >> ongoing question. >> of. >> white house powers. >> donald trump. >> pushing faster and. farther to test and break limits, to. >> see what he can get away. >> with farther than in the first term. >> and we have. >> the data on that. >> i've shown you. >> more court losses than the first. >> month in the first term. and yesterday. >> we were looking. >> at musk aides trying to shave at the pentagon. today, we're seeing a target that. >> trump had. >> shown an interest. in before. >> and sometimes for allegedly nefarious reasons. it's something that could sound. >> old fashioned. >> even boring. >> we're talking about. >> the mail, but the reporting is that trump is now trying to fire one of the independent groups. we've seen his attacks on those whistleblowers and watchdogs. well, this is the independent board of the us postal service. and he basically would try, according to the post. >> to absorb. >> what is this long running institution as a more political part, directly inside the

administration? as we've told you before, a lot of these things don't get a lot of attention over the years because they're working. they're supposed to be boring. you're not supposed to be worried about politicizing the mail. meanwhile, safety concerns in the sky, something that's been on many people's minds because the white house ordered all those firings at the faa. elon musk's team is also continuing at work. the national highway traffic safety administration has seen one out of ten people cut through either the firings or the buyouts they've been using, which again raises questions about what the long term potential safety impacts of that are. musk's tesla's, the team that regulates them. well, they've been cut in half. that's something that benefits musk's company, the fda losing about 700 employees or seeing that, quote, small teams hit so deeply. staff members fear for the safety of some medical devices that could be compromised. that even includes musk's neuralink devices, according to the times reporting. now, this is a

sprawling operation. musk has not confined himself to one agency or one role, so we don't actually know from this reporting whether he directly did things to get those personal benefits or whether that just happened, or whether because he has had such a private sector business self enrichment approach to this. other people doing the cuts are thinking, well, let's make sure it helps him along the way. the details of that have not yet come out, and musk has been hiding his financials, not being transparent, basically daring anyone to call him out when he does selected appearances like he was at cpac and did the oval office appearance with the president, where he just says the opposite. just as trump is testing the governing power and seeing what the courts do, musk, who has proven effective at internet and digital communications, is testing how far you can just reverse lie about everything, hide everything, and then announce from the white house you're, quote, transparent and see how long you get away with it. remember, they have also claimed that anything touching musk's businesses, tesla being one of

his most valuable, would lead to recusal. >> i mean, i haven't asked the president for. >> anything ever. >> and if. >> it comes. >> up, how will you handle it? well. >> he won't be involved. >> yeah, i'll i'll recuse myself if it is. >> if there's a conflict, he won't be involved. i mean, i wouldn't want that and he won't want it. >> that was tuesday. >> we now have public reporting about efforts related to the cuts that musk are. so the musk so involved with about tesla. we haven't seen an announcement of recusal. so in the absence of that announcement, what he said on tuesday doesn't seem to apply by friday. if they're doing things that make it easier for tesla to make money or cut corners or be less regulated, and that's not specific to musk. most companies tend to want less regulation, less government bureaucrats or officials, as they put it, meddling or reviewing what they do. but now that we know things are directly helping tesla, this would be the time for any honest person who says they're going to recuse to do so and explain how most

recusals, for example, in the law are in writing, a judge who realizes they can't rule on something that affects a family member will write down the reasoning, announce it publicly, lock it in, and walk away. as of this hour, we don't have anything like that. meanwhile, there is reporting from propublica that musk department has secured for itself not 1 million or 5 million, but a $40 million budget. and this comes after the reporting that they'd saved billions, but not the 50 plus billion that they'd falsely claimed. republicans are not all okay with this. there are senior officials working with trump who feel both irritated and blindsided by how much musk is running the show. politico reports other republicans are lobbying the white house, getting a hold of them however they can, calls and texts saying that the cuts which again, many republicans are more generally sympathetic to when done responsibly. right. there are many republicans who voted for smaller federal budgets going forward. but these kind of indiscriminate cuts this fast,

without any oversight, could affect public safety and health. now, what is the ultimate goal here? is this just about, quote, smaller government, which again, if you're honest, sometimes in this era everything is so intense that people think or say or claim that whatever trump and musk and some of these folks are doing is the worst ever or unprecedented or brand new. and some of it is. we definitely never saw these kind of pardons for convicts who attacked police before, but some of it is not. in other words, there are many people who want a smaller role for the federal government in certain areas. but here's the thing. most of those republicans historically wanted to do that through the lawful budgeting process. so you hire these people and you decide not to hire those people. you figure out the proper role and you responsibly move forward. what we are seeing here is unprecedented in the nature of it, the indiscriminate sort of slashing. that's why they've had to fire and rehire people, which is an admission of failure and a

kind of a rush to do this right now, in these weeks, which has raised other larger questions. and there is reporting on this as well, the washington post, talking to a lot of folks close to this process and concluding that what the ultimate goal would be is a diminished government which exerts less oversight over private business, delivers fewer services, but is still more responsive to the directives of the president. now notice the key difference there. it's not just saying a smaller government for the long term, because somebody thinks that the pentagon has gotten too large, or most education money should really be dealt with at the local, not federal level. what this is reporting, and we've seen other indications about it, is that the things the federal government does that are independent or check the power of a president, all of those agencies that are supposed to have scientific expertise and not just have their view on,

say, the monthly jobs report or the temperature of the earth, that stuff isn't supposed to change every four years when different presidents come in. but the view here is something we've seen donald trump pursue in many other ways that anything independent, even if it's for your public benefit or even if it fights waste, fraud and abuse, is the inspector general did until they were fired by him. anything like that will first be screened for the business benefits to people like him and musk and other billionaires, and the power of the presidency. that is not just, quote, smaller government. that is a very different vision. and quite frankly, it's not one they campaigned that much on. we heard a lot more about lowering the price of eggs. so taking that all together, we have special guests for aldo rivera special guests for aldo rivera and libby casey. ah mornings! cough? congestion? i'm feeling better. all in one and done... with mucinex kickstart. aaaaaaaaaaaaa. - headache? - better now. mucinex kickstart

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us to wake up? and when i say us, i mean this entire body to wake up to. what's going on here? is it going to be too late? is it going to be when the president has accreted all this power and the congress is an afterthought? >> debate roiling washington as these cuts continue? we're joined now by longtime journalist television personality geraldo rivera, who has known donald trump supported him at times. good to see you. i should mention broke with him over other issues. libby casey, senior anchor with the washington post. libby, i start with you on the facts of this vision of government, including that washington post reporting i mentioned. in fairness, you could have debates going back to the founding about the size of government. but the post reporting and frankly, some of what musk has said quite publicly suggests something different. >> yeah, this is really about control. >> and i think it's really important that you brought up the question of conflicts of interest, ari, because my colleague ian duncan had this powerful story about one of the

organizations and one of the groups that doge was cutting is this small team within government that regulates autonomous cars. sound, sound like anything that elon musk has been talking about. i mean, he has a stake in the future of autonomous cars. he's also talking about shutting down the international space station. he has so much money in space and in government contracts. so this is personal. but it's also about control. and when you hear someone like senator king of maine, who caucuses with the democrats, say, when are we going to wake up? the question is, when will congress step up and do something? or are they okay with ceding that power? we are hearing a lot of republicans behind the scenes talk to the white house, talk to the people in power and say that you got to stop this doge stuff because i'm hearing from my constituents. i have farmers who aren't getting their government contracts paid. i have forest service workers who are getting fired with no notice. we're not hearing a lot of them go public, though. now,

senator lisa murkowski of alaska, who donald trump is often angry at anyway, she just had a tele town hall this week with constituents, and i got a readout of the call, and she heard from a lot of people who were very upset. alaskans, like other states, have seen people who work in health care fired people who work in science or who are forest rangers fired. and she is saying a little something different. she said that the mass firings have violated the law and lacked respect and dignity. and she is also calling on other members of congress to stand up with her against these doge actions. >> yeah, rather. let me show you one quick poll. we know that trump improved his showing in the 2024 election. he got up to about 4950 total percent. but when you look at the question about this use of authority in the first month, he's already lost one out of five folks there. 40% of people say, okay, he's acted within his authority.

that's less than his voters. roughly a larger majority by a 17 point margin is already concerned. he's exceeded his authority. and we're in the early days of this term. your thoughts? >> well, my first. >> thought is to. >> congratulate libby and the washington post because i think they nailed it, that trump that musk's secret ambition is to replace the human workforce totally with robots and to somehow control, technically, technologically speaking, that i mean, obviously it's an exaggeration. but when you have someone whose head is, as musk's is so far out, so far out there. yeah, everybody wants waste, fraud and abuse. i think i may have coined that or an early user of that phrase back in the early 1970s. everybody wants to cut it out unless it's their job that's being cut out. and then the willy nilly nature of the, of the hammer falling has been

very unsettling in that it appears to be erratic. it appears to be radical. it appears to be improvizational. and the people want government to work. they want the post office to deliver the mail. they want the forest service to put out the fires, etcetera, etcetera. and they are worried that now the people who are coming to wreak havoc on the old world and to get the grotesque bloating. let me tell you one quick anecdote about government. government waste, fraud and abuse. it was a colonel i kind of grew up with in iraq and afghanistan. he came back to a job in the pentagon. he i said, how are you doing at some point? how are you doing, colonel? he said, here in this building, we have meetings about the meetings we're going to have in the coming days. it's meetings about meetings. i mean, there's no doubt that cuts need to be made, but there has to be a reassurance that they're being done in a reasonable, rational,

businesslike way. >> yeah. and i'll and i'll jump in and say, and then that they're being done for the people, not for some other external business corrupt reason. so hang with me, geraldo. i've got another thing i want to play for you. my last question to libby before we lose her. is, when do these pressures, this reporting, when does it accrue to a level where you get some response from the administration? because musk, like trump, is testing. >> well, the post has a recent poll that shows not only is trump a little bit underwater now, but americans disapprove by a 2 to 1 margin of what elon musk is doing. and democrats are really trying to use elon musk as like the poster boy of this moment. and so we'll see when the ripple effects, not just of the federal government cuts, remember, 80% of federal workers don't live anywhere near washington, d.c. it's not just the people losing their jobs, but when the services are no longer available, when the faa loses, as we have reported, essential workers who help with safety, that will make more

constituents speak up. and then we will see if congress decides to use the action and power that it has. >> yeah. really interesting. from the washington post. libby casey, thank you. geraldo, we often take advantage of your experience when we have you on to look look back through the archives. our producers went spelunking through them. and on immigration, found something pretty striking. this runs back 25 years. take a look. >> my dad, cruz rivera, left here in 1941 of the first wave of puerto ricans heading up to new york city. like millions of others from puerto rico, from the dominican republic, from mexico, from central and south america. my dad, his family and friends were searching for the american dream. some of them found that dream. others, though, became trapped at the very bottom levels of american society. >> just some of the way you've lived this and reflected on it. you mentioned multiple countries

there. i've been telling folks, and, you know, i do the facts, whether people agree or not or are surprised or not, in the first month, the overall deportation rate is lower than the last administration. that might be counterintuitive to people, but they haven't gotten their sea legs yet or gotten going on the higher rates they want. you could see weekly. it's not even close. and yet they are. the trump folks are, however, trying to telegraph what they call a tougher, more aggressive. other people call it a cruel approach. they've done that with media. they've done that with raids. they they're saying they have plans to use military sites for detaining undocumented immigrants. there are reports of people sent to the wrong country in return. so they're not yet deporting anywhere near the biden levels, but they're telegraphing this this aggressiveness. given your long track record here, your thoughts? >> well, i have a lot of thoughts. i mean, it was president obama who was the

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justice. >> the administration. >> doesn't necessarily. >> want. >> to. >> be questioned on any of its policy. >> main justice. new episodes drop every tuesday. >> we're going to start with breaking news on capitol hill. >> mounting questions over the future of tiktok in the us. >> reporting from. >> philadelphia to el. >> paso in the palisades, virginia. >> from msnbc world headquarters here in new york. >> google is. >> cutting back some of its diversity. >> equity and inclusion programs. >> following in the footsteps of many other big companies. >> the company said it would no longer set hiring targets to improve representation. >> our special report for you right now, president trump and his allies have spent years campaigning against diversity, equity and inclusion programs. dei in companies and organizations. now these attacks come on three main levels. first, opposing the actual programs that recruit for diversity, like affirmative action or projects to counter

unequal playing fields in business, government, college or life. and there's a valid debate over whether and how to address america's documented discrimination. it actually draws on decades of debates about rules, laws, and policies. the second line of attack is complaints that operate as a kind of symbolic or darker attack on american diversity itself, on the people that make our country diverse. in that line of attack, which i bet you've heard about and seen grievances against minorities or women or their possibly rising power in our society are used to single out, criticize, or malign those people and then say, it's just a policy debate. now, on the right, most prominent leaders do not proclaim that quote, there should be no women bosses or no women presidents. instead, you hear these dei attacks that traffic sometimes and grievances against the perceived rise of women and minorities. one trump appointee even proclaimed, quote,

competent white men must be in charge. a racist claim that was actually so extreme most trump aides, to be clear, don't put it like that. and then, third, their attacks that offer a caricature or a lie about dei. they basically make something up instead of facing the facts in the nuance. now it's familiar from the playbook, you might remember, against so-called woke politics. there are examples of things that are associated with liberalism that could be unpopular or extreme or not work well as policy, but a lot of the woke attacks from the right kind of cherry picked extreme examples, or made things up of whole cloth out of whole cloth, just to define the supposedly woke left trolling, a kind of a boogeyman version of the thing. instead of reckoning with the thing. now, these efforts, combined with the recent election of donald trump, are having a wide impact now from the government to top companies and even people who might try to tune out politics are finding

this supposed dei crackdown is driving issues and debates and sometimes big changes in their workplace or in their schools or even in sports. so our special report for you right now is going to confront this dei debate. and all i can promise you is if you're saying, hey, they're talking about dei on the news, i don't know, give me a couple of minutes because we've worked hard on this and it could be enlightening and different from what we've heard about the brand dei. we want to distinguish the facts and the actual policy from the disingenuous political hype. so let's turn to the caricature i mentioned of diversity programs as a matter of policy, the united states broadest diversity program is affirmative action, which is designed to recruit diverse candidates from a qualified pool. it has worked for decades, from the military to top colleges and boardrooms. for example, there may be hundreds of qualified candidates for a single ceo job. so these diversity programs try to make

sure the pool, the pool of candidates, includes some diversity, and then factor that into the recruitment and possibly the hiring when people are qualified. if you're curious, it dates all the way back to an executive order by president kennedy in 1961, which stated the government must take affirmative action to combat racial discrimination and ensure fair treatment in commerce. that's where the two words actually first originated, and it's well documented how colleges have had a long history of discriminating on race, gender, and religion negatively. that meant quotas limiting religious minorities or in boosts for elite and white applicants. colleges gave special bonuses for alumni children, reinforcing the elite white student bodies of generations past. today, it is a fact, as we know that how that worked. so people who claim that rich and white favoritism is over in elite schools are wrong.

they're either lying to you or to themselves. now, over time, many colleges began countering what you just saw there that kind of unequal playing field with affirmative action. and like the ceo example, top schools have many, many more qualified applicants than spots. so this incorporates diversity among qualified applicants, while at less selective schools, these policies mattered less. so if most or all kind of reasonable applicants are admitted, say, at a big school, then recruitment and affirmative action fades out of the picture. now, the political attacks on the letters dei are fairly new. you can see here. we'll come back to that. but the facts are old. decades of data on college, affirmative action. it diversified elite institutions. it increased social mobility. and when historically less traditional students got in. and this matters. those students who got in through those programs.

do you wonder how they did with all this talk about merit? i want to show you tonight they did very well. low income students completing their degree at higher rates than the wealthy students, according to several studies, which actually fits the logic of hard work and hustle. students with no fallback plans tend to go the extra mile. that's what the data shows. or, as the self-made poet shawn carter once recounted, i grew up thinking life ain't fair. there's a different set of rules we abide by here. he was contrasting the target on his back to what he viewed as the rich kids and said, quote, i'm standing in the crosshairs here. y'all ain't got to be in fear of your bosses there. you lose your job, you pop rich. y'all don't care. all the people who have to hustle harder, who have one shot, they do tend to care. they have to. so now compare this lens to recent di attacks that number one, these programs

themselves have become the actual discrimination rather than the actual history i mentioned of quotas at schools or of course, jim crow. and then two, that the existence of these programs themselves in some places must mean that every minority hire is suspect. like the dis. we've heard that someone is a quote di hire diversity. >> equity and inclusion. it's actually discriminatory. >> what will. >> make you. >> money. >> is if you. >> run your company based off of merit, not off diversity, but. >> you just want somebody qualified. >> that's all. >> we. >> ever asked for. >> dei has no role in our society. >> that's all we want. >> we want someone qualified. that's all we want. that was on fox in a recent discussion that is similar to many. so let's take this claim in two parts. first, this dei hire talk is a huge and obviously offensive allegation. if you have an allegation, you better be able to prove it against one or more people. the allegation is that

women and minorities in a given applicant pool must somehow be unqualified for some reason. and then second, these maga leaders are demanding what they say is the import formal qualifications. that's all we want. you heard it. just their qualifications for the big jobs. all right, let's get to it right now. a month into president trump's term, his appointments show that is false. he's got top people in key posts with scant or sometimes literally zero qualifications, including nepo baby robert f kennedy jr, lifelong democrat, picked to run the pivotal health agencies with zero government experience, hasn't run a large health organization in the private sector or anything like that. but remember the vow. >> but you just want somebody qualified. >> that's all. >> we ever asked for. that's all we want. >> somebody qualified. that's all they want. that is not what they got. their new president has failed that test

spectacularly and in public. their test, what they say they wanted. kennedy is now today's most famous nepo baby cabinet member. he was picked over thousands of individuals, including republicans. remember, he's a lifelong democrat, including republicans with more maga bona fides who have health management experience. trump played himself. he prized political loyalty and that type of fame over the qualifications that we heard were so important in this long running dei debate. and you say, oh, well, rfk is such a special case. is it a one off? no. it joins a flurry of blatant nepotism across trump's two terms, hiring his own family members for jobs ranging from advisers, which some could explain away better to ambassadorships and diplomacy in other countries with other languages, and a rich history where you need some expertise to heading the whole political party family, family, family. it's called nepotism. and these are powerful posts, some of them

with decisions that can be life and death. trump chose by nepotism and favoritism over the qualifications. the military is now overseen by a selection that put tv experience above governing experience. in contrast, blatant contrast to, say, recent experience of other people in that post. you see there, this trump meritless problem runs across several posts from the pentagon to the fbi, and some have been objecting even over on fox, sean hannity brought on his friend stephen a smith to discuss current events and viewers. listeners heard this frank assessment of the obvious qualification fail. >> i'm simply saying, my god, sean, when you're talking about people who are unqualified, i wish him nothing but the best. he served our country, you know, in the military. i get all of that. but when you are weekend host on fox news and now you're the defense secretary of the

united. states overseeing 3.5 million people. >> let. >> me ask. >> you. >> did. >> you serve? >> no, it's not that whole objection, which, remember, is one of the key planks of this supposed war on die, which now is being waged in the federal government and against companies and affecting your life and your workplace. that objection now has canceled itself in public. trump shredding the supposed concern about merit and all of those enablers i mentioned and showed who came, claimed they cared about that. most of them, as far as we can tell from our research in this segment, this special report, most of them have gone silent. we're not hearing them say, hey, i know i said merit or qualifications for two years about dei. i got to mention the zero years here. is it some kind of qualification concern? no, they're silent, but the merit of objection has canceled itself. another dei attack is the claim that america is past the time to remedy discrimination. right now, i'm sure you've heard this one. people who say, look, we are a

long ways from jackie robinson. people who say today's playing field is either basically level or even now tilted towards discriminating against, quote, white men. and i want to be clear, because i always talk to you about what's going on out there and the evidence and the discourse. this is common beyond just say, partizan, right wing or maga circles. joe rogan is one of the most popular broadcasters voices podcasters in our country. he does fascinating interviews apart from politics, by the way, but he's got tens of millions of listeners. this is part of what's mainstream today, and here's what he told them. >> most companies have all these different requirements. and they're openly allowed to discriminate against, especially heterosexual white men. >> all right. >> this is the news. so we'll deal in the facts. if quote, most companies are doing that in hiring, you'd see it in hiring. now there may be some troubling cases out there. individual

situations, dei practices that are not working, failing or called dei and aren't fair. but the overall facts are this women are half our population. if you go back about 15 years before you heard anything about these dei programs, they comprised about 3% of top company ceos. now, that's not a level playing field. certainly doesn't mean they've been hiring mostly or only women over those white male candidates mentioned by mr. rogan. okay. what is it now, today, after all this dei that we've heard about for years, 10% of top ceos are women. that's across the 500 largest companies. after the period of the supposed dei onslaught or overreach. i'm going to leave this up for you tonight. i told you, we deal in facts, and sometimes that takes a little longer than sound bites. but either you look at this and you think this is the product of a completely level playing field

for gender and hiring, which would mean that, quote, most women are not up to the job, and that's why only 10% of that in that leadership position. or you might look at this and conclude, as many policy makers and experts have as the courts sometimes have when presented with these kind of disparate data results, that it's not a level playing field. there's still room to grow on hiring and access and diversity. now that's gender. and even though i am a man and speaking to you as a person who does journalism takes the fairness seriously. but i happen to be a guy for some reason. in america, sometimes people have an easier time politically discussing this on gender than on race. so that's the example on gender. keep that in mind. either you think only 10% fits, only 10% of women are, quote, up to the job, or you think there's a disparity there. let's turn to diversity. about 40% of the population now are racial minorities, according to the most recent census five years back. they comprise about

14% of ceos in just the top 50 companies. you see that lagging? those are the big tech and financial firms that drive wall street. that's the top 50. then you have black ceos of major companies. and the question is, are we looking at a hiring system where white men face discrimination? that's what i showed you the claim earlier ore us has more pronounced discrimination against specifically black individuals. that's true in policing, in banking, mortgages. we've got blind tests where you see that all things being equal and finances being black hurts your ability to get the same mortgage rate. and we see it in hiring. if you go to the top 500 companies in america. 14% of the population roughly are black americans, under 2%. under 2% of the ceos are black. this is

america. and just like the example i gave with men and women, you can look at that and say that must reflect a level playing field and who's up to the job. or you might see something else, especially if you add what we know about american history. people can debate whether the federal government should counter that or how that's part of the debate i showed you earlier, but there's no factual debate, debate on the data. and it's a big contrast to the we have improved arguments now in our democracy. we have seen that voting rights, when they were actually truly expanded and protected by the federal government, the numbers changed more than what i showed you in business, 1960, women were just 4% of the house. that number is much higher now at 29%. it's far short of a full 50% parity. but you see the jump. in 1960, racial minorities were 11% of the population, but less than 2% of congress. now, again, it's over 40% of the population. and that diversity shift reflects

probably some of the tensions and dynamics in play. but those groups comprise nearly a third of congress. racial representation is closer to the general population than gender today. and i mentioned that comparison in 1960. that's before the civil and voting rights laws passed. and that's not a coincidence. in the old days, we might just say duh, because in the old days, some of these things weren't attacked by so many blatant lies, which can be exhausting to deal with. but those laws work to advance representation in congress in ways that we haven't seen extended in business. another historical point tonight, over time, both parties actually renewed those voting rights laws. so the voting rights was fortified. it was supported on a bipartisan basis, and it protected the representation that allowed everyone to run and vote. may the best person win the race. in fact, here are some republicans you might know on

that point. >> freedom from discrimination must be a spiritual. >> struggle for brotherhood. must be a political struggle for full participation at the ballot box. but just as important, it must be an economic struggle for opportunity. >> for decades since the voting rights. >> act. >> was first. >> passed, we made. >> progress toward equality. yet the work for a more perfect. union is never ending. >> fair. >> so let's live this together with the history and the facts. that was the republican vow across those times. that's across decades. president reagan also very clearly announced his affirmative action approach in hiring one of the most important posts putting a woman, the first woman on the supreme court. he was a republican, considered very conservative at the time, very different from what we're seeing from republican donald trump today. republicans very

much say that work is ending in contrast to what bush said never ending the president, not only gutting diversity programs within his administration, but keep in mind he's taking a big government anti-conservative approach, trying to pressure all private companies with the power of the federal government to follow his government hiring practices rather than respecting the free market. he's also threatening different organizations and companies with reviews, with legal reviews of various types. highly unlikely. legal experts think that there would be a valid case to go after a company for how it hires people, but that's also in the push. so the political crusade is a long ways from the recent history and the facts. and look, none of this means that all dei programs work perfectly, or that this should even be the focus i mentioned. the military has used affirmative action for years. i

showed you colleges. we saw diversity in our actual representative democracy, which makes sense. having trying to have our representatives generally reflect the whole population, which is a struggle for a country like ours, doesn't mean the corporations are the natural home for this. multinational companies are generally not the greatest engines of broad social progress. and note how today the right is demanding private companies follow their political edicts after complaining that that was the whole problem before, when they said that they had to object to companies that they imagined, be it m&ms or disney, following what they thought were lefty woke edicts. now they're just flipping it with a heck of a lot more pressure. i don't recall the federal government being involved in the selection. now, some may hope you don't see the hypocrisy. you don't see the facts, or you don't see the history. and that's the other funny part of this, which

relates to diversity and our country and our ability to deal with these tough things, but also the cynical, trolling way that we have been presented with so many different claims. i submit to you the actual history, difficult and slow, is still more uplifting than the current right wing anti rancor suggests. and you don't have to take my word for it and maybe don't automatically take the politicians and billionaires word for it. they've approached some of these issues with the speedy, self-interested slogans conceived at the speed of tweets, and they sometimes disappear that quickly. we could also try listening to the leaders across the spectrum who have actually spent years working on these challenges, leading on these challenges, dealing with these in a serious way. if you go to a policy and you take a policy to a large organization and you actually

care, you seriously look at the data. over years, there has been several supreme court cases about these diversity programs. affirmative action, for example, was limited over time to make sure that it functioned in a more fair way, that it was merit based, that it also dealt with class to some degree. but all of that work was dealing with trade offs that aren't exactly new, and a heck of a lot of people took it seriously. because underneath this is not just claims of merit, which we showed some folks don't care about, not just questions of who gets the good job or how we deal with diversity. in some broad sense, it actually doubles back to something we felt in the last several elections. and in a lot of the strife we're dealing with, and a lot of the ways that people want you to give up or think we are in our worst times, which of course depends on what we all do. america is actually different from many other countries and societies and the way they were founded. remember something very simple. we learn about it in school, unlike so

many other places, the united states was actually founded as a pluralistic society, not bound by one religion or one race living together or even by birth place. and so all of this comes back. i argue to you tonight, based on the evidence, to something much deeper. can we still forge ways for all of us to coexist and meaningfully share power as we listen to those other leaders and the lessons of the past? or will we allow ourselves to crumble in division? >> quality and diversity can go. >> hand in hand, and they. >> must. >> diversity. >> equity and inclusion are the core values. >> of this country. >> we believe our diversity, our differences, when joined together by a common set of ideals, makes us stronger, makes us more creative. >> i think it's a very. >> important principle. i hope

it isn't in danger. it shouldn't be. we are a nation comprised of people from many different countries, backgrounds, religions. >> most economists. >> who studied it. >> agree that affirmative. >> action has. >> also been an. >> important part of closing. >> gaps in economic opportunity in our society, thereby. >> strengthening the. >> entire economy. >> diversity. >> equity and inclusion is proof. proof. >> did you know... 80% of women are struggling with hair damage? just like i was. pantene miracle rescue deep conditioner with melting pro-v pearls. locks in moisture to repair 6 months of damage. for resilient, healthy-looking hair. if you know, you know it's pantene. speaker: my little miracle is beckett. [christina perri, "a thousand years"] i have died every day waiting for you. we wouldn't be where we are without saint jude. and in turn, we wouldn't be where we are without those people that have donated. yet another toothpaste that does not whiten.

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invisible on the skin. it works like a dream. why didn't someone think of this sooner? >> good evening and welcome to politics nation. tonight's lead. the bully pulpit.