and a lot of the traditionals are not as as strong as they used to be. and that's the problem. and i was on the board once on the white house correspondents association board for three years when barack obama was president, and we fought with the president. you know, there was a give and take, but i need to see this white house work with the association. they have not worked with them at the beginning when they said, we're going to change how we call on folks, they didn't talk to them about that, and they didn't talk to them about how they're going to do the pool. now, the white house needs to work with us and stop this. what is it? state one media type of atmosphere. it's got to change. >> this is what you call a slippery slope. thanks to both of you. it's great to see you both. april. ryan, always a pleasure to have you on the show. symone sanders, my colleague, the host of the weekend here on msnbc. thanks for staying late, symone. i know you've already had a long day. all right, another hour of velshi begins right now. good

morning. it's saturday, march 1st. i'm ali velshi. president trump continues to publicly push the united states closer to russia at the expense of ukraine, including a total abandonment of the multiyear american led efforts to punish and isolate vladimir putin for instigating europe's most destructive and deadly conflict since world war two. the latest and most visceral episode took place yesterday during an oval office meeting between trump and ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky, who was in washington, ostensibly to sign up somewhat dubious deal giving america rights to some of ukraine's vast and valuable natural resources in exchange for unclear security guarantees. the deal didn't get signed. instead, what began as talk of security guarantees quickly devolved into one of the most devastating and disastrous moments in american diplomatic history, which started with donald trump saying that volodymyr zelensky was acting not in defense of his country, but out of malice toward the russian dictator. this went on for several minutes, building to this shocking back and forth between trump and zelensky. >> don't tell us what we're

going to feel. we're trying to solve a problem. don't tell us what we're going to feel. >> i'm not telling you. >> because you're in no position to dictate that. remember, you're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel. we're going to feel very good. we're going to feel very good and very strong. >> will feel influenced. >> you're right now not in a very good position. you've allowed. yourself to be in a. >> very bad position. >> and he happens to be right. >> about from the very beginning of the war. >> you're not in a good position. you don't have the cards right now with us. you start having cards. cards right now you don't. >> you're playing cards. you're playing cards. >> you're gambling with the. lives of millions of people. you're gambling with world war three. you're gambling with world war three. and what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that's. >> backed you. >> far more than a lot of people said they should have. >> yeah, that really happened. trump and vice president vance then demanded that zelensky thank them personally.

>> have you said thank you once this entire meeting? no. in this entire meeting, have you said thank you? today you went to pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in october, offer some words of appreciation for the united states of america and the president who's trying to save your country. >> please. you think that if you will speak very loudly about the war, you. >> can start speaking loudly? he's not speaking loudly. your country is in big trouble. >> can i. >> wait a minute? no, no. you've done a lot of talking. your country is in big trouble. >> i know. >> you're not winning. no, you're not winning this. you have a damn good chance of coming out, okay? because of this, you're not acting at all thankful. and that's not a nice thing. i'll be honest. that's not a nice thing. all right? i think we've seen enough. what do you think this is? this is going to be great television. i will say that. >> shortly after the media pool left the oval office, zelenskyy and the ukrainian delegation were kicked out of the white

house. and trump went on the attack on social media, posting in part that zelenskyy, quote, disrespected the united states of america and its cherished oval office. he can come back when he's ready for peace, end quote. he took it even further when talking to reporters outside the white house before departing for mar a lago. >> i'm not. >> looking to get into anything protracted. i want immediate peace. president putin is going to want to make and he wants to make. he wants to end it. and you saw what i saw today. this is a man that wants to get us signed up and keep fighting. and we're not doing that, not for this country. >> let me restart talking. >> he's got to say i want to make peace. he doesn't have to stand there and say about putin, this, putin, that all negative things he's got to say, i want to make peace. i don't want to fight a war any longer. his people are dying. he doesn't have the cards. >> now, much of this monumental shift in american foreign policy has flown under the radar

because of the sheer amount of anti-democratic rhetoric coming out of the trump white house, but this particular episode began in earnest, at least we know of publicly, when trump held a one on one phone call with putin earlier this month. a week after that, the secretary of state, marco rubio, led a high level delegation to saudi arabia for talks with his russian counterpart, sergey lavrov, which one member of moscow's delegation described as being jovial and, quote, there were a lot of jokes. rubio told reporters that they agreed to work on ending the war with, quote, consultation with ukraine, end quote consultation and consultation with ukraine. but that, quote, ultimately the russian side will be indispensable to this effort. rubio also said they agreed to explore the, quote, incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the russians on economic and geopolitical interests. this past monday, the third anniversary of russia's full fledged and unprovoked invasion of ukraine, the united states sided with russia at the un general assembly multiple times, including voting against a european drafted resolution condemning russia's invasion and

supporting ukraine's territorial integrity. the united states voted the same as just 11 other countries, including russia and two of its closest allies, belarus and north korea. on thursday, the u.s. and russia conducted another round of meetings, this time in istanbul, discussing, among other things, restoring direct flights between the countries and issues dealing with diplomatic missions. that's according to the russian foreign ministry. putin later publicly praised the trump administration's, quote, pragmatism and realistic worldview, saying things so far are, quote, inspiring a certain degree of hope. joining me now is ben rhodes. he's a former deputy national security advisor in the obama administration. he's a co-host of the important podcast pod. save the world, is an msnbc political contributor, and is the author of the important book, after the fall the rise of authoritarianism authoritarianism in the world. we've made ben, ben about 24 hours since this went down. a little less than that. your thoughts? >> well. >> i think that you put your finger. >> on the fact that this is not

just a shift in u.s. foreign policy. this is a complete transformation. of what the united states is in its foreign policy and in the world. and essentially. >> in this. >> conflict, we have shifted sides. >> from the ukraine. >> side to the russian side. and so. >> you now have a situation where ukraine is supported by europe, is facing off at the negotiating table with russia, backed by the united states. and the only efforts that they put into this saying for weeks now. so this is this is not just one meeting or one thing that they've said. their only interest has been in dictating the russian terms of surrender to ukraine. that's what american diplomacy has been on this issue. and that is going to completely upend relationships, i would say, with our european allies, except they're not really our european allies, ally. that's not how they're being treated, right? russia is being treated more like the ally. european countries are going to have to have their own collective approach, not just to ukraine, but to security and defense issues. the united states has now fully joined the

club of big, autocratic countries that like to make deals over the heads of small countries and certainly democracies. and that's, you know, the u.s, russia, china, the gulf arab countries, you know, that's who trump wants to hang out with. that's the world order he wants to be a part of. and now that's happened. it's not just something we're like talking about. it's happened. and the rest of the world is adjusting to it. >> and you talk about this frequently. you've written about it recently, you and i talked about how the united states needs to think about its new role in the world. and you're right, everything is going the opposite way. so right now, zelenskyy is in london. he's meeting with the british prime minister, keir starmer, who along with the french prime minister, their french president. they're trying to figure out what non america nato looks like or what a defense alliance in europe looks like. if the united states is not just unreliable, but might be on the other side at some point. tell me about this. is that is that is that a good or a bad development? everybody has woken up to the fact that america, for

the moment, may not be on our team. >> well. >> you know, first of all, i just want to be blunt to ali for the moment, you know, the first time trump was president, there was a lot of for the moment, maybe america will kind of return to being what we wanted it to be after yesterday. this will never go back. it's over. you know, we could try to rebuild it, you know, at some point in the future, i would like to see an american president try to build some new alliances with europe. they're not going to think of the united states the same way ever again after what they saw yesterday. and so i think whether it's good or bad, it's necessary for your and ukraine to be talking about these capabilities. now, there's short term questions, like as part of some ceasefire in russia, in ukraine, will there be european forces on the ground in ukraine? there are enormous questions that go along with that, not just which countries will put in troops, but under whose command will be making decisions, what are going to be their rules of engagement? these are things that the europeans are not accustomed to thinking through, absent american support. but then in terms of building up support for ukraine,

if the war continues, right, because ukraine doesn't have to agree to trump and putin's terms, europe can provide a lot, but they don't obviously have the same degree of firepower as the united states, nor do they have the production capacity to kind of ramp up the production of mortars and some of the smaller arms that ukraine has been relying on on the front lines. and so the question is, what can be done on an emergency basis to get ukraine some budgetary and military support, then what can be done in terms of security guarantees for ukraine in that negotiation with russia and the united states? and then in the kind of medium term, how does europe develop its own independent defense production capacity if it can't rely on the united states? >> i want to ask. i normally when i have somebody with your brain and firepower, i sort of keep it to really good policy stuff. but you've been in meetings like the kind that happened yesterday, although never one like that. really. tell me about the importance of that meeting, what happened and how you thought zelenskyy, who i mean, he was like it was like 30 to 1 with zelensky. i thought he held up pretty well because the guy's been living in a war for

three years. he didn't evacuate when america offered him before the war started. he didn't go to lviv in the west of ukraine when america said, maybe he'll be safer there. this guy's been living in a war for three years. he seemed less rattled than i certainly would have been. >> yeah. >> i've never seen anything like that. i mean, i've been in closed door meetings with that devolved into arguments. but when the cameras come in the room, i mean, you're very aware, particularly in the oval office of the united states, that this is going to be viewed around the world. every word. you know, we used to speak down to the clause that a president would use or that his counterpart would use in front of the media, because you're seeking to project a message. and they wanted to project a message yesterday, and they wanted to completely humiliate zelensky. that was, i think, their intention heading into that press event. that's why they stopped the press event with some of their own state media here in the united states to, you know, berate zelensky about his suit. that's why they were constantly kind of poking at him until the thing exploded. i actually kind of take issue with some of the coverage that cast it as a shouting match or

something, that i didn't ever see zelensky say anything particularly insulting or, you know, raise his voice except to be heard when he was being lectured for a very long time. and what i saw, though, that's really important that we that we have to consider here, too, ali, is that zelensky was telling the truth, like all he was doing is trying to share facts about what has happened to his country that had been invaded, share facts about how putin is broken, ceasefires in the past. and not only did they shout at him and call him ungrateful, the only quote unquote disrespectful thing i can even consider he did is apparently not thank mr. trump enough. right? but what is even more alarming in some ways, ali, is that they were repeating kremlin talking points as fact and condemning zelensky's fact based interventions as propaganda. yeah, and this is the full autocratic playbook, right? this is this is not soft autocracy. this is something much darker where they have their own hand-chosen media, who has their own hand-chosen questions. they humiliate the

guy from the smaller country. and these are schoolyard bullies, trump. they can't pick on people their own size in the schoolyard. they look for someone small to kind of humiliate in front of their friends. right? that's what's happening here. and it's their version of the truth. and at the end, when j.d. vance is yelling at him, you're wrong. everything you said is wrong. that's not true. everything he said was right. most of what vance said was wrong. but j.d. vance knows it. you know his audience, which is, you know, half the country is going to believe him. >> it was a weird thing. ben, it's good to see you, my friend. thank you. as always. ben rhodes is the former deputy national security advisor for president obama and an msnbc political analyst. he's the co-host of pod save the world and the author of after the fall the rise of authoritarianism in the world we made. all right. coming up, i'll continue this conversation with gary kasparov, a political activist, writer, longtime critic of the kremlin. just this week, kasparov wrote a pointed article for the atlantic called the putin ization of america. that conversation is next.

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yet book banning in the u.s. is worse than i've ever seen. it's people in power who want to control everything. well, i say no to censorship. and i say yes to freedom of speech and expression. if you do too, please join us in supporting the american civil liberties union today. for over 100 years, the aclu has fought for your rights and mine. including the right to read all manner of books. so please call or go online to myaclu.org. for just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day. you can become a guardian of liberty and help protect all the rights predo us by the u.s. constitution. make no mistake, this move to ban books is a coordinated attack on students right to learn. this is a clear violation of free speech. that's why the aclu is working to fight against censorship in all its forms.

it is so important now more than ever. so please call or go to myaclu.org and become an aclu guardian of liberty, for just $19 a month. use your credit card and you'll get this special we the people t-shirt and more to show you're helping to protect the rights of all people. the aclu is in all 50 states, d.c. and puerto rico defending our first amendment right of free speech and all of your constitutional rights. because we the people, means all of us. so please, call or, go online to myaclu.org today. satisfaction. >> hi. >> my friend. linda has you guys and gets. way better coverage than i do. >> sounds like linda has you beat. >> o

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>> joining me now is garry kasparov. he's a human rights advocate. he's a longtime critic of vladimir putin. he serves as the chair of the renewed democracy initiative. he's on the board of the human rights foundation. and he penned this warning about the putin ization of america and the atlantic, which was posted just hours before yesterday's oval office debacle. and he's a hell of a chess player. garry, good to see you. thank you for joining us this morning. >> good morning. thanks for having me. >> i want to ask you about a tweet that you posted after yesterday's meeting, because i was just talking to ben rhodes about the lies. right. the fact is, one side, it wasn't an argument. it was. it was one side was lying and the other side was telling the truth. you said zelensky is a wartime leader watching his people suffer and die under russian attacks every day, to be lectured and lied to by trump and vance as they defend the war criminal dictator committing these atrocities is unimaginable agony and everlasting shame for america. i think the point here is they were telling lies in

front of the world. vance and trump were lying to a guy who's living through this war. >> absolutely. and, you know, the irony is that actually trump was called names compared. >> to. >> hitler and called moron and conman, but not by zelensky, but his people on the right, namely jd vance and marco rubio. i wonder if they ever apologized for actually calling trump these names back in 2016 or even later. so it's quite ironic that zelensky desperately try to correct the facts. he tried, he pointed out. and by the way, this is the rubio was silent. i mean, he's irrelevant since he's not played. but jd vance, you know, has a great ability. give him credit lying but with a straight face, insulting people with a straight face. i saw it in munich security conference. it's the largest conference in the world. and the united states vice president looked into the

eyes of the european leaders and basically told them, you're a bunch of losers and suckers and you're irrelevant. and the next he did, he went to meet the leader of the neo-nazi party in germany, ignoring chancellor and other political parties. and then, of course, we know that they are supporting practically every far right neo-nazi group group in europe, namely romania. it is something that is not probably is properly described here. but the guy was running in romania, he's a nazi. he's not hiding it and supported by russian money and of course supported by elon musk and jd vance, concerned about the will of the people. yeah. so it's, you know, during the campaign, presidential campaign, you know, they were complaints about democrats using hitler analogy. the problem is, you know, you don't have to use it. they are following these paths. and just to understand the nature of afd alternative for germany, the party that was so vehemently

supported by by by moscow, and the party that got the second highest number of seats. in germany doesn't want to deal with them. yeah, that's just to give you an idea, right? >> that's what i was saying this in the commercial break to my producer, that there's not even a shame being associated with, with the nazis in this, in this new world. but it is it is. jd vance said in munich. you have to stop ignoring the will of the people. so they're talking in democratic terms about authoritarianism. they're talking in democratic terms about things that are actually not democratic. i don't understand what the gain was supposed to be tomorrow, because yesterday, because it was really just it was it was putin's talking points, right, that ukraine can't join nato. ukraine is, you know, absolutely. >> no, this is there's no doubt this it's this. but i still think, you know, it's actually trump was manipulated by jd vance because i think trump wanted to have this deal. so this is it's art of the deal to sign the deal and to show i'm a winner. but he was easily manipulated by jd vance. i think

this is the fact that jd vance was at the meeting. it's probably the decision of the group that is basically calling the shots. it's a mask. and donald trump jr and others. so they thought trump being too soft with macron and starmer and he made some sort of concessions because i think trump is he can move here and there again all he wants to be just in the center of the attention. and he was about to sign a deal with zelensky, which again meant very little but still could, could, could push america in the wrong direction by the estimation of vance and this cold war party group. and so they did absolutely everything to make sure that trump would, you know, would would tear it apart because vance vance intervened. you know, it's before vance intervention. things were okay. and i think trump played it like like a like a sugar daddy. and then vance through a match up. so this is typical. and then he just got enraged. and that's exactly what they want to do. and vance body language you know even even patting trump on his

shoulder. so great job. great job. yeah. and what happened next. they forced everybody starting with rubio and many other members of the cabinet writing almost identical emails praising trump. that's exactly it's utilization of america. that's how you shift from democracy. >> to american diplomats. >> it's no longer. >> the american development officials have been retweeting marco rubio and retweeting these. thanks, donald trump, for standing up for america and putting america first. this is happening across our government, gary. thank you, my friend. i appreciate it. always. good to see you. gary kasparov is the chairman of the human rights foundation and the renew democracy initiative. still ahead tales from post-roe america and from margaret atwood's dystopian fiction. i'm going to see if you can tell going to see if you can tell which is which next. nexium 24hr prevents heartburn acid for twice as long as pepcid. get all-day and all-night heartburn acid prevention with just one pill a day. choose acid prevention.

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tale on may 1st, 2022. that was exactly one day before a draft of the supreme court's decision to overturn roe v wade was leaked. atwood's book famously takes place in a near-future totalitarian, theocratic military dictatorship known as gilead, which has overthrown the u.s. government. the new regime reorganizes society using an extreme interpretation of the old testament. women are the lowest ranking class prevented from owning property, reading, writing and, of course, deprived of control over their own reproductive functions. environmental catastrophes have rendered much of the population infertile, so the government has reintroduced forced surrogacy. forced surrogacy, like the handmaids in the book of genesis in the bible. one of the most striking things about atwood and her book, which we discussed that day, is that every brutal and terrifying aspect of the fictional gilead was inspired by things that had already happened. the book was first published in 1985, and as atwood was writing it, she collected newspaper and magazine articles of the real life policies and

events that she used to create the fictional dystopia. she told the publishing house penguin in 2019, quote, i didn't even research it. there was no internet then. you couldn't just go online and put in a topic. so this is just stuff i came across when reading newspapers and magazines. i cut things out and put them in a box. this was backup in case someone said, how did you make this up? as i've said about a million times, i didn't make it up. this is the proof. everything in these boxes. end quote. now, i didn't know when i was talking to margaret atwood that day, in may of 2022, that the era of federally protected abortion rights in america would come to an end. the very next day, i didn't know then that we were hours away from taking such a big step backward in time, back towards some of the cruel regimes that inspired atwood to create gilead. it felt almost hard to believe that atwood's dystopian world, gilead, was based on things that happened in the real world. but now, almost three years into post-roe america, as we've watched a flood of creatively cruel policies take shape across

anti-abortion states, it's easier to see. in atwood's fictional gilead. the state treats wombs like a natural resource, a national resource where the protagonist, offred, tragically describes her own womb as, quote, more real than i am. in the real world, women from poorer regions like india and thailand have long been exploited by a shadowy surrogacy industry catering to wealthier western couples who are unable to conceive. according to reporting by our own producer, amel ahmed, at one surrogacy conference, lawyers and brokers casually referred to these women as carriers, carriers, sociologists, sociologist france winddance twine, author of outsourcing the womb, explains that women do this so that they can afford a house with a toilet. in other words, it's not a real choice. but lots of things happen in the developing world that we would find unusual and unacceptable here in america. but if you think first world privilege makes american women immune from being forced to bear children, think again.

just last week, republican lawmakers in missouri introduced a bill to create a state run registry of pregnant women who are deemed at risk of seeking an abortion. those interested in adopting babies would have access to this registry, effectively turning pregnancy into a state monitored marketplace. that's according to the writer jessica valenti in the handmaid's tale. it was not just women who were targeted. doctors who performed abortions were treated in the eyes of the law as murderers, and they were subject to the death penalty. today, in post-roe america, abortion bans targeting doctors with such draconian penalties that they routinely report being forced to violate their oaths as medical professionals. one doctor in a 2023 report shared a chilling case in which a woman actively miscarrying and in severe pain was denied even a helping hand to get on to a hospital gurney because the mere act of assisting her could be interpreted as aiding and abetting an abortion. according to the doctor who handled the case, quote, they believe that providing an epidural could be

considered a crime under the new law. best not to so much as touch the patient who is miscarrying. it's a gross violation of common sense. and the oath i took when i got into this profession to soothe my patients suffering. end quote. back to the book. in chapter eight of the handmaid's tale, offred witnesses a funeral service for a miscarried fetus. today in america, some states quite literally require abortion clinics to provide a burial or cremation service for an aborted fetus. just last week, an ohio judge blocked one such law, ruling that it violates reproductive rights. but the concept stems from a growing fetal personhood movement, which seeks to grant fetuses the same legal rights as people, including classifying an abortion as a homicide. meanwhile, a new montana bill seeks to charge pregnant women with criminal criminally trafficking criminally trafficking their own fetuses if they attempt to cross state lines for a legal abortion in another state. the offense is punishable by up to five years in prison, a $1,000 fine, or

both. the handmaid's tale was published 37 years before the dobbs decision erased abortion rights in america. and now we're seeing the echoes of the real life horror stories that inspired margaret atwood to tell that tale. the warning of gilead and american women are facing a reshaping of public policy that treats their wombs. as offred put it in the book, as more real than women themselves. for more on this, i'm joined by jessica valenti, the acclaimed feminist writer and author of the book abortion our bodies, their lies, and the truths we use to win. she's also the author of the popular substack abortion every day. jessica, it's great to see you. thank you for being with us. i want to jump into something you've been talking about. what? we were just saying, these trafficking laws, they initially targeted teens, but as you correctly predicted, that was just a test run. and they would eventually extend to all adult women. talk to me a bit about this. >> sure. the bill we saw in montana, which luckily has since been tabled in committee,

targets pregnant people specifically that if they leave the state for an abortion, that would have been illegal in montana. so an abortion after 24 weeks, let's say they could be charged with trafficking their own fetus across state lines. and this was always the goal, right? they were never going to stop at teenagers. teenagers were the testing ground. this has always been the point. and even though this bill has been tabled, they are providing a roadmap for us, right? for the rest of the country. this is not going to be the last bill that we see like this. they're putting it out there. they're seeing how it goes. and i predict we're going to see a lot more trafficking bills over over the next few months. >> well, you gave us air quotes there. let's talk about that framing women's travel as of their own choice in a free country as trafficking is a deliberate choice. it's a rhetorical trick, and there are many of them in the anti-abortion fight that conjures up an image of women or children being ferried across state lines against their will.

but but you say this enough, and you do it enough, and you put enough laws in place, and it becomes, as margaret atwood says, the truth. >> sorry, there. i just lost you for a second. so i didn't hear your question, but i the we are seeing just a tremendous amount of. laws across the state. trafficking is one of the we're seeing a lot of, as you mentioned, language, the language claiming that women who get abortions are being coerced. and so one of the things i'm trying to pay attention to is the language that they're using and the way that they're trying to sort of propose these bills and make it sound as. other, hurting them. >> okay, good. i'm going to ask you to put your mic a little closer so we can try, i'm sure. yeah. i guess there was something there. maybe. can you hear me now? >> i can hear you now. >> well, you gave me the right answer anyway. so whether you heard my question, which goes to

what my executive producer says, i just talked too much. i asked too many questions. let's talk a little bit about birth control. you have mentioned, and many people have said this is a target too. it's all everything is a target, everything to do with women's reproductive health and their control over it is a target. and one needs to understand the end game to understand how this all fits into it. you may not think that a lot of these current laws apply to you, or what your experience or the experience of people near you, but it's basically it's handmaid's tale. it's coming for all your control over your reproductive freedom 100%. >> and what's interesting about contraception is that they're doing something similar that they did with abortion, which is they're taking this chipping away approach. right? they're not going to propose a bill that says birth control is now illegal, because they know that that will cause a tremendous amount of backlash. and so they're sort of like doing this slow erosion, and specifically by targeting the most marginalized among us, right? like teenagers, like low income people with the hopes that no one is going to notice or that no one is going to care. but as we've seen with what happened in montana, what comes for the most

marginalized today is coming for the rest of us tomorrow. and that's always been the goal, to put women in that subordinate position to reinforce traditional gender roles, to eradicate women from the public sphere and force them into the private sphere. so everything that we're seeing is in service of that goal. >> women and people in general who speak out in these particular states where these laws, these that are increasing, increasingly encroaching on reproductive rights, when they speak out, they do so at great personal risk. you covered the case of an idaho woman who was recently assaulted by private security during a town hall conference. as it was happening, the town hall moderator mocked her, saying, look at this little girl over here, everyone. she spoke up. now she doesn't want to suffer the consequences. tell me about this. this is like this whole all of the language of this. she spoke up and doesn't want to suffer the consequences in a country where we have a first amendment. >> yeah. it was the little girl that really tipped me off, right? like that was such a specific bit of language that made it really clear to me that

this was about misogyny. we're seeing this with doctors, doctors who speak up about the crisis in care that they're witnessing are also being attacked. i'm sure you remember doctor caitlin bernard in indiana when she spoke up about that ten year old girl who had to travel from ohio for an abortion. the indiana attorney general used the full power of the state to attack her to go after her license. it was a very, very clear that they were trying to send a message to other providers and doctors that if you come forward, we will attack you. and i think it's the same thing that we saw in idaho at that town hall. it is a warning. they are firing these warning shots, telling women, telling people who care about this issue, if you speak up, if you do something, we are going to be there to make sure that you suffer the consequences. >> jessica, it's good to see you. as always. thank you for joining us. jessica valenti is a leading voice on the politics of gender and abortion, and the author of the book abortion our bodies, their lives, and the truths we use to win. still ahead, today's meeting of the

banned book club with bestselling author samira ahmed. her young adult dystopian novel internment, is a testament to how much change a single voice can make in this country, if you're brave enough to use it. the velshi banned book club is the velshi banned book club is next. what are folks 60 and older learning these days? new perspectives! ♪♪ how to fix things. ♪♪ fun recip... (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound) >> muddy paws, dirty shoes, and endless cleaning. are your floors always dirty no matter how many times you clean? now there's a simple solution. meet muddy matt, the ultra absorbent microfiber chenille mat that keeps your dog's paws so clean

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a half years since the election. 18 months since the muslim ban. one year since our answers on the census landed us on the registry. nine months since the first book banning book burning, end quote. and so begins samira ahmed's young adult dystopian pulled from the headlines story and today's book club feature titled internment. internment is set, quote, 15 minutes into the future, end quote. it follows 17 year old layla amin and her parents after they are systematically stripped of their rights and forced into an internment camp for muslims in the middle of the desert. internment grapples with the fragility of freedom, the cost of resistance, complicity, bravery, tragedy, the politics of fear and the strength of community. internment is not a subtle read, and that is by design. i'm a just quick to make direct comparisons between the internment camp where layla and her loved ones are detained, and the infamous american internment camps for people of japanese descent during world war two. the book bans the governmental media control, the weaponized census information, white

supremacist marches in the capitol, and other similar details read like overt allusions to administrations past and present, and some of the references are chillingly coincidental. prescient, even internment was first published in the spring of 2019, written three years before that, in 2016, just as donald trump was entering the white house the first time. the result is a salient reminder that government control is obtained through a well-worn playbook. at the center of internment is a nuanced look at an ideological and generational divide between layla and her parents teenage layla. fueled by anger, idealism, hope, activism as a moral imperative. it's her duty to fight for justice and for change. her parents priority, on the other hand, is not just safety, it's survival. this complex tension does not just raise the stakes within the pages of internment. it feels incredibly real. we've featured many dystopian young adult novels since the inception of the velshi banned book club in 2021, including the giver by lois lowry and uglies by scott

westerfeld. these books are all different. the writing styles differ, the protagonists motivations are not the same, and the mechanisms that the dystopian governments use to control the population are varied. but what is the same is the message young people can make a difference. young people can change the nation. in fact, these books argue young people might be our best option. and that is what keeps landing books like the giver, uglies and internment on banned and challenge challenge lists again and again. don't take my word for it. lois lowry told me that. >> i think what they're really objecting to and they don't know this, but it's pervasive within their reading, is that a young person has perceived the hypocrisy and corruption of the governance of the generation that has created their world. and of course, that's very relevant today. >> so for velshi, banned book club members. right now, if you're looking for hope, look at young americans, young

activists. there's hope in their ideology, their fearlessness, their desire for change. that hope is the most powerful thing of all. right, after a quick commercial break, i'll be joined by samira ahmed, the bestselling author of numerous books, including today's fauci banned including today's fauci banned book club feature internment. (man) got one more antoine. (vo) with usps ground advantage, it's like you're with us every step of the way. ♪ (man) cooool. ♪ (man) right on time! (vo) stay in the know. from your dock... to their door. bylaws. >> we're showing we're consumer cellular gets great coverage. >> you're making everything

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underway. i'm joined by samira ahmed, the best selling author of numerous books, including today's velshi banned book club feature internment. samir, welcome to the banned book club. >> thank you so much for having me excited to be here. >> internment opens with a book burning. i want to read from it a quote. in the distance i see a funnel of smoke rising into the air. most of the town is at the book burning. i spy a flier for the burning taped around the lamppost at the corner. join your neighbors. the words are superimposed on a cascade. if ben of banned books, dangerous books you wrote internment before this current uptick in book bans and challenges. tell me about how you arrived at that. >> well, just like margaret atwood said, everything that takes place in internment, virtually everything is something that has existed. >> in history. >> i mean, nazis banned books and then they burned books. there was. >> a massive. >> countrywide book. burnings in germany in 1933. almost all of those books were written by or about. >> queer or trans individuals.

and so starting. >> with a. >> book burning felt like a very natural way to begin this novel, because regimes authoritarians have always wanted to ban books, they. have jailed. artists because they want to hide the truth. they want everyone to have this very myopic point of view that they get to dictate. and that's why i started it with a book burning. >> and they want to control. and fear is often used as a means for control. this is explored in your book a lot. again, i'll read from it. it's not about danger, it's about fear. people are willing to trade their freedom, even for a false sense of protection. end quote. feels like a lot of what's going on in america this minute. >> it really does. although i wrote the entire first draft of this novel in 2016, i mean, i think we've seen through history that fascists and authoritarians

always want to lead with fear. they're just like bullies, right? bullies want to make you cower. and what we need to do is stand up to those bullies because we know, for example, with banned books, the vast majority of americans, 70% do. >> not agree with. >> censorship. >> they don't want book bans. >> and we need to speak with a collective and. >> powerful voice because we. >> our voices can stand up to that fear. we must stand up to that. and we must say to these bullies, no, not we will not be silenced. and that's not happening today, not on our watch. because an attack on. books is an attack on freedom. >> let's talk about the wi for a second. in the introduction to this, i played a short sound bite from the legendary lois lowry, who is another banned book club featured author, where she surmised that her book faces ban faced bans because of the amount of power she gives to teenage protagonists. and this is a theme that comes up a lot. talk to me about teenagers. you were a teacher as well, so talk to me about the role of

teenagers in your book. >> yes, i. >> was a high school english teacher, and young people have always, always spoken out against injustice. we've seen this throughout history and even more recently when you think of individuals like malala, greta thunberg, the kids at parkland, little miss flint who is drawing attention to, you know, water that's not drinkable in detroit. all of these young people have have looked at the adults. >> who are. >> supposed to be protecting our world. >> who. >> are supposed. to be. >> protecting them and have said what you're doing is wrong. >> and. >> i'm going to speak. >> up. about it. >> and i. think so many adults in power. fear young people. >> they fear. >> their hope. >> they fear their. >> activism, and they understand. >> that young. people collectively have so much power. and that's what i hope some of my books will let young. people know that their. voices are. important and that they have power. and what i always say is

that we need to always use our power and our privilege for. >> a purpose. >> for a purpose that is bigger than us. and we see young people doing that everywhere. >> explore this theme with me, leila, as a young person and we've seen this, whether it's about climate or whether it's about lgbtq rights or whether it's during covid when asian americans were being attacked, what you find is that young people are able to sort of look at that future, and sometimes that's in conflict with their parents, who would like them to just keep their heads down and be safe. >> of course. and that was kind of one of the primary conflicts in internment. it's 100% understandable that parents want to protect their children. i mean, all adults should want to protect children everywhere, but for parents, it's just a visceral response. you see your child in danger, you're immediately going to want to, you know, surround them in bubble wrap, but at the same time, those young people have learned from their parents that their voices are important. and i think it's this natural

conflict between children who are growing up, especially teenagers and their parents who want to protect them. but what leila essentially pushes back on with her parents is she says to them, you raised me in this way that asked me, that told me that i should be asking questions, that i should be challenging injustices, that i should be using my voice to speak the truth. and now when i'm doing it, you're trying to shut me down. i understand that you want to keep me safe, but i cannot be silenced. i will not be silenced because i believe i need to fight for ourselves, our faith, and for other people. and her parents do have a tough time with that. but, you know, i think if a lot of adults think about what it was like to be a young person and understand that young people are just fighting for their future, we would not be trying to silence them. we would be linking arms with them and marching in the streets. and that's what we should be doing. >> yeah, and you address that very nicely in the book. so good to have you here. thank you so

much. thanks for the book and for being the newest member of the banned book club. samira ahmed is. >> the author. >> of today's velshi banned book club feature internment. that doesn't mean. thanks for watching. catch me back here tomorrow morning from 10 a.m. to noon eastern. don't forget she's available as a podcast. follow and listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. plus, you can always find velshi content on youtube. head to msnbc.com, or you can scan the qr code on your screen. you can follow me on blue sky. that's where that will get you if you scan the qr code or go to blue sky dot social. again, all you have to do is scan that code and it'll take you right to my page. stay right where you are. the katie phang show starts right now. >> this is. >> the katie phang. >> show live from. >> telemundo studios in miami, florida. the death. >> of. >> diplomacy. >> the explosive. >> meeting between. trump and zelensky that ended. >> in american humiliation. >> on the. >> global stage. >> as donald trump seems to pledge allegiance to russia. >> over the war in ukraine.