Why President Biden is in a unique position to do something about it. Were not going to change the constitution. Were enforcing it. And former dnc chair tom perez on the state of the dems and his big announcement on running for office. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Ever since human beings started congregating in institutions of what we call higher learning, colleges, universities, eve monasteries, conservatives traditionalists have been freaked out by just what dangerous ideas are being shared there. I mean, really, the whole dangerous ideas are coming out of universities is literally as old as universities themselves. It has been a core reactionary concern for millennia. Just like everything else, this old thing is new again. Which brings us to the most recent republican freakout in florida, which as you may have heard, has a governor there, ron desantis, calling the creepy Thought Police to campus. He just signed a bill that will, and ill quote here, require public universities and colleges to survey students, faculty and staff, about the beliefs and view points to support intellectual diversity. Not lean that, hes gone on to suggest budget cuts could take place if schools are found to be, quote, indoctrinating their students. Which is to imagine, if the surveys dont produce the right answers for desantis and his buddies. On its face, this is an outrageous use of power to surveil and threaten them, to punish them if they have the wrong views. Ron desantis is claiming the mantle of conscious and free speech, but what hes doing is literally the opposite of that. It didnt talk long for the masks to fall off all these folks like desantis who pretend to care a lot about free speech to start essentially suppressing it or compelling it when it doesnt say what they want. Whether its in bills and state houses looking to ban teaching about certain aspects of the history of racism and structural White Supremacy in this country, which is what at least 22 states are doing or already have done. Or desantis himself saying he will require students to get instruction on the, quote, evils of communism. Okay, but to me, the most fascinating and revealing part of this has to do with the politics that are driving it all. Politics that are at the center of this moment. And ron desantis said this thing when he announced this yesterday, that to me was kind of a tell. I know a lot of parents, one of the things they worry about, if you send a kid to a university, you know, are they just going to basically be indoctrinated, are they going to be taught to think for themselves, challenge assumptions and be critical thinkers and learners. We obviously want our universities to be focused on critical thinking, academic rigor. We do not want them as basically hotbeds for stale iduology. Huh . Well, lets talk about the word indoctrination there. Kind of always in the eye of the beholder. I mean, desantis clearly does not think its indoctrination, a bad thing, to Teach Kids Communism is bad as a state mandate. Thats just education, right . I have no doubt the concern expressed here by Governor Desantis is real. Heres what i mean, because there is something happening in american Politics Around education, Higher Education, that is one of the prime drivers of the politics of this moment. So first of all, theres the generational aspect which is young people going off to college, and then coming out of college and into the workforce, are the most Left Leaning Generational Cohort by far. It shows up in exit poll after exit poll. A recent study found that across 55 schools, only 26 of the surveyed students are conservative to some degree and half of the students are liberal in some capacity. And i imagine there are protrump parents with maga hats in places like naples, florida, who are genuinely terrified when their 18yearold goes off to florida state, theyre going to come back not being super psyched about their parents political views. Thats a real thing that happens in the world. Im sure parents have said that to desantis at some fundraiser. Its a microcosm of a bigger thing, which is our politics are increasingly dividing along the lines of education. Even when you control for other things, some demographics, across race or income, people with higher levels of education are more liberal. Those with less education are more conservative. Pew research, in fact, found from 2015 to 2019, the share of republicans and those who lean republican, saying colleges have a negative effect on the country, went from 37 to 59 . This educational divide is particularly sharp on white people. In 2020, joe biden won 51 of White College graduates while getting 32 of support from White Noncollege graduates. Big divide. We see that educational divide every election night, when we look at the maps of the different regions or areas or neighborhoods where votes are coming across the country. Heres just one at random. Heres indiana. Basically, all red except for a few blue spots where you have a big city, indianapolis, right, and what else, oh, the college towns. University of indiana and notre dame. So theres a real thing, Governor Ron Desantis is putting his finger on. These colleges, people go into them, they come out liberals. Whats going on . The solution for it is a perfect example of the kind of Cultish Authoritarianism of the modern Republican Party under donald trump. They have a political problem. Clearly, right . Winning over College Educated voters. Political problem. Winning over young voters, particularly those coming out of college in Record Numbers because College Attainment levels keep going up and up every year. So what do you do about that . As opposed to thinking about what that would mean for reformulating the party either in its substance or its message, the solution they have come up with is to just take the Sledge Hammer of the state to the institutions of Higher Education. You see this everywhere you look with the Republican Party. Its a party that is incredibly strong and robust. Its a party that controls more than 54 of local state legislative seats across the country, dominates, absolutely dominates huge swaths of america. And yet the Republican Party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight elections. 7 of the last 8 elections failed to attain a plurality or a majority, so they have given up on figuring out how to appeal to a majority of the country, instead, the Modus Operandi is trying to find ways to use the power they have within their circles, right, to entrench their power even if they cant reach out. Thats the logic behind voter suppression. Thats the logic behind voter suppression. If we reduce turnout, if we make it harder to vote, we can win without persuading new people to join our coalition. Its the logic on the display in the florida bill, which is rather than try to figure out how to appeal to this cohort, the people moving through colleges and coming out liberals, College Educated voters who are moving away from us, lets just try to coerce these institutions with a possible threat of budget cuts into enforcing some kind of Idealogical Rugidity and litmus test. Its particularly ironic for Governor Desantis who is in the state of florida, has been fairly daft as a political operator, appealing to some of the people donald trump has alienated. As of last month, more thanr fld of the job hes doing. This is what the National Party demands. Which is why we go to war on the libs and all their institutions. Institutions that now apparently include the United States military, which we will have more on later. Because thats a version of the modern Republican Party, right, the party of the 45th president , previous president , has made it a party of the 47 . Thats trumps vote percentage. 47 . How do you govern 47 in a democracy . Right . Where you need a majority. How do you use the power from 47 to protect your power . How do you give up on winning a majority of voters . But keep power in your hands of the minority. Thats the focus of the Republican Party at this moment. David jolly is a former republican congressman who represented florida from 2014 to 2017. Tracy mcmillan is a professor and author of lower ed. And they both join me now. Tracy, you have written and thought a lot about the politics of education, particularly Higher Education. I am just curious whrx i heard desantis say parents are telling me theyre worried, i heard a real complaint that he has heard from parents, which is this idea that this is what happens. We have our precious kids and we bring them up with our value and they go to college and they come back without them. I dont doubt that is a real concern, but a real concern that has been directed at desantis does not make it a legitimate concern. One grounded in reality. And thats the distinction. Chris, we have two things happening here. We have a campaign and a disinformation campaign. And you see the merging of these two things come together in the moral panic over Critical Race Theory. Right . So on one hand, you have the Misinformation Campaign, which mischaracterizes a legitimate subfield of academy study. Critical race theory has its tenets, has its proponents, has its scholarship. It is, however, not taking over Higher Education curriculums. Arguably, economics perhaps has done that, but not Critical Race Theory. It is legitimate, but its not the central work of most institutions of Higher Education today. But the Misinformation Campaign confuses people about the legitimate tenets of what Critical Race Theory means. Then the disinformation campaign, thats the campaign that labels any idea that the conservatives find disagreeable as Critical Race Theory. This misinformation and disinformation campaign, as you so eloquently point out, is the sort of like last, you know, gasp of a powerful party that is still, however, Intellectually Impotent. Right . And an Intellectually Impotent party and ideology, you know what it will do . When it cannot win, it will cheat. It will cheat. And so if you cannot compete in the marketplace of ideas, what you fundamentally do is what desantis is doing, you ask for market protectionism. It doesnt want to compete against ideas about learning about poverty or learning about the real history of this nation or global capitalism. So it wants to cheat. That is consistent with modern day republican politics. But it is inconsistent with intellectualism. That is very, very, very well put. David, you know, the sort of, the anxiety here, and this driving fact that education polarization increasingly is one of the big stories in American Politics, actually a story across the entire oecd world. Its happening in all kinds of places. Its amazing for me to watch republicans turn against colleges en masse. As a cultural thing. You have parents who are middle class, upper middle class, affluent folks, who like i want my kids to go to college, who are now turning against the institution. Like i dont like this thing. Yeah, chris. Look, each week brings continued affirmation that the republican playbook for 2022 will be culture wars. It will be a war on education. It will be descriptions of Critical Race Theory. It will be issues around immigration and crime. And in large part, they will manufacture these anxieties and republicans will follow along. I find it fascinating that Governor Desantis said the premise of this is that parents worry about their kids going to college and being indoctrinated. I would suggest that if parents feel secure in their beliefs and in the beliefs they have instilled in their children, if they feel secure in the beliefs of their family, theyre okay with those beliefs being challenged. In fact, the greatest value in Public Education would be teaching their own children to think critically, to be confronted by diverse ideology, divert thought. I would surge if the governor were secure in his own beliefs and his own convictions and if of the nine people in that frame, if all eight white men and the one white woman felt secure about their convictions and the way they brought up their children, i think they would welcome the diversity of thought that occurs in our college campuses. Thats not whats at play. Its performative politics and geared toward 2022, toward Ron Desantiss president ial run. I will say one thing about his president ial run. Ron desantis is more successfully executing trumpism than donald trump himself has. He absolutely has. He may not be the next president of the United States, but when there is a next republican president , i do believe it will be ron desantis. I think thats true. I would also note, this is at one level stunty, but at the other level, genuinely creepy when the surveys come out to answer your views as polled by the state, which is surveilling them. You know, i want to play this bit of sound which is ajaceabout ant to this. I said conservatives are traditionalists worried, its millennial old, but turning the same culture war on the military is remarkable to me. Now, the argument is no, another bastion of, like, woke radicalism in america, is the pentagon. And this was the subject of an exchange today with mark milley, who is an army general at a hearing today. Take a listen to what he had to say. I do think its important, actually, for those of us in uniform to be open minded and be widely read, and the United States military academy is a university. And it is important that we train and we understand, and i want to understand white rage. And im white. I want to understand it. So what is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the constitution of the United States of america . What caused that . I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind here, and i do want to analyze it. Its important we understand that because our soldiers, airman, marines and guardsmen come from the American People so its important the leaders now and in the future do understand it. I have read mo setongue. I have read karl marx. I have read lenin. It doesnt make me a communist. What is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country we are here to defend. I personally find it ofsdive were accusing the United States military, our commissioned and Noncommissioned Officers of being woke or Something Else because were studying some theory out there. That was started in harvard and proposed there were laws in the United States, Antibellum Laws prior to the civil war that led to a Power Differential with africanamericans who were three quarters of a human being when this country was formed and we changed it and brought it up to the civil rights act, took another 100 years to change that. Look, i do want to know, and i respect your service and you and i are both green berets, but i want to know, and it matters to our military and the cohesion of this military. Matt gaetz, definitely not a green beret. But i just thought, like, that was a pretty good distillation of the response. I thought it was excellent. I cant believe i find myself agreeing with the general, but pretty much captured not only what Critical Race Theory is, but why it is important to both the Intellectual Endeavor and to public life. And this is an important term that i think democrats are going to have to make that i dont think that they have yet made for various reasons. But Critical Race Theory is anti. It is performative massive resistance. Its in that grand tradition. It is against a long list of things. What the general did there that is actually, i think, really good politics, and just really good for the health of public debate, is that he made an affirmative case for what Critical Race Theory contributes to public life. And i think more people are going to have to do that, more politicians are going to be called on the carpet to do it, and it cannot just be people of color. It has to be someone, the most powerful thing he said there, to my mind, was im white. And this matters to me. I think people need to see that happen in public discourse. I will note that in the history of the u. S. Armed forces, the two most deadly wars they fought were against enemies committed to the cause of White Supremacy and racial superiority. Probably a good thing to study. David jolly and tracy mcmillan, thank you for taking time. So far some of the most serious changes related to the six attack on the capitol involve the oath keepers with 16 members of the Extremist Group facing Conspiracy Charges. Remember that footage of them walking into the capitol . Theres still a lot wi dont know about what they were planning and who was involved but it may beuble to change. Today in a federal court, we learned one of the socalled oath keepers are cooperating with the government. Well talk about what that means next. Nothing will stop me from vacation. No canceling. Flexible cancellation. Kayak. Search one and done. The light. Flexible cancellation. It comes from within. It drives you. And it guides you. To shine your brightest. As you charge ahead. Illuminating the way forward. A light maker. Recognizing that the impact you make, comes from the energy you create. Introducing the allelectric lyriq. Lighting the way. This is power. Sos this. You recognize it. But for the corporate Special Interests and billionaires buying our elections, dark money is power. Billions spent manipulating elections. Gerrymandering partisan congressional districts. And restricting our freedom to vote. Exactly why we need the for the people acth. R. 1. To finally ban dark money. Ensure fair congressional districts. And protect our freedom to vote. Because the real power is you. And its time for the people to win. Watch the Olympic Games on xfinity and its time root for team usa and feel the energy 7000 plus hours of the olympics on display with xfinity you get every hour of every day different sports on different screens, you can watch it anywhere and with the voice remote you never have to leave your chair show me team usa. All of this innovation could lead to some inspiration and you might be the next one to represent our nation this summer on your tv, tablet, or any Screen Xfinity is here to inspire your biggest dreams back in the end of may, republicans blocked Bipartisan Legislation to form a commission to investigate what happened on january 6th. When a mob of people attacked the u. S. Capitol. Since then, theres been an Open Question whether House Democrats would take matters into their own hands and impanel their own investigation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced shes looking at creating a select committee to investigate the attack on the capitol. Her office clarified she would still prefer a Bipartisan Commission and shell announce her decision this week. And as the fallout from the fight plays out on capitol hill, federal prosecutors are Going Forward with the cases against the 500 people charged in the attack. Today, in a washington, d. C. Courtroom, the first sentencing of one of the rioters. A 49yearold grandmother from indiana who pleaded guilty to illegally demonstrating in the capitol building. She received three years probation, 40 hours of community service, and a 500 fine. We also saw the first guilty plea in one of the governments conspiracy cases connected to the riot. 54yearold gradin young pleaded guilty to conspiring with other members of the far right member the oath keepers and also to a charge of obstructing congressional proceedings. Hes now cooperating with prosecutors who agreed to drop four other charges against him. More Video Evidence continues to come out day by day by day. This new video is part of the governments evidence against brian mock, a minnesota resident. You can see him in a hood wearing a backpack right there. And shoving an officer to the ground right there. Scott mcfarland is Investigative Reporter at nbc 4 washington. Hes been knee deep in this cases and all these developments and he joins nee now. Scott, lets first start with what the expectations were going into the first sentencing today and where they kind of came out based on where those expectations might have been, what we learned from it. Well, i think we learned, chris, this is a very impactful day. It was a really good day for the prosecutors and a really bad day for the defendants. Heres why. Anna morgan lloyd, 49 years old, a grandmother from indiana. Walked into court, pleaded guilty to the lowest of charges. Unlawful parading and picketing. She apologized to the American People. She said she was surprised by the savagery of january 6th. No criminal history. No evidence she assaulted anyone. No evidence she damaged anything or incited anyone. And her sentence is exactly what the federal prosecutors wanted. Three years probation and continued supervision. If in this case, what seems to be among the lowest of the low cases, the feds got what they wanted, perhaps this sends a message to the other nearly 500 defendants of what awaits them. Whats the significance of the oath keepers aspect of this, and real cooperation now on a Conspiracy Charge where, you know, obviously, theres going to be a ton of different people. Theyre going to plea, theyre going to get various, i think, sentences depending on the severity of what they did. The question of a broader case that moves up a chain of organization, whats the significance of that plea and the cooperation . Yeah, this is another reason why its a good day for the prosecutors. Gradin young at this point is the High Water Mark for the prosecutors. The first person charged with conspiracy to plead guilty. Another oath keeper pleaded guilty, but this is one of the group facing a Conspiracy Charge. Agrees to cooperate with the prosecutors. Agrees to testify before the grand jury. That should send a chill down the spine of a lot of other defendants. We have a cooperator who is right there in the heart of the case. The fbi director has been quite clear about this. There are different tiers in this federal investigation. One tier includes all the people unlawfully in the building who didnt hurt anybody or assault anyone. The other tier, those who were violent, those who conspired, those who were equipped. The feds say the oath keepers didnt just show up january 6th. They conspired and planned, came with military gear, came with encrypted signal communications, formed a Military Stack to breach the capitol. One of those people is now cooperating with the feds, chris. Who is running this . Is this just the local district, d. C. Assistant u. S. Attorneys who are coordinating all this . Its a little bit of both, yes, this is coming through the washington, d. C. Courthouse which is right there on capitol hill. But because there are so many cases coming into such a small courthouse, theyre bringing in extra help. You have prosecutors from other jurisdictions coming in to deal with the backlog or the choke point of cases. Whats more, you have other federal defenders coming in. Theres only so many federal defenders, less than 12 in d. C. , and they need the outside resources because of the tonnage of cases. I can imagine its like trying to watch the snake swallow the pig, like theres only so much throughput that any of these systems have. 500 defends. Again, in very highstakes cases where you also want to make really sharp distinctions between the Different Levels of actions people took. A huge spectrum, and we saw it today. We saw one of the most serious highprofile defendants and one of the lesser defendants. In both cases, both cases, the feds got what they wanted. Scott mcfarland, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Coming up, the president s response to rising Violent Crime across the country and why hes in a unique position to do something about it. Ches in your hands or feet . Try Nervivenerve Relief from the worlds 1 selling nerve care company. Nervive contains Alpha Lipoic Acid to relieve occasional nerve aches, weakness and discomfort. Try Nervivenerve Relief. Obsession has many names. This is ours. The lexus is. All in on the sport sedan. 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Write down Phone Numbers for your parents, siblings and neighbors. Pick a place to meet your family if you are not together and cant go home. Remind your parents to pack an emergency supply kit. Making a plan might feel like homework, but it will help you and your family stay safe during an emergency. One of the most fascinating aspects of the biden presidency, is this man as president is kind of a time capsule of American Politics over the last five decades. Elected at 30, serving at 78. Back in the late 1980s, the early 1990s, as interpersonal violence and recorded crimes were skyrocketing up, joe biden was one of the people who was leading the push among democrats to, quote, get tough on crime, and to appropriate the Law And Order politics of Richard Nixon to their own ends. I know its hard to believe, but this very day, violent drug offenders will commit more than 100,000 crimes on this day alone. And the sad part is that we have no more police in the streets of our major cities than we had ten years ago. Their people are saying, by the way, why are these predators on our streets . Why dont you put them away . For a long time. Well, let me define the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is now for 60 new death penalties. Thats whats in this bill. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 100,000 cops. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 125,000 new state prison cells. It doesnt matter whether or not theyre the victims of society. The end result is theyre about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my sons. So i want to ask, what made them do this . They must be taken off the streets. Really get a full sense there of the rhetoric, right . The rhetorical pitch, the messaging there, the view of how to deal with this. So in the mid1990s, as crime began this historic fall from over 750 Violent Crimes per 100,000 people at its peak to less than half of that by 2014, democrats bragged about the crime bill, which biden helped write as one of their great accomplishments. They practically put it on their business cards. But then, also, by 2020, the u. S. Had 4 of the worlds population and nearly 25 of the entire worlds prisoners. The vast criminal Industrial Complex was swallowing entire families and communities and generations in misery, not to mention state budgets. Violence and unemployability resulted. The punishing Racial Disparities made the entire system look a lot like, as author Michelle Alexander called it, a new jim crow. And a new Reform Movement began to push for deincarceration, and by the early parts of the 2020 democratic primary, biden was on the defensive over what had once been a signature accomplishment in his own mind. This idea that the crime bill generated Mass Incarceration, it did not generate Mass Incarceration. What happened is the Mass Incarceration incurred by the states setting mandatory sentences. I mean, thats partly true, but remember, that was the guy waving around the bill saying there would be 125,000 new state prison cells. That, of course, came George Floyds murder and the largest Civil Rights Street Protest in a generation and a year of pandemic and a rupture of everyday life like we have never seen, one that coincided with the single largest oneyear spike in homicides since 1968. One study showed homicide rates were up 30 in 2020 from 2019. Aggravated homicide were 6 and 8 higher respectively. This year, as far as we can tell, and the data is patchy, Crime Numbers appear to be on the same pace. At least Violent Crime, and despite the opportunistic rhetoric on the topic from proponents of Mass Incarceration, those increases happen in cities almost uniformly, no matter what their policies were or whether they had District Attorneys who were criminal justice reformers or whether they added to or took away from Police Budgets. Now many voices, both republicans and democrats and more than a fair share of pundits, are looking to revive the old politics of Law And Order. Thats where we are. So today, President Biden came forward to offer remarks on one of the most fraught subjects in his own history, in the nations history, and at this pivotal moment. How to insure our fellow americans are secure from violence in a nation where violence is common, while not consigning millions of our fellow americans to a quasipermanent existence behind cages. How he plans to try to balance those key imperatives, next. 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But things we know about, schools out for the summer, teenagers are in tough neighborhoods. Those who are, no jobs, more trouble. We know summer jobs training and recreation for young people work. They help make sure young people pick up a paycheck instead of a pistol. Today, President Biden laid out his plan to address the nations surge in gun violence, calling for more funding for Law Enforcement, a ban on Assault Weapons and renewed investment in community investment, jobs programs. Biden has been in National Politics for nearly half a century. We have seen him evolve quite a bit on the right way to decrease Violent Crime, gun crime, interpersonal violence. Hes landed on a approach that is kind of, i dont know, all of the above, includes increasing Employment Opportunities as well as a way to help formerly incarcerated people finds Employment Opportunities. We have a professor of africanamerican studies at yale university. Britney packnic cunningham is now host of the podcast, undestrasted, and they join me now. I want to start, philip, with what your reaction was to the outline of what the president laid out today. So you called it sort of an everything and sort of All Hands On Deck sort of thing. I gotta say, theres a number of organizers that we work with who are frankly terribly disappointed by it. The number the amount of money going towards new Law Enforcement increases in Law Enforcement at a time when Law Enforcement has about as high as of a budget as they have ever had and still were seeing violence go up, thats disappointing. In addition, the kinds of services that are necessary to prevent the need for Law Enforcement, thats not Just Community violence interventions. Thats also mental health, substance abuse, child welfare, homelessness services. All of those things we also know work. We dont need to just put Evidence Base behind it. Theres scientific facts you can prevent violence, and those dont show up here, and also, potentially billions of dollars going towards organizations like life camp, run by erica ford, by Community Organizations that have actually been doing this for a long time. So theres good in this, and theres rough stuff in this. But ill say its a little bit dispiriting that not just the stuff thats not in here, its the timing of it. It feels to many folks as if the only time that were paying attention to violence is when theres black bodies on the ground or theres one Political Party saying the other Political Party isnt doing enough, and not enough sustained attention in the middle. So my hope is that we can break that trend after were past this moment. Britney, what did you think . I couldnt agree with phil more. That tends to be the case. Look, i think whats really frustrating here is that we hear the white house say that handling crime and transforming Public Safety dont have to be mutually exclusive. I agree. In fact, if Crime Prevention and Community Support is done correctly, they are complementary, but i worry that in a plan like this, these historic levels of investment in hiring more Police Officers and expanding Police Budgets will actually undermine the kind of investments that were seeing in communitybased interventions and the work that people like erica ford and pastor Michael Mcbraid are doing. They commissioned a study, those organizations commissioned a study under the Coalition Live free, and 68 of Community Members want federal funding going toward communitybased solutions first. People want for the federal government to really understand that the resources we are asking for are not a radical idea. And chris, it should not be radical to invest in what we know works. Community based intervention, gun control, direct relational interventions. Public health approaches, well funded social services. Those are things that actually work. That shouldnt be a radical idea. Especially, especially if those funds come from bloated Police Budgets which continues to be an institution thats not actually giving a good return on that investment. They sell themselves as being able to prevent and solve crime, and over the years have simply not done a good job of that. Theres no reason why we should keep trying the same thing and expecting a different result. You know, james foreman, professor at yale law, colleague at yale wrote this amazing book in 2017, won the pulitzer, called locking up our own, about the politics of africanamerican voters and Community Groups and the great crime surge and Mass Incarceration. One of the points he makes thib book quite well is there were these calls from neighborhoods that were really undergoing tremendously traumatic levels of interpersonal violence for more Police Presence and also a lot more community investment. And when it got to the state Legislature Like they got the cops and none of the community investment. This is a very old story. Sort of both and, and then well, well get to that and later. And i guess the question for you, philip, is when i talk to policing people on this, their whole thing always is, look, i cant control the level of investment. We have to police our way out of it. Like, you know, no one is going to get an argument from me that the west of chicago or the east side of baltimore is underinvested. Clearly, it has been for 70 years but i have to go out and do my job, so dont talk to me about this liberal investment stuff. Yeah, well, on some level, they got a point. If you want to complain about the way the budgets are apportioned, it doesnt make sense to go to the people who got the money. You should go to the people making decisions about where the money goes. When i talk to Police Chiefs and union folks, they say the same thing. We can only deal with whats in front of us. I think thats exactly right. Part of what we have to do right now is change the logic of what is the problem and how do we get out. If the problem is that some folks just love to crime, and what you need to do is stop that is police, well, then, this is exactly the right set of things and tough on crime is the right way to go. But if the problem is we have given a bunch of people terrible options, and they make some choices within that, well then, we have to change their options. Thats the root cause of violence. Nobody thinks that the root cause of violence is simply no cops around, because then we would have problems in bridgeport the same way we have in boston. Where do you see this conidation there are a lot of people i talk to in this sort of activist world, organizer world, who are worried about the conversation on crime because, i wrote a whole book about it in 2017, about watching the crack panic of new york city when i was 13 years old in my city, when there really were a crazy number of homicides. It really did get dangerous in new york, and it turned into the machinery that produced the Mass Incarceration state we now have. Yeah, i mean, the great irony here is that we have a lot of people setting prescriptions for communities that they are not part of. And then when those communities actually speak up for ourselves, people dont want to invest in the solutions that we have built. The fact of the matter is, we actually can have safe communities from the ground up if we get to these root issues that phil is talking about. And organizers, activists, that is all we have been pushing for. We want safe streets. We want safe communities. Many activists and organizers in this movement are survivors of criminal activities ourselves. The fact of the matter is we know personally what this feels like. And still, we believe that safe communities does not mean locking more of our people up. That safe communities actually means investing in our people. So we are frankly very tired of being the punching bag and the punch line of far too much political rhetoric that plames us for things that are not our fault and fails to spotlight the continued abandonment of our communities. We want to get to these root issues probably more than most people. And we want to actually make sure that the funding and resources that we deserve to do that are had by our communities. Philip and brittany, great to have you back to keep this conversation going. This is not going anywhere. Thank you. Ahead, former dnc chair tom perez made a big announcement about his political future. Hes here to talk about it next. Swipe, lift, spin, dry. Slam, pan, still. Fresh move, move, move, move aaaaand still fresh. Degree. Ultimate freshness activated when you move. [sfx kids laughing] [sfx bikes passing] [sfx fire truck siren] onstar, we see them. Okay. Mother and child in vehicle. Mother is unable to exit the vehicle. Injuries are unknown. Thank you, onstar. My son, is he okay . Your sons fine. Thank you. There was something in the road. Its okay. Youre safe now. Its all coming together. And teachers and school staff have worked hard to get us here. Securing federal funding, vaccines and making sure Public Schools are welcoming and safe for everyone. This fall, its back to school. Five days a week. Were excited to be with our students in person. As a parent, i had concerns, but with safeguards in place, im ready now. Lets do this were allin ready to help every child recover and thrive a message from the American Federation of teachers. The 2020 election was crazy and historic for lots of reasons. We are in the middle of a once in a century pandemic. And despite that and republican efforts to make it harder to t vote, americans voted in Record Numbers. More ballots were cast in 2020 than any election in the past 120 years. And joe biden won with the most votes cast for a candidate. The man who oversaw that, tom perez. He served as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and his secretary of labor. Now he is getting back to local state politics, he has announced hes running for governor of maryland. And tom perez joins me now. Tom, weve had you on the program a bunch of times. Ive followed your work for a long time. Elected politics, ive talked to people about whether they want to run for office. Its interesting to talk to people. Theres a lot of down sides of running for office. You dial for dollars a lot. Theres a lot of things that keep people away from it. Why did you want to run for office . The opportunities to make a difference here in maryland are unlimited. I want to run for governor. Im running for governor because i want to make sure that every marylander can realize their full potential. I want to make sure that were punching above our weight as a state, not punching below our weight. The National Reckoning on race, chris, is taking place here in maryland. And ive spent my entire life, as you know, fighting for Economic Justice and racial justice. And these are things we want to do in maryland. We have a democratically controlled senate and house. They need a Dance Partner so we can go further, so we can combat climate change, implimt educational reforms, making sure people have a good job. And i want to bring my experience, my proven track record to bear, and when you can heap people at scale, thats what its all about, making sure people can succeed. Theres three republican governors in the sort of Eastern Seaboard of the country who are in states that are very democratic at the national level. Youve got phil scott in vermont, Charlie Baker in massachusetts, and larry hogan whos leading in maryland. Hogan is extremely popular in your state. Why is that the case . What have you figured out why hes been so popular, and what does that mean for this race . Larry hogan has spoken out against donald trump, and i appreciate what he has done. But larry hogan has also underperformed in so many areas. Look at our blueprint for Educational Equity and educational reform. It is a dramatic blueprint to reform Public Education in our state. And he vetoed it and the democrats had to override it. Martin omalley ten years ago was the National Leader in offshore wind. And then larry hogan came and weve been overtaken by other states. I appreciate that larry hogan spoke out against donald trump. So did i. I worked for four years to get rid of donald trump and elect democrats. But we need to do more. And were punching below our weight here as a state. I believe with donald trump not on the ticket, people are going to be looking for leaders who can move the needle on issues that matter the most. We are a purple state, chris, and theres no doubt about it, weve lost, democrats, three out of the last five elections. And if people want to see the blueprint for success, go to tomperez. Com because we have that blueprint. You recently joined a law firm in the washington area. Its a law firm that does a lot of practices, labor law. Those tend to be management side labor law, and often what that means is consulting to keep unions out particularly. Some people noted that was on the website of the law firm you worked at and that youre a former Labor Secretary and called yourself a proud union guy and thought is he going over here to help the clients bust unions. Whats your answer to that . Of course not. And im working with a law firm that is paul sar bains old law firm. He had a 100 labor record. Im looking at the law firm that Kamala Harriss husband worked at for years. Some people asked kamala whether she was going to be a challenge there. Im working there part time, and frankly in a year when i win the governor race, then i will become a governor. And my record on union issues and my record for labor, im very proud today. We were at our rollout today, and we had a number of Union Leaders there with me. Ive been fighting for unions my whole life. When verizon was on strike, chris, who settled that strike . Tom perez. When the west coast ports were on strike, we settled that strike. I went out there. I firmly believe when unions succeed, america succeeds. And my long track record, thats what this race is about. We need governors who can make sure that we are delivering results. Vision is really important. And ive articulated by vision. But in addition we need folks with the necessary experience, the proven track record of accomplishment. People in maryland are waiting six months to get their unemployment check, chris. That is unconscionable. Im going to make sure Government Works for you every single day. Quickly with under a minute left to go, youre going to you would be governor in a year from now, right . Its a midterm election. What do you anticipate being the Biggest Issue then. No one can see the future, but what do you see . Sure. We need to look at postpandemic maryland. There were many jobs that were existing two years ago that arent existing now or theyre existing in lesser numbers. So, weve got to train people for the jobs of the future. Health care is a huge issue. 25 of covid deaths in maryland were attributable to the fact that people didnt have health insurance. I want to make maryland the first state in the country where everybody is insured. A huge issue. Education, education, education is a very big issue. And we have the blueprint for reform. Weve got to implement it. Those are the things that are on peoples mind. Tom perez announcing he is running for governor of maryland. Thank you so much for making time tonight. Always a pleasure. That is all in on this wednesday night. The Rachel Maddow show start plus right now. Good evening rachel. Good evening, chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated. Happy to have you here. Weve got a big show tonight. Senator Elizabeth Warren is going to be joining us live tonight. Were also going to be covering tonight something really quite amazing that just happened in las vegas, which is a very unlas vegas thing. It is something you will absolutely have to see to believe. Weve got that story coming up in just a couple minutes along with a dad who made that thing happen, who is somebody who you are going to want to meet. So, im very much loo