influence, which turns into political influence that china has over these post-soviet parts of the world. it really charges causes us to have a discussion in america on whether china is and very, or somewhere in between, and what our strategy looks like going forward. trump had some ideas about china, but he was so uncorrelated about it, it never emerged into anything meaningful . i worry about that all the time. the average american does not know what to think about china and our future. r future. >> i think the average american wants to make sure that china is not ripping us off, stealing our intellectual property, breaking trade rules. but i think the average t american knows that we have to coexist with china. they are going to be a big, powerful, rich country whether we like it or not. and the last thing the world wants and that americans want is a conflict with china. and i think we have overcorrected this country. we went from a policy of engagement with china, trying to work things out, to a huge pendulum swing towards confrontation. not just under trump, but also under biden. terrorists, restricting investment, restricting al technology, geopolitical competition. i think some of that was definitely necessary. we have now overcorrected. we are not going to, quote unquote, defeat china. they're going to get advanced technologies. they need to be part of the claimant solution. they need to be part of the regulation of artificial intelligence. and we need to be talking to them if we want to avoid a war in taiwan. so i think arwe need to shift from the confrontational mode we have been in to one of competitive coexistence here, where there is a negotiation as well as the competition taking place. >> let me ask you one other question. for those who don't concern themselves too much with foreign-policy, who are mostly concerned with domestic policy, there is an argument to be made when you look into history, en those countries that destroyed themselves domestically and had an influence on the world. i think about germany in the 1930s. domestic policy influences foreign-policy. the two are completely intertwined. they are not separate thoughts, and we probably have to tw stop thinking about them as separate thoughts. >> completely. i'd say for people who don't care about foreign policy, i re would say look. not only should we worry about wars, but the climate crisis, rs migration, technology, all of these things are inherently tied to what happens around the world. but importantly, the people who work on foreign-policy need to realize that politics really matters. foreign-policy is an extension of politics. you get the foreign-policy from a country based on what is d happening politically inside of it. the most important thing the in united states can do for global democracy and stability is to be more democratic and stable at home. we are getting in the world a reflection of what is happening in all of our respective a countries. so the number one thing i say at the end of this piece is the number one thing america can do is detox its own democracy. em that will reverberate on the world more than any foreign- policy. >> absolutely right. as i travel the world, all you hear about is people concerned r are greater about american stability than their own countries in the run politics. if we were just stable and we could just look like we had a reasonable future, that alone might add to global stability. what a great article, i really recommend everyone read it. it is a cover story in foreign affairs magazine. as always, pleasure to see you, ben rhodes joining us. he is a former deputy national security adviser to president obama and the cohost of the remarkable god save the world podcast, and author of after the fall, the rise of authoritarianism in the hour we made. another hour of velshi begins s right now. good morning, it is saturday , june 22nd with just 136 days and left until the general election. a decision in donald trump's presidential immunity trial is still pending. it has now become nearly impossible to hold any trial of donald trump before the november elections. that is largely because the supreme court has slow walks this case so much that it has run out the clock in the twice impeached recently convicted ex- presidents most important criminal prosecution. the extended delay and trump's federal election interference case could have been avoided, c and that is why the supreme court's sluggish pace appears even more flagrant and egregious in hindsight. all the way back in december of 2023, special prosecutor jack smith skipped the appellate court and appealed the matter directly to the supreme court. he asked to the justices to rule quickly on whether donald trump is immune from criminal un prosecution, but they denied smith's request at the time and they sent the case back to the federal appeals court. it took a couple of months for the issue to reach the supreme court again, and the justices finally agreed in late february to take up trump's outlandish claim of absolute presidential immunity. 115 days have since passed, since the justices initially agreed to hear the case. it is going to be at least several more days until we get a decision. the earliest we could get it is next wednesday. if or when that case is passed back down to district judge faced with a tremendous dilemma that no other judge in this country has ever had to consider before. whether the criminal trial of a former president and leading president of candidate can take place so close to an election. at this point it appears unlikely that any judge in the country would find it wise to proceed with a trial in this politically charged case right before november. chutkan has also previously said that if she regains control of the case she would be inclined to give both sides three months to prepare for the trial. take about that. with election day just for a half months away, that would not leave much room for an actual trial to have them before the election begins. and that is a shame. the supreme court's failure to act expeditiously in this case, a case that is in the public's utmost interest, is a complete o disservice to the american electorate. the public has a right to see this trial go ahead, including the fact that we are facing a critical election in which the defendant, who is accused of nd trying to overturn the result of the last election, is a leading candidate. chief justice warren burger acknowledged this back in 1974 when the high court took up the united states v nixon for immediate review, completely skipping the federal appeals court altogether. and in his opinion alfor the court, chief justice warren burger explained the reason the justices took up the case was, quote, because of the public importance of the issues presented and the need for their prompt resolution. the need for their prompt resolution. in that instance it took the court only 16 days after oral arguments to issue a decision. finding that the then president , richard nixon, had to comply with a subpoena and had to turn over tapes to the watergate special prosecutor's. even the current supreme court has proved that, when needed, it can move much faster on urgent matters. earlier this year it took the justices only 25 days after oral arguments to decide that donald trump can remain on the ballot in colorado and other states. it has now taken the court more than twice as long to issue a decision on trump's absurd claim of residential immunity. nearly two full months have passed since the court held a hearing in that case, and now, regardless of what happens, regardless of what the decision may be, it will be too late for a trial to be held without politics taking the proceedings. i want to continue this discussion with melissa murray, a professor of law at new york university, cohost of the strict scrutiny podcast, and co- author of the trump indictments commentary and msnbc legal analyst. as well as special correspondent for vanity fair, host of the fast politics podcast in an msnbc political po analyst. good morning to both of you. let me start with you. how certain are we that donald trump, one way or the other, has succeeded in running out the clock on criminal prosecutions related to the overturning of the election? >> i would bet that he is pretty successful and pretty happy with the way things have turned out. neil gorsuch said at oral arguments on april 25th that this court planned to write a nn decision for the ages, and they have certainly taken ages to do so. d we are still waiting on that opinion. by the time we n do get that opinion, whatever it says, it will be academic. it will be something that i teach in my constitutional law class next year. but, as a practical matter, it won't have anything to do with donald trump and the question t here, whether he is immune from criminal liability for this particular case. because, for all intents and purposes, this n court has effectively immunized him through its delay from getting to trial on this question and having the american people, through a jury of their peers, make that determination. whether a kepresidential candide , as president, tried to evade the results of a validly conducted election. >> so, in fact, for people who would find that very frustrating, and i am sure tr there are lots of them around the country, it is only dawning on them now that this game might be over. the only solution, then, is to ensure that donald trump does su not get re-elected for a second term. guess that will put nails in all coffins related to holding donald trump further accountable. >> what i think is so i interesting when you look at the nixon case is we see how partisan the supreme court has become. because the delay is the win. the time is the win. the not having the trial for the election is the win for donald trump. and remember, donald trump's lawyers did not think they would get immunity for seal team six. that was never the goal. the goal was just to slow the cases. and that is why he spent $100 million of taxpayer money on lawyers, to slow the cases. and we have seen that there was one criminal case, it has moved voters, at least independence, and so you really do see the delay is the goal. >> melissa, we don't know, and we may never know why the court is taking so long. what is your sense of it? it could be, i mean, the mechanics of the court are such that it could be one justice who is writing it essential or concurrence. it could be that they are having trouble finding even some common, narrow decision to come to. the problem, of course, is given the criticism we have seen the court face recently, nobody's giving them the benefit of the doubt. >> i think that is exactly right. there are all kinds of reasons for why this is taking so long, but maybe they are trying to wrestle through some of these issues. although i will be very f clear they can write a very narrow opinion, simply saying that causing an insurrection or alternatively, trying to stop the certification of the electoral college cannot be within the scope of presidential duties, and there is no criminal immunity here. they could do something as simple as that. but it seems like they are doing something more, and that perhaps suggest that there is rh some infighting in the court. the fact that yesterday we had an 8-1 decision where there were six different opinions might suggest that yes, they are not really in a consensus driven mode right now. but i think you're exactly i right. all the other things that have come out about this court suggest that maybe we ought not give them the benefit of the doubt. there are two justices on this court, clarence thomas and samuel alito, who are in their 70s, and we know that they would prefer to retire under a trump presidency, as opposed to a biden presidency. and so, if we are being really cynical, perhaps that plays into it, as well. >> that's remarkable, because obviously if they retire in a trump presidency, a trump president gets to appoint their replacement. and somebody who is under 50 years old and hardened. let's talk about what the t' effect on the american public is to not have these cases adjudicated before the election. you're going to have two candidates, very competitive candidates, and the american public is not going to have to, is not going to get to have heard a court adjudicate whether or not donald trump did something criminal in the attempt to overturn the election. that sort of robs us a little more of democracy. >> yeah, the more information people have, always the better. the greater transparency voters have, always the better. this is normal crushing stuff. s when you listen to the oral arguments of this case, they have no precedent. the closest is nixon, and nixon resigned. this is just so unusual and shocking, and really, none of this is normal. and the fact that donald trump is running for re-election, having only had this one case go forward, is kind of shocking . and it really is a sign that our norms have not held. the guardrails did not really work. >> melissa, what is the solution to this? there may be no immediate solution right now, because obviously we would like to believe that we, that our ev supreme court is either strong and reliable, or can be made strong and reliable. what is your best sense of what happens after this? if joe biden wins re-election, does he need idto take more seriously reforms to the court? >> i think that has always been something that people have been pushing joe biden to do. in i mean, first to run on the court, to make clear that he actually has had a really good record of domestic progress. he has had student loan relief, he has achieved that. and those windsor borrowers got eventuated by this court. there are always those who have insinuated that running on the court is an impediment to its domestic progress. but even more serious steps might be taken going forward, in am thinking seriously about court reform, whether that is ur term limits or something more extreme. but this is a court that is kind of off the rails, and that needs to be taken into account as well. >> thanks to both of you this morning, i appreciate it. melissa murray is a professor of law at nyu, the cohost of the strict scrutiny podcast and co-author of trump indictments, historic charting documents with commentary. molly john passes a special correspondent with vanity fair, host of the fast policy podcast and an msnbc political analyst. velshi is back in a minute. nu . clinically proven to help reverse the four signs of early gum disease. a new toothpaste from parodontax, the gum experts. power outages due to outdated grids and volatile weather conditions are leaving homes without power, but not yours. you took control. you took action. you made your home a generac home. when the power goes out, your life goes on uninterrupted. it's 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(♪♪) her uncle's unhappy. get yours at kardia.com or amazon. i'm sensing an underlying issue. it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. you probably don't need a guy in the studio telling you this, but it is hot out there. a blistering heat wave this week has some 90 million americans under heat alerts nationwide. new jersey saw temperatures over 100 degrees yesterday. new yorkers felt a similar struggle as temperatures hit 97 degrees. there is not going to be much relief from the heat this weekend. philadelphia could hit 99 degrees on sunday, breaking the record that was last set 136 years ago in 1888. joining me now from philadelphia is nbc's george the lease. george, this is hard to comprehend. what is it, june 20th, june 21st, something like that? june 22nd? and we are getting late july temperatures that even exceed the worst that most of the cities have ever seen. >> that's right, ali. when you consider that june is fairly mild by most standards, it is been hard for people to acclimate to this heat so quickly. that is kind of the danger here when temperatures have been blanketing us in this heat dome over the past several days. it is not what the tempter actually is, it is what it is like out here that is really concerning. even here in the shade, i have to be honest with you, i'm sweating. i'm sweltering already, and i have only been here a little while. that is something that city health officials across the country, anywhere that is affected by this heat that is blanketing us right now are urging officials and people to look out for. it is the city of philadelphia has declared that heat health emergency, and why those cooling centers and pools are open. that heat dome up in the upper atmosphere right now is really keeping us covered in this heat, creating that heat wave that has been lingering now for days. even so, as we approach whatever davis is, day four of these 90+ temperatures, it is not getting any easier out here. we are here in beautiful penns landing in philadelphia, and it is early still, but already you can tell that not a lot of people want to be out on this. everyone we have seen, obviously shorts, light-colored clothing, and drinking lots and lots of water. we have our water right here, i also have a handy thermometer to keep an eye on some of these surface temperatures. yesterday easily exceeded 100 degrees. that is something to keep in mind when walking your pets on some of these concrete and asphalt surfaces. it is something that people forget about quite frequently. we are going to do our part to stay cool, and of course, the city of philadelphia urging people to check on pets, check on the elderly. pregnant women need to take precautions when being out here for a prolonged period of time. but make no mistake, right now we are making sure, we have been hearing anecdotally that some of our e.r.s are starting to get inundated with people who are suffering from some of those symptoms of heat exhaustion, heatstroke, hypothermia. all things to take very, very seriously when the heat last this long. we are hoping this wraps up soon, but unfortunately, as you mentioned, we are looking to break a record. that relief nowhere in sight just yet. >> a lot of these places, we have to remember that not everybody has air conditioning. not everybody has somewhere to go to where there is air conditioning. there are people who will have to sleep through this, and it gets really, nobody wants to make an emergency out of it. but you can get overcome by this kind of heat very quickly. george, stay safe, stay as cool as you can. we appreciate you joining us. george solis in philadelphia. so, we have more extreme weather, less funding for disaster relief, and what looks like an almost total surrender coming up to the oil industry. that is, of course, how product 2025 gets its way if donald trump is re-elected as president. what project 2025 has to do with your future, your climates, and your world when we come back. for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. ♪ ♪ for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. have you always had trouble losing weight and keeping it off? 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(man) every time i needed a new phone, i had to switch carriers... (roommate) i told him...at verizon, everyone can get that iphone 15 on them. (man) now that i got a huge storage and battery upgrade... i'm officially done switching. (vo) new and existing customers get iphone 15 on us when they trade in any iphone. verizon our right to reproductive health care is being stolen from us. i can't believe this is the world we live in, where we're losing the freedom to control our own bodies. we need your support now more than ever. go online, call, or scan this code, with your $19 monthly gift. and we'll send you this "care. no matter what" t-shirt. it is your right to have safe health care. that's it. go online, call, or scan right now. we, all of us, the american people, citizens of the world were witnessing the destruction of our planet in real time. it is a sobering reality underscored by the headline after headline announcing yet another record-breaking extreme weather event. in the face of it, it is understandable to feel overwhelmed and even want to tune it all out. that is a very human response to a monumental crisis. in fact, that has a name. psychologists call it the five stages of climate grief. and it, increasingly, more americans are suffering from something called climate anxiety. but beyond this instinct to run, the problem remains and what we choose to do next matters. because that much remains under our control. what i am talking about is the election. the election is fast approaching, and with it, some hard won climate gains. donald trump has openly dismissed climate change, stating flatly that he does not care about it. this dismissal isn't just rhetoric, it is backed by his actions during his presidency. and if his dangerous plans come to pass if he is re-elected, they are outlined in project 2025, the conservative playbook for the next republican president. if you recall, the previous trump term rollback numerous climate initiatives and drastically cut the most budget by more than half, which, fema does not fight climate change. it provides our government response to climate events. and way before was something called project 2025. 2025 is that 900 page conservative manifesto which calls for the complete dismantling of climate initiatives. dismissing them as a, quote, what agenda. climate initiatives are called a woke agenda by conservatives now. as the union of conservative scientists puts it, project 2025 will quote eviscerate protections that are crucial to guarding against money and power,". it is clear which moneyed interests product 20 2045 hopes to empower at the expense of the american people. big oil. trump mighty close ties with the fossil fuel industry have always been apparent. project 2025 would increase fossil fuel dependency even further, with calls to quote a firm all of the above energy policy and to stop the war on energy oil and natural gas. the plan seeks to reverse policies that limit oil and gas drilling, including offshore and on federal lands. it also calls for restricting the environmental protection agency authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. and it seeks to reveal a number of critical climate initiatives, including the historic infrastructure investment and jobs act, which promotes a transition towards clean energy and invests in making communities more resilient to climate impact. project 2025 also takes tax incentives and subsidies for clean energy sources like solar and wind. in short, project 2025 would wreak havoc on climate initiatives and environmental policy. trump's agenda as laid out in project 2025 threatens to undo all the progress that has been made and to leave us more vulnerable to the devastating impacts of climate change. the gop's denial of climate science is not just a policy choice that is driven by fossil fuel projects, or profits. it is a threat to our safety and survival. make no mistake. the leadership we choose this november will determine our ability to protect our communities and to build a resilient future. with more on this, i am joined by monica medina, a distinguished fellow at conservation international, and the former assistant secretary of state for ocean environment and science. also joining us is a mechanic, a distinguished scholar of environmental studies at middlebury college, a contributor writer at the new yorker, and founder of third act, which organizes work on climate and racial justice. welcome to both of you. i'm sorry, bill, if that sounded a bit alarmist. i know you are not given to being alarmist. people have to understand that this is now policy. this is the kind of thing that the heritage foundation and conservative groups have said will happen if donald trump is elected. and while we may not be able to roll that climate change, they are going to rollback the things that allow us to protect ourselves from the impacts of climate change. >> i think you are being under alarmist if anything. to give you a sense why, look what happened in florida in the last two weeks. governor desantis, in his continuing addition as a kind of miniature trump told the state of florida that they can't even mention climate change in any official legislation. this at a time when florida is living through the hottest temperatures and muggy as to whether ever recorded in what is traditionally a fairly hot place already, at a time when the sea surface temperatures off the coast of lorna are hotter than they ever been, and they are staring down the barrel of what may be the worst hurricane season of all-time. what trump is going to do this time is going to be far worse than what he did last time. and last time he pulled us out of the paris climate accords. that is because he has the playbook laid out and ready to go this time. and, i will tell you what the kind of final frosting on the cake is. he wants to defund the national oceanic and atmospheric administration who are the people who maintain the thermometers that tell us how hot it is. i think in his world if we don't know then we won't have to talk about it. >> yeah, it is like covid testing. if you don't test people for covid, then you don't have covid. you are involved in noaa. this is your bailey wake . we need more measurement and more ways to figure out action, not fewer. i can't even get my head around what project 2025 and trump are thinking. >> thank you so much for having me on, and you put it exactly right. people just politicize the weather. people whether denies it against his political enemies. we know he has the capability to do it because he did it when he was president. and he will go farther this time because he is more in the pocket of big oil and gas than ever before. we know that elections matter, and we cannot stand by and let him undo what is one of the best things that the u.s. federal government does for people in this country, which is provide them straightforward, easy to understand whether in extreme weather forecasts, that they used to save their lives, their property. they could not be more important. and i'm so glad to see behind you the map of hurricane dorian, where he took a sharpie and changed the forecast. president trump put thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives at risk by changing that forecast. no president has ever done that before, and no president should never do that. >> you remind me of it, but i think to myself, i can't believe. i remember the day he did it thinking this is crazy. bill, one of the things that you and i discussed a lot, and i talked to, i was talking to ben rhodes about this earlier, with people who are not going to vote for joe biden because they are frustrated with the israel gaza policy. there are some people who expressed that sentiment around climate. they don't thicken up is been done. but elections are about choices, and in this case they are binary choices. and it will only get worse with one choice versus the other. but there are things, as monica said, that the said ministration has done, that go farther than administrations in the past. >> yes, look. no one is ever going to be able to do enough on climate change, because it is the biggest thing that humans have ever done. we have never faced a problem anything like it. but biden has done more to support clean energy, by far, than any president before. and in the last year, when he showed the guts to pause new permits for lng export, he has done more to stand up to dirty energy than any president before. you saw that kind of austin powers moment that trump pulled off, when he said give me $1 million and i will do anything you want. he is already going to do whatever they want when he gets in office. what he was telling them is i need that million dollars in order to make sure that i can win and i can turn the planet over to you. the price for our earth is $1 billion. this election, i think, on this question, could not be clearer. >> monica, what does joe biden and team need to do to get this across to people who are not as well read as you and bill are about the consequences here? what is the way to express, in simple terms, what this administration has done and what it is going to do in the future? and is that better than comparing it to donald trump and what he will do? how would you think about the messaging of this? >> i think the messaging is really vital, and to talk about it in terms of the extreme weather events that people are experiencing today, president biden and the biden administration have improved heat forecasts. the amount of information you have, your network has, the kind of down to the neighborhood information that we have is better because of president biden's investment in those weather forecasts. we are planting trees in cities so that we can shade ourselves, literally use nature to help protect ourselves. we are using the infrastructure bill and the i.r.a. to make huge changes along coastlines, places that are inundated with water over the last couple of weeks are taking it, able to absorb it much better. i think the messaging has to be clear that this is a choice in this election, and president biden is protecting families, protecting the most vulnerable. i love the fact that you talked about pregnant women in the report before this. the reporter called that out. we think about women and their bodies, the right to choose. regnant women are some of the most vulnerable people. he is protecting workers. when you do get that message out to the labor union, so that they know that president biden is on their side. he is not going to throw paper towels at them or withhold aid to the states he does not like like president trump did. he is taking these issues seriously and taking action. more than any other administration in the past, not only on climate, but on extreme weather and on preparing ourselves for the kind of storms, floods, fires that we have seen. and we are going to continue to see. >> hey, bill, what should people do who are experiencing psychological impacts of climate change? you have written extensively about this. what is your best advice to people who feel this, like many other topics we deal with, are overwhelming and too big for them? >> i think in many ways, this is the one the most overwhelms people. and we have a whole field now of psychology called climate grief and climate anxiety. it is very real, for very obvious reasons. and it doesn't help when you can't go to sleep at night because it is 80 degrees in your department. then you lie awake thinking about things, or at least i do. but the best anecdote for despair is action, and in an even-numbered year in america, the most leveraged action you can take is to get out there and try and influence the outcome of this election. that is why we have tens of thousands of volunteers at a third act, people over 60 who are from banking, knocking on doors, doing everything they can to make sure that this threat to our climate as well as our democracy is turned away in november. >> i am grateful to both of you for really underscoring how crucial this matter is to us. it is existential, it really is. thanks, monica. monica medina is a distinguished fellow, bill mckibben is a scholar at middle college. still ahead, heavy, un- american memoir. it is one of the most provocative books i've read all year. you don't want to miss my conversation with the award- winning author. complex family dynamics are in this story, particularly with his grandmother and mother. his mother is a highly educated political scientist with a singular focus on raising her son to be academically successful. she grounds her son in black literature, politics, and philosophy, and in some of the most painful and lingering moments in the book, laymon describes his mother's physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. his grandmother is foundational to his identity and survival. she provides unconditional love, wisdom, inspiration, and critical lessons about feeling how he wants to heal, regardless of the specter of racist white people. she does not read is less defined, rather as an actualized and stable foil to lehman's mother. quote, before both of us went to sleep i asked grandmama if 218 pounds was too fat for a 12- year-old. what are you weighing yourself for anyway? she asked me. 218 pounds just right. it is just heavy enough. heavy enough for what? heavy enough for everything you need to be heavy enough or. i love sleeping with grandmama, because that was the only place in the world i slept all the way through the night. every memory laymon recounts to the reader is punctuated by his feelings towards his body. as a child we watch as laymon consumes food as comfort, and as a adult restricts food as a means of control. laymon's frank and honest depiction of his struggle with disordered eating is nothing short of radical. it is also some of the best writing in the book. but outside of the literal, lehmans disordered eating is a metaphor, is essential and clinical. his body, which ties itself in the pages of heavy is mercilessly and relentlessly objectified and racialized. heavy is the burden of our nation's past and present for every single black american, including laymon. quote, my body new things my mouth and mind couldn't or maybe wouldn't express. he knew that all over my neighborhood boys were trained to harm girls in ways girls could never harm voice. straight kids were trained to harm kids in ways that kids could never harm straight kids. men were trained to harm women in ways that women could never harm men. parents were trained to harm children in ways that children could never harm parents. babysitters were trained to harm kids in ways that kids could never harm it babysitters. my body knew that white full- court train to harm us in ways that we could never harm them.". heavy has, unexpected way, been challenged numerous times since its initial publication in october of 2018. once from a school district outside of st. louis, missouri, another time from the shelves of a public library in wichita, kansas. it has been challenged generally alongside other books that examine what it is like to be black in america in the past or present. this is a story that members of the velshi banned book club know well. i'm not going to argue more for why heavy should remain on library shelves and lesson plans. because the book is impactful, about the demands this level of attention is not going anywhere. right after the break i am joined by kiese laymon, the award-winning author of heavy, un-american memoir. do not miss this meeting of the velshi banned book club. when the power goes out, you have no lights, no refrigeration, no heating or air conditioning. the winds are not letting up at all here. we're going to see some power outages. number one thing to prepare for is extended power outages. are you prepared? you can be with a generac home standby generator. when a power outage occurs, your generac home standby generator automatically powers up, using your home's existing natural gas or propane, so your life goes on without disruption. you and your family are comfortable, safe, and 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free, the quote is free, and there's no obligation to buy. call or go online now, so the next time there's a power outage, your home powers up. power your life with generac. call or go online to request your free quote today. today's meeting of the velshi banned book club is officially underway. i am thrilled to be joined by kiese laymon, an english and creative writing feather at rice university, winner of the macarthur fellows genius grant, and author of three books, including today's award-winning velshi banned book club feature, heavy : un-american memoir. good to have you here. >> thank you some much for what you do for books. i appreciate you, man. >> my pleasure. this is a great book. in many ways it is a story about the power of education and the power of literature. tell me about this. >> absolutely. i wanted to write a book about the importance of the lovemaking of my mother, and i tried to create successfully and unsuccessfully to black young people growing up in mississippi, my mother was someone, she had me at 19 at jackson state university. she became a professor. and books were sort of our way of connecting to one another for better and worse. and at the end of the day, like a lot of families, we succumb to addiction in different ways. and i was at the end of my rope. i didn't know what to do. so i tried to write a book to my mama to make it better. that is really what heavy is about. >> i once read a little bit from a piece in the atlantic called the personal cost of black success. in it, the author writes about your memoir as well is the book there will be no miracles by casey gerald. why, laymon and gerald both ask, are people of color who get the chance to go far and those like him who are just on, so intent on declaring that we are not defined by our circumstances? talk to me a little bit but about this idea. >> that is a great idea. one of the things i wanted to do in heavy was talk about these quote unquote circumstances. i was raised by someone who taught me to look at the world and have a critical view of the way the nation, the state, and the world was impacting all of our decisions. i think in some ways it is easy for somebody like me, who grew up with the mother i did to look at the world, look at antiracism, look at anti-whiteness, anti- blackness, all these other things they tell us exist, and not think about the ways those things locate in the relationship with the body and the relationship with people closest to us. for me, my mother was the one who grew up post-civil rights, really wanted me to represent the best of what she considered to be respectable blackness. i wanted to represent that, too, but i also wanted to be free. and i think heavy is an attempt at a exploring that really thin line between freedom and respectability, particularly for black folks living in the deep south. >> you write about sexual violence against women, particularly young black women from the very beginning of heavy. right i was taught by big boys who were taught by big boys who were taught by big boys and black girls would be okay no matter what we did to them. what did you mean by that? >> in a lot of ways i took all of these women's studies courses in undergrad and i learned all these definitions of words, and when i wrote heavy i was like i don't want to use the word necessary patriarchy. i want to explain the word patriarchy. one of the things i think patriarchy does is it teaches boys to teach boys to teach boys, who are ultimately taught by men to hate themselves enough to abuse what we call this gender women, and trans women and trans men often at the expense of the lies we want to live. i wanted to put it in frank terms. everything i do in this book, for better and worse, was something i was taught. i have the ability to recollect and think about that teaching, but i can't do that unless i go to the root of the teaching. i just wanted to, and also, i wanted to distinguish, not establish myself from the quote unquote good guys, the good guys are going to those rooms and do these things to these young women. i was a good boy who stayed outside of the room listening and watching what was happening to a lot of these young women, and never said a word. i think invocation is really crucial to some of the work we are also trying to pull off in heavy. >> you begin heavy with a missive for your mother. and i could not help but think of a previous velshi banned book feature, james baldwin's, the fire next time, when reading the section. why did you write the book that way? >> well, baldwin, that's a great reading. when i think set the standard for us, in his address to his nephew. i didn't want to make this a letter to my mother. i think a letter is very different than a book written to my mother. i wanted to write a book. i wanted to set the terms for the reader and my mother, abundantly clear from the beginning. this is a book about a child who loves their mother endlessly. but there was a point in my life where i do not think that i love my mother. and i would argue that she did not love me. i think that had everything to do with us and everything to do with the nation and the state, mississippi, that we lived in. i wanted to address my mother directly from the beginning, as a friend, as an elder, as a teacher, before i let everybody get into what heavy was really going and doing in subsequent chapters. >> let's talk about the title of the book. heavy: an american memoir . the mythos of the great american story is such a part of literary convention in this story. but we know it is a myth. your story is a great american story for so many americans. let's talk about this idea of representing this country and books. >> up, my goodness. i was raised by one of those mothers who didn't let you have cable. i had to go to my friends house to watch what we called skin a max, hbo, what not. books where art foundation of love for one another. one of the things about heavy being banned is that when i found out heavy was banned, i got a quote from a library in missouri. in the first name she said was your book along with toni morrison. and people asked me how i felt about my butt being banned, and because i heard my book was banned with toni morrison, the first thing i started doing was smiling ear to ear. i cannot simulate that smile on my face. then he did not take long for me to really consider how sad it was that that is the greatest writer of english language, to my estimation, being banned from libraries. and the people doing the banning were some of the same people who didn't want their children wearing masks at the height of covid. and some of the people doing the banning are some of the people who want president trump to be the president of the world. so i took the banning as necessarily, well, morrison and i have something in common. and then it just set in. because the book is about books. the book is about what books and the lack of books actually did to inform me, as a young person. banning a book about books is what they call nasty work, i would say. >> it is nasty work, and it is a badge of honor, you're right. now your work is in a corpus of some very famous people. but it is the aspect that some kid does not get to read this but is really important. this is the point. we have a sense, i could buy the book area and lots of people will buy it today after seeing you on the velshi banned book club. there is no question about that, track your sales, they will go up. that is not answer the question about, is there someone who needs to read your book does not get access to it? >> absolutely. and this is why i am so thankful for the work you've done. a lot of the people you brought on to talk with people who were written out of education as high schoolers. i was written out of middle school education, written out of high school education. meaning that the identity that i am body was told that they do not belong. so we did not read books for black people in black mississippi. we did not read books about black grandmothers in black mississippi. my mother had a lot of books. i was lucky. i could get these books. my mother taught at jackson state university. what i wanted to do was right not just a book that i wish i could have read. i wanted to write a book as a grown person that i wanted to read now. also with the hope that some young person didn't have to be black, didn't have to be southern, didn't have to be necessarily a fat person. i identify as a fat black mississippian. but i wanted young people to see that there is space for you to write your story into existence, particularly when these stores ban uri. and a lot of young people are having their eyes band. the book banning is proof that there is an insidious group of people in this country who want to ban our children, not just ban books, but ban our children from exploring identities that they deem fearful. there is nothing more insidious than the work of book banning in this country in 2024. >> that is exactly right. inc. you for being a member of velshi banned book club. kiese laymon, the award-winning author of today's velshi banned book club feature, heavy: an american memoir . we will be right back. that helps treat a, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. 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