welcome to the beat. i m ari melber. we have new tapes. in a beat exclusive we have new audio tapes of congressman george santos, arraigned today for that indictment. they are the santos tapes and they re coming up shortly. later i want to tell you we also have my special report on clarence thomas problem with law and precedent. we ll get to that breakdown and these tapes. our top story right now is the santos indictment itself. this is the most controversial new lawmaker in congress, now indicted for breaking laws. prosecutors say his lies became crimes, to put it simply, and today, for his part, the congressman vowing to fight the case while echoing a maga witch-hunt defense. now, i m going to have to go and fight to defend myself. the reality is is it s a witch-hunt. i m going to fight my battle. i m going to deliver. i m going to fight the witch-hunt. i m going take care of clearing my name. i will prove myself innocent. he pled not guilty and is now out on bon
in private. we understand that just below his of the sign in sidney brustein s window a small group of people alsowindow a small gr people also conducted the prayers. he lunched with various workers in the hospital as is often the case. he likes to dine with ordinary people rather than heads of state. so that s what he has done so far. now, the expectation is he going to be in this hospital here in rome for at least another week as doctors watch his recuperation. now, this was an operation that he decided to have at this point because later in the summer he has a busy schedule, first in portugal in the beginning of august. then at the end of august he flies all the way to mongolia. so he wants this 86-year-old pope, he wants to be in the best shape possible for before he embarks on those journeys.
it features and is a big play. we turn to a special guest, jeremy o. harris. he produced among others, the revival of the sign in sidney brustein s window. he s also the author of slave play , which you may have heard of because it holds the most tony nominations for a play. welcome back to the beat. thank you for having me. i love being here. enwhen you see a plugs like desantis try to ban books and accuse other people of doing the banning and staks on free speech, what do you see? i sigh someone running for their lives afraid. he says there s a fight against truth, but the truth that is in the fight, that is embattled is the truth of the lives we liver right? the lives of the people of color, the lives of women, and that s what he wants to attack. he wants to attack queer people,
broadway. he told me, it s a shame when america doesn t recognize their classics when it happens in front of them. because this is one of the great jewels of american writing. when i knew this was happening in brooklyn and had a chance to go to broadway. i sent rachel a text and said, i m going to call people and get this to broadway wham a broadway play does i know because it happened to my own play a broadway play shines a huge spotlight. it s just i m only going because i have to get to a break. like a book or movie it stamps it for america. it means it in oklahoma, nebraska, all the places they re banning books, banning writing of black queer women. they re going to have to do it at so many high school, because they just did it on broadway. you re using a prestige as a vector. i love it. i ll close with one more bar. barrington levy, i m broad, i m
controversial for today. consider a raisin in the sun , later made into a film, hailed for its raw depiction of a family on the south side of chicago, celebrated for lines like, there s always something left to love and if you ain t learned that, you ain t learned nothing. amen. it was also the first broadway play written or directed by a black woman. she was just 29 when she composed that classic. she died at the young age of 34. martin luther king jr. said at the time when they were celebrating her funeral that proground grasp of deep social issues confronting also a threat to some peel in the future, which is now. an oklahoma school is banning raisin in the sun from their classrooms. and her other major play, the sign in sidney brustein s window is on broadway.