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 mcfar