Transcripts For MSNBC The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell 20240710

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Election law that would install some of the most rigid voting restrictions in the Country And Cement the state as one of the hardest in which to cast a ballot. Democrats in the Texas House of representatives walked out before a midnight voting deadline, which denied republicans the quorum that they needed to vote on the legislation. The republican governor of texas, greg abbott, who is up for reelection next year, has said he will call a special session to get the bill passed. The legislation democrats blocked, Senate Bill 7, would add new restrictions on absentee voting, give more authority to partisan poll watchers, ban early voting on Sunday Mornings, which is when many black churches encourage souls to the polls immediately after Sunday Morning services. The bill would also reduce evidence requirements for overturning an election, Ban Drivethru Voting and ban 24voting, which was used for the first time in 2020 in harris county, home to a growing number of democratic vote. After texas democrats block the bill they spoke in front of a Baptist Church in u. S. An because one of the lastminute republican additions to the bill was to allow early voting on sundays only from 1 00 p. M. To 9 00 p. M. Democratic texas State Congresswoman jessica gonzalez, who is also the vicechair of the Texas House elections committee, said this. When this bill came to the floor we thought that we were going to be able to have a serious conversation. A real conversation because this bill affects every single person in the state of texas, including republicans. And we were told time and time again by the Secretary Of State that our elections were safe and secure. So really this is a Witch Hunt. Its a Witch Hunt aimed at people of color. We are going back centuries. Leading off our discussion this hour, democratic State Representative jessica gonzalez, whose district includes parts of dallas. Thank you very much for joining us tonight after your late night last night. When did you make this decision to walk out and deny a quorum . Well, you know, these discussions began throughout the day, even a couple days before we knew this bill was going to get to the floor. Of unclear when it would actually get to the floor, but republicans chose to put it on the 139th day of the 140th. So it was on the deadline. So, again, it was trying to be shoved through, you know, shoved down our throats again. So ultimately we came together and we all decided to walk out. And what can you do, if there is a special session that the governor calls, what tools will you have in your toolbox for that . Well, i mean, thats always the governors decision, of course, how soon we will call us in for a special. It will his decision ultimately. Our hope is that we can have a serious conversation about it, a second round, second go around. But again the tools that we have in our toolbox, procedural maneuvers such as point of orders, trying to kill it on one of those. Another option is trying to run out clock. Like yesterday we could have run out clock on the bill. Once its past midnight, the bill dies. Ultimately, we hope that it doesnt resort to having to break quorum again and we can have a serious conversation to pass real Election Reform that is Common Sense and will make it easier for people to vote. I want to focus on the provisions in the bill that take effect after people have voted. Clearly, there is a collection of restrictive measure in there that are clearly designed to prevent democrats from voting, make it more difficult for democrats to vote. But after the vote this bill now says that there is a much lower standard of proof for any case brought about any kind of election fraud. Yes. They added some provisions in the final version of it that would give that would expand the venue for the types of cases to be litigated. And so our Court System is already clogged up, especially after the pandemic. Our civil courts are backed up on jury trials, and it gives a provision, there is a provision in there that expedites these types of cases. And so thats a very Slippery Slope for us to take because within the bill itself there are certain things that people can accidentally if you accidentally pull something out, or dont mark something correctly, that could potentially open it up for an investigation. So it seems like there is a due Process Issue there, arrest first and investigate later. There is a potential for many people to be caught, you know, and possibly be criminalized for innocent behavior. There is also a provision apparently that says you can overturn an election in court without proving that the number of votes that are being contested would actually even affect the outcome of the election. Yes. And so this sweeping bill, right, again it was shoved down our throat with limited Discussion And Input from democrats from the get go. Despite 22 hours of testimony from the public, at the 11th Hour, you know, they stripped out agreedupon amendments and added new provisions. This provision was in neither version, neither the Senate Version or the house version. This is completely new language that was, i believe was given to the conferrees that night, like at midnight, and so we didnt have an opportunity to even have a public hearing on it in committee. So this is really going around the process. But that really shows the intent by them adding that provision. It basically allows you to overturn an election without having to prove evidence of fraud. So, again, that shows their clear intent behind what they are trying to accomplish based around the big lie. Democratic texas State Representative jessica gonzalez, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. And joining our discussion now, latasha brown, cofounder of the black Voters Matter Fund and maria, President And Ceo of voter latino. And latasha, hear we see it again. They managed to come up with this Lastminute Maneuver that at least delayed when this bill might become a law and we are not sure now whether it will. No, we are not. I want to commend the democrats in texas for having the courage and the fortitude to Stand Up for democracy. The Bottom Line is that the republicans are going through extraordinary measures to do everything they can to affect Voting Right in this the country. We need a response that is equally based on how extraordinary it is. And so i think with the democrats stepping out last night, it lets folks know how serious we are right now, how serious this is an issue of undermining democracy. We have to move forward. The democrats in the senate can take a lesson on what we are seeing happen in texas right now. Lets listen to democratic texas State Representative Nicole Collier last night. We have used all the tools in our toolbox to fight this Bill And Tonight we pulled out that last one. Now, listen. We may have won the war tonight, but the battle is not over. The irony of this is these laws are being passed around the country, in state legislatures, where there is no Filibuster Provision for, you know, democratic senators in some of these states to block these kind of bills. So they can pass in a purely partisan way. Yet, there is a Senate Rule in washington that will prevent the democrats from passing their top priority on Voting Rights, and its a democratic senator Joe Manchin who is preserving that ability of the united States Senate to be blocked by a minority, an ability that doesnt exist in the places where most of these bills are being passed. You are absolutely right, lawrence. Whats happening in texas, whats happening in georgia, what happened in arizona with the fraud that they did, making the Voting Booth now not accessible is a pattern of the republican party, because what happened was they didnt like the results. All these three state that just passed these legislations in pennsylvania included, they have had certified elections that were verified and they were above board. In a place like texas, they verified their elections saying there was zero fraud in the election system, and texas has the most restrictive Voting Rights on the books. The most restrictive laws by far. But what were seeing in states like arizona, in pennsylvania, georgia, and texas, they have one thing in common, and its a booming young latino population thats coming of age and eclipsing even older latinos for the tires time. To give you an idea. In texas you will have 250,000 new eligible young latino voters by 2022. They are trying to stack the deck. What Joe Manchin needs to understand and what Kyrsten Sinema needs to understand is our democracy is incredibly threatened because they are trying to change the rules because they dont like that Multicultural America is rising andis disproportionately young and they want a Progress America that embraces them. So Joe Manchin needs to recognize, if his own colleagues do not want to investigate what happened on january 6th, which was insurrection against our democracy that put his life and the staff on the line, the filibuster into the tarkness of the night, what will it prevent them to the exact same thing for our democracy . He and Kyrsten Sinema need to recognize that the filibuster has no place in our democracy because our house is on fire. And the only way to fix this is by having universal federal regulations that gives every single state Clear Rules By Which To Play by. And he has to share the leadership that he can look in his grandchildrens eyes and say i saved our democracy because there is a need to make sure that we are speaking straight of what is on the line. The fact that texas is dead last in access to the Voting Booth, according to the university of illinois, northern northern illinois university. We know this for a fact. They are trying to make it more restrictive because they see a rise of young voters and they dont like the fact that they are going to lose if they dont play by the rules. That is where Joe Manchin needs to recognize we need to get rid of that filibuster. It is important. Otherwise, our democracy will not die slowly, but overnight. Lets listen to what Beto Orourke said this morning on Morning Joe about what happened in texas last night. Democrats in texas did a lot. They bought us some time and they stopped one of the worst Voter Suppression bills in the country. But when you link what they were trying to pass in texas with what passed in georgia, florida, iowa, montana, whats pending in more than 40 other state legislatures, you see that we have the biggest attack on american democracy in our lifetimes. Latasha, your reaction to what Beto Orourke just said . He is absolutely right. We have to recognize, this isnt just individual states. This is a coordinated effort to literally undermine democracy, particularly in those states. States with colors and young voters that made the difference in terms of outcome. So we have to attack this from the local level, state level, but we need legislation. The good news is we have an opportunity now. We have the John Lewis Advancement act. Those acts if they are passed in the senate will provide the protection that we need. We have to put pressure on democratic senators. We have to put pressure. The unfortunate thing, this is not a partisan issue. We should not allow democrats my right. Thats my choice. But access to the ballot is a daulk issue. We have to really move beyond Democracy Propaganda and a Core Value in this country. Thank you both for joining our discussion tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you. And coming up in Tonights Episode of defend and trump, allen Weisselbergs Daughterinlaw says he committed perjury and that he will flip on Donald Trump. Thats next. Lip on Donald Trump. Thats next. Burke Phone it in to 1800farmers to get Policy Perks, like a Home And Autobundle discount. man im phoning it in and just saved twenty percent. burke get your Policy Perks by calling 1800farmers. Go ahead, Phone It in. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum so, you have diabetes, here are some easy rules. No sugar. No pizza. No foods you love. Stressed . No stress. Exercise. But no days off easy, no . No. No. No. No. But with Freestyle Libre 14 day, you can take the mystery out of your diabetes. Now you know. Sir, do you know what you want to order . Yes. Freestyle libre 14 day. 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They changed dramatically when they came into power with the presidency. It really went to their heads. They are enabled and had no accountability. So weisselberg does lie. He has perjured himself with the President Ial with most depositions. It looks like he was trying to avoid the inevitable. Now that there is a personal Criminal Probe on him and they are going hard on his children, barry and jack, he is going to flip. Joining us now is that barbara, barbara mcquade, former u. S. Attorney in michigan and Law Professor at the michigan law school. Paul butler, former federal prosecutor and Law Professor at georgetown university. Both are msnbc legal analysts. Barbara, let me begin with you and the focus on Allen Weisselberg which makes perfect sense, and what this might lead to in this investigation. Well, Allen Weisselberg is someone who has been an insider in the Trump Organization for many years as the Chief Financial Officer. As such, he is intimately familiar with the financial practices. Someone like him could be extremely valuable as a cooperator in an investigation for the organization as well as individuals within it. Although a case like this involving Financial Im Proprieties is largely based on documents, which is a prosecutors dream, because documents dont lie and documents dont forget, its very useful to have a Human Being who was there who can explain to a jury what was happening to Connect The Dots and serve as a narrater. So i imagine if there is any criminal exposure for Allen Weisselberg, that prosecutors would try to leverage that into persuading him to cooperate and be a witness. Paul butler, as this, as our view of this investigation develops and we are developing our view through some leaks and through people like Allen Weisselbergs former daughterinlaw coming out and telling us what they think, what is your sense of how the trump legal defense sees the way this case is developing . Thats a great question, lawrence. So this is bank fraud, tax fraud, insurance fraud. Barbara is absolutely right. Those cases are mainly proven on paper with documents, and thats a good thing for the prosecutors because the witnesses are people like Michael Cohen and the daughterinlaw, who might have axes to grind. So the arguments are going to be the linchpin of the case. Also important for the defense, lawrence, because we are looking at fraud, there is a thin line between going right up to the point thats legal and then committing a crime. And so one example is allegedly the Trump Organ flighted its Property Values and deflated for others. Well, that can be legal. Different properties can have different val utes depending on the situation. So a lot of the defense is going to be the lawyer said we do could do it. Barbara, consider for a moment the prosecution in the investigation doesnt get Allen Weisselbergs cooperation in any way. Is there a possibility that you could end up with a case in which Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump are both defendants . Yes, absolutely. I would imagine that if Allen Weisselberg is found to have had crimes that can be charged against him, that at some Point Prosecutors would go to him and say, you can either be a witness or you can be a defendant. Thats his choice. If he chooses not to cooperate, he could be charged with a crime along with Donald Trump. Although he may be helpful, we dont know enough about all of the other evidence to know whether he is necessary. We know that Michael Cohen from his own mouth has been cooperating for many months and has shared a lot of information already. And so it may be unnecessary to flip Allen Weisselberg. I would think that when you have got someone like Michael Cohen, its useful to have corroboration not only in the form of documents but other witnesses to back each other up. So i would think he is someone of value. But it is quite possible you could see him at a Defendants Table along with Donald Trump. Paul butler, what are you looking for as possible developments next, given that grand Jury Secrecy might just shut us out from this process completely . It probably will. So we are not likely to have a daytoday or a weektoweek about whats going on. I imagine that prosecutors are presenting Literally Hundreds Of Thousands of pages of documents to the grand jury. Thats why they impaneled a Special Grand Jury because its a case that has a long narrative and prosecutors want to tell a coherent story. In addition to the legal defense though, we know that president trumps move is to attack the investigators, to attack the prosecutors. And so weve already seen him do that with Leticia James claiming that there are democrats angry and out to get him. He doesnt have an Attorney General like William Barr to protect him anymore. So i think he is going to go even harder after these prosecutors. Barbara, what are you looking for down the road . Well, i think that we may continue to get dribs and drabs out of whats happening with the grand jury investigation, but that often comes from witnesses who have some sort of selfinterested motive in sharing information. I think we need to be patient until charges are ultimately filed or an announcement is made that the grand jury has concluded its business without the return of charges. But it does seem that Convening A Grand Jury is a significant step in this investigation because we know that Cy Vance has had those documents now for some time, the tax records. If, after their analysis, they did not see that there was any evidence of a crime there, they would have shut it down without convening this grand jury. The fact that they have gathered together sit sfwlents to present evidence and go through this burden says that the likelihood of charges has gone up substantially since last week. I would be surprised if there were not charges. Of course, we will have to wait and see. Barbara mcquade. Paul butler, thank you. Thanks. Thank you. President biden is preparing to meet vladimir putin for the first time in his presidency. A presidency that vladimir putin tried to prevent by interfering in our election to help Donald Trump. Thats next. Help Donald Trump. Thats next. Burke Phone it in to farmers to switch and you could save an average of four hundred and sixtyseven dollars on your auto insurance. Man Phone it in . Way ahead of you. Daddys saving money. burke go ahead, Phone It in. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum this is the Epson Ecotank Color printer. No more buying cartridges. Big ink tanks. Lots of ink. Print about. This many pages. The epson ecotank. Just fill and chill. Advanced nonsmall Cell Lung Cancer can change everything. But your first treatment could be a Chemofree Combination of two immunotherapies that works differently. 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President putin in a couple of weeks in geneva, making it clear that we will not, we will not stand by and let him abuse those rights. That was President Biden speaking yesterday in delaware. Today russias deputy Foreign Minister said ominously, The Americans must assume that a number of signals from moscow will be uncomfortable for them, including in the coming days. In a 2014 interview with the new yorker, then vice President Biden described a meeting he had in moscow with vladimir putin in 2011. Quote, as i turned, i was this close to him. Biden held his hand a few inches from his nose. I said, mr. Prime minister, im looking into your eyes and i dont think you have a soul. And he looked back at me and he had smiled and he said, we under one another. Joining us is Rick Stengel, underSecretary Of State during the Obama Administration. He is the author of Information Wars how we lost the global battle against disinformation and what we can do about it. He is an msnbc political analyst. Of course, before all of this, Rick Stengel was the editor of time magazine. I think we have a photograph of you in moscow in 2007. Your interview with vladimir putin then. You are one of the very few people we can get on this freshman who have actually been in the room with vladimir putin, spoken to him directly. What do you make, first of all, of that dramatic moment that Joe Biden described in the new Yorker Interview where he says this thing to vladimir putin about having no soul . And putins fine with that. He is totally onc okay and said, okay, now we understand each other. Its a terrific story, lawrence. And it may even be true. And what it also shows you, of course, is that Putin And Biden are men who believe in real politique. Hardnosed politics. And if putin recognized that in biden, so much the better. I think it will be a meeting that will produce some results. I mean, what biden is looking for in his meeting with putin is a restoration of predict Nlability And Stability in the relationship between russia and the united states. Lawrence, you know, biden has hots on the stovall over the place. Really important ones. He doesnt want this russian pot to boil over. He has to Stake Care of covid, of all of these other things. He just wants to make sure that unlike Donald Trump, there is Predictability And Stability in the relationship between the united states and russia. Thats what american president s do. Lets listen to what Ron Klain said about this. For me to vladimir putin not because we agree or reward for good behavior. We are meeting with him because he is the president of the other great Nuclear Power on this planet. Its important for these two leaders to sit down and try to find ways in which they can work together in some areas and ways which they can exchange views honestly and directly Eye To eye, Face To face about the disagreements, the sharp disagreements and concerns we have about president putins leadership. And, rick, of course, The American president also has areas of potential Agreement And Cooperation to try to work out with russia. What are those . Well, the relationship with russia is complicated. Its like a threedimensional chess game. As ron mentioned, you know, the biggest part of it in some ways is nuclear nonproliferation. That is an existential threat to everyone on the planet. But we also have other issues like the iran deal. Russia is a party to the iran deal. The biden administration would like to try to tee that up again and they need russias cooperation. Look at what happened with russia and solar wind. I am sure that President Biden will bring that up. We need to figure out some kind of mutual deterrence with cyber terrorism. I mean, thats just thats a gigantic threat. And then in some ways the issue that came to the forefront in the Obama Administration was ukraine. Russias illegal Annexation Of Crimea was one of the grossest violations of sovereignty since World War ii. Thats still going on. A few weeks ago there were 100,000 troops on the ukrainian border. He wants to lower temperature on that and all of these other areas as well. So, in lowering the temperature, does that mean diplomatically that you might not bring up every single thing on your Agreements List . I mean, for example, do you update it with the diversion of that Ryanair Flight in belarus . I think you do. I think biden will bring it all up. And the anecdote that you told, lawrence, you know, that kind of recognition between biden and putin, i mean putin is a big boy. He knows these things are going to come up. He is going to bring up their version of these things where they have grievances. I mean, the russians are great believers in pressprocity, a fancy way of saying an Eye For An eye, tooth for a tooth. When President Biden brings up belarus, putin is going to bring up some grievance about what the u. S. Has done. Thats diplomacy. There will be grownups in the room on our side for the first time in five years, and they will work it out. And for putin, this is going to be reverting to having to deal with someone who actually functions as president of the united states, which he was relieved from having to do for four years. Yes. I mean, lawrence, as you talked about many times, we have no idea what transpired between Trump And Putin over the last four years. Notes werent published. You know, now that biden is president , we get notes after meetings. That didnt happen with president trump. There was allegedly the story where he told the Note Taker to release the notes. So we dont know. I think what we want is a retsration to traditional diplomacy and there will be some tough points, you know, points of cooperation, some points of competition, and some points of confrontation. Thats the way it is. Rick stengel, thank you very much for joining our discussion tonight. Thank you, lawrence. And coming up. President biden has ordered u. S. Intelligence agencies to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, including the possibility that covid19 originalnated in a lab iN China. Nickelson baker, who explored the Lab Leak Theory at The End of last year will join us next. D of last year will join us next ts the same thing. Thats why i go with Liberty Mutual they customize my Car Insurance so i only pay for what i need. cause i do things a bit differently. Wet Teddy Bears wet Teddy Bears here only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Some days, you just dont have it. Not my uncle, though. 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I couldnt help thinking about the pandemic we were living through while reading it last summer because the science of Germ Warfare includes the science of highly contagious viruses. And the book includes evidence, for example, that Lyme Disease is one of the germs that escaped from one of our Germ Warfare laboratories on Plum Island off the coast of connecticut in long island, new york. In december, in the most exhaustive piece yet written in the popular press, Nicholson Baker wrote an article titled the lab leak hypothesis, for decades scientists have been hot wiring viruses in hopes of preventing a pandemic, not causing one, but what if . Now President Biden has given his administration 90 days to try to determine if covid19 began in nature or began in a lab. Joining us now is Nicholson Baker. He is The New York Times bestselling author of 17 Novel And Nonfiction books. His latest Book Baseless My Search For Secrets in the ruins of the freedom of Information Act. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. I, for one, could discuss all 17 Box Beginning with what i thought was your Master Work the mezzanine. There are so many candidates for your Master Work, including this latest one, baseless, because reading it during the pandemic was a completely different experience for me than it would have been without the pandemic. I could have felt like i was reading a history of something weird and not that old, but old enough to have nothing to do with my daily life now. But what you discovered in that book is that laboratories have been working with and playing around with vaccines for good purposes and for some terrible purposes in the past, and so and the notion that things have escaped from laboratories involuntarily is something that we have seen before. And then it brings us up to last Summer And Winter when you started contemplating the Lab Leak Theory as others were, and now the president wants investigated. How have you seen this discussion evolve on the Lab Leak Theory in the last few months . It was a fascinating process to write a book that was really about things going wrong in american laboratories, scientists who were trying to weaponize various diseases long, long time ago, back when the united states had a very active biological weapons program, and to try to tell that story and then to be involved in this situation where anybody who raised the possibility that something could have gone wrong in a laboratory on a Tuesday Afternoon somewhere, maybe iN China, maybe in wuhan, was a conspiracy theorist, that it just was there was a complete kind of Cognitive Dissonance for me in having looked at the history of Laboratory Experiments with very risky diseases and seeing that scientists get sick of the diseases theyre studying. And then to see people saying that you couldnt possibly even raise this idea without becoming some kind of a crazy, Wacky Trumper who has, you know, is spreading fake news. So it was a weird, weird year. So your Tenyear Quest to find out what we were doing with Germ Warfare research and possibly even using it in the Korean War ends, i think, in what a courtroom would call kind of a hung jury. It ends without the absolute conclusive proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And that proof, by the way, as you point out in the book, may be being blocked. The freedom of Information Act may not be able to get us to the documents that could tell us that truth. And so we have a government that is holding back documents, holding them back against you and your research on its own history of labs, of this sort doing research for good and for bad. And im wondering if we could get ten years out from now and you could be on this case for ten years, and others and scientists and Intelligence Agencies could be on this case for the next ten years, and not be able to tell us ten years from now, was it a Lab Accident . Was it a naturally evolved vaccine . Virus. I would of course, i would hope that we would know because there is a terrible foggy messy feeling. When a terrible disaster has happened and you dont know why. So everybody would like to know how this disease arose. And i think that there is a lot that can be found out. Even if the chinese government is understandably very, very sensitive about any sort of scrutiny of their high containment laboratories. Even so, there is a lot that we can look at around the edges. Thats what i found with my own research with long ago diseases and weapons programs, is that even though you might not have the central document, you have scientists and correspondence that can tell you a lot of things and give you a lot to think about. So i absolutely think we will know more if, if the biden administration really takes seriously the idea of an investigation. They dont have to press china. They dont have to wait until china responds. They can simply start looking at the correspondence between american Funding Agencies like the national institutes of health, the Defense Threat Reduction agency of the department of defense, the us aid, all these agencies gave money to chinese scientists to study bad diseases and Human Diseases and the interplay between the two of them. We can simply read that Correspondence And Move forward. There is no need to threaten the chinese with sanctions or anything like that. We can just look at grants asked for and what the Grant Reports said, and we will move forward. And this kind of research on viruses and seeing whats involved in making the viruses more potent, this is considered positive and useful research by scientific communities around the united states, and there is a group of scientists who looked at this research over time, and said, you know, we understand why you want to did it. We understand what the benefits of this research can be. We get that. We do, however, find it too risky, and we find the chances of a leak from a lab, somewhere N China or some other country, those risks are not worth it. There is a divide about not the value of the research. Everyone agreed on the value of the research. It was the risk. It was a question, was the Risk Worth it . Yeah, and there it really came to a head in 2011, 2012, when a scientist in the netherlands convinced a disease to jump from one organization to another organization by passaging, and american scientists at harvard, and david in stanford said, this is nuts. Youre taking a disease and youre making it worse and youre making it more likely to infect Human Beings through the respiratory route. So there was a phrase that grew up over the past eight years, ten years, gain of function research. And the gain of function theyre talking about very specifically is to enhance the transmissability, and pathogenethicy. And we are talking, is it a good idea to do that . And not because you want to kill people but you want to prove that a certain virus could, with a few mutations, infect Human Beings. It was part of it was preventive medicine but it was preventive medicine that is taking an enormous risk. At least that is what the scientists said, and there. Reporter 150 of them, i think, who said dont make diseases worse. So the Obama Administration said, we will look at that and they paused the funding, a function research, accept some of it was grandfathered in, unfortunately, and it was resumed in the Trump Administration by the nih. And went forward, and now being funded again, so a lot of people said, thats a bad idea, the mechanisms have not been done, and i think that some people thought, in their secret resources of their mind, was this Experiment Something that led to a crazy disease. We can do crazy things . No, we cant. We will have 90 days in which we might be finding out more from the biden administration about the very question, in the meantime, swhe all be reading Nickelson Bakers book. The book is baseless, My Search For Secret, Nicholson Baker, thank you very much for joining us. We will be back with more after this. Spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. 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Ready for an Athome Treatment with dramatic results . Its time to ask your doctor about kesimpta. Today, president Joe Biden honored those who died in service in this country at arlington national cemetery. While we stood amons monuments of stone, we must never forget, each of the markers, known and unknown here at arlington, and far beyond, represent a precious life, a son, a daughter, a mother, a spouse, a brother, a sister, a friend, a neighbor. To those who mourn a loved one today, jill and i have some idea how youre feeling. Our losses are not the same. But that Black Hole you feel in your chest, as if its going to suck you into it, we get. I me the incredible pride you felt seeing a loved one wear the uniform of the country, and the pride they felt wearing it. Our son Beaus Service in the delaware national guard unit, the year he spent deployed in iraq, is one of the things he was most proud of in life. Yesterday, marked the anniversary of his death. And its a hard time, a hard time of year for me and our family, just like it is for so many of you. It can hurt to remember. But the hurt is how we feel and how we heal. I always feel beau close to me on memorial day. I know exactly where i need to be. Right here, honoring our fallen heroes. That is tonights last word on this memorial day. The 11th Hour with Brian Williams starts right well, good evening once again, a special twohour broadcast, far from our normal time slot. Day 132 of the biden administration. The president

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