members has aoc and others calling for expulsion. >> today is the day american patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. >> and carol's journey to qanon. new reporting on how it radicalized users and the new netflix collaboration with colin kaepernick and this american moment. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. multiple members of congress are intensifying calls for the expulsion of their colleagues. in the wake of a new report not yet confirmed which may shed new light on the way republicans in congress and staffers may have had an active role in planning the protests leading up to the january 6th insurrection. now before we get to that rolling stone report, which is precipitated these new calls for expuchls, it's worth noting things we know from a variety of sources. even through this reporting over the weekend, all of that information already painted a damning picture of how donald trump and his allies worked to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. we know that donald trump called the georgia secretary of state urging him to find enough missing votes to reverse the outcome of the election in that state. >> so, look. all i want to do is this. i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state and flipping the state is a great testament to our country because you know, this -- it's a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it. >> whatever you want to call it. you come up with the justification for giving us one more vote than we need. trump of course also called a member of the wayne county board of canvassers in michigan after she agreed to certificate biden's win there after having initially refused to. trump also called the chairman of the maricopa county board of supervisors. he never returned the president's call because he assumed trump was similarly trying to pressure him. now we've been talking about this conduct for so long, it can be easy to lose sight of how wildly inappropriate it is. the sitting president of the united states calling up these local officials, brow beating, berating, people without a national platform. in one case, pressuring them to overturn the election results in his favor. but again, that's just one small set of what he was up to. the president and his allies. there's the john easton memo -- by tasking mike pence with refusing to certify the election, sending the results back to the states where as eastman notes, trump aligned legislators could overturn the will of their constituents. he also attended meetings at the command center at the willard hotel where they worked to push that conspiracy both inside and outside trump world. as "the washington post" reports, quote, their activities included finding and publicizing evident of fraud, urging members of state legislatures to challenge biden's victory and calling on the trump supporting public to pressure republican officials in key states. to that end, we know trump met with sympathetic legislators from pennsylvania at the white house after phoning in to one of their hearings that he quote, won pennsylvania by a lot. begs the recent report by the senate judiciary committee. we know trump made multiple attempts to get the department of justice to interfere. again to that senate report, nine times just between december and early january. where he asked officials to quote, initiate investigations, file lawsuits on his behalf and publicly declare the 2020 election corrupt. the acting attorney general, acting head of the civil division, a man named jeffrey clark, is set to testify before house committee investing january 6th this week. so we could learn more about the nave of those calls from the president soon. it was not just donald trump, but his legal advisers pushing to delegitimize the results of the election and placing january 6th on the forefront of their attempts to do so. back in december 2020, it was reported that house republicans led by mo brooks of alabama were meeting with the white house about ways to overturn the election results. again, not a secret. not doing this behind closed doors. in politico. and congressman brooks wasn't really like sneaky about this. you may remember that he said this in the rally on stage leading up to the insurrection on january 6th. >> we are not going to let them continue to corrupt our elections. and steal from us our god given right to control our nation's destiny. today is the day american patriots start taking down names and kicking ass! >> he just said it there in public. quite loudly. into the microphone. now congressman brooks has since tried to distance himself to the events of january 6th, but he admitted to wearing body armor to that speech. perhaps a sign he was concerned the day's proceedings might not be peaceful. on january 4th -- quote, january 6th is fast approaching. get ready, the fate of a nation rests on your shoulders, yours and mine. the backbones are made of steel and titanium, it's time to fiegtd. on the morning of the 6th, congresswoman boebert tweeted, today is 1776. that's a reference the american revolutionary war when a government was being violently overthrown. perhaps the most damning tweet came later that day from a congressman from arizona. a picture of a pro-trump crowd. biden should concede. i want his concession on my desk tomorrow morning. don't make my come over there. what's that mean? come over there. do what, exactly, congressman? better yet, maybe you should tell the committee and your colleagues investigating because it looks like you were encouraging this mob to use threats of physical force to overturn the results of the election. now in the wake of the attack on the capitol and donald trump's second impeachment for his involvement in inciting it, there were calls for these pro-insurrection members of congress to be removed from office. just based on what was known publicly on the tweets, the things they said and the meetings they took, those calls for them to be expelled are intensifying again today. and that comes in response to that new reporting from the rolling stone. again, being transparent. the reporting has not been confirmed by nbc news. it's based on multiple anonymous sources, but it's precipitated these renewed calls by members of congress because it alleges that a number of their sitting colleagues and staff, including representative boebart, hawthorne and brooks as well as marjorie taylor greene and mark meadows communicated with the people plans the protests leading up to the insurrection with one organizer telling the magazine, quote, we would talk to boebart's team like back to back to back. the congresswoman has called this false, said quote, i had no role in the planning or execution of any event that took place at the capitol. in a statement, a congressman of texas named in the -- participated on january 6th or any criminal ak tifrt. nbc's has reached out to the offices and has not heard back. again, take that rolling stone report and take it to the side. pretend it didn't happen. just look at the public record of what we know. donald trump and his allies did what they did and the many attempts to sew distrust in our elections and facilitate the coup and on that alone, i think is a good argument that many of these people aren't fit to hold public office. betsy swan is covering the fallout from the january 6th insurrection. robert costa is a reporter from "the washington post." includes this period of time and robert, maybe let's start there. your book includes quite a bit of reporting on this and you have done quite a bit of reporting specifically on the president's inner circle. and their coordination about the date of the 6th. give us a sense of what you found and how much outreach there was to members of congress. >> at times looking at all of these events and episodes can be like looking at an abstract painting on the wall with a lot of colors and different points but the one to focus on as a reporter is trump himself. what is trump doing? he's the commander in chief, the president at the time. january 5th. calling into the war room, talking to bannon, talking to giuliani. also talking that night to senator cruz of texas, trying to whip up senate republicans to object to every state. this is an effort that had a lot of players, but let's never forget it's trump himself driving this from the top with lawmakers, pressure on the vp, on doj and so many other fronts. >> betsy, you've been doing so much reporting on this. one of the things, the reason that i think we've seen this reaction from members of congress to this report is that the context here is a suspicious. not i think harbored, but not established at all. in fact, denied by certain members. that there was active collusion by republican members of congress with the folks storming the capitol. i think some democratic members have sort of intimated that. they've kind of you know, walked up to the line of making that accusation. that hangs over this entire investigation right now and you see it in how quickly those calls got made by democratic members. what do you think? >> it highlights why there's such a focus and such a massive level of interest in the january 6th select committee. this rolling stone story is based on anonymous sources. we don't know who's making these claims. what we do know is that the select committee is endeavoring to interview on the record and under oath the people who organized the january 6th rally. one of their first batches of subpoenas that they sent out went to the rally organizers. as we're all very well aware, lying to congressional investigators is against the law. they have an opportunity to bring in these people who know whether or not this reporting is correct, get them under oath and get them to tell the whole story. and remember, these organizers weren't executive branch officials. they don't have any way of claiming executive privilege covers the information they have regarding the events of that day and we also know that the committee is moving really quickly to try to enforce its subpoenas with exhibit a being steve bannon in a contempt mode against him. so that's why reporting like this, and stories along these lines have come out in recent months is part of the reason this investigation is so important because it's a rare opportunity perhaps the last opportunity to get all these folks who are involved, who know the whole story and to get them to tell the story. >> robert, there's a lot in your book on that willard hotel meeting. again, that's one portion of this sort of plan here, but it's pretty clear that meadows at the very least is in touch with the folks in that war room and planning to make the sort of big last stand on the 6th. >> so many people in the president's circle were involved. certainly mark meadows was chief of staff to trump at the time and was intimately involved with everything that was going on about the 6th and you have to think about what they were trying to do. it was prevent biden from taking office. there is the violence that happens on the 6th and the committee is probing were there connections between some of the organizing to prevent biden from taking office with the direct violence that happened on the capitol. that's still an area of reporting. but meadows himself was directly involved with the effort driven by the president to have the rally, to pressure lawmakers, to pressure pence. >> there was one of those organizers who was an associate of bannon, dustin stockton was talking to the committee today, betsy, in the days and weeks leading up to that rally, stockton heavily promoted the event. he's defending some militia groups and some contingents charged with participating. what can you tell us about him? >> stockton goes way quite far back with steve bannon. he's written for breitbart news. he was also connected to the effort that got bannon indicted. a group called we build the wall, that purported to get donations from grass roots activists and try to use the money to build the wall on the southern border. federal prosecutors alleged that bannon and others actually misappropriated that money and used it for stuff not related to building the wall. trump pardoned bannon before that could go to trial. stockton has not been charged with any crimes connected to this, but it shows he has a close, long standing relationship with bannon, who was also deeply connected to the outside efforts by trump's non-government supporters to really foment a very high level of dissension and pushback against the legitimate outcome of the 2020 election results. >> that's the key point to stay focused on here. the entire project from the president on down was to overturn a free and fair election and then stall the loser over the winner essentially by whatever means at his disposal. the question that's sort of called by this reporting and i think the committee's going to look to is how much of their operational foreknowledge of the actually storming of the capitol existed and who might be a party of that. betsy and robert, thank you both. >> thank you. >> thank you. so much more to come tonight including the amazing producer director ava duverny and one of the house democrats reupping the call of the insurrection. we'll be right back. of the insn we'll be right back. mission control, we are go for launch. um, she's eating the rocket. ♪♪ lunchables! built to be eaten. you could email an urgent question to lisa in marketing. and a follow up. and a “did you see my email?” text. orrrr... you could see her status in slack. and give lisa a break while you find someone online who can help. slack. where the future works. everything you've seen me do was made possible by what you don't see. cause when you're not looking, i go to work. ♪♪ strength isn't a given. it's grown. it's earned and tested. ♪♪ we all have the strength to see what's possible. it's up to us to unlock it. tonal. be your strongest. in business, setbacks change everything. so get comcast it's business internet it. and add securityedge. it helps keep your network safe by scanning for threats every 10 minutes. and unlike some cybersecurity options, this helps protect every connected device. yours, your employees' and even your customers'. so you can stay ahead. get started with a great offer and ask how you can add comcast business securityedge. plus for a limited time, ask how to get a $500 prepaid card when you upgrade. call today. as we learn more about how sitting members of congress may be possibly implicated in the planning of january 6, those members are still in congress right now. many are still out there propagating a lie the election was stolen. others are on the floor of the house of representatives starting fights. like last week when according to jamie raskin, marjorie taylor greene screamed at liz cheney following the floor vote to hold steve bannon in contempt. there's a lingering question here, which is what are we doing here? what are we going to do about this? yesterday, aoc said that -- there is a resolution in congress to investigate and expel members who helped incite the insurrection. member of the house judiciary committee, he joins me now. it's good to have you, congressman. the, i think there's a key distinction, congresswoman uses planning in that tweet. cori bush's resolution says incitement. has it been cleared by members of congress? >> it's great to be on your show again. you know, there is a fine point and i think that that's why it's so important to conduct the investigation that cori bush and so many other colleagues called for early this year. i appreciate the reporting done by rolling stone. obviously there needs to be further investigation and of course this was the entire point of the select committee, which we had hoped would be done on a bipartisan basis earlier this year, but we couldn't get enough support from our republican colleagues in the united states senate to do a simple bipartisan investigation of what happened on january 6th. that's why you're seeing democrats lead the way. issue subpoenas that are uncovering day by day the kind of information that we are seeing reported in rolling stone. >> but expulsion from congress, the 14th amendment allows for it because they were dealing with the idea of traitors to the country, insurrectionists serving in congress. that's contemplated in the 14th amendment. you know, it's obviously an incredibly dramatic step. it's been contested before the supreme court. take me through your thinking about what that threshold should be. >> we should think about it very seriously. let's be clear, january 6th was an attempt to overthrow the federal government, to stop the certification of that free and fair presidential election last november. and of course, it was an event, a violent insurrection that nearly took my life and the lives of so many of my colleagues and of course staff persons at the capitol, including the capitol police. so we've got to make sure that we take this very seriously. i realize that it's been a few months since it happened but it is no less serious today than it was on january 6th itself. and what we are learning through this investigation by the select committee and increasingly through public reporting on that investigation is that the folks who tried to kill us on january 6th came dangerously close to doing so, of course, but also came dangerously close to overthrowing the federal government. it has to be on the table. it is one of the most serious consequences that congress can be engaged in and it is appropriate in such an instance. >> what is the temperature of capitol hill right now on this question? i've been interviewing members of congress. it was so raw after january 6th. there was the frankness over the metal detectors on the floor and there was these world wrestling incidents by the caucus confronting members. what is this like now? >> the fact is, chris, it's been a tense environment for the duration of this year. many of us, as your earlier guests noted, have been suspicious of our republican colleagues who we know from their public statements and general behavior were at a minimum support of what happened on january 6th. the question is, in what ways did they provide support? did they indeed plan or help plan that violent insurrection? and so i think that's why you're seeing a lot of folks say we would not be surprised if this reporting by rolling stone turned out to be true. and it's why the select committee has to continue to do its important work. we've got to get to the bottom of this to ensure that it never happens again. if we don't have a democracy moving forward, then we cease to be the united states of america that the world and that we know ourselves as. >> congressman jones, newly elected serving in new york. thank you very much. >> thank you. coming up, a stunning new report about how much facebook knew about the ways in radicalized users and how quickly it can happen. y it can . 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like, i mean, they have her pegged as the kind of person who might be q curious. i'm trying to get an idea of what level is the work being done by people's nested preferences external to facebook. >> yeah. that's a very well worded question. you know, earlier this year, i think about it a lot. facebook's vp of global comes, he made a block post where he said it takes two to tango. it's like facebook is pulling these people across the dance floor and when they finally get them on the floor, hey, dancing is pretty fun and you relent and join these groups. it's hard to say chicken or egg, but even the people who didn't get it in first and didn't want to be a part of these groups first, slowly made the transition over and for what it's worth, facebook has this interesting project going called project treble and it's named for the 17th century dutch inventer who invented the first navigable submarine. so you can get the metaphor. how do they get to qanon? what is this third degree of separation that really pours people into these rabbit holes and can they, these researchers, can they somehow cover up or turn down the algorithm on those initial rabbit holes and maybe fix it that way? it's a really interesting research project, but as we know about facebook's research projects, they don't translate into any policy. >> that's what's so damning about the report. you're seeing a theme, a connection of facebook precisely the concern about public reporting. about the nature of the tools. about doing whatever gets the most engagement even at the cost of social harm, about pushing people towards disinformation and more conspiracy sites and that is exactly what the researchers from facebook are looking at while this reporting is outside and their pr people are saying you're being crazy and facebook's people are running their own experiments saying we have a problem. >> yeah, the first step that i did when i got these documents is made a list of all the researchers i've been talking to for the last half decade who had been calling these warning signs and then calling out the platform. especially for the recommendation engine. i got a stanford researcher on the phone and i was looking over these documents with her and she was so angry because you're right. facebook comes and they've been gaslighting us for years. it's actually quite nice for your grandchildren and they knew the whole time. they knew the whole time. >> great reporting and thanks for sharing with us. coming up, my interview with a great film maker. do not go anywhere. that's just ahead. go anywhere that's just ahead. our retirement plan with voya, keeps us moving forward. hey, kevin! hey, guys! they have customized solutions to help our family's special needs... giving us confidence in our future... ...and in kevin's. voya. well planned. well invested. well protected. in 2016, i was working at the amazon warehouse when my brother passed away. and a couple of years later, my mother passed away. after taking care of them, i knew that i really wanted to become a nurse. amazon helped me with training and tuition. today, i'm a medical assistant and i'm studying to become a registered nurse. in filipino: you'll always be in my heart. ♪ ♪ you've never seen anything quite like it. we've never created anything quite like it. the all-electric, all-mercedes eqs. tonight, i'll be eating a club sandwich with fries and a side of mayonnaise. (doorbell rings) wonderful. mayonnaise... on fries? a little judgy, don't you think? ♪ that's weird ♪ ♪ so weird ♪ hey hun hey, get your own vaporsrd ♪ relax with vicks vapobath or with vicks vaposhower. take a soothing vicks vapo moment wherever you chose. you could wait... all night... for an email response from steve, who will sign back in at 9 am tomorrow morning. orrrr... you could find the answer right now in slack. and give steve a break. slack. where the future works. school districts are among the largest in the country serving nearly 150,000 students. one day last month, many dallas teachers woke up to an e-mail asking them to rat out their colleagues who promote so-called critical race theory and what the e-mail referred to as predatory gender fluidity. the right has turned critical race theory or crt into a term, the teaching of just about anything having to do with racial hierarchy and slavery. "the daily beast" obtained a copy sent by a group called save texas kids and calling for teachers to snitch on each other. they say the game is rigged against those who want to do the right thing. we've been seeing stories like this all over the country. people like those in texas, organizing groups to go around naming and purging those they disagree with. they claim liberal educators and city leaders have decided to brainwash our children. the same group, if you last last month's was bad, this is worse. it landed in inboxes on friday. it says thanks to you, you have received multiple reports of illegal critical race theory incorporated orientation materials for school staff at dallas independent school district. it is unacceptable for staff to be taught to treat kids differently based on their race or ethnicity. this district is well aware, it's prohibited by texas law. unfortunately, there are some teachers who are angry. we want to mention one such teacher and they, name the teacher, for not only slandering members of her group, but also appearing to violate texas law through her admitted instruction of illegal critical race theory, specifically she made an assignment out of reading and critically analyzing her letter from last month. this was not criticism. this was a clear attempt to indoctrinate children with a political ideology. save texas kids is filing a grievance against this teacher and demanding her termination. so far, the dallas independent school district has not commented on this last e-mail, but it's, in my opinion, having read the e-mail, creepy as hell. this kind of targeted attack on teachers is rooted in the right wing about children learning a real history of our country, racial oppression, hierarchy, its enduring power today. you could argue the contemporary modern fight over this, over this terrain specifically, was really sparked in part by colin kaepernick and his kneeling protest of the national anthem to highlight police brutality and racial injustice. ava duvernay has been working with him about a documentary netflix. ava duvernay joins me next. netflix. ava duvernay joins me next for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. ♪ i like it, i love it, i want some more of it♪ ♪i try so hard, i can't rise above it♪ ♪don't know what it is 'bout that little gal's lovin'♪ ♪but i like it, i love it♪ applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. it's hard to pinpoint exactly when our most current era of rational reckoning and backlash to that began. it's a perennial feature of american life since the dawn of the country, but i'd say the events of 2014 were a big part of it. that's the year a police officer shot and killed 18-year-old michael brown in ferguson, missouri. that results in huge protests in that city, but also across the country and those protests was part of what inspired the then quarterback of the san francisco 49ers, colin kaepernick, to remain seated during the national anthem during the 2016 preseason. he explained quote, i'm not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. to me, this is bigger than official and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. there are bodies in the street, people getting paid leave and getting away with murder. kaepernick started getting bad backlash for sitting including from a former player named nate boyar. kaepernick reached out to him and boyar suggested taking a knee instead. >> it's never been seen as a disrespectful act. you kneel to propose to your wife. you take a knee to pray. take a knee in front of a fallen brother's grave to pay respects. i thought of anything, that was the most respectful, but that's just my opinion. >> out of that, he started kneeling. the practice was quickly adopted by other players and it became a point of grievance. kaepernick will not play again at the end of the season. filed a grievance claiming they were shutting his out. now a netflix series by ava duvernay exploring his early life in his own narration. >> growing up with white parents, i assumed their privilege was mine. you too good? fine, thanks. >> yeah. i'm good, too. thanks. >> i was in for a rude awakening. ♪♪ >> what's up with kaepernick? >> the hair. >> something flying off the back of his head. not acceptable. >> just going to have to prove them wrong. >> why am i always the one that has to prove them wrong? ♪♪ >> sometimes, i just feel some uncomfortable. >> chin up, colin. >> i couldn't rebel because i didn't know how. but now, trust your power. love your blackness. you will know who you are. >> ava duvernay directed the first episode along with the present day scenes with colin kaepernick, and has a new series "queen sugar" ava duvernay joins me now. it's a fascinating and novel way to do this projects. it's been great. i have been wanting to hear from him on this so long. here's this person that did this, you know, remarkable seismic thing from a social perspective, has largely not given interviews. how did the project come together to begin with? >> it's in line with the way he has been expressing himself, which is very selective, in some ways obscuring his main point, to let people have a dialogue without pushing his narrative. it's the reason he said i want this to be in my early life. i want to speak directly to what's happening now, but let's talk about the early life and the foundation of where this all started and when he first approached me about it, i wasn't sure it was something i was interested in. what do i do with a famous person's childhood story, that's kind of not my thing. as i heard his story and the micro aggressions, that make up someone who would become an american icon, a singular figure in american culture, it became fascinating to use his life as a spring board into larger conversations about race, identity, representation, and all of that good stuff. we collaborated in that way, and through that he was able to speak and express himself! as we showed in that little clip, he has white parents. >> adoptive parents. >> yes. a universe that's predominantly white and is kind of working through what his own identity is, and you kind of get a sense of this incredible arc of this person who has been on this journey from a young age. >> it's remarkable to think where he started and where he is now. how did that boy, a biracial kid adopted by white parents move from wisconsin, dairy country to turlock, california, dairy country, predominantly white, three sport athlete, always kind of -- and when you say three sport athlete, that's something to be said, someone following the rules, staying within an institution, three different ones at a high level. >> when you're competing at level he's competing at, that's all you're doing. there's no time, like, athletics at that level at the level he was, which we should say he's an incredible athlete. >> three sports at that high level. that is a kind of training, a kind of aptitude for, you know, staying in line, that's what we teach our athletes to be, right, and these american sports institutions. for someone to break out of that into what he's doing now is remarkable, and that's what this interrogates. >> and that point, i think, the context specifically of football, i mean, we just saw these jon gruden e-mails coming out and he's saying all kinds of things about all kinds of different groups of people. there's a quote particularly about kaepernick that they should cut this f word. there's a sense in which that culture particularly, i mean, even of all the major sports cultures is one of the most i think freighted with like the reactionary instincts kind of -- >> straight up racism. >> having up racism. >> yeah, absolutely, and so he's so steeped in that, and you know, this makes -- i feel like this piece and laying the foundation of who he is before he even gets to the point where he breaks out of that. this doesn't even get into the nfl, it doesn't get into, you know, college football. this is starting with the very formative early years where you are becoming who you will be, and that for many people of color, people outside of the box or outside of the dominant culture, these micro aggressions, these things that feel like paper cuts are looming large in the formation and construction of who we are as, you know, larger societal institutional issues and, if i think for me as someone who's often analyzing interrogating race, and class in my work, the idea that we can look at the small infractions and just see how much that is molding us to become who we are, became really interesting to me. >> there is, i mean, kaepernick's kneeling really was this kind of seismic social and political event, right, it has all sorts of cascade effects. all of a sudden now this thing that's been in everyone's household across the country, comes the awkward chatter, the national anthem, the sports casters, and donald trump, and we've seen several rounds now, i think of racial justice protest and backlash, racial justice protests and backlashes. we're going through one of the backlashes now with this attack on critical race theory. as someone, i think so much of your work is about basically critically encountering race through the work you do, i'm curious what you make of the backlash? >> oh, gosh, i think it's ridiculous. it's pedestrian. i think it's also pretty expected. it's in the continuum of the idea that progress can be stopped, right. it may be slowed down, but it can never be thwarted, and i saw what's her name, governor ivy tweeted, this has been banned. learning these things has been banned forever. oh, we're going to teach our kids to read and write. good luck, yeah, book luck with that. so my place, we're thinking about ways to push against it, but really, it's parents, it's forward-thinking people, and i was talking to a friend the other day who was saying, you know, what have we learned in school anyway about being black people, about being indigenous people, latinx, anyone that's not in the dominant culture, you learn outside of the school. when we're talking about critical race theory, we're talking about what white children will learn about the rest of us. that's what these protests are about. i don't even say protests, letters about save our kids. save our kids, and you know, when you really look at what people of color have been taught in schools, nothing about ourselves and yet we are educated by our families, our community, our own interests. so that will continue. that will continue, and so all of this talk is just talk, and it's like you said, a backlash to something larger. >> yeah, i mean, kaepernick in interviews that i have seen with him talks about his own journey of sort of self-education on many of these things. books he hadn't read before, thinkers he hasn't been introduced to. >> that's the case for all truly not just conscious people of color but just in general. even white folks who think outside of what's been put in front of them, you have to learn that outside of school, right, you had to watch the film or talk to someone who's experienced it or travel or walk a mile in someone else's shoes or read, and so that will continue, and this will not be stopped, and all of this is just a little bit of hysteria. >> there's also in some ways, too, what i keep coming back to, these fights are because there's real things at stake. at some level, like, what people learn about this country's history or what stories they're told, or what stories their teachers tell them. like are going to be the site of political conflict in any iteration of any society anywhere, particularly as the society grows more. >> i agree. i feel like foundationally the conversation excludes the kind of education that black and brown kids get in this country, right. it really privileges the idea that this is something that can't be taught to a certain kind of people because it's risky and dangerous and how dare you jeopardize our children's pure minds with this race stuff. it's wrong. don't do it. i'm going to have teachers tell on each other, right. that's what they're doing. >> and that it's explicitly psychic harm to white children. >> you're leaving out the entire experience i had as a child. >> the vast majority of school children in the top ten metro areas, particularly in new york. >> it's hysterical, and we spend so much time talking about it, giving it so much. >> do you think that the kinds of stories that you can tell whether it's netflix on tv or movies has gotten bigger, widened in scope over say the last five to ten years of your career? >>st it interesting because you were talking about ferguson, and i remember when ferguson was happening, selma was being released and we talk about kaepernick, and that was right around the time i was working on "13th," when they see us, we're in the midst of trump, and so these things, they were made before those moments. each of those moments. but somehow they seem to line up. so i wouldn't say that each moment instigated the ability to make the thing but there's something, moving in the air in the last ten years that allows a film maker like me that's interested in approaching these kind of subject matters the ability to do it with a bit more flexibility and freedom than film makers before me. >> ava duvernay, good to have you here. that's "all in" the rachel ma doe shows right now. >> what a fantastic interview. that was awesome. the whole back half of the show was awesome but that was amazing. >> thank you so much. >> thanks at home for joining us this hour. happy to have you here. tomorrow president biden is going to be in virginia campaigning in the governor's race there. virginia is going to elect a new governor a week from tomorrow. it will either be democrat terry mcauliffe, for whom president biden is campaigning tomorrow, or it will be republican glenn youngkin, who is endorsed by donald trump. polls in virginia show as of now, it is a tight race. as a matter of odds and history and statistics, the democrats really have their work cut out for them in this