chicken is better than turkey and turkey is overrated. as you know, mashed potatoes can be a big debate. i'm ready for whatever happens today. >> me too. good luck. >> thank you. i might need it. thank you. happy holidays. i want to welcome you to "the beat." we are covering more than one thing. we have a lot planned, but we begin with the breaking news three killers of an unarmed black man found guilty of murder. three white men found guilty of murder in the killing of ahmaud arbery last year. the 25-year-old followed and then gunned down. this was while he was jogging. the three defendants watching the verdict being read. the man who pulled the trigger, guilty on all counts. the other two guilty of murder and other counts. we'll show you what it looked like. this is outside of the courtroom in the moments after the verdict was read. ahmaud arbery's parents emotional about what they call now finally and delayed justice for their son. >> i never thought this day would come, but god is good. >> yes, he is. >> i want to tell everybody, thank you. for those who marched, for those who prayed, thank you. thank you. >> we keep fighting. let's keep doing it and making this. >> you know him as ahmaud, he will now rest in peace. >> amen. >> and this verdict played out as did so much of the trial in living rooms and bars and restaurants across america, covered so much on live tv. many people watched it as it happened. >> there you have it. the breaking news. the verdict in the ahmaud arbery murder trial. all three defendants found guilty of murdering ahmaud arbery. >> you have just heard the verdict in the ahmaud arbery trial. >> the big headline is that it all three men were found guilty of felony murder. >> this it was the case where the defense tried to do several things to really blatantly racialize the trial that the prosecution insisted was about evidence. i'm not going to go through all of the examples, but it's relevant given the ruling tonight. for example, the defense lawyer requested that black clergy be banned from the courtroom. that was rejected. that it lawyers also on the defense side tried very clearly to get a certain kind of jury. they thought would help them. there was one black juror. the rest were white. after the verdict, reverend sharpton discussed the significance. >> let the word go forth all over the world that a jury of 11 whites and 1 black in the deep south stood up in the courtroom and said that black lives do matter. you came in the state of georgia, a state known for segregation, a state known for jim crow and you turned it around. you took a young, unarmed boy that they thought was worth skples you put his name in history today. >> now first of all, it's legally true. what the reverend happened to say there about this it, the defense was making a bet. one, betting that in that southern area they could find a more sympathetic jury baseed on an appeal to supposed white solidarity or racism. and second, the defense was making a bet they might find one or more jurors willing to accept a legally extreme theory of this secret citizens arrest. today they lost both those it bets. the jury accepted the evidence-driven argument, which by the way did not focus on race or other things outside the courtroom. it focused on the evidence and the facts. which showed three people tracking down one unarmed person and killing him. and a jury, we see, accepted those facts. >> reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion. >> everybody in this case except ahmaud arbery. >> the citizen is in the same shoes as the officer when it comes to a citizens arrest. >> it's not a citizens arrest. they never said it. none of the defendants saw mr. arbery commit any crime that day. it's three times he does not want to talk to you. >> correct. >> he's no threat to you. he hasn't pulled out a gun. let's get real. >> a lot of people getting real as we absorb this news. i'm joined by columnist from the "washington post" eugene robinson. and welcome to both of you. eugene, this was a clear verdict of murder by all three defendants. the felony murder lus we can get into later, but it was a clear finding and a rejection of the race arguments. your reaction? >> it was a complete rejection of the race baiting argument and that's something we all have to be thankful for this thanksgiving. just that fact that this it almost all white jury in the teep south totally rejected the idea that somehow they could they had a duty to support these three white guys, who let's be clear, lynched ahmaud arbery. what i see on that video is a lynching. and it's not a stretch to connect it to the history of lynching in this country in that region of the country. it's not a stretch at all. it's a direct line. it's just a modern day version of what we saw. these three armed white men ran down, chased down, cornered and killed an unarmed black man whom they suspected vaguely of having done something perhaps to white property. that's a lynching. the jury recognized this. >> this case is fascinating in a lot of ways. remember that the original prosecutor said not to press charges. if not for the video being leaked and for protests on social media amplifying this case, we wouldn't be here today. the original prosecutor got indicted for not allowing the arrest of travis mcmichael. we think about this a as a police case because the other mcmichael was a former police officer. two additional prosecutors in the office recused themselves. georgia is the first state to repeal the citizens arrest law following the killing of ahmaud arbery. you saw during the trial they couldn't even make a coherent argument about what crime ahmaud supposedly committed. if not for the public pressure and the protests, i don't think we'd be here today. >> let me ask to build on that. we have a special report coming up in this opening coverage that goes deeper into that evidence, so it's so important. you are also bringing up something that you and other activists have talked a lot about, which sunsing the structural, legal underpinnings of these situations. on the one hand, the justice system says theses three men are responsible for murder. convicted of murder by a jury of their peers. period. on the other hand, without underneath that to abdicate anything because they are responsible for that, you just made observations about how the way that antiquated laws in georgia and other relationships can reenforce or protect or even potentially insent those kinds of now found to be crimes. explain to us what you mean by that and how do you fix that? >> we know that history of citizens arrest laws work to empower white people to still arrest or detain black people at the end of slavery. so the line is pretty clear. i was shocked to know that georgia was the first state. georgia is not very progressive. but it was the first state following the killing of ahmaud arbery. you know like i know, it's very hard to hold prosecutors accountable for any decision they make in office. it rarely happens. they have absolute immunity. so when this happens, it's a story. and in this case, it was really powerful to see people come forward and say the prosecutor misled and did not represent her oath of office. that's pretty incredible. they have the voice recording of the father calling being like they thought they were going to get away with this. the structure hz to change to make sure we don't end up here again. >> right. the structural thing is so important because while all trials are about things in the past, not in it the future, it's not minority report, it's not tom cruise, it's always going to be about what happened or allegedly happened. the goal, i have said this it before, but i want to underscore it. the goal we hear from civil rights leaders and protesters, we have heard this before, is not it's time to send more people to jail because that's some sort of goal on its own. the goal is to stop or diminish or reduce the incidents of this kind of racialized violence, whether it's by police or in this case amateurs pretending to be police or other citizens who are committing crimes thatmight not have to occur. >> that's absolutely right. it actually goes beyond just the law. it's unclear to me whether the defendants had even heard of the citizens arrest law before they it later claim to be protected by it. they never said anything about citizens arrest to ahmaud arbery. they never said anything to the police when the police came in. it was only later they raised this defense. based on a law that was more concerned about the ability to track down run away slaves. and is and this is so that part of the structure definitely we need to look at, but also if you step back, this was a case of the defendants thinking they were going to get good old boy justice. and they didn't get good old boy justice. they didn't let them slide. but after only that video got out, until that point, they were getting that good old boy justice. >> i think you put it starkly. that reference to white solidarity or racism that might act as a shield for some, it's the plot of "to kill a inga mockingbird", and yet in this verdict it did not. i want to thank you both. we turn to our next report. i want to speak to you clearly about this. i have told you before. my job is not to tell you what to think. jury verdicts are about what the jury found. but i can tell you that some of the immediate reaction to today's news has been wrong. i'm going to show you why right now only with the evidence. there are statements that today shows the justice system in georgia appears to work. that's not entirely true. in fact, it began in this case with documented failure. that's where it started. that was the plan of powerful people and the trial you see today was never supposed to happen. so it's essential if you want to know the facts or for those thinking about what should or should not change to understand how this began. ahmaud arbery killed in february 2020. those mcmichaels we mentioned, they weren't charged for an additional two more months. if you have followed any case, especially a murder case, you know if the identities of the individuals are not in doubt, that's a long time. it was arbery's mother who recalled what she was first told. >> they initially told me he committed a burglary. then to sit through the trial to find out that ahmaud ran, he was killed and then he was lied on. >> she says the authorities lied to her. they told her something they knew to be false, that's what make it is a lie because of the evidence in the video. the case actually had to go through not one prosecutor, not two, but three different prosecutor das who never made an arrest. the first recused citing that one of the suspects was a former investigator in the office. so tight links and a ground for recusal. she also directed two officers under her authority, this is before the recusal, she directed them not to arrest travis mcmichael. now she was later indicted on criminal misconduct. that's a serious and rare charge to go from a prosecutor to losing your job to becoming a defendant. authorities saying she not only exercised poor judgment, but while she's legally presumed innocent until trial, her mistakes were criminal in nature. then the da took over and recused himself due to a conflict of interest that was exposed by arbery's mother. that it happened but not before noting the mcmichaels' intent was to stop and hold a criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived, which he then asserted was, again this is just a sweeping judgment in advance of what you now know is a convicted murder, he was saying at the time it was, quote, perfectly legal. mr. arbery was not a criminal suspect. he was an unarmed jogger. so local authority its not only didn't charge the people who you now know were convicted of murder, they not only did not charge, but they started flipping it around and acting like the person who was killed was the criminal. now when the police don't enforce the law, who are you going to call? think about being an individual who has reason based on this evidence to think that the cops and the prosecutors, the whole system, the people with the guns and the power would treat you like this. we know in georgia based on relationships and in some cases based on race who was treated like this. then there was this it evidence. the video. the cell phone video was actually shot by one of the three men convicted of murder today. they told on themselves. they made the video that actually showed what was so incriminating to this jury, which by the way was a mostly white jury of their peers. they chased arbery down the street. they shot him to death. one of our experts today called a lynching, what the jury calls a murder, not only was the video taken, it was leaked. that was pivotal because only after that did a new set of authorities come in. the bureau of investigation began its probe, which helped lead to these charges. so who leaked that video? it was a local criminal defense lawyer who consulted with the suspects telling the "new york times" his goal was to dispel rumors and, quote, get the truth out there. people can judge the motivations and whether a different approach or shear incompetence by somebody who claimed to be helping the now-convicted murder might have changed everything. so yes, there was a trial. there was a jury of peers. there was a verdict. that's how it's supposed to work. but you have to understand the facts, and i'm emphasizing this for a reason because people react to these things and draw larger conclusions. this was not the plan. this was not how it was started. this was not what the people in power wanted to do. and it took everything i just ran through and a lot more that we don't have time for to change the plan from a cover up to protect three killers to it these murder convictions today. joining me now is a former u.s. attorney, and deray is back with us. joy, you exercised these kinds of authorities. walk us through that history, why that matters in your view of had this da, who is also now awaiting trial on misconduct. >> so there's really nothing worse than a prosecutor who abuses their authority. and it seems very clear that that happened in this case. whether she's ultimately convicted or not, the charges are pretty interesting. the obstruction of justice and misdemeanor, the violation of oath charge, which is very broad. it stems from the notion you violated your oath of office, and if convicted, she will face a mandatory minimum one year and up to five years in prison. so these are extremely serious charges. and that's appropriate for a prosecutor who does what she does in this case. eugene robinson talked about good old boy justice. that's exactly what her former employee was seeking. and any prosecutor who sees that video, who understands the facts knows that at a bare minimum here, an investigation was warranted and this was not a case to dismismiss before that work was done. >> is it important that people see the factual history that today's trial and verdict was never supposed to happen according to the people in power initially? >> for sure. with always say the truth is so radical. people need to see this video. people needed to hear the testimony today. people needed to see all of this. if they have not seen the video, people are not pressed and retweeted it, we wouldn't be here today. and like they said, it is so rare for a prosecutor to be terminated or vying for their actions. it's almost never happens at the actual da or prosecutor has any criminal liability. this is a big deal. i'm interested to see what this will do around the country. people talk about police actively killing somebody on duty, but it's not lost on me that he was a police officer. you think about the range of actions that the police take when they are former officers or when they are off tuitt that also lead to the loss of life. >> joyce, video in murder trials is relaively rare. does this case go differently without video? >> this case probably never gets indicted, as you pointed out, without the video. video is compelling. it's important. and this makes me think of the george floyd case where without the video taken by the teenage girl who was a bystander, that case likely has a very different outcome. so in that sense, we're fortunate that we live in a world where people have ready access to video. although in this case, disclosure of the video appears to have been inadvertent and a possible defense strategy, although that boggles the mind, but i think what this tells is how important it is to stand up for other people in trouble and to take video. we don't maybe in this country want to be a country like the united kingdom where they have cc tv and there's video every place and the police often use that to prosecute cases. but these videos taken by citizens and by standers and in this case even someone who was involved in committing the crime are invaluable evidence and a way for us to understand what the truth is, what actually happened. >> i'm running over on time, but deray, what do you think would need to change structurally? >> there are tons of body camera footage that we know police engaged in wrong doing that police will not make it public. we should make all the video evidence public and all the documents public. that's it the best outcome. >> thank you both for coverage of this important development, including how we got here. appreciate both of you. we have a lot more in the program. we have more on the biden breakthrough as democrats are looking for a villain. also we have an expert on the new mission to test an asteroid off course. neil tyson is live, coming up. . neil tyson is live, coming up. ♪ ♪ when the chapstick goes on. it's on. get yours on at chapstick.com tv: mount everest, the tallest mountain on the face of the earth. 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it's personal. switching wireless carriers is easy with xfinity. just lean on our helpful switch squad to help you save home instead. with xfinity mobile. they can help break up with your current carrier for you and transfer your info to your new phone. giving you a fast and easy experience that can save you hundreds a year on your wireless bill. visit your nearest xfinity store and see how the switch squad can help you switch and save. it's the xfinity black friday sales event. learn how to save up to $1000 on select phones by visitng your local xfinity store today. parts of the economy are roaring back and democrats are wondering if biden is getting enough credit. take a look at this with everything going on. an absolutely stunning and thunderous jobs report. the jobless claims have fallen to their lowest rate in over 50 years. wages up, incomes up, tomorrow a record number of americans are on the road traveling for trump administration thanksgiving. that's a lot of what's happening even against concerns about the supply chain and inflation. there are signs that what people are feeling is the daily prices and inflation and that stuff over say the jobs pictures, which sometimes takes a minute to sink in. all of biden's plans are working and he will continue to lower people's bills. >> a once in a generation investment that's going to create millions of jobs. the build back better framework lowers bills for health care, prescription drugs and preschool. and families get a tax cut. >> right now, we stand on the cusp of historic economic progress. >> historic, and that is a nod to just how hard democrats advocate working to get all of this new spending out there, which clearly works economically. but which parts do you emphasize? none other than obama adviser david axelrod says all this talk of history and transformation doesn't play right. it's something he would only do after offering advice for weeks in private to say don't use words like huge, historic and transformative. instead emphasize how the plans are responsive to everyday challenges. or for all of biden's accomplishments, the white house does not have good story tellers. this is true from disney to everywhere in between, quote, good stories need villains. so is the narrative worse than the reality? is that a sign that democrats have to change things up? michelle gold berg is here and we're back in 60 seconds. le gold we're back in 60 seconds our sleigh is now ready, let's get on our way. a mountain of toys to fulfill many wishes. must be carried across all roads and all bridges. and when everyone is smiling and having their fun i can turn my sleigh north because my job here is done. it's not magic that makes more holiday deliveries to homes in the us than anyone else, it's the hardworking people of the united states postal service. as someone who resembles someone else, i appreciate that liberty mutual it's the hardworking people of the knows everyone's unique. that's why they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. oh, yeah. that's the spot. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ we're back with michelle goldberg. michelle, there's tons of serious stuff going on today. here we have just a more normal political economic segment. i will start with jay-z. he said international, bring back the concorde, numbers don't lie. check the scoreboard. it's certainly true it's good news for biden and democrats when you look at what we have on the screen now. this is not a difference of a couple mill. this is 20 million unemployed last thanksgiving to just 2 million now. as reported today, and i don't think that this has sunk in, some of the best jobs numbers this 50 years. yet biden approval in general thot that great. >> i would say especially on the economy. this american sense of where the economy is heading is completely out of whack with these numbers. part of that is for good reason. because these figures don't take into account inflation. they don't take into account sort of what people call shadow inflation or this kind of decline in availability of goods, availability of services. i do think that there has been in some ways the biden administration suffers from the kind of upper class or upper middle class emphasis of so much reporting, by which i mean, it might just be the media i consume,but i feel like i have read more about businesses that are having trouble hiring workers than people who suddenly have their pick of jobs. and so a very low unemployment situation actually is bad for some people, pop who hire a lot of people and good for others. i feel like there's been more emphasis on the people who are hurt by rising wages wages than the people who helped by them. >> i'm looking for the tiny violin for job creators here. but i think you're certainly right about what we're talking about is where people get their idea of what's happening. and everyone has their lived reality and then they have information. and if you're an information-based person ask you get enough information that's different than reality, it will affect it. but that's sort of the calculous to your point. headline here on what they call the psychological effects. people have cash and jobs right now in america at historic levels. and yet here it says in the times, quote, the psychological effects of inflation have the upper hand. the political question then is can you drive something different. we're seeing not your or my job to do it, but we're seeing what i perceive to be a panic button because axelrod has the audience. he will say this stuff in private. now he's trying to say they have to change it up a at the white house. >> i don't think the right messaging is going to make people not as concerned about inflation. inflation is something that people experience in their daily lives. for a lot of people, the price of gas or the price of milk is a lot more visceral than the unemployment rate, which is really only something that affects you if you in particular are either looking to hire people or looking for a job. i do think that because we spent so many months embroiled in the sausage aspect and stories about rangeling and infighting and near collapse that there's been little discussion about what the legislation is going to do for people. the way that it's going to make their lives easier. the way that it's going to make raising children more economically feasible for many people. and so i do think that once they start it talking about the specifics, the pieces of biden's economic agenda all rate far higher than the kind of aggregate ratings that biden gets for the economy. >> yeah, this is fair. it's like that old joke, what did the biden administration economist say in the senate cafeteria? >> what? >> the sausage tastes like crap and the price keeps going up. and such small portions. you get the final word. good to see you, michelle. >> thank you so much. >> appreciate it. coming up, there are prosecutors who actually won a $25 million judgment against prooumpb white supremacists in charlottesville. they join us tonight. we'll get to that. also nasa has a mission to save us from asteroids, and the one and only neil tyson is here live. stay with us. stay with us an alternative to pills, voltaren is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel for powerful arthritis pain relief. voltaren, the joy of movement. 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if you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. calhope offers free covid-19 emotional support. call 833-317-4673, or live chat at calhope.org today. americans have been greeted with a range of legal news lately. today a nation reacting to the ahmaud arbery verdict. defendants there found guilty of murder, all three of them. it comes a day after a verdict in a charlottesville-related case. the deadly rally that became a defining moment of the trump era. >> you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. >> in a civil trial, a jury found that a group of white supremacist is was guilty for millions of dollars in damages. the outcomes are, of course, what everyone has been discussing. you have the rittenhouse case where now a former president donald trump is literally appearing in this controversial photo with the now acquitted killer. whatever the president is celebrating someone who killed two people and it's a reminder of that echo to some. we're now joined by some of the attorneys who represented the charlottesville plaintiffs. hello to both of you. what is the outcome of this case mean not only for your clients, but for their sense of justice for that rally. >> we had this case four years ago. it's been a long four years for our clients. their injuries vary, but a large group of them were injured during the car attack that saturday. another group were attacked at the horrific incident the night before where students were surrounded at the thomas jefferson statue on campus. they all decided to join this because they wanted to stand up for what is right and for justice. they it wanted the world to know and to understand what happened to them. and so they are all feeling pretty good today. when we walked in from the courthouse yesterday, they were all waiting for us. there was a lot of screaming and cheering. and i think they have a sense of accountability and justice that i don't think any of them felt. >> karen does that accountability look like for the defendants in this case? >> so here accountability looked like a finding that each and every defendant in this case was part of a conspiracy. a conspiracy that included james fields, the guy who drove his car through a crowd of counterprotesters. and accountability looked like very substantial damages awards, both compensatory and punitive damages, designed to send a message to the broader world that this it can never be allowed to happen again and is not permitted under the laws of our country. so we heard since the verdict, even last night, some of the defendants have declared the alt-right to be dead. they all say they are considering their next steps. so we feel like justice was served here. >> both of you are experienced litigators. whether people like it or not, the united states protects a lot of speech, including quite horrific hate speech. what is important for people to understand about specifically your legal strategy here, which as i understand, doesn't quibble with that, but looks at the damage of actions that it leads to pain, suffering, and a tragic loss of life? >> correct. there's really no dispute that had these defendants and their associated groups come to charlottesville with their swastikas and flags and other hate and just stood there peacefully with their flags and protested and said jews will not replaces us, while horrific, they would have had a right to do that. but that's not what they did. you don't have a first amendment right to plan violence. they spent months leading up to charlottesville planning for violence, talking about how to do violence, talking about what weapons to bring, how to make it look like self-defense and most shockingly, how to drive cars into protesters, which is exactly what happened. none of that is protected by the first amendment. no one has even argued that. it's just a smoke screen that was one of their defenses here and the jury didn't buy it. >> appreciate both of you. and you have been very busy and we watch a lot of these trials for folks at home. we're hearing from two people who spent years to get this outcome on behalf of these individuals. we think back to charlottesville and everybody awake in america remembers it. we appreciate you taking time after a busy trial to educate us a little bit. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> appreciate it. coming up, not a movie, real life. nasa has a spacecraft launching that would smash into an asteroid to push it off course if it comes for us. as if you needed one more thing to worry about, we're going to get into it, next. e going to get into it, next. there's a different way to treat hiv. it's once-monthly injectable cabenuva. cabenuva is the only once-a-month, complete hiv treatment for adults who are undetectable. cabenuva helps keep me undetectable. it's two injections, given by a healthcare provider once a month. hiv pills aren't on my mind. i love being able to pick up and go. don't receive cabenuva if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. serious side effects include allergic reactions post-injection reactions, liver problems,...and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reaction symptoms, stop cabenuva and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have liver problems or mental health concerns, and if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. some of the most common side effects include injection site reactions, fever, and tiredness. if you switch to cabenuva, attend all treatment appointments. with once-a-month cabenuva, i'm good to go. ask your doctor about once-monthly cabenuva. 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(crowd cheering) therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. at walmart, target and other fine stores. ray loves vacations. but his diabetes never seemed to take one. everything felt like a 'no'. everything. but then ray went from no to know. with freestyle libre 2, now he knows his glucose levels when he needs to. and... when he wants to. so ray... can be ray. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free. visit freestylelibre.us xfinity rewards are our way of thanking you now you know. just for being with us. enjoy rewards like movie night specials, xfinity mobile benefits, and the chance to win tickets to see watch what happens live. hey, it's me. plus, get holiday gifts for everyone on your list with great deals on fan favorites from today. join over a million members by signing up for free on the xfinity app. our thanks. your rewards. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. mission liftoff, on the way for humanity's first ever planetary defense mission. >> planetary defense always that is has a nice ring to it, especially talking about this planet, which they are. that's a new mission that is designed as the first ever test flight into space with the goal and operational capacity to try to deflect an asteroid that might hit us. the spacecraft can smash into an asteroid at 15,000 miles an hour and can do it as soon as next year. now, the asteroid it will hit in this example is not, i repeat, not a threat to us here on earth. if it were, it might have been higher in the program tonight. the mission, though, sounds familiar to just about anyone who has seen "armageddon ." >> even if the asteroid itself hits the water, it's still hitting land and flash boil millions of gallons of sea water. half the population will be incinerated by the heat blast and the rest will freeze to death. >> it's unbelievable. >> actually, this is as real as it gets. >> when it gets that real, you know what time it is. neil tyson, the astrophysicist from the museum of natural history. thank you for coming back. >> delighted to be here for you. thanks. good time to talk about me. >> let's get into it. >> just put something on the context here. the asteroid was they declared the size of texas. holding aside that texas is flat and asteroids are roundish, any asteroid that size we would have discovered more than 200 years ago. so that is one of many brilliantly conceived fictions of "armageddon." but that's the movie we all remember. >> the quick question and then the real one. the quick one, what would you choose? instant death or freezing in the nuclear winter? >> i would train more scientists and engineers to solve these problems so that we don't have to worry about how to survive them if we present vent them from happening. >> tell us about this how does it work and two, is it late if people feel like this has been something to worry about, why is it happening now? >> well, yeah, it's something that should have been on the docket decades ago. it's not a new thing that earth travels in a shooting gallery, our solar system. of the astroids, most astroids in the solar system are found in this zone, a belt we call it between the orbits of mars and jupiter so most are safe. some have wayward orbits that bring them near to earth, many cross earth's orbit. we call them neos, near earth objects. these are the ones that pose a future danger. 100% of the astroids that cross earth's orbit will cross earth. so yes, we should have to capability and i can tell you this, i said this before, if the dinosaurs had a space program, they would still be here because that would have been their highest priority. >> yeah, shoutout to dinosaurs. they were good at other things, hunting, i believe. so when it makes impact, how would that work to save us? >> yeah, great question. so this destination for the dark spacecraft, the space mission is a double astroid so there is a larger astroid about the width of the world trade center, okay, sorry, the height of the world trade center, imagine filling that out in volume. that's how big it is. the moon, we'll call it a moonlit is maybe sort of the size of the statute of liberty so what we know how they orbit each other with good precision so what this craft will do is slam into the moon. you said about 15,000 miles an hour. that comes out to about four miles per second. in so doing, it transfers its momentum to that moon changing its orbit around the host astroid and because we have the orbit characterized, any change in that orbit we're going to be able to measure and we want to verify, we expect newton's laws will hold up. the real question is does the astroid have structural integrity? if you hit one spot will that knock off a chunk of it leaving the rest of it unchanged from before? there is a lot of unknowns here much don't relate to the impact but the consequences of the impact after that unfolds. so there is a spacecraft that's getting deployed right before impact to watch it as it happens and will have ground based followup as a verification of this. >> really fascinating when you explain just a little bit of the complexity. while i have you, i want to play you a little elon musk if taken astroids out wasn't trippy enough, how about this? >> we're clearly on trajectory to having gains that could be played on any box or pc and they would probably be, you know, billions of such, you know, computers or boxes. it would seem to follow that the odds that we're in base reality is one in billions. >> you can translate for us. he's saying something about simulations and whether this reality is real. what do you think? >> so he's got a -- he's not doing his calculations correctly there but it's not his fault. he's repeating what others have said regarding the likelihood that our entire known universe is a simulation. so you can ask yourself yeah, if you play a video game, there are characters in the video gail that can be so self-aware they are in that game and other people there gathering the laws of physics and chemistry and biology, maybe scientists in the game. one i'm one of those in this game and journalists in that game so we'd each have a version of themselves in the game and that world ill mag gin says hey, we want to play games so they invent games that connect perfectly with reality. it's that all the way down and so if there is an encountable number of these experiences playing out in the universe and close your eyes and throw a dart, which are we? the first one that is real that created the simulation or countless simulations that unfolded after that. so he's saying one in a billion or so or whatever. whatever is the large number. what is flawed there is we don't yet have the ability to make a perfect world with people who think like they have free will. so either we're the first original universe that hasn't gotten there yet or we're the last one that hasn't gotten there yet because they don't have the ability to make yet another one. all the ones in the middle have the power to make perfect universes. it's really out of one and two but one in several million so this is an emerging thinking and understanding of this simulation hypothesis and i'm cool with that. i'll take a one in a two chance. i have no problems. >> if you say it, we believe it. one in two. the o.g. universe is always good. >> o.g., got to be the o.g. >> got to be. neal degrass tyson, thank you as always. we'll be right back. , thank yous always we'll be right back. alka seltzer plus cold relief. dissolves quickly. instantly ready to start working. so you can bounce back fast with alka-seltzer plus. now available for fast sinus relief. i don't just play someone brainy on tv - i'm an actual neuroscientist. and i love the science behind neuriva plus. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance. more brain performance? 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(sha bop sha bop) ♪ ♪ ♪ alexa, play our favorite song again. ok. ♪ i only have eyes for you ♪ as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. ok. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ we talked to dr. fauci about staying safe. you can see what he had to say by checking out youtube. search fauci and melber. i wish everyone a very happy thanksgiving this week including my friend and colleague, joy reid. "the reidout" with joy reid starts now. good timing. >> perfect timing. what are you cooking, ari? are you responsible for? don't say nothing? >> i'm responsible for setting up the table, not the cooking which reflects my weaknesses. >> make some corn bread. do something. chip in. thank you very much, ari. have a happy thanksgiving. >> you, too. good evening. we begin "the reidout" with the verdict in one of the most important trials in american history. a verdict sealing the fate of three white