Governors call to remove the confederate, and it appears to be moving forward. What are you hearing there . 1 00 the Lower Chamber here in the state will reconvene. Thats the house. Theyre expected to take up the budget first and shortly thereafter, theyre expected to take up a piece of legislation that would essentially start the ball rolling. I was told yesterday by a number of Democratic Leaders and Republican Leaders that the governor of South Carolina would not have trotted out the number of folks she trotted out yesterday for that announcement to senators other cabinet members, some political heavyweights here, she would not have done that had they not been confident that they had the votes to get this thing done. Again, here in South Carolina it requires not just a majority but a supermajority, twothirds of the house, twothirds of the senate about both have to sign off on this. Right now behind me you can see what is shaping up to be the rally that you mentioned, tamron, that rally set to start at 11 00. Theyre running a bit behind. But that rally, the folks who are coming are going to be calling for the legislature to act swiftly. The comments that you just heard from lee bryant longtime representative in South Carolina, i can tell you those are comments from the minority. The majority of folks weve talked to here want to see the Confederate Flag come down. Take a listen. For me the Confederate Flag is a symbol of institutional racism. Its a powerful memoir of a dark time in American History when our citizens were enslaved and an overarching belief that some people were less than others and could be owned and treated as servants prevailed. I think a lot of it is being done, like too quickly because of what has happened. You know sometimes you make a quick decision and then later on you kind of think, well should i have done that . You know should we have done that as a country . Should we have taken that flag down . Because its still a flag. Its still a flag you know that is part of history. Even though you take it down its not going to erase that flag away out of hurour minds, what it meant. Are they going to take it out of the schoolbooks, out of our lessons, what we teach our children every day . So this conversation that essentially started with the Church Massacre in charleston continues here and it is spread beyond South Carolina. As you know now, late monday walmart, this countrys largest retailer announced that it would stop selling Confederate Flag products in its stores and on line saying that it did not want its products to offend anyone. We heard from the House Speaker in mississippi calling the lawmakers there to remove the emblem from the state flag. So, again, it appears as if this is a conversation thats going to continue for some time tamron. All right. Thank you very much, craig. Im joined now by robert chase. Hes a professor of u. S. History in Stony Brook University and currently at the Avery University in virginia. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. I was at Research Centers in charleston. Thank you for that correction. Speak forging for the sat oftate of South Carolina, a writer who penned the column that said i was wrong about the Confederate Flag. I was wrong. That flag was always about race. Whatever political or historical points the flags defenders make, there will never be a time and never has been a time in which millions of americans have looked at the symbol and not seen hatred. Again, this is in the daily beast. You heard the woman say, well is this an attempt to erase history . Will they take it out of the schoolbooks . Obviously thats not what is being proposed here. But it seems that some still believe this is a part of southern culture. How do you explain what this flag represents and its timeline, 1962 i believe, when it was positioned in front of that capitol . Right precisely, and thats what the public needs to understand. First of all, the flag of the confederacy needs to be placed in its proper historical context. It was not the flag of the confederacy. In fact, there were three other flags that ran as the flag of the confederacy. It was the flag of robert general robert e. Lees army of northern virginia. So it was not, in fact the flag of the confederacy. When it was resurrected as a symbol of the south was during the era that we call the lost cause of the confederacy, which was an eyeidealogical way to reinstate the south. It was a privilege of honor and at the same time putting africanamericans in the position of racial oppression through jim crow through lynching and the murder of africanamericans and through disenfranchisement. In 1962 when that flag was resurrected and placed on the state grounds of South Carolina, this was for the centennial of the 100th anniversary of the civil war. Here we sit at the 150th anniversary of the civil war, but it was also a response to the Civil Rights Movement as a gesture of state defiance to be part of what we call massive resistance against the decision of brown v. Board of education and a mounting Civil Rights Movement that was spreading across the nation. So we have to understand it in that context. And, as a matter of fact it also was used politically as the symbol in 1948 for the dixie party headed by South Carolina senator strom thurman. So its been resurrected as a symbol of white resistance to civil rights skpin deedand indeed, by the ku klux klan as a symbol of violence and hatred. Thats why, as a state symbol it is extremely problematic and belongs in our history books rather than at our state capitols. Professor, im curious in your research as well when did the flag for some of the, i guess, modern southern people become this symbol of just being a rebel as opposed to what many see that flag the battle flag in particular that youve noted as a symbol of treason . Well most of the other flags in the American South do not fly the Confederate Flag well they do fly the Confederate Flag, but not what we call stars and bars the flag that is over the South Carolina memorial to the civil war movement. Mississippi is the only state that continues to fly the stars and bars as part of its state flag, and indeed we heard yesterday one politician suggest that they ought to reconsider that. And, indeed at the university of mississippi, they made waving of that flag they outlawed it in the early 2000s, i believe, 2003 and changed their mascot as well which was the old rebel. So this is a contentious issue in the south, but one associated as a response to the Civil Rights Movement. And i want to point out that dylann roof understood this history. Indeed, in an oped i wrote for cnn, he was fascinated with this history even though he did not understand it. So he drew on that cause of the lost cause and applied it against the black lives matter movement. So these things are contiguous and tied together. Professor, thank you so much for your time and your Historical Perspective on this. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Developing now the husband of the prison employee accused of helping two convicted killers escape from an upstate new york prison is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with nbcs matt lauer. Well bring you that interview in a moment. But first, the first solid lead in the search for those inmates who escaped two weeks ago. The search which is now focused around a cabin some 20 miles from the prison where Authorities Say dna from both escaped prisoners was found. Nbcs Stephanie Goff joins us live now from the town where that cabin is located, owls head new york. Whats the latest there as far as the perimeter and what theyre doing to secure the area around there, stephanie . Reporter tamron weve noticed in the last 24 hours or so since weve been on the ground here that our ability to move has been considerably restricted. We were able to drive around town, drive off roads on some of these dirt trails that lead up into the mountains, and now were being stopped at almost all of the major access points. Our car is being searched and were told we cant go any further. So whether theyre just more organized today or they have decided to really clamp this down kind of remains to be seen. You know incredibly good news for Law Enforcement in this area that they finally got this dna match. They had Something Like 2,000 tips over the last two more than two weeks that theyve had to go through, and they say that each one of those, they have to pursue to its end, because each one could potentially be a link to these two convicts. Now they actually have something in their hand a place and possibly even a time where these convicts were in this cabin, and theyre pursuing it as you can tell, pretty forcefully right now. Which is a tremendous break in the case stephanie. Youve been covering it and there were theories they could have made it all the way to canada, to mexico and certainly further away from the prison and its clear they were not able to do that at this point. Yeah were about 20 miles or so from dannemora, from clinton correctional. There are a lot of theories how they got to where they got to. One of the theories is there is an old Railroad Track that runs from the prison out here to owls head, and its a pretty easy path all the way through here up to these hunting cabins. And there are a lot of hunting cabins cabins. Theyre off all of these roads. Dozens, possibly more than that, and theyre locked up nine months out of the year. The hunting season is in the fall. Some of them are stocked with food. Breaking into one of them stumbling across one of them in this area is pretty easy to do. Tamron . All right stephanie, thank you. Now to matt lauers exclusive interview with the husband of the prison employee accused of helping the two convicted killers escape. Authorities say Joyce Mitchell planned to run off with the inmates after picking them up but she never showed up after having a panic attack and was hospitalized that night. Lyle mitchell talked about confronting his wife on the way home the next night with what police had told him about her involvement. How could it happen she said. I was over my head and i was scared. She said i have Something Else to tell you. I said whats that . She said their plan was they wanted to kill you. I said what . She told me matt wanted her to pick them up. He said, ill give you some pills to knock him out and come pick us up. She said i am not doing that. I love my husband. I am not hurting him. Then i went over it in my head. She said i cant do this. Then she threatened me and said somebody outside the jail would do something to harm me or kill me if she didnt do this. There were reports that your wife fell in love with one of these inmates, richard matt. She said they gave her a little attention and it went too far. He tried to kiss her a couple times, she said no. She said they started to threat en threaten her a little bit on things. Lyle said she is almost 100 certain the escapees would have killed whoever had showed up in that getaway car. Lyle mitchell has cooperated with authorities and has not been accused of any crime. I want to talk to you about lyle mitchells interview as well as the break in the case. Are you surprised these convicts are still so close to that prison . Not at all. Weve been saying since the beginning whatever their plan was of having someone pick them up fell apart, we dont think they had a plan b. Fugitives are not the smartest people in the world. Thats how they get to be fugitives in the first place. It sounds like theyve just been walking west since day one. They did apparently slip through that first perimeter that the police set up. Now we have a perimeter set up again. Hopefully they wont slip out again a second time. Given their background, what we know about the crimes they committed, one, of course dismembering his employer an awful crime when you read the details of it. Your experience you followed and covered some of the worst of the worst who have eventually been brought to justice. Looking at their background are these the kind of guys who will try to shoot it out with authorities the more desperate they become here . There is no question that these are desperate guys. They did not make the best life choices every step of the way. Matt, the first time he broke out or the second time he broke out of prison went down to mexico. He wound up killing a guy outside of a bar fight and thats how he was recap tourtured then, from that escape. You have to pray for the police up there that whoever is going to confront these guys lets hope in one of those hundreds of cabins nobody left a gun behind. Thats the biggest fear right now. Lets get into the background of Miss Mitchell as described by her husband lyle in that interview that things got a little too out of control, she was in over her head. How often do you see people willing to help these individuals, maybe not to this extent of these allegations, but once theyre on the run hiding them out if needed . There are three ways fugitives are able to stay on the run. One of them is disengagement, staying disengaged from anyone who had been in their life before. These guys appear to not have contacted anyone else who had been in their life. People who know these guys have a choice. I can help them or i can risk five to ten years in jail myself or i cannot help them and if they contact me there is a 150,000 reward behind that. They dont have a lot of hope i dont think, these two guys of getting assistance out there. Lets also remember theyre in a place now where we think we know where they are. We think theyre in that cordoned area that police have isolated out by owls head. Hopefully thats whats going to wind up catching these guys and were not going to have to deal with that he could issue. That said, if they do get through, and remember they did get through before, then it becomes a question for the public. If these guys are out there in the woods, thats a matter for the cops and the dogs and the hateseekers. If theyre out in the public thats where it becomes a matter for all you viewers to be very vigilant and try to watch for the clues that might catch these guys if they do slip into an urban area. Former producer of americas most wanted. Thank you for your time. Thanks for having me. Developing now, it is tom bradys moment. Tom brady is set to meet face to face with nfl commissioner Roger Goodell fighting that fourgame suspension. Well have the latest on the confrontation of two of the most powerful people in the nfl. Also developing homes destroyed and toppled in a dangerous storm system moving east. Well get a live report from this bad weather on the ground. And music mogul. Sean diddy combs is out on bail this morning and facing several charges with a Coaching Staff member at ucla where his son plays football. Join our conversation on line. 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Developing now, youre looking at nfl patriots Quarterback Tom Brady arriving at the nfl headquarters in new york this morning. Hes finally getting his chance to tell his side in the socalled deflategate scandal as he appeals his fourgame suspension. Commissioner Roger Goodell is hearing the appeal despite calls from the association to step aside. A decision was handed down last month, as you know, after a release of the report compiled by attorney ted well. They found the quarterback was generally aware footballs were deflate bid team staffers. Brady says it is grossly inconsistent with prior punishment handed down by the league. They say there is also inconsistent evidence that brady is guilty of anything. People just want a shutd