13th. We are 51 days from election day. Im ali velshi live. Ill be joining you live from the important Battle Ground states across this country and im starting in minneapolis where the obvious yet tragic reason the death of george floyd at the hands of police that ignited a massive Equality Movement across this country. It was here. I was here in the height of the protests following George Floyds death. I was among the many journalists shot with rubber bullets and tear gas by police during those dell stati demonstrations. The Movement Began with George Floyds killing had been exploited by president trump, solidifying his strategy to put race and culture wars at the center of his campaign. Joe biden has a ninepoint lead here in minnesota. Thats a significant jump compared to the emmerson poll taken a month later that had biden up three points within the margin of error. If you wonder how important minnesota is in this election, both trump and biden are making Campaign Stops in minnesota this friday to mark thes early voti. For the states u. S. Senate race, the latest New York Times poll shows senator tina smith ahead of republican jason lewis by nine points. Thats the same as bidens lead. Its the exact sixpoint bump compared to the emmerson poll between biden and trump in case you need more proof what or rather who the november elections are all about. Joining me now is the former United States senator for the state of minnesota, al franken. He previously served on the judiciary, health and labor education pension committees. Good to see you. Thank you for joining us and i want to take i want to get your temperature on whats going on in minnesota in this election. A state that has gone from democrats really for the last 50 years but has been very close and donald trump is not letting go of this state. We were shocked last night it was only a 1. 5 margin for hillary. Trump came in in the last weekend that was his first rally there. He is obviously saw something in the polling. Hes been in the state spending a lot of money in this state and in fact, hes spending 14 million in the twin cities media market more than any but three and those are all florida markets and our media market also hits wisconsin, a lot of wisconsin, which actually means that a lot of wisconsin has to watch vikings games, which they are very mad about all year. And thank you for the tease because im going to be next sunday the show goes to wisconsin. Talk to me at 50,000 feet about what minnesota voters want and how they compare to National Voters because obviously, you spent so much time on the national scene. What are the issues here versus the country . Well, you know, we have a big state and we have different demographics. You know, if you look at our suburban districts, the Third District and second district, we flipped those from republican to democratic. Those voters care a lot about health care. Thats what the last election was about and this is going to be about covid and we are there is no race issue in suburban minnesota. We have adverse communities. Thats not going to play. In rural, minnesota weve been hurt very hard by the sanctions with the trade war and weve lost a huge, huge market in soybeans and corn and that hurt our farmers everywhere and had the worst year ever last year and one of the things that this is an interesting lie that trump tells. He often says china has 7 million in tariffs. They havent paid a sent. This is a lie he maybe doesnt know is a lie that might be unique and on the other hand, we saw our farmers just devastated. People lost their operations. There were Mental Health issues, suicides. Actually, the american taxpayer did pay 28 billion, which did not make farmers whole and our farmers lost markets that theyll probably lose for good and again, healthcare and obviously, covid is an enormous issue in minnesota as it is everywhere in this country. A lot of americans are worried even if joe biden wins the election, without a Democratic Senate it will get stuck in the way the last four years of the Obama Administration got stuck. Whats your view on that . Do you think there will be a Democratic Senate and what do you think democrats need to do to make sure they take the senate . Well, i certainly hope so. They have a lot of vulnerable seats and they have a lot of republican senators. I know, personally, who do not like donald trump but they have been enabling him completely. This is why we have to turn the senate and all these we have a lot of races and hopefully well do that. All that is about democrats and independents that dont like what they are seeing from the Republican Party turning out, and you know, we just have to work and work and work until election day. But yeah, that would be a disaster and look, no matter who is president and it sort of has to be biden, we have a divided society right now. I just did my pod cast on the vaccine and we had laurie garrick i think youve interviewed and an expert on pandemic and no matter who wins, there is no baseline of truth anymore, and donald trump has undermined the fda, the cdc, the nih, these are all career scientists that have worked through all these different administrations and now hes accusing them of being infiltrated by the deep state. So there is this distrust on what is the truth in this country now and that started with Rush Limbaugh. I wrote a book about that and then fox and lies and the lying liars that tell them and at that time it was frowned upon to use the word lie. Thats what they do and as a result, we are going to have a divided country for a long time and this guy, trump, hes lied. He lied about covid. We know that now from the woodward book. He called it a hoax. He told woodward he knew what it was. It surprised me. I thought he wasnt paying any attention at all. This is worse. This is worse. He literally called what we knew existed a hoax. Yeah, until now, i thought i was living under the inception he wasnt taking it seriously at all. Me, too. When trump says there is a vaccine, im going to call Laurie Garrett to see if its safe to take which is ridiculous because i never had to do that in my life and think twice. Now you have lauries number because of covid. I answered that very question, i said laurie, if trump drops a vaccine on october 30th or 31st or november 1st, would you take it . She went no. And thats too bad because look, we need a vaccine and if we have an effective vaccine, we need everyone to have faith in it. Yeah. And i dont think well have a vaccine for awhile so assuming that joe biden is the president , there is all these trump people, trump aint going away. Hes going to be sewing discord and leading this observation. If a vaccine is effective and only 30 of the people take it, we have 30 of the people inoculated. If its 30 effective and 100 take it, than we have 30 of the people inoculated, but were in a bad place in this country. We have had the truth systematically unravelled by not just this president but he gave Rush Limbaugh the president ial medal of freedom for a reason. Without Rush Limbaugh, there wouldnt be a donald trump. And were saying fox and saw social media and facebook and were in a sad state in this country where, you know, when Kellyanne Conway said there are alternative facts, we thought thats a ridiculous thing but there are. She was actually telling us thats what were going to hear. Senator, good to see you. Nice hat. Go vikings and well talk again soon. Senator al franken former senator of minnesota, thank you, sir. After George Floyds death, it will be near impossible for minnesota voters to ignore race and equality when they cast ballots in this election. I had a tough talk about racism and privilege with a group of minnesotans coming up next but first, another message from one of my panelists. Here is angelique speaking to joe biden and kamala harris. Were counting on you. We need you to do what youre saying youre going to do now more than ever. We need for you to show empathy. We need for you to reach across the isle and unify this country, not divide this country and bring respectability back to politics. What happened. burke this . Eh, Nothing Happened. driver Nothing Happened . burke Nothing Happened. driver sure looks like something happened. burke well, youve been with farmers for three years with zero auto claims. driver yeah . burke so you earned your policy perk accident forgiveness. 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I was here to cover the protests in may following the death of george floyd and i asked my panel of voters how they feel about the current state of policing and what effect its going to have on them in their decision at the ballot box this november. Watch what they told me. Some people in this docountr had a reckoning about fair policing and how people of color experience things differently. How have you digested that in the last few months as somebody from this region and as a citizen of america . Interestingly enough, ali, im a legal secretary and i work in criminal justice and ive done a lot of litigation and ive seen the courts firsthand. Our legal system is helping if youre white and you have money, if youre educated and if you dont have those advantages, it isnt bias against you particularly but you walk in with a disadvantage. Ive seen that firsthand. In terms of Police Brutality thats been going for a long time. Castile north of here despite a few miles and i think thats been i think most people really werent aware of that situation and so i know for myself is to be aware that im probably bias in ways i dont know that i am, that i will do my best to be to not be that way as much as i can about whats happened for 400 years. Alex, you knew castilllcasti the levels for me to see Police Officers in unforms in the same police cars and uniforms that are supposed to protect you, to have seen the video of them killing george floyd in the way that happened is just i cant tell you the deep seeded drama i feel because of that. I just wish im wearing this shirt because to me this represents like rebuilding and resilience and i just want so badly for our community to come together and understand what is going on and there is systemic racism in police and when the president doesnt acknowledge it and says it doesnt exist, thats an attack against me and people that look like me. I just feel like there needs to be a chance for these walls to come down and for white people to truly listen and look at the facts. Look at statistics. Look, read, learn, educate yourself about what is happening and this is an issue more people would get behind. I think its worse than it has been. You have said there is two americans in your opinion. Absolutely. I even speaking of the economy and how the economy has improved and im not understanding that. I dont feel it in my paycheck. My circle of friends arent doing any better than they were before and so there is a huge contrast there and until america can really reckon with the legacy of slavery and discrimination and racism, we will never move forward. I was raised in a very conservative christian home. Most of my life i have welcomed the label eevangelical. Im a believer in jesus christ. Im a christian. For that reason im passionate about racial justice. Were taught in my home and faith every human being is created in gods image and one of the great challenges maybe the great challenge in america is that our system has the dehumanization of native american and african slaves and weve never actually come back around to make that right. Weve never repaired that damage and so part of the reason why im leaning the way im leaning this election season is because i know there is zero chance of that being repaired under the Current Administration and actually, it will probably get worse and thats a scary thought. Kelly, what do you think when you hear this . Do you think were living in two americas . Yes and no. I feel like with everything thats been happening in minneapolis, tensions are heightened. I think all of us want to get to the same place. We have different ideas how to get there. And every person i know agrees with the statement black lives matter. That statement is not inherently politica political. I think as americans, we should all come together and defunding the police is not the answer. I think more funding to the police, proper training, deescalation training, more social training would lead to a more safe environment and, you know, Community Tensions would lower i think with more funding to police. Do you think there is Structural Racism in policing and justice in america . I dont think yes and no. I mean, when you look at the numbers, how many white cops kill black people, how many black cops kill black people, you know, those numbers are just as high as white cops killing black people, if not higher, but, you know, im no policy expert, and im not, you know, too familiar with the structures of Police Organizations but let me put it this way, youre spot scared of interactions with the police, are you . It depends. Can i respond to that . I think that we need to look at something beyond just numbers. You have to look at the way things are proportionately, okay . So black people are disproportionately pulled over, stopped, arrested, frisked, et cetera by the police. Just because there are more white people in this country, doesnt mean you can focus on more white people are pulled over, there are more white people in this country. When you look at the percentages and ratios of black people pulled over and what happens, that is what we need to focus on and thats what actually shows that there is a problem. So ali, i really believe we need to ask the right questions to get to the right answers that spark the right conversations that lead us to a right direction we need in this country. I believe the right question is not if the police is right or wrong. I think the right question that we need to ask is what we can do to make sure that our police force are better trained, are better funded and so that they can we flekt areflect the commu a greater good. The right answer is not defending the police. The right answer, i believe, is actually making the Resources Available for the police so that they can keep the training. Whats your perspective on this . The role is credited with a quote for every thousand hecking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root, the deepest root in the american soil is White Supremacy and until we attack that root and uproot that, i dont know how well make progress out of this crisis, this chaos, this on going racial dehumanization as a nation. Of course, i want to quote some numbers to you. Since 2015, black americans adjusted for their proportion of the population were killed at a rate twice as high as americans by police. White americans were killed at 13 per million. African americans, black americans killed at a rate of 32 per million. Their politics and opinions differed but everybody got along in the end and take a look. By the end of it, we were taking selfies together. I do want to thank the panelists that opened up to us in minnesota. Im looking forward to another group of voters next weekend in wisconsin and our aim here is to have real dialogue, for people to say what they believe and know it is a safe space for them in which to do that because the only way we get past this is listening to and empathizing. There are reports 2020 candidate Bernie Sanders got issues with the way this campaign is going right now. With joe bidens campaign. Senator sanders joins me when velshi across america 2020 continues. Velshi across america 2020 continues. At philadelphia, we know what makes the perfect schmear of cream cheese. You need only the freshest milk and cream. That one and the worlds best, and possibly only, schmelier. Philadelphia. Schmear perfection. Than Rheumatoid Arthritis. When considering another treatment, ask about xeljanz. A pill for adults with moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis when methotrexate has not helped enough. 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