Summary
Conservatives rattled about midterms with Democratic voters stimulated by abortion issues, and recent Biden wins on inflation, climate change and now student debt forgiveness. New report dating origins of Trump classified document scandal to his final days in the White House. Environmentalist Bill McKibben joins Ari Melber to talk about after COVID, science clashes and endure in U.S. politics. Canadian icon Nardwuar interviewed James Brown, Kurt Cobain, Ed Sheeran, Drake, and Ari Melber and they talk about Ari`s high school and how they create Kelly Montague Day and more.
Transcript
NICOLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Hi, Ari.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Hi, Nicolle. Thank you so much.
Welcome to THE BEAT. I`m Ari Melber.
Today a judge ordering the release of more information about that Trump search. We have that story coming up. And later, we`re going to do something we`ve never done before. Sharing some of my childhood stories from this discussion with Canadian icon Nardwuar who you see there. I`m going to do that by the end of the hour. I`ll try to make sense of why I`m bringing this up with you.
But right now we begin with resurgent liberal energy, Republicans rattled. It is a pretty big political shift from when D.C. pundits were recently saying things like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILL HURD (R), FORMER TEXAS CONGRESSMAN: This red wave that we`re going to see in 2022.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: President Biden`s agenda and Democratic control of Congress in jeopardy.
NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: I think we`ll pick up between 25 and 70 seats in the House. We`ll probably pick up about four seat at least in the Senate.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks like it will be pretty bad for Democrats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That was the talk. That had become something of a D.C. conventional wisdom. The summer beginning with Democrats almost fatalistic about losing the House.
Here are today`s headlines. A shift in trends showing Democrats daring to dream, the "Times" reported on the rebound. The "Post" reporting Democrats showing momentum in these recent special elections, which is hard data. The D.C. Web site Axios reports on the Democrats` now stunning turnaround.
Now, first, this is classic Washington. A narrative zigs and zags. Everything gets exaggerated. There`s a lot of self-interested reasons that people need to make everything so histrionic.
OK. But I can also tell you tonight the reason this is the top story here where we try not to be histrionic is that there is hard data showing Democrats improving. And at this point they might start even asking themselves, well, how did we get here? They may even ask themselves, where does that midterm highway go? Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. That`s of course how the talking heads and David Byrne memorably put it.
But it does apply to so many existential questions including the politics. Because the numbers have everyone wondering where we`re going as a nation when we have been told so much about other midterm trends. Democrats outperforming now in the last four special elections. That`s real hard data.
Incumbent parties usually faulter in midterms like this. But is this a usual moment? A Supreme Court just uncorked a once in 50-year ruling ending human rights for the half the population. It upended law, policy, and now we`re seeing in the early special elections, politics with protests and energy, voter registration, mobilization, and the backlash that many warned for -- warned about and then called for.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These bastards that are in office who are passing these laws deserve to be voted out.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Roe cannot go. Roe cannot go.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Keep abortion legal. Keep abortion legal.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For God`s sake, there`s an election in November. Vote, vote, vote, vote. Consider the challenge accepted, court.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): We have a right. Extremists, we`ve heard enough from extremists, and we`re tired of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That was people talking to other people. So the politicians, the would-be leaders, the activists, they talk, but when you test it you have to see whether everyone else then listens or acts.
Red Kansas voted to protect women`s rights. A giant conservative rebuke there to Justice Alito and that right-wing crusade that showed something else might be afoot. Indeed, since the fall of Roe it is harder to see the once clear signs of a GOP advantage, the "New York Times" also reports, while the conservative "Wall Street Journal" has an editorial looking at this politically and calling it now the Republicans` abortion problem.
And then you have these independent nonpartisan election gurus. They deal in numbers, data, elections. Not human rights. Not the larger, deeper questions here. And when they look at this issue they`re reporting Republicans have lost the edge in the House, saying it`s not out of the question Democrats could hold it there in Congress with the once red wave looking more like a ripple.
Now MAGA Republicans spent much of 2020 in denial about the fact that Donald Trump was unpopular, got fewer votes in `16 and was on his way to getting fewer votes in 2020, which he did. He was the loser of that race. And then they were in denial about his loss. So the thing about doing the news here is sometimes I report to you, oh, here`s what someone`s saying, and you kind of have to double check and say, well, are they saying something that might relate to the real world and reality? Or are they just saying wild, ridiculous things even they know to be false.
So sometimes when we quote Republicans talking about elections we get a lot of that. People who know Trump lost lying about it, in denial, whatever you want to call it. But today, part of the news is the top Republicans have kind of zigzagged in their own way, going away from that denialism with basically some reality-based concern.
[18:05:05]
They`re looking at the facts cropping up that I just showed you. They know it is better to try to win elections outright than keep trying to steal them, which failed in 2020, and now looking again at reality and not denialism, apparently some pretty prominent Republicans are girding potentially for more losses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANTORUM, SENIOR ADVISER, CONVENTION OF STATES: Republicans have to start paying attention. This is a red wave year. The polls are not showing it right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So election handicappers still expect the House to flip to the GOP, but with a smaller majority.
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: I am concerned about it, so they should be concerned about it. Yes, I`m a little concerned. I`m not going to lie about it.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
WATTERS: I am concerned. I mean, it`s a big concern.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: They are concerned about Republicans losing. I`m joined by a political expert, the professor of political science from Fordham, and our friend, Christina Greer.
Welcome back.
Thanks, Ari. Good to see you.
MELBER: What do you see here?
CHRISTINA GREER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY: Well, I think Republicans should be concerned. You know, I was reading some articles from 2019, Ari. And, you know, Donald Trump was pro-choice for much of his, you know, political or pre-political life. And we know that he threw red meat to his white evangelical base by, you know, nominating Brett Kavanaugh or nominating Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
But there -- you know, there were some concern from Donald Trump then, saying, you know, these are sort of issues that I don`t really want to get into because he understood that moderate Republicans and weak leaning Republicans and independents really weren`t into removing abortion off the table. And so now we see that, you know, we`ve gotten the Supreme Court that we have largely due to Donald Trump and George W. Bush, and weak leaning Republicans and independents are obviously not happy about this.
But it`s galvanized Democrats in a way where we always thought as political scientists, we talked about this idea of a gender gap, where women vote one way Democratically, and men vote Republican. But that wasn`t the case. It was actually black women were so overwhelmingly Democrat that it made it seemed as though there was a gender gap when there wasn`t because white women voted historically always with the Republican candidate. Jane Junn of USC has done brilliant work on this, except for 1964 and 1996.
But what we saw in 2020, though, was white women starting to move over and vote for the Democratic Party. And that is a great concern for Republicans in 2024 especially because a lot of women do need/want abortion to be a viable option for themselves and their daughters.
MELBER: Right. I think you make several important points there, including the data. You know, it`s like Biggie Smalls said, we`re not in Kansas anymore, or somebody said that. But Kansas goes to your point of that shift, right. Kansas has some other demographic movement there. And then you have what some are calling -- I don`t know if you`ve heard this. There are people out there calling it Biden`s hot policy summer. Have you heard that? That`s going around.
GREER: No, I have not heard of the hot Biden summer.
MELBER: Yes, I`ve heard it. I appreciate your honesty. Some are calling it a hot policy summer, which is a playful nod to Megan Thee Stallion about a true thing, which is that early summer it was nothing works, Joe Manchin won`t let anything happen. You`re coming out towards Labor Day and people are hearing about inflation program, climate spending at a time when it`s hot and people aren`t aware of that, and they say, oh, Biden`s doing things.
Now this week, student loan breakthrough. 10k to 20k for people of varying ages who are dealing with this broken system. And we`ve got a lot of people cheering that. I wanted to get you on this and show people something you may not have seen which is, as we`ve been talking, how targeted it should be and there are fair debates. I asked some of those questions to Susan Rice last night. It`s complicated. But then there`s some really wild reaction. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS HOST: Is Joe Biden -- let`s put it exactly the way it is. Is Joe Biden buying votes for $10,000 vote --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pell Grants.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s absolutely outrageous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the autobiography of the American empire collapsing before our very eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would be like someone who is addicted to heroin, who`s go through horrendous withdrawals, give them another bump of heroin.
JEANINE SHAPIRO, FOX NEWS HOST: Look, my family paid for my education. I`m sure they had better things to do with their money. They worked hard for their money. This is a giveaway, and it`s disgusting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: I`m curious what you think, you come at this as a political expert, as well as someone involved in the American educational system, as well as the way that it can be oppressively expensive. We talk about what`s gotten better or worse in America. I`m not one of those shout-out to the 1950s people about everything, Christina, but mathematically, the system was more affordable for a variety of reasons then as opposed to now.
What do you see in this seemingly outraged kind of unhinged reaction to something that was largely a moderate plan that is being cheered outside of the right wing echo chamber?
[18:10:04]
GREER: Right. Ari, I think it could backfire on Republicans because we have to remember, Republicans go to university as well. They don`t always act like it but they do. You know, as someone who has the honor and privilege of spending the large portion of my time with young people, they`re incredibly concerned about school debt.
MELBER: Sure.
GREER: And so just as Donald Trump gave farmers billions of dollars and PPP loans to lots of wealthy Republicans, Joe Biden is saying, listen, if we`re trying to level the playing field in some way, it`s not going to be everything, we can have that debate. Lots of people are disappointed that it`s not a complete absolution of debt, but we do know for white Americans this $10,000 to $20,000 will help tremendously because that`s more commensurate with the type of debt that they owe.
We know African-Americans and Latinos take out a lot more to go to a secondary education. But for a lot of Americans, this will be a start. You know, and the argument that, you know, I paid my way and everyone else should, well, good on you. I`m glad that your family had generational wealth. I`m glad that, you know, you were able to pay for your education, but for a lot of people they`re not allowed to be interested in the majors that they want.
They can`t take the jobs that they`re interested in because they just have so much debt that they think about constantly, which we know has health consequences and just a trickle down factor. And so I think that this is a he beginning for a beginning step. The fact that Republicans are being histrionic about the unfairness of it, should let us know that it`s actually something good for the nation, and it`s going to be a small pebble that will ripple in a lot of different directions.
MELBER: Ripple has been a theme tonight. Shout-out to the Grateful Dead, and what`s rippling here seems to be that dealing with just the actual facts of 10k to 20k, 20k if you`re not Pell grant. Is it working? There`s something politically scaring them and they`re sort of saying, we got to go bigger, bolder, make it about bumps of heroin, because apparently if you talk about well, this moderate plan at a time when people, pandemic have a lot of reasons why their payments were disrupted maybe that`s something that`s broadly popular.
We start the show with you, Professor. I wish we could keep you the whole hour, but we got Nardwuar later so we got a lot to juggle. I appreciate you being here.
GREER: Absolutely, Ari. See you soon.
MELBER: OK. See you again.
We now have our shortest break. Just 60 seconds. When we come back, we turn to the other story, new information coming out as soon as tonight or tomorrow about the Trump search. We`re back in one minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: We may learn even more about the unprecedented search of Donald Trump`s home. A judge is going to unseal some portion of the underlying roadmap, what`s called the affidavit to the search warrant. And this is new today, announcing what we had been girding for, because there`s been developments showing it was going in this direction. They will unseal the redacted version by noon East Coast time tomorrow. So you do the math, tonight or tomorrow morning.
The government has met the burden of showing proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve legitimate interest, the judge finds. That`s a partial win for Garland. We`ve reported on this on this kind of what has been a procedural split decision. The DOJ basically submitted those redactions. They had concerns about unsealing any information that might put agents at further risk. They said also the probe is in the, quote, "early stages." This is the road map.
The origins started even earlier than we knew. "The Washington Post" reporting today Trump`s lawyer agreed that the materials should go back and said that before Trump even left the White House. The Archives now has written in an e-mail that Pat Cipollone determined about two dozen box of records that apparently were already under some kind of scrutiny, should go back in the final days of Trump`s term.
Trump`s apologists and defenders, though, have gone all over the place to try to defend or offer excuses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What use could a former president have for classified or top secret information once he`s left office?
[18:15:02]
REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): Every former president has access to their documents. It`s how they write their memoirs.
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP LAWYER: They want to make him responsible for having taken classified documents and preserved them.
REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): I still haven`t seen any evidence that he was even asked -- that Trump was even asked to give these documents back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: We can show you the evidence. We just did. So, you have all of that going on from folks minimizing this. This was of course the same Clinton e- mails crowd, where that was never alleged to be any deliberate physical removal of anything, it was just whether the technological server was safe enough, and we had all the opposite comments then.
There`s also the request for a special master that Trump made. You may recall we interviewed a lawyer who declined to represent Trump who mentioned that on the show last week. Trump subsequently made a legal claim filing requesting it. So you have these deadlines. It`s about secrecy, but it`s also about leadership. It`s also about the rule of law, and it`s also about a question that hangs over all of this that we have not endeavored to answer yet, because I won`t give you guesses and guesstimates here.
I`ll just tell you what the question is. Why did someone who was so uninterested in intelligence, who skipped more intelligence briefings than any modern president, who literally flouted any interest in that type of data and research for four years as president, why did he suddenly want so much top secret material at his home that he reportedly wanted to personally go through, that he personally resisted returning?
Why did he go from uninterested over four years to suddenly very interested? It`s a big question. And we have a former top CIA official to help answer it or at least explore the possibilities next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:21:18]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Have you ever heard of a former president or top official just walking out the door with 300 classified documents? Do you view that as relatively normal and forgivable, or is this a national security concern?
SUSAN RICE, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I have never heard of something like that. I don`t want to stray into the national security lane, and I`ll stay in my own, but I think it`s just a statement of fact that I`ve never heard of something like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Susan Rice never heard of it, and she`s the former National Security adviser.
We now turn to David Priess, a former high ranking CIA officer. He`s personally briefed presidents and is the author of "The President`s Book of Secrets."
She`s says she`s never heard of this kind of thing. Have you?
DAVID PRIESS, FORMER CIA OFFICER: I have not. And it`s interesting to hear her say, well, I`m not going to get into national security, she was the National Security adviser. So she knows more than most that this is not normal. Former presidents do have access to some classified information in certainly settings. But somebody just taking a load of it and deciding for himself what I want to keep and what I don`t, that`s unprecedented as far as I can tell.
MELBER: I mentioned in introducing you, we don`t know why he`s more interested in this now.
PRIESS: Right.
MELBER: But we know that he used to be so uninterested that it was seen as an issue, and they tried to change the briefing to keep him more interested.
PRIESS: Yes.
MELBER: As an investigative mindset or a journalistic mindset we would call that suspicious. We cannot infer too much until we get more. But you deal in intelligence. You`ve interviewed several presidents as part of your work.
PRIESS: Yes.
MELBER: Do you find that to be an odd or suspicious switch? And what can you tell us about that?
PRIESS: It is odd in the sense that you could at least understand a president who is obsessed with reading it, wanted to get it every day, and then said as ex-president I want to keep getting intelligence briefings, which some former presidents have done. I want to keep reading this material. But that wasn`t the case with Trump.
MELBER: Well, I`ll jump in and let you finish. We have cases of intelligence officials who took stuff home before the era of pandemic now, where that happens more often, and they got in trouble just for doing that on the job, but they were taking it home to study, homework.
PRIESS: That`s right.
MELBER: Right? To your point, kind of the opposite here.
PRIESS: Yes. Somebody who didn`t do that homework, somebody who did get oral briefings by all accounts, you could get some intelligence briefings especially early in the presidency. They seemed to go fairly well. They trailed off near the end of his presidency, but he didn`t seem to take an interest in reading the intelligence product. So suddenly there`s hundreds of pages of classified material once he`s retired from office and just a citizen again?
It doesn`t make sense for that reason. So then you start to look at other reasons. And look, I`m not going to get inside Donald Trump`s head. That`s a dangerous place to be. But you can say, what is the most likely thing based on what we know about him over the previous five years or so? And, you know, Dre said, things are just different for gangsters, right? And the watcher. Guess what? Trump thinks things are just different for Trump`s.
He thinks he can take this material, because he was president once he should be able to keep it. That`s more consistent than some of these conspiracy theories about, I want to sell it to somebody. All these ideas that people are coming up with to try to explain it. You might not need to go that far. It might be just as simple as a narcissistic impulse of, it`s mine, so of course I get to keep it and, I don`t want these pesky lawyers telling me not to.
And of course not these pesky archivists who I didn`t have the deal with through most of the presidency, but then near at the end of the transition they`re telling me what to do with my stuff? You can almost understand the mentality pushing him to keep it.
MELBER: Well, I think as an intelligence expert you remind us how you think. We don`t know the answer but as you say it might not be as farfetched. It might relate to ego. It might relate to, you mentioned Dr. Dre, might relate to a type of flexing, you know, and some flexing is gauche or in poor taste, right.
[18:25:06]
And some flexing is illegal and you`re acting like you have powers. You don`t. 30 seconds.
PRIESS: And not just illegal, but dangerous. I mean, we`re talking at classified material in Mar-a-Lago. So it`s not as if it is somebody who took material home, kept it in a relative secure environment. There was no longer a SCIF, a secure facility at Mar-a-Lago.
MELBER: Right.
PRIESS: And this was a place with all kinds of workers. We don`t know how many foreign intelligence services tried to get workers into Mar-a-Lago. It`s a risky business.
MELBER: Right. And you just sort of again from your expertise remind us, you can build the highest walls around all of these facilities, you can have things under cover, you can do all of those efforts and then you`ve got the actual former president blowing a hole in that weakest link chain with that behavior down there.
PRIESS: Absolutely.
MELBER: Really appreciate you walking us through it.
PRIESS: You bet.
MELBER: Thank you, David.
Next up, we`re going to talk about democracy, and truth, and fighting for facts. And then later I`m going to explain why we`re going to get into this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was curious, A$AP, what is the importance of the Black Ink Gallery?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow, how the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) do you know about the Blank Ink Gallery?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:30:50]
MELBER: I think we know some of the most contentious political debates today turn on empirical science. How is COVID transmitted? Do vaccines work? Is the earth getting warmer? What does 99 percent probability mean? These are factual matters that transcend politics, but politics can go to war against facts.
A theme explored in this hit new film starring Meryl Streep as a very Trumpian President consumed by P.R. and operating a corrupt family empire, as they face an existential threat requiring a scientific emergency response. How to prevent a planet-killing common heading towards Earth.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROB MORGAN, ACTOR: Madam president, this comet is what we call a planet killer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just call it a potentially significant event.
MORGAN: Yes.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE, ACTRESS: But it isn`t potentially going to happen. It is going to happen.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO, ACTOR: Exactly. 99.78 percent to be exact.
JONAH HILL, ACTOR: Oh, great. OK, so it`s not 100 percent.
MERYL STREEP, ACTRESS: Call it 70 percent, and let`s just -- let`s move on. And we should get some of our scientists on this, you know, no offense, but -- when are the midterms?
HILL: Three weeks.
STREEP: Three weeks. So, if this breaks before then we lose Congress, and then there`s nothing we can do about it anyway.
HILL: There`ll be gridlock.
STREEP: The timing is just -- it`s atrocious. I`m going to make a statement, presidential statement to the American people. If we`re not going to tell the press about it ahead of time, because that we will have the appearance of breaking emergency. May Jesus Christ bless every single one of you. Especially younger members of my own party. We will prevail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: You heard him there. The political timing was bad. You hear that? The whole satirical plot here probes how our society would respond to a science-driven wake-up call. And the film`s answer is really badly. This movie don`t look up follow some of the classic tropes of doomsday movies, a killer asteroid or alien invasion that requires your heroic leader and all of our collective action.
But then it points out how those fairy tales might very well fail today. If half the public doesn`t even believe there is a comet. And if the few experts who have any experience in aerospace common prevention are overruled by political idiots or insider billionaires. Now, what is the comet? Well, it`s an allegory here about science denialism. So, you, the viewer, the citizen can decide, maybe it`s climate change, maybe it`s COVID.
Maybe it`s the next pandemic that could be more of an existential threat, than COVID. Now, are people getting the message? Well, this is a film tackling big themes with serious ideas, but also has the stars like Steep - - Streep, Leo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and we can tell you it has become a blockbuster hit. Surging to be second, the second most watched Netflix film ever.
The Hollywood often ducks movies with an overt political message. This movie, I think, has one. And that has people thinking, and it is about politics. But it`s not just about politics. It`s about more than politics. As we look at what we`ve learned from this important class. We`re going to get into it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:38:49]
MELBER: It is really hot, like record highs. Look at these headlines. Red states in Texas there, like Texas, 110 degrees. Power grid can barely handle it. Over in Arizona a blue state you also have that grim record broken for heat-related deaths. Congress warned all the way back in 88, that there was a 99 percent certainty the warming trend was cars -- caused by carbon dioxide.
We knew this. We`re a long ways from 1980s projections about global warming and carbon. It`s what green leaders have warned about that the luxury of data about melting ice caps would soon give way to a rolling climate crisis.
And so now we turn to something important. A pioneering environmentalist, the leader of 350.org, Bill McKibben, the author of The Flag, The Cross, and the Station Wagon, a memoir about what the hell happened to America, among other things. I hear you, man.
BILL MCKIBBEN, ENVIRONMENTALIST: Yes, well, it`s been a hell of -- a hell of a 50 years.
MELBER: What is important for people to understand about the prospect for change now as you look at those kinds of heat headlines?
MCKIBBEN: Well, so the bad news is we ignored for decades the warnings, the clear warnings that science had given us about climate change, and we ignored them for a reason. The fossil fuel industry wanted to keep its business model alive. The good news is that scientists and engineers kept at their job.
[18:40:00]
They`ve cut the price of solar power and wind power by 90 percent in the last decade, the cheapest way to make power on planet Earth is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That`s pretty remarkable. And it means that if we wanted to, we could move quickly. The climate bill just signed by the president is the first small effort to move quickly. But the fossil fuel industry continues to get in the way. There is --
MELBER: You bring up the climate bill, and I wanted to run a comparison by you. So, I want to get more from you on that. Green leaders have said that basically, even any consensus on something like this was a major improvement from even the recent past. But Democratic administrations were signing helpful, but pretty elastic global treaties rather than doing billions and spending, take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: History was made yesterday in Kyoto because for the first time, the industrialized nations of the world agreed to a binding and realistic framework to deal with the enormous challenge of global warming.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The world has officially crossed the threshold for the Paris agreement to take effect. If we follow through on the commitments that this Paris agreement embodies. History may well judge it as a turning point for our planet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Where does Biden`s program fit into those precedents in your view, and of course, finish anything else you want to tell us about what`s important there?
MCKIBBEN: Well, Biden is the first time that we`ve managed to actually get past the fossil fuel industry a little ways and do something about it. They sunk the Kyoto accords. And then they helped elect Donald Trump, which, you know, he pulled us straight out of the Paris Accords.
So, now we`re going to spend some money but thanks to Joe Manchin, it comes with huge strings attached, including if Congress can`t stand up to Manchin this side deal that might get approved later this fall that will just permit all kinds of pipelines and things happily, people are standing up to that.
But now the fight is moving, at least in part from Washington to Wall Street, because it`s the constant flow of money into the fossil fuel industry that keeps that industry expanding at a moment when scientists say it must stop. Third act, this group that we`ve formed in the last year for people over the age of 60, like me to sort of take on these issues. We`re going hard after the big banks because they`ve lent more than a trillion dollars to the fossil fuel industry in the last five years.
Can`t have that anymore, because time is just too short, Ari. I mean, look, you showed those pictures from the desert southwest. Look to at the pictures from Europe this summer. There are river in Europe that we`ve been keeping track of for a thousand years. The River Po, the Rhine, the Danube, there at levels we`ve never seen before.
In along the Danube last week, Nazi warships that had been scuttled when the Germans were fleeing the advancing Russian army reemerged from the mud at the bottom of the Danube spill fully loaded with ammunition. If you want a kind of metaphor for where we are, that`s pretty good one.
MELBER: Well, Bill, you know what they say. Climate denial is not just a river in Egypt.
MCKIBBEN: There you go.
MELBER: Sorry.
MCKIBBEN: And --
MELBER: Um, they`re telling me to stop doing that, sorry.
MCKIBBEN: The new -- the new denial is delay and that`s what we have to get our --
MELBER: That`s your environmental expertise, which is why we love having you on with that. I do want to say you have you have this book and its sort of a political memoir, what we can learn from things. I`ll say one thing I like about you, and then you get a minute to tell us why people should care about the book.
You are a realist optimist and people in social change sometimes it`s like, everything`s so terrible that you kind of start to lose the energy. And then you have Pollyanna stuff. No, we have to look around and face these things. I wonder how that fits into the story you tell and anything you want us to know about the book.
MCKIBBEN: Well, really, the book draws on my early years. And you know, those years are a reminder that when we fight, we win. Look at the things that the Supreme Court has done over the last six months. They`ve gone after the Voting Rights Act of 65, the Gun Control Act of 68, the Clean Air Act of 71, and Roe v Wade in 1973.
Those were powered by people rising up to demand change. Now, you know what? We backed away from that. Beginning with the Reagan years, we`ve focused a lot more in this country on what can I do for me. Markets are going to solve all problems.
[18:45:00]
Well, markets didn`t solve all problems and half the ice in the Arctic melted now. But we need to reassemble and that`s what we`re trying to do at third act, some of those people who were there at the beginning to back up the kids who are in the lead now and see if we can`t make some change, again. We have no choice because time is really, really short.
MELBER: Yes, time is short and there is a place for facts. You mentioned as well, the way the structures work, which I think is something that the modern environmental movement has improved upon as a matter of efficacy. You got to deal with Wall Street, you got to deal with the poisoned misinformation, which is its own toxic sludge before you get to whether you can have a factual conversation about trade-offs.
And not all environmental policies are going to draw support if some people say, I`m more worried about school lunches, I can`t afford that. But let`s do it with facts and science, which I think speaks to your entire career, which is why we like our times together. Thanks for coming back. Bill McKibben.
MCKIBBEN: A real pleasure, Ari. As always. Take care.
MELBER: Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Hope you have a good rest of your summer. Now I want to tell you what`s coming up next, I can say accurately, it is something I`ve never shared before on the program. It involves my childhood, how I learned about facts, about trying to bond or connect or listen to other people.
And where my passion for music came from, which I`ve shared with you sometimes but not like this, because we`re going all the way back to my childhood. It`s a little bit personal. I want to share with you I hope you stay with us. It`s next.
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[18:50:38]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN RUSKIN, NARDWUAR THE HUMAN SERVIETTE: In Seattle, age four, did it all begin there?
SETH ROGEN, ACTOR: A story that my parents regale me with to this day that we were driving to Seattle at across the Canadian border. They asked you at the border, do you have any fruits or weapons, and apparently, I said we have a banana and we`re not afraid to use it. Which -- apparently elicited a huge laugh coming from a four-year-old child. But baby that was the first joke I ever told.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: And that is how many people learn comedian Seth Rogen told his first joke at age four. We didn`t learn it from one of the late-night shows which have led our pop culture discourse for decades, but rather from an alternative homemade source for exhaustive cultural interviews a quirky Canadian savant, named Nardwuar, who established himself as a unique interviewer with legends from James Brown to Cardi B. to Kurt Cobain to Harry Styles.
All the more impressive that he`s done this without the backing of any large media company corporation or formal press pass. Nardwuar just does the work. Post the interviews online and he`s found that really great interviews about music and culture tend to bring on more interviews. Plus, he has a special trick.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSKIN: You also have restaurants who like those the golden skillet?
JAMES BROWN, SINGER: Well, no (INAUDIBLE) gold bladder. Have you (INAUDIBLE).
ED SHEERAN, SINGER-SONGWRITER: You`ve done your research man. I like this.
RUSKIN: We`d Ed Sheeran. We have to, Travis. What exactly is going on in this photo right here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy (BLEEP).
RUSKIN: Do you still like salt and vinegar chips?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that`s guys crazy. How do you know that man?
RUSKIN: You know the drama for pansy division is from Aberdeen, Kurt?
KURT COBAIN, SINGER-SONGWRITER: No, I didn`t know that.
RUSKIN: You know, it`s like clean spirit.
COBAIN: Yes, I have no idea.
MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER: No trip to Vancouver is complete without talking to you. So, I really appreciate you being here.
RUSKIN: Well, thank you, Michael Moore.
AUBREY DRAKE GRAHAM, RAPPER: This is the best interview I`ve ever done by the way in my entire life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Drake basically saying that`s the best he ever had. The best he ever had. Now, not wars trick or skill is an exhaustive, sometimes mysterious research process, where he uncovers and asks about things that stars have never been asked about. Which is unusual for people who`ve lived in the public eye. As you can see on your screen right now. It even freaks some people out.
There are entire compilation videos of just showing different artists going into what you might call Nardwuar shock. As they realize he knows something that they thought nobody knows or they didn`t even know they knew. Which brings us to my Nardwuar moment, which I want to share with you.
He usually focuses on artists, so it was a change when he recently asked me for an interview, and I was completely psyched to do it. I`ve watched this guy and his interviews for years and I do know a little bit about his research approach. But I didn`t know what he would actually bring up or how it would feel.
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RUSKIN: Let`s head to Kelly Montague Day.
MELBER: Man, all right. See I`ve seen you do this to other people but having it done to yourself is a whole different energy. Shout out to Kelly Montague. One of my best friends from high school who -- I`m still friends with talked to him this week. And Kelly Montague Day was something we created.
You know you have some friends who are just extra, he was extra, we all loved him. And so, my high school you know that have like 70s day was a thing and there were dress-up days, but we just made it up like it wasn`t a real thing. Where we all just dressed up like him one day. He didn`t know and he showed up and everyone was walking around dressed like him.
And then they put in the yearbook because you know how you can have an idea that`s not real but then it becomes real. Well once it was in the yearbook it was like maybe there is Kelly Montague Day.
RUSKIN: What can you say about you and your friends?
MELBER: Yo! All right, you have the picture. All right can I -- I thought I`d tell you right here. All right, this is Kelly Montague on Kelly Montague Day. Kelly, just this was the style he rocked so he would always have this kind of tank top, backpack, usually had the old school headphones --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: There it is. That`s a real picture. Shout out to Kelly Montague Day. Shout out to Kelly, and to Garfield High School in Seattle. In fact, our alma mater is known for some of its alumni like Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones. This weekend, Garfield is actually celebrating its centennial in Seattle.
[18:55:00]
So, happy 100th birthday to that great public high school, and shout out to all the Bulldogs. As we used to say back in the day, any dogs in the house true dogs. I realize, unlike some lyrics, that`s not a reference for everybody out there. But it was something we said. Now, Nardwuar also asked me about another topic that I`d never been asked before in this quick moment touching on conservative media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSKIN: Who is the Fox version of you, Ari?
MELBER: Oh! No disrespect but I don`t think they have one.
RUSKIN: Bow, boo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Honest answer. Now, there`s a classic lyric that says people never get the flowers when they can still smell them. If you admire somebody, better go ahead and tell him. And that is certainly true if you have the chance to give someone some of their flowers in person. I`ve spent so many hours watching Nardwuar work over my life.
I never knew I`d get to go to Canada to meet him, let alone be interviewed. He really honed his craft into something special that draws out the humanity of individuals in new ways. And I happen to think it really enriches the culture, for real. So, he deserves this shout out and his flowers. And here is what I told him kind of impromptu during that conversation, which I wanted to share with you to air on THE BEAT. So, you hear it too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Because you`re connecting with artists and letting them just sort of understand where they came from and their roots in ways that they`re not always thinking about. I think you get something out of them. As someone who also tries to interview artists, sometimes it`s different and deeper into your own thing.
And for example, the bigger an artist gets, the more that everyone knows about their recent stuff. And then their recent, famous or successful part of them, takes up more and more psychic space. Sinatra 10 years into being Sinatra, right? Is a long way away from the person he was. And we`re all human, so we all have multiple dimensions.
And so, when people like the Kendrick interview did, which still was when he was young, but you go back to things with him. And you can see him reaching back. So now he`s not in the psychic space of the recent thing. When you get to that place with people like when even with Seth Rogen, one of his first jokes when he was four years old, crossing the border, we have a banana, we`re not afraid to use it.
You`re bringing him back to that place in a way that he may not have even been able to experience at his adult life. That`s wild. So, I think that`s special. So then when I saw the full interviews, I was like, oh, this is dope. And as someone who does interviews, I`m not like, OH, I`m just going to copy that, right, like you do your thing. So that`s you the way you do it. Doot doot.
RUSKIN: Thanks so much for the kind words, I really appreciate that especially fitting in doot doot in there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: And you got to figure and fit in the doot doot, that is something he often says, doot doot. His catchphrase. And so, you know, sometimes at the end of the hour, we plug our digital stuff, and we can still do that. But before we do that, let me just say you can find all of Nardwuar interviews from James Brown to Kurt Cobain to Michael Moore we showed you when he got into a little bit of politics in Vancouver.
At Nardwuar Serviette on YouTube. So, we`ve made this little graphic here. Nardwuar Serviette or you can just type Nardwuar into YouTube. I will end as well that with a plug of our stuff to ask you a question. You can always find me @AriMelber on social media or connect with me at AriMelber.com and subscribe to my writing. I`ve been in touch with some of you guys there. I right back. AriMelber.com.
But the question tonight is, who else should Nardwuar interview? Sometimes we do BEAT stuff, who should I interview? Who should we have on the show? I want to know who should Nardwuar interview. We showed you, James Brown. We showed you, Travis Scott. He`s done Lil Wayne, Cardi B. He got Billie Eilish. Who else should Nardwuar interview?
I will take a look at your answers. I can`t say whether he will or not, but he might. In the end, I loved doing that experience with him because I felt like I in a weird way got to step out of myself and just react. Like I showed you with the Garfield High School stuff. And obviously, I think about that kind of thing. Because we interview people all the time, and we think about ways to do it.
He has found his own way. And as I mentioned, he built it himself. All those stars and icons and cultural leaders you saw him talk to, they`re all people who decided to talk to Nardwuar not because he was established some big brand or rolling stone or T.V. but because of what he built and posted. We`ve also talked at times about how the internet has these dark sides and politics.
Shout out to the bright side here that people can still create and share themselves in all of their unique weirdness. And sometimes you find the whole world is interested and supports you. With that I want to thank you for spending time with us here on THE BEAT with Ari. "THE REIDOUT" with Joy Reid is up next
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on "THE REIDOUT" --
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PAT RYAN (D-NY), CONGRESSMAN-ELECT: When the supreme court ripped away, reproductive freedoms, access to abortion rights, we said this is not what America stands for.
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