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The Briefing with Jen Psaki
We the People America 250: Country at a Crossroads - Part 2
00:43:59
A special celebration of America’s 250th anniversary with Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, and Ali Velshi from MS NOW’s live community event in Philadelphia. In this hour, Rachel Maddow interviews civil rights legal stalwart Sherrilyn Ifill, and the panel takes questions from the live audience.
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- [00:00]
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Rachel Maddow
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has obstructed the administration of justice. He has kept among us, in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has cut off our trade with all parts of the world. He has deprived us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nine years ago, in 2017, on July 4, 2017, NPR did something that it does every year. National Public Radio, npr, they every year, they have their broadcasters read the Declaration of Independence on air in full. In 2017, NPR also posted the Declaration online. They just posted the whole thing unedited, in a long series of tweets. This is an annual tradition for npr. This is how they mark the country's birthday every year. They're refamiliarizing all of us with the words that launched our national bid for independence. And not just the opening lines that we all know so well. Not just when in the course of human events, not just we hold these truths to be self. But they. They did all the words in the Declaration of Independence, the full indictment. Because that's what our Declaration of Independence is. It is an indictment enumerating the crimes of a tyrant. So NPR posts it. They have their staff read it Every year. But in 2017, when they did it, that was Donald J. Trump's first Independence Day as President of the United States. And that year, when NPR did its annual recitation, just like they do every year, fans of our new president heard those words or read those words online, and they thought it was an attack on Donald Trump. Real headline, quote. Some Trump supporters thought NPR tweeted propaganda. It was the Declaration of Independence. Outraged responses to the Declaration's language that day included this. So NPR is calling for revolution. Interesting way to condone violence while trying to sound patriotic. Your implications are clear for this one. Propaganda is all that you know how to do. Try supporting a man who wants to do something about the injustice in this country. And also, this is great just because it's so pathetic. Please stop. This is not the right place. Try Canada. The president's supporters were really, really quite upset. Upset enough that when CNN wrote up the like furor, they had to put it in a clarifying headline that said, no, NPR was not trying to start a revolution. I don't know if any of you guys ever read Mattoblog, which is the blog online for my show. It's written by Steve Bennon, who's been on my show staff from the very beginning. He's one of my best friends, and he has since created a whole running series on all the times Donald Trump and Donald Trump supporters, upon hearing just basic core American principles uttered out loud, assume that those principles are anti Trump criticisms. It is funny and obvious, but it's also like, really a very bullseye analysis, right, of the biggest question facing our country on our 250th birthday. Because one of the core principles of our country, the core principle that led our forebears to found this country, is that we fight tyrants. That's who we are. Not just we don't like tyrants or we have a good analysis of tyranny being bad, but we fight tyrants. And we've done it from day one. It's what we do. It is the whole reason that we exist. Earlier this month, you might remember, first week of this month, we observed the anniversary of D Day, when antifa, or rather the American military launched the largest seaborne invasion in world history. American soldiers pouring out of those landing craft into hurricane force torrents of Nazi bullets and artillery shells. And they forced and forced and forced their way up those beaches at Normandy at unimaginable cost so they could liberate France, so they could ultimately liberate all of Western Europe so the fascists could be Defeated. And. We talked about this on the show, on my show a little bit right after. On the Monday after the anniversary. But I'd like to show you some of how that anniversary was marked. This was Decatur, Alabama, this year, June 6th. D Day vets Fought fascism. This is how it looked in dallas, texas, honored d day vets resist fascism. This is how it looked in vancouver, washington. Vets beat fascism. We can too. Hampton falls, new hampshire. D day heroes equals the og antifa. Lake mary, florida. World war ii vets first anti fascists. Raleigh, north carolina. D day heroes fought fascism. And this is los angeles honor d day fight fascism at home. Literally hundreds of communities this month taking up that message. Americans in our DNA, our foundational value, the thing that makes America a place, the fact that the thing that makes Americans Americans is that we fight fascism, we fight tyrants. We did it back then. We do it still now. We just passed the anniversary of the very first no Kings protest. That huge crowd that came out right here in Philly.
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Announcer/Moderator
Look at that.
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Rachel Maddow
That was you guys. Philly. Philly was the flagship city for the first no Kings Day protest, which will go down as yet another seminal date in the history of fighting fascism in Philadelphia. And of course, Philly was the flagship, right? Philly is the city where we first said no kings 250 years ago. By the third no kings day this past March, Americans managed to pull off the largest single day protest in American history. As the great Ali Velshi was saying earlier, the people who are stepping up in this moment, it's not people you would necessarily have expected to be the first ones out in the streets. It's not people who might have expected that of themselves even just a year or two ago, maybe a month ago, maybe a week ago. But there's something about the character of the protests that I feel like I need to get off my chest, because I feel like I disagree with everybody about it. So I therefore have to keep hammering away at it until somebody agrees with me. But you will often hear people express the worry that a lot of these protests at all, the no Kings demonstrations, for example, you know, all this raucous rabble rousing is gonna alienate the people that we need. It's gonna alienate the people who we think of as moderates or moderate voters. The argument goes, right, that if all the opposition to Trump has to. If what the opposition to Trump looks like is people, you know, yelling in the streets and impolite signs, then middle of the road, particularly older white Americans, right? Grandma's not going to want anything to do with that. So stop being alienated. To which the correct answer is asking grandma. But to which I would also say, have you actually taken a look at Americans protesting lately? Because protests right now in this country have all sorts of people at them, but I take particular joy in the fact that a lot of our protests right now are pretty reliably filled with cotton tops with white haired people who I can tell you are not at all alienated by the impoliteness, who are not at all alienated by the protesting and the shouting. They are joyous and jubilant and fearless and very often funny. In Los Angeles, 94 trips around the sun, one birthday wish. Impeach Trump. Asheville, N.C. trump sandwich, white bread full of bologna with Russian dressing slice small pickle on the side. In San Jose, California. Super callofragile ego. Trump, you are atrocious. Minneapolis, Minnesota now you made grandpa man. And these are the tame ones, you know, some of the grandpas and grandmas, not only are they not alienated from what is going on in the streets, they are the ones that are carrying the signs that I blush about, right? Signs that will like curl the hair of their grandkids on any college campus. I'll give you just one example, a little behind the scenes peek at the production of the Rachel Maudo show in the village of Mount Kisco, New York, where I have never been, about 40 miles north of New York City. Every single weekend in Mount Kisco there is a protest. And this started just a few weeks after Trump's inauguration last year. It started the very first one had three people within a few months, every week there were hundreds and there are chants and sing alongs and at at least one gathering, a reading of what else? The great indictment that is the Declaration of Independence, the grievances against the king, right? All of those protests, all of that action in Mount Kisco was started by a 71 year old retiree who had barely ever protested in his life. But now every week, God bless them, Mount Kisco, they send us photos from that week's protest every week and we get them in time for the news meeting and we pass them around and we comment on the signs every week. There is something you can't put on TV and it is usually from the oldest person at the protest that week, including stuff like a MAGA voter saying but I voted for no new wars. And then Trump pointing to a flag draped coffin and yelling, get in the effing box, grandpa. There's also this white bearded gentleman carrying A sign that depicts Vladimir Putin leading Trump on a leash. Dogs and diapers, I don't know. But there's a diaper involved. I don't know. Here's another Putin one, actually. Putin as a kind of puppet master pulling the strings on Trump while he holds the Epstein files in his other claw, who is really in control. You see what I mean? Edgy, right? I think my favorite thing about this one, though is this, like really kindly, sweet looking older lady. She's holding the sign. She looks so nice. She looks like a crossing guard, right? Look at her hat. Her hat says, F you, Trump, you effing up. Here's your friendly neighbor with a big smile, right? The lady who, like bakes corn muffins for the snowplow guys, right? Here's her showing off her sign
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Hannah (ROE ad)
with
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Rachel Maddow
a drawing of masked ICE agents. We wanted huddled masses, not hooded asses. Now, have you eaten? You look skinny. Write to your aunt. It's her birthday. Here's another gentle lady, the fantastic hat here with the Statue of Liberty making her feelings clear. I mean, if we're taking the temperature here, I've just got to say, America, you have made Grandma and Grandpa mad. And they are not feeling shy about it. I take great strength from this. I feel like our sort of intrinsically moderate, easygoing, responsible, civic minded seniors right now understand the assignment, right? They perhaps more than anyone know how serious this problem is. They are very clear on what to do about it. And I feel like I am learning from our elders every day. And yes, You know, we root for the younger generations. We hope and fear from them, and we learn from them, too. But honestly, don't sleep on our elders right now. We fight tyrants in this country. And the older you are as an American, the more you might know how to do that. So Ali talked earlier about Selma, Alabama, the site of violence and moral triumph and one of America's great moral reckonings. During the Civil rights movement last month, thousands of people turned out in Selma again and Montgomery again after the U.S. supreme Court essentially rescinded the Voting Rights act of 1965. And as Republicans in every state of the former Confederacy tripped over themselves trying to eliminate almost every black congressional district in the South. As Republicans push not just new congressional maps, but new state legislative maps that could eliminate nearly half the majority black legislative districts in the South. The moral cornerstone achievements of the American Civil rights movement are being rescinded in what this year amounts to a nationwide convulsion of Republican white power politics. But they are not doing it without a Fight. Last week, did you see what it looked like when hundreds of people flooded the state Capitol in Georgia? Did you see that footage. Protesting Republicans trying to erase Georgia's black congressional and legislative districts? People flooded the state Capitol. And in the face of those unexpectedly large protests, at the very last moment, Georgia Republicans canceled their plans to establish the new maps. They gave in. They gave up. I'm not a big lottery fan because math and stuff, but I do like that slogan, you can't win if you don't play. Pushback doesn't always work, but you lose every fight that you don't fight. And sometimes when you do fight, you win. And what we are seeing, with leadership from African American communities in particular, is that morally legible, non violent, principled protest works. Yes. Now even in 2026. And yes, Georgia Republicans may yet bring back their plan to impose those new maps, especially if this November, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Keisha Lance Bottoms, is elected as Georgia's first black woman governor. We expect, If Keisha Lance Bottoms wins that seat, and I think she will, Republicans may very well try to lock in as many white Republican districts as they can before she takes office. And so that fight is joined, but not yet over in Georgia. But what that means to us is just the comfort of certainty in knowing that the fight to stop them will continue. And that means Americans can plan for that now. Americans can organize for that now. And, you know, if you've ever thought of what you would have done had you been around and alive during the civil rights movement, here's your chance to show it. So we are in the middle of a really radical effort in this country to, I believe, try to get rid of our constitutional republic and specifically to get rid of the multiracial democracy that our Constitution is supposed to protect. That attack has included a concerted focus on black Americans, on trying to hurt black Americans. On his first day in office, Trump declared war on diversity efforts, not only in government, but also in institutions. He has no control over institutions. From law firms to private businesses to schools of every stripe, he immediately started firing some of the highest profile black public officials in government, almost all of the highest profile black public officials in the government. When he and his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, started getting rid of huge swaths of the federal government, they targeted their cuts disproportionately to hit agencies that disproportionately had higher numbers of black workers. There has been a rule in place since 1965 that bans federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race. Color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Federal contractors cannot discriminate. That rule has been there since 1965. On Donald Trump's first full day in office, he rescinded that rule. Less than a month later, Trump administration announced another rule change. And I have talked about this a few times in public, and I can tell from the reaction every time I talk about it that people think I'm leaving something out, that it can't really just be what I'm saying. But I swear to you, it is. Less than a month after rescinding the rule about federal contractors being able to discriminate, he rescinded another decades old rule. The rule that tells government contractors they cannot have segregated facilities. Trump rescinded that. So segregated facilities are okay. Under Donald Trump, the federal government is no longer enforcing the Fair Housing act, which since 1968 has made it illegal to refuse to rent to someone or refuse to sell a house to someone on the basis of their race. And he did all of that before the hardline conservative majority on the Supreme Court, including all of Trump's appointees, voted to end the Voting Rights Act. He did all of that before that. In Justice Elena Kagan's dissent in the voting rights case, she said that that court majority ruling will likely cause the largest reduction in minority representation since the end of Reconstruction. And one of the most important questions for all of us right now on our collective birthday, on this 250th birthday of our nation, is whether or not it is going to fall on black Americans to defend themselves and to defend the legacy of the civil rights movement, or whether we see all of that as all of our legacy and whether we are all going to stand together on that. And so we're going to talk about that tonight. We're going to talk about the treatment of immigrants. We're going to talk about the treatment of refugees in that ruling with civil rights lawyer and national treasurer Sherilyn Ifill. Earlier this month, Sherrilyn Ifill asked this. She said, are you prepared to stand and watch as black political representation is erased? Do you yet understand that this is also your fight if you hope to live in a democracy? And in that moment, she was speaking specifically to America's legal establishment, but I think she might as well have been speaking to all of us. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to welcome to the stage the Vernon Jordan Distinguished professor in Civil Rights, the founder of the 14th Amendment center for Law and Democracy at Howard Law School. Please give it up for Sherrilyn Ifill.
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Announcer/Moderator
Coming up, Rachel talks to Cheryl and Ifill about the forces that could shape the next chapter of American democracy. And later, we take questions from the audience. This is America 250 country at a crossroads.
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Livy Dunn
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Sierra Miller
You know that thing where you get
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Rachel Maddow
an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it?
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Margaret Wells
Yeah.
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Sierra Miller
So do we.
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Rachel Maddow
Here at Designer Shoe Warehouse.
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Sierra Miller
We'll give you something to brag about,
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Rachel Maddow
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Sierra Miller
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Rachel Maddow
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Announcer/Moderator
DSW.
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Sierra Miller
Let us surprise you.
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Rachel Maddow
Do you ever think about an alternate universe in which Donald Trump isn't president and you're on the Supreme Court? Because I think about that all the time. All the time.
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Sierra Miller
This Supreme Court.
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Rachel Maddow
Yes.
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Sierra Miller
No, no.
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Rachel Maddow
I remember it dawning on me sometime during Joe Biden's term in office that the next occupant of the White House was going to oversee the United States hosting the Olympics and the United States hosting the World cup and the United States hosting our own 250th anniversary. And guess who we got to do all that. What do you make of the administration's approach to the 250th?
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Sierra Miller
Trump's recognition of the 250th is like a child's birthday party. You know, when you're a kid and you have a birthday party, first of all, you're counting your age. You know, you're saying, I'm five and three quarters, I'm six and a half, you know, and on that day, it's ice cream, and you're just celebrating that day, and it's just wonderful. And you get lots of presents, and it's great when you get older and you have a birthday, like some of us, let's say you have a 50th birthday on that day, you're kind of celebrating the whole thing. You're thinking about all the experiences that brought you to that moment. There may be people there from across the arc of your life who are celebrating with you. Sometimes you don't even want to have a big party. You want to kind of reflect. Like it's a whole thing. It's about the whole you. Trump is not capable of that. And to celebrate a country's 250th anniversary, to just celebrate, let's say, the Declaration one day or one year, 1776, and not celebrate the entire arc of the country is childish. It's immature, it's silly, it doesn't serve us in any way. It doesn't teach us anything. The story of this country is not a story written about one day and one war. The story is about an incredibly imperfect country with a very high vision of what it could be falling short of the mark. Like, right from the beginning, because you talked about the Declaration and we must talk about the Preamble, we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal. Wow. That is like, right up there. That is huge. That is important. And then we get a constitution in 1789 that says we're going to count enslaved people as three fifths of a person, and we're going to allow the United States to continue to participate in the international slave trade until 1808. So we start right out falling short of the mark. And all of those compromises in that first constitution are what kind of lead us to the Civil War, which you and Ali were talking about, and the Reconstruction period. So it's a place of imperfection and a constant striving to be Better. And that's why I'm so enamored of the Reconstruction period, because here we are with a country that is broken in half, literally. We've gone through this terrible war. 600,000Americans have been killed in this war, the most of any war that we've participated in in this country. And at the end of that war, as the Union is attempting to come together, the person who was leading the country is assassinated in a Confederate conspiracy that meant to assassinate him and the vice president and the Secretary of State. Does it get more bleak than that moment? And in that moment, these people come together to try to create this new nation. And the top priority is integrating 4 million black people who had been deemed by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case in 1856, 1857, to not be citizens. That is, whether they were enslaved or free, said the Chief justice, Roger Taney, black people could not be citizens. So now you have all of these stateless persons in the country. 180,000 black troops served in the Civil War. You have this incredible abolitionist movement that has now come to the point of its work. The Emancipation Proclamation almost immediately follows in 1863, and then in 1866, the 13th amendment. And they have to figure out what to do to make this country, to try to get to that declaration. And they do this incredible thing. They stitch this country together in a way that is imperfect, but that brings us closer to that goal. They finally go back over the first Constitution and pull this promise of equality from the declaration to include the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment. The word equal does not appear in our constitution before 1868. So the story of our. Like, we're missing all the good stuff, all the good bits, right?
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Rachel Maddow
Yes.
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Sierra Miller
The beginning, you know, the war and the fighting of tyrants and all of the work that went into the formation of the country. And across the square, you know, the guys sitting in the room writing, you know, the Constitution in the heat of the summer and the whole thing. You know, you've seen Hamilton, you know what it's all about. But are we going to give up these other moments? Are we going to give up this second founding after the Civil War, and we live in the country of the second founding. We don't actually live in that first one. We live in the country, the accumulated country that comes after the second founding.
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Announcer/Moderator
More with Rachel and constitutional law expert Sherrilyn Ifill.
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Rachel Maddow
Next, we need to pull together and make sure that we, we the people, come together as one unit and demonstrate what this country is all about. The other thing that I have my eyes on with the Court, particularly with these voting cases, is that if I were a despot, say, and I wanted to nullify or ignore or steal the results of the next election because I didn't think they were going to go my way, what I would prioritize, hypothetically, I would prioritize making sure that the elections were chaotic and making sure that they seemed a little dodgy. And with the Court's ruling in this voting rights evisceration, we saw the states rush to literally throw away votes from voters who had already cast votes in ongoing elections, to cancel elections that were already underway, to create enormous chaos. In some states right now, people are voting when it is not at all clear what districts they are voting in. But that chaos is because they're rushing through these changes in order to attack black political power, and they're doing it very close to the election. So we've got the incredible precarity and scapegoating of refugees. And I think what we've got is the court intervening to problematize the elections in the face of a despot who I think wants to make sure that they don't seem legit.
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Announcer/Moderator
Go.
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Sierra Miller
I agree with you about the elections. All the things the Court has said in the past about you can't change things close to an election, and yet they did. Louisiana versus Calais. So, I mean, it's whatever they say it is. And, yes, I believe that there will be efforts to try and intimidate voters in this election. I think we should expect to see some effort to try to bring National Guard members out to the polls. I think, you know, Trump also has kind of, you know, itinerant supporters who like to make mischief as well, and I think they will be part of this. We have seen already the seizing of ballots. We have seen that the Trump administration now has instructed the United States Postal Service that they are not to deliver ballots from those states where those states have not turned over their voter data to ICE and to the federal government. And that is, of course, being litigated. What will the Supreme Court do with that? I mean, I don't know. So I think we are facing some very, very serious challenges, and that's why I was so distressed at the low turnout in the primary. I don't think we get more than one shot at this. The bleeding is just too much. And the only way to stop the bleeding is to get control of the only potential branch of government we can get control of this year, which is Congress. And that when that control happens. When that control happens, Congress has to begin immediately to move on Supreme Court reform. And I say this because. And I can tell you, I can tell you I was not a big, like, you know, add justices to the Supreme Court person. I wasn't. I sat on Biden's commission on the Supreme Court. I did think we needed ethics reform. I did think we needed many other elements of reform. But I was a little hesitant on the, on the personnel changes. There's. This is not legitimate, what is happening right now. This is not law. This is not law.
- [38:15]
DSW/ROE Ad Voice
And
- [38:18]
Sierra Miller
so I still respect the institution. We should remember that there's nothing lawless about adding justices to the Supreme Court. The Constitution has that power. I mean, the. Excuse me, wait, let me get it right. The Congress. The Congress has that power because people are trying to convince us that it's like this crazy, terrible, lawless thing to do. And it's not. We haven't always had nine justices. We've had six. We had eight. Shoot, Mitch McConnell wouldn't let Barack Obama fulfill that seat. We had eight. Nobody cared, apparently. So they don't. It doesn't have to be nine. And as long as there is a process for doing so, we need to reform that. We need an ethics code. We need to change the way we do Supreme Court confirmation. That whole process is trash as well. So I think that there's a lot of work to be done, and that's the work of democracy. That's the citizenship work. And I say this now because you are going to have elected officials, elected officials that you voted for, who are going to be very hesitant about Supreme Court reform. And it's going to be your job to pressure them to use the power that they have. To save this country. And so I remind people that we were founded a second time, we will need to be founded a third time. And it's on us. And that's the exciting part. We get to be the founders and the framers of the new iteration of American democracy. If we are willing to do it, there's nothing that stops us from doing it. And so that's the opportunity of this moment. We hit 250, and then we needed to restart again. And so that's the work that is before us.
- [40:02]
Rachel Maddow
Sherrilyn Ifill is the former president of the Legal Defense Fund. She is now at Howard University Law School. And you are one of my great heroes, Carolyn. Thank you so much.
- [40:18]
Announcer/Moderator
Coming up, we take audience questions, including one from a teenager who asks what her generation can do starting now to strengthen American democracy.
- [40:26]
Livy Dunn
I'M Livy Dunn, All American gymnast and Vuori athlete. When you travel and train as much as I do, you find happiness where you are on the mat or on the sand. Movement and comfort are essential. That's why I live in performance. Joggers by vuori. Made from Dream Net fabric that's made of 89% recycled materials, effortlessly soft and made to move as much as I do. My happiness starts here in the softest joggers on the planet. Get 20% off your first purchase at Vuori.com Libby that's V U-O-R-I.com L I V-V Y exclusions apply. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on US orders over $75 and free returns. Go to Vuori.com Libby and discover the full versatility of Vuori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.
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- [42:15]
Rachel Maddow
All right, we're back. I'm here with the great Allie Velshi and Jen Psaki to finish out tonight's event. The three of us are have a lot of feelings about taking your questions. We're supposed to be excited, but we are both excited. And other things. Let's start right here.
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Margaret Wells
Hi, my name is Margaret Wells.
- [42:37]
Rachel Maddow
I'm from right over the Bridge in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
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Livy Dunn
Great.
- [42:43]
Rachel Maddow
And my question is for Jen. What are the most effective strategies for challenging factual disinformation when objective evidence is openly rejected by a highly loyal political base? How do we break through echo chambers to reestablish a shared sense of reality.
- [43:03]
Sierra Miller
Good question.
- [43:03]
Announcer/Moderator
What a great question. I'm gonna start with this. I still think facts are the best antidote to lies. And I think part of it is how you frame those facts and how you tell the story of what those facts are. Because I think it doesn't work. Listen, I worked in the federal government for two presidents. We love a fact sheet. We love it if it's 75 pages. That is not how most people are consuming information. So I think part of it is how it's being packaged and how it is being used as a means of bringing people into the story of something and not just spitting out data points to them, if that makes sense. I also think that. And I don't think any of us are, but nobody should be fragile about the formats through which we're communicating. Right. It doesn't require the facts, only being in a piece in the Economist. It is okay if you go on Instagram and do a video because you know who's listening to you. Probably you more than even us. Your neighbors and people in your community and people who trust you and know you and sharing what the facts are there. Because the other piece I would say that I have learned and I very much believe in is that it depends on the voices who are delivering the information is also very important and so valid. Voices. Trusted voices. Yes, it's Sherrilyn Ifill. Yes, it's Josh Shapiro. But it is also each of you to your neighbors and your friends and your cousins and your brothers. And remember the power of that, too. It's all of that.
- [44:38]
Rachel Maddow
Yeah. And the only thing I would add to that is just show your work. If you're going to be talking to somebody about something and you've heard them tell you a story or tell you something that you know is not factually true, when you want to go back to them with the facts, show them where you got the facts. You don't need to have the book in hand, but you can show how you got to the book. You can show a screenshot. You can show whatever you do. I just feel like transparency and helping people be more literate about the sources of their information not only makes you more trustworthy in what you're saying, but it also helps people learn to do that themselves. Yes, hello.
- [45:12]
Margaret Wells
Hello. I am 17 years old and I live in Society Hill.
- [45:17]
Rachel Maddow
Welcome.
- [45:17]
Margaret Wells
Anybody? Come in.
- [45:18]
Molly (Teen Audience Member)
Excellent.
- [45:20]
Margaret Wells
I recently went on a service trip to New Mexico, and I came in contact with these refugees at this building where the parents learn Arabic and the children do, like, everyday activities like you would normally do at a summer camp. And I saw this one girl in particular, she was particularly quiet. So my job was to kind of just like be around, you know, talk to her, make sure that she feels included. And we somehow got on the topic and she goes, molly, I'm scared. And I say, what are you scared about? Like, we're at like the summer camp type of thing. There shouldn't be anything you're scared about, whether it's like a roach or something stupid. And she goes, no, I'm scared that I'm going to be sent back. And I said, sent back where? And she says, no, I'm going to be sent back to Syria and then I'm not going to be able to get back. And hearing that. As a 17 year old who is more of an empath than apparently some of my peers, I see that I almost started crying. I sat there and I hugged her. And I just was wondering, as somebody who knows that they're going to be the next generation of the government, somebody who's going to be holding this government together pretty soon. I was wondering if you had any advice for any of us, even as somebody who can't even vote yet, what should we be doing before we reach that age where we're going to have to inherit this government?
- [46:36]
Molly (Teen Audience Member)
She's doing it. She's doing it.
- [46:38]
Livy Dunn
Yeah.
- [46:40]
Molly (Teen Audience Member)
You're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing, being here, asking us that question. You're doing it.
- [46:47]
Sierra Miller
But you hugged her.
- [46:49]
Molly (Teen Audience Member)
That's what Rachel was just saying. If someone feels like they're the other, hug them. They are your neighbor, they are your people. That must have done something very important to her to say, I'm scared someone here is thinking about keeping me safe. Because I think once you start thinking about something, the road between thinking about it and doing something is very short. At that point, you're ready. I hope you grow up faster than science allows and take over the government.
- [47:18]
Margaret Wells
Thank you.
- [47:19]
Molly (Teen Audience Member)
That's amazing.
- [47:20]
Announcer/Moderator
I would just add, I mean, never lose your empathy. I mean, people who are twice, three times, four times your age in government, the best public servants are empathetic. They care about the people they represent, they care about the things they're working on. And empathy is the greatest driver of excellence. Excellent governance and excellent public service. So keep that story in your heart and don't change that part of who you are as you're kind of ambitiously moving forward in the world.
- [47:50]
Rachel Maddow
Anybody else want to vote for Molly for president? Thank you so, so, so, so, so much for coming tonight. It is our privilege and our honor to be able to look you in the eye and say, thank you for watching Ms. Now. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for coming out tonight. Let's do it again sometime. Thank you so much. It's been a great night.
- [48:32]
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