Pod Save America - “Denouncing Nazis is so fucking easy.”

Episode Date: August 14, 2017

White supremacists and neo-Nazis descend on Charlottesville to provoke violence, and President Trump gives a statement where he refuses to condemn them. Then DeRay Mckesson talks to Jon, Jon, and Tommy about his perspective on Charlottesville, and immigrants rights activist Julissa Arce joins in studio to discuss what we can do about new threats to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we will be joined by the host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson. And then later, we're going to talk to immigrant rights activist, Jalissa Arce. She will be right here in studio. She's going to join us. Studio's the best. Studio's the best.

Melissa Arce. She will be right here in studio. She's going to join us. Studio's the best. Studio's the best. Okay. We want to talk about Charlottesville today and first set up the context of what happened. In February of this year, the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee after a local high school student organized a petition that received hundreds of signatures from the city's residents. They also renamed Lee Park Emancipation Park. Because of this, a group of white supremacists and neo-Nazis from all over the country decided to hold a protest in Charlottesville this weekend on Saturday. They brought Confederate flags, they brought Nazi symbols, torches, and weapons, some military grade. They chanted racial epithets and gay epithets and things like

Jews will not replace us. And one of them, a neo-Nazi, committed an act of domestic terrorism by ramming a crowd of protesters with his car, injuring at least 19 and killing one, a 32-year-old woman named Heather Heyer. On Sunday, the Department of Justice announced it was opening a civil rights investigation into the attack. Tommy Leavitt, before we get to Trump and have to start talking about him, what were some of your first reactions as you saw this unfold on Saturday? I sort of found myself not feeling that surprised. I just, this felt like a culmination of a lot of different forces that had been roiling under the surface. You know, we'd seen these protests around Confederate monuments. We'd seen the wink and the nod from the Bannons of the

world to these elements that are feeling more and more empowered. We've seen just, I mean, look, you can look across the kind of fringes of the right and all the elements of this are there. You see a more radical version of the NRA emerging. You see the rise of people like Alex Jones becoming more and more prominent. You see the kind of racist websites like Breitbart giving people license to say things and do things. And I don't know, I guess I saw a lot of people that couldn't believe it was happening. And not to say that I'm some prescient person, but it just seemed like that. Of course, this is a tinderbox. Of course, this kind of forces will emerge when you have a president who very clearly chooses to treat white nationalism, white supremacy with kid gloves.

The most dangerous force in American history is violent racism with tacit permission from the government. Tommy? So, I mean, I should stipulate that, like, on a personal level, and this is not about me, I'm a white Christian male. I'm the least overtly threatened by any of these groups of any sort of cohort in the United States. But my little sister lives in Charlottesville, and she's the same age of the woman who was killed. And so getting a call from your sister who's scared shitless because Nazis and Klansmen overran her town is a really frightening, terrible thing. I think that is in some ways it's unsurprising because these same horrible people have been doing these sorts of rallies for a long time. I think it is hopefully

a wake up call because I think we've we've dealt with a lot of euphemisms since the Trump election. We've talked about the alt-right. We've talked about white nationalists. These are white supremacists. They're Nazis. I think a lot of my instinct sometimes is to mock them and to ridicule them because, you know, I can't do anything more overt. But I think we have to make sure we don't do that anymore. We have to take them deadly seriously because these are people who are committing acts of terrorism. They're murdering people in the streets. It's not funny. It is not a joke.

It is deadly serious and dangerous and horribly frightening for a lot of people in this country who witness this shit. this shit. Yeah. So President of the United States responded to the terrorist attack by saying that he, quote, condemned hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. And later in the statement said that we should, quote, cherish our history. As The New York Times noted, he is the only national political figure of either party to spread the blame on both sides. I mean, to me, the only thing you need to know about Trump's remarks is what the country's largest white supremacist media outlet said in response, which is, quote, he didn't attack us, refused to answer a question about white nationalists supporting him, no condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him. Yeah, it is so easy to condemn violence,

terrorism, Nazis and Klansmen. Those are no brainers. The fact that they like start going back to 2015 when he wouldn't condemn David Duke. And then that happened again throughout the campaign. The fact that he needs to be pulled kicking and screaming to say anything negative about this people says everything you need to know. I am so sick of these people that are like expressing disappointment or concern or really wish he would be more voiceful. He made a choice. He is choosing not to condemn these people, to send a message to someone, to send a message about his own arrogance and his own sense of grievance that he's attacked by some fictitious fucking group on the left. And this weekend, I think, was a breaking point, I hope, for a lot of people to because you saw like Ted Cruz coming out and very forcefully condemning what happened. You saw Orrin Hatch saying, my brother didn't die fighting the Nazis for this to happen on our streets. So like our president is on an island in a way that he has never been for his entire

administration and he can't fix it now. He made a choice. And let me like what Ted Cruz and all of them said, like that's the least, it's literally the least you can say and do to condemn this stuff. It is. And then he, and then Donald Trump wasn't even able to do that. Yeah, and it's also not surprising. You see people hoping he'll do more, and he doesn't want to do more.

And it's not an accident, and it flows directly from the way that he's run this campaign. From the beginning, it starts with his campaign against the Central Park Five. It's his the racist policies of Trump's father and then Trump's company on on housing. It continues with him becoming a birther. And it continues now in the White House with Bannon running around, having himself said that BarkBart was a platform for the alt-right. And so, of course, he's going to do as little as possible. They have made a choice that this in some way helps them politically, that all these denunciations come from people he never had, and that sending this quiet signal to the worst elements of our

country will help him politically in ways I don't fully understand. The Republicans sort of denouncing this, it's great that they're doing that. And it's great that they're calling it for what it is. As John said, it's the least they can do. Many of them continue to support Donald Trump. Many of them supported him, even though he was a birther. Many of these senators with their strong statements also voted to put a birther on the federal court. So denunciations are lovely, but I don't really have a really wonderful point. I'm just sort of thinking about the ways in which the conservative movement has either embraced or refused to reject

the elements that they viewed as necessary to their success. The stoking of racial grievance that has gone on for decades that went on under Nixon and Reagan that continued with the Willie Horton ad that continues to this day with the way in which the NRA puts out videos, basically. The NRA has just become like a government paramilitary organization and have nothing to do with gun rights. Right. You know, threatening the New York Times, but of course, having nothing to say about Philando Castile. So, you know, this is a symptom of a larger problem. And the thing is, you know, people always say, you know, Donald Trump isn't the disease. He's a symptom of the disease,

but it's the symptoms that kill you. Jamel Bowie wrote an important piece in Slate about the absence of his inability to condemn these groups on Saturday was incredibly telling. But he also goes out on the stump and uses this vivid language all the time to describe immigrant on citizen violence and murder. He talks about gang members slicing up and torturing young girls. It is absolutely designed to scare people, to divide communities. This was the entire thrust of his convention speech. His biggest moment on the world stage was about scaring the hell out of people in the name of law and order. And yet he cannot come down and talk about law and order in the context of putting terrorist Nazis in jail. Terrorists who mowed down innocent people, which deserves all the same vivid language and treatment,

but of course he could never muster it. So as we're recording this on Monday morning, the president is, I think, delivering statements where he is supposed to say racism is evil and actually call out these groups by name and whatever. Fine. It's too fucking late. It doesn't matter. We saw who he is on Saturday. I think there is a bit of a consequence of, you know, a lot of the media is covering this as, oh, he missed his moment, right? Like he whiffed on this. He wasn't presidential. A real leader would do X and Y and Z. And all of that is true. But I think the consequence of treating it like theater criticism,

which I don't think people do intentionally, but it just sort of happens with the way we cover things, is Trump makes a statement this afternoon. A lot of people say, well, he missed a moment. That's a stain on his presidency. But, you know, tune in for the next episode of the worst reality show in America when, you know, last week we're on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea. This week we have Nazis running through the streets. And next week Trump tweets something else. You know, like, I don't think we move on from this. You know, like, this is just thinking about what you were just saying about all the things he did that were racist throughout his career.

Right. Like he started his presidential campaign talking about how Mexicans are rapists and Barack Obama is an African born imposter. Right. Like he talked about a judge couldn't be fair because he was Mexican. I mean, this man is racist. He's a racist. And he is the president of the United States. And that doesn't, I don't care what he does. I don't care what moves he makes. I don't care what he says. I don't care what strategy he engages in. It doesn't change it.

From now until the day he leaves office, it does not change it. Yeah. So they're going to try to clean it up today. Of course, the first thing that Trump did this morning was, you know, Kenneth Frazier, who's the CEO of Merck Pharmaceutical, resigned from the president's manufacturing council over Trump's refusal to condemn white supremacists. And Trump immediately tweets an attack at him.

And his response to this individual leaving his council, which, by the way, if you are still on one of these advisory councils and you're a business leader, you should leave right now. There's major CEOs, the CEO of Boeing, Pepsi, get off the councils. It is adding no value to the country or to you as an individual, and it is damaging your reputation and your company's reputation this very moment. Don't wait for your fucking comms meeting.

Don't wait for your strategist that you're paying a huge retainer to. Don't wait for the dumb advice. Just be a human being. Look at this. You know it's wrong. Just make the move. Don't wait for the fucking advice. Just be a human being. Look at this. You know it's wrong. Just make the move. Don't wait for the fucking shareholders. Just get off the fucking council. You're paying somebody

15 grand a month to tell you that actually you can stay or not stay. Who's going to tell you? Look, the bottom line is people will understand why you stay and they'll understand

why you won't stay. Should we do consultant speak? No. Look, this is a tinderbox. Obviously, this is something that could blow over. There's a lot of people hoping that you'd step off and obviously, there's some benefits to doing that, But I think you have a fair case to make about your value to the committee.

Get off the fucking committees. grievance and his own feeling that he's being treated unfairly or whatever. That means the best case scenario here is that he is a selfish, self-absorbed, myopic, awful person and not a horrible racist. I think it's probably a big mix of both. There's obviously racism. He's also a megalomaniac. And when he's told that he did something wrong, he refuses to fix that in any way. And so, you know, we're not watching the statement today, but I am sure the statement today will be through gritted teeth and the absolute least he

can do. And he'll talk about how annoyed he is of having to give it. And you saw like Trump's number one apologist, Mike Pence say, you know, boy, he really wished the media would focus as much of its time condemning the hateful acts as they do the president, because political reporters in Washington are supposed to cover events on the ground in Charlottesville and not the president who they cover. It's the dumbest, most pathetic, self-serving spin. And you're also seeing this garbage from Fox and Friends and Fox and right wing commenters who are just spinning like pathetic tops to try to defend this man, no matter how hypocritical it is, no matter how stupid it is on a policy level. Like, I don't know if you guys saw Jake Tapper's interview with Tom Bossert, who's the president's Homeland

Security Advisor. But he tried to claim that Trump didn't name the groups because he didn't want to dignify them, which like, let's attack this level of stupid from a couple different directions. First of all, Trump's sole criticism of Barack Obama's ISIS policy is that he wouldn't name radical Islamic groups, right? So on that level, it's really stupid. Second, he does events about ISIS. He does events about MS-13. He names names all the time. This is not about dignity. This is about the fact that Nazis and Klansmen beat people with clubs on the streets and killed a woman with a car. And he can't condemn that by name. It is sad.

It's pathetic. It's baffling. And it's exact. It's by design. It's by design. Which is the worst part. It is not a surprise. These Republicans hoping he'll do something else are lying to us and they're lying to themselves.

You know, this is a person. Donald Trump is Donald Trump. He is the same dotty old racist that he was the day he took the oath. And those of us who said that he was a threat to the country, that he was incompetent and dangerous and racist have been proven right at every turn. And people like Paul Ryan and the rest of them that did as little as possible to stop it, who embraced him when necessary to support their agenda, have continued to sell out their country and they will do as little as possible now. And it is their great and permanent moral shame. So quick update. He's saying things like no matter the color of our skin, we all salute the same flag. He's talking about hatred, bigotry and violence, apparently condemning them under pressure.

He's talking about hatred, bigotry and violence, apparently condemning them under pressure. So, you know, this is him getting around to doing the bare minimum. And he said KKK and neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups are repugnant. Sure. David Duke was out there saying they were there to fulfill the Trump agenda legacy. I forget the exact word he used. So you have an obligation to condemn him. But this exactly like this is why you pointed this out. All the focus on pleading him to say the right thing, imploring him to say

the right thing. It just it sort of misses the mark. Right. Like he had he had one moment to say the right thing. And that was as soon as this happened. And that revealed his true self. And his decision to not do it right away, to say many sides, it will not be lost on his supporters that it took him three days to say this. Of course not. They will say and know, they will know correctly that he said what he wanted to say and then under pressure as a bomb to the rest of the country, which doesn't agree with them, this collection of white nationalists and the president. That, you know, he said what he had to say, but we all know where he really, where his heart lies. Friend of the pod, our former colleague Ben Rhodes was talking about this on ABC News. There are these crucible moments when you're president. There was Charleston for Barack Obama.

There was 9-11 with George W. Bush. There's Oklahoma City with President Clinton. When you are called on by the nation to go out and be the head of state and to unify people and to speak in terms that can help heal wounds and bring people together. And he chose to do the absolute opposite. He abdicated his moral authority as president of the United States. And that will be a major piece of his legacy. And you know what? He didn't abdicate his moral authority. He never had it. He will never have it. He is a pretend president and the greatest mistake we've ever made. And don't look to him. Don't expect anything from him. Work around him. That's just how it is. I do try to think about what Republican voters will see and read and hear over the next couple days. And, you know, it's not as obvious as them turning on their TVs or opening up newspapers and

saying, you know, no, no, no, the white nationalists, the white supremacists are good, right? It's going to be a little more subtle than that. They're going to turn on Fox. And like you said, Tommy, Fox is going to basically take the line that Mike Pence took, which is, this is a media creation. The media cares more about what Donald Trump did or didn't say than talking about the issue at hand. They're going to do, as we've already seen, the false equivalents, the gross false equivalents, which, well, there's mobs on the left, too. There's violence on the left. Some people are saying alt-left and alt-right, as if the people who were there to oppose Nazis and white supremacists are somehow equivalent to the Nazis and white supremacists.

Which is literally impossible. Unless they had murdered someone, there is no equivalence to be drawn, period. But I mean, and the other to your point about Fox, like what's happening is these views, these Nazi views, these white supremacist views are being laundered through the prism of white equality. We just want to get back to where affirmative action isn't giving others a leg up on us. And it is it is this bullshit, manufactured, right-wing Fox News grievance that is being regurgitated by the president of the United States. And it is selling this idea that, you know, something has been taken away from white people and they need to get it back, which is why Make America Great Again and the NRA videos that you guys were talking about earlier are particularly dangerous because it's fomenting this uprising and this grievance that is being sold in this media. And, you know, these guys all want to act as though their hands aren't dirty because they don't say the second sentence. They just say the first sentence.

You know, the NRA just says the first sentence, right? They put out the incitement. They put out the grievance. But they don't say what to do with it, right? They don't say the next thing you're supposed to do. So why is it on them? But, you know, these people are playing with fire every day. You know, Fox News, that group of people on Fox and Friends, what Sean Hannity does every night, these people are playing with incredibly dangerous forces and they are sending a powerful message to people. Look, it is not a coincidence that we are seeing white nationalists on the street during the Trump presidency. It is a natural result.

When you hear the governor of Virginia or the mayor of Charlottesville say that the people who are there with these Nazi groups were better armed than the police forces, you're right. That's the second half of that sentence. It's go buy weapons, arm yourself, be prepared. And that was displayed in a very frightening way this weekend. There were weapons caches found around town, which Governor McAuliffe says to DeRay, and we'll talk to him more about that. Sarah Jones in the New Republic was talking about how the Republican Party in general bears responsibility here. She pointed out that in May, the North Carolina House of Representatives passed a bill that would legally protect drivers who run over protesters in the streets. Shocking.

We've seen Corey Stewart, who ran against Ed Gillespie for the GOP nomination for governor in Virginia. He lost that nomination narrowly after defending the Robert E. Lee statue that white supremacists gathered to defend on Saturday. He's now running as an independent. So I don't know if you guys saw, there's a picture of, love it, your friend, Dirty Dean Heller. He was in a picture with one of the people that was at the rally. And everyone said, oh, Dean Heller didn't know this person. That's not the point. The point was this kid was the head of the college Republicans at the University of Nevada in Reno.

So Dean Heller aside, the fact that the head of the college Republicans at the University of Nevada in Reno. So Dean Heller aside, the fact that the head of the college Republicans at this university ended up at this rally, there is, I think, Republicans need to face that there is a broader racist rot at the center of their party, and there has been for a long time. Yeah. These are people that are in our communities. They are, they have jobs. They are part of local Republican committees. They are part of the community. It is, I think, a false comfort to say, oh, these are the dregs of our society.

These are the worst people. And plenty of them are. Of course, plenty of them are. Plenty of them, these are just aggrieved, broken, angry losers. But some of them are college students and business owners and others, as it has always been.

As it was for the KKK. Of course. Yep. And that's why it's so important to take them deadly seriously. But talking about these monuments for a minute, like the Charlottesville statue went up in 1924. But a lot of these Confederate monuments were put up in support of Jim Crow around when the civil rights movement was gaining momentum. They were explicit rejections of equality and a defense of slavery. And I think a lot of times this all gets couched in this bullshit spin of history and heritage and these

gross euphemisms. We got to call this stuff out for what it is. If you can't put yourself in the shoes of an African-American kid having to walk by a Robert E. Lee statue and what that would mean to you and what that says to you about what that individual wanted for your future, you have an empathy problem that is deep and scary and needs to be fixed. If you want to read a speech from a real leader about this issue, you should go back and read Mitch Landrieu's speech when they took the statue down in New Orleans.

And I will say I mentioned, and Brian Boitler wrote a piece about this today too, but I think the most chilling words in Trump's statement was at the end when he said, we must all cherish our history, which, you know, Trump's too much of the end when he said, we must all cherish our history. Yeah. Which, you know, Trump's too much of a fucking idiot to probably know what that means. But Stephen Miller. Stephen Bannon. Stephen Miller.

Stephen Miller or Stephen Bannon or one of them wrote that line. And that is a fucking defense of the statue. He wasn't just saying many sides. That was implicitly taking a side. Can I make one other point? just saying many sides he was that was implicitly taking a side okay mother point if you're on tv comparing black lives matter to what happened over the weekend you are a moron you need to stop what you're doing and think for a second about the genesis of that group because it's a group that simply asked uh that we focus on the fact that african americans were getting shot in the streets

at a massively disproportionate rate than whites or other races in this country. Innocent African-Americans. Innocent kids were getting shot by cops. It is a movement to try to stop that killing from happening. There is no comparison. This is a movement to stop a racist statue from being taken down. That's the difference. So I want to talk about public opinion a little bit on this just because I noticed someone had tweeted, and Lovett, you had interviewed Josh Green about that Bannon book.

And Bannon in that book says, they were talking about how Hillary gave that speech condemning Trump's ties to white supremacy, white nationalism, Bannon, all the rest. And they had asked Bannon about that, and he said, well, you know, we tested the race stuff. It doesn't move anyone who wasn't already in her camp. Cool, Steve. Brag about that. Well, and I think that the hard thing that we have to confront, too, is that this may not dent Trump's approval. Right.

All the people who are with him might still be with him. All the people who are not with him might not be with him. Or maybe it does. Maybe it does around the edges. But this is one of those things where it may not be the politically smart thing to talk about this all the time.

But this is one of those moments where it's like, I don't fucking care. I don't care. This isn't like, what do we do with the Democratic Party? Should we not talk? No, no, no, no.

This is way bigger than that. Literal Nazis and Klansmen in the street and they're like, well, you Democrats are always playing identity politics. Are you kidding me? The Wall Street Journal editorial today used this as an opportunity

to stick up for the Google guy and complain about Black Lives Matter. That's the Wall Street Journal editorial. This is actually one point that I was thinking about over the weekend, too, which I was getting so angry about, especially at the beginning, and this trailed off, but at the beginning there were so many people saying I support free speech, but there's no excuse for da-da-da-da. Like, I'm sorry.

I don't understand why you feel the need to defend free speech in this moment. We all support free speech. But like, and this weekend was also just a bigger reminder to me about something important that I think I forget this sometimes just because, you know, there's so much coverage of all the different ways in which, you know, you have safe spaces in these endless debates. The greatest threat to free speech in this country is violent racists. It has been true for the entirety of our history. Free speech is threatened by violence. It is threatened by violent white nationalists.

So if you say, you know, you care about free speech, it is about speaking out against this and it is absolutely nothing. Google firing a guy for writing a dumb, anti-intellectual, anti-woman memo has absolutely nothing to do with this. The idea that that guy shouldn't have been fired because it's some assault on free speech is such childish nonsense. I do think it's important to separate these things out. This isn't some Breitbart idiot who is monetizing being provocative, getting, you know, chased away at Berkeley. This is a Nazi or Klan based group who are beating people with sticks who are armed to the teeth, are rallying around a racist statue. That's not a free speech issue. That is like a mob, including one who committed a terrorist act, assaulting a community. And, you know, I feel like to me, the image I will always remember from this weekend was the group of torch wielding people standing around the group of UVA students who were

just processing peacefully. Yeah. Because that was like the most one of the most inspiring things I'd seen because the campus was closed. The kids aren't back yet. And, you know, these are just kids. And, you know, DeRay talked to some of those student leaders and they're so amazing and they were so inspiring and they cared so much. And then you see these just villains, just vicious racists who many

from out of town, many from the community, just surrounding them and terrifying them. And it just felt like history repeating. And the other thing to remember just in all of this is that there were such good people who came out to fight back and, you know, they're not going anywhere either. Yeah. If you go on indivisibleguide.com, they're holding a stand in solidarity with Charlottesville rallies and marches all over the country. And it was great to see the map of the country and see all the different cities, hundreds and hundreds of cities, thousands of people who are holding these events to stand in solidarity with Charlottesville. You can put in your zip code and find something near you. When we come back, we're going to talk to DeRay. He just did a bonus pod where he talked to Governor McAuliffe,

and he also talked to some of the students that Lovett was just talking about. So we're going to talk to DeRay McKesson. DeRay, thanks for joining us today. Always good to be here. So you recorded a bonus pod yesterday with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, as well as some of the student organizers from UVA. What'd you learn from those interviews? Yeah, so it's always great to talk to people on the ground.

I remember what it was like to be in Ferguson for the initial wave of the protests and know what it's like to be in so many other cities. And the way the mainstream media covers things is often not so helpful with regard to the protesters. One of the things that's still as shocking is I didn't know that there were stockpiles of weapons around the city. That is sort of fascinating to me. I heard you say that. I was like, one of the things that still is shocking is I didn't know that there were like stockpiles of weapons around the city. Like that is sort of fascinating to me. I heard you say that. I was like, wow. Yeah, I was like, what?

And then when Governor McAuliffe sort of essentially said that the reason the police didn't intervene is that the white supremacists were so heavily armed. Like that is, you know, I got tear gassed and pepper sprayed and arrested for doing significantly less than the white supremacists in Charlotte and me and so many other people. So that was sort of fascinating. What was incredible, though, was to hear the resolve of the organizers and just the skill and the way they understood the complexity of the problem is something that is still really important to me and to so many other people. Jarek, watching this unfold yesterday, I mean, these Nazis, these Klansmen were so well-armed. They were so willing to use violence. If you're a counter-protester, what is the appropriate way to approach a situation like this? Because I'm sure there are millions of people that want to speak out and say that this is

not welcome in our country. This is not First Amendment right. This is hate and evil. But like, how should people do that in a way that's safe and welcome in our country. This is not First Amendment right. This is hate and evil. But like, how should people do that in a way that's safe and effective in your view? You know, I marvel that the context of protest is just different, right? So like, being in St. Louis County,

where Ferguson is, was just like a different landscape than being in Baltimore, a city of row houses, right? Like, I remember when the police shot tear gas or smoke bombs, really, in Baltimore, not really tear gas, in a block where there's no alley. That was just a different organizing tactic than being in a place like Ferguson. So that's the first thing is that the context really matters. So looking at what space and stuff looks like in the city where you are is really important.

The second is that showing up is half the battle. It was really powerful about Charlottesville is that so many people came out on on the side of justice right there were just so many people who physically showed up to create a physical barrier to to the white supremacists none of us had anticipated that there would be somebody who would run through a crowd so like when you think about how to organize there are things now that organizers are talking about that we can do differently in the future but but that just hasn't happened in that way before. So that's just like a hard experience. Otherwise, it was a relatively, you know, it wasn't as wild as it could have been given the sheer amount of weapons that were out there. We did see DeAndre Harris, who was a kid that got assaulted by the white

supremacists. And then we obviously saw those people that got hit by the guy in the car. But the single biggest thing is like to show up and wherever you are, there are skilled organizers who can help figure out like what the context looks like and what that dictates. But coming outside and being present, it's a huge deal, especially because of police is with white people specifically just respond to white people differently.

I remember being in Ferguson and like this one police officer, like literally like walk this white older woman over to arrest her. Like and like this one police officer like literally like walked this white older woman over to arrest her. Like he just like gently walked her whereas like black people are getting like beat down and like kicked, you know,

and like they're getting dragged across the street. And this woman, he like grabs her wrist and just like walks her across the street and like white people can use their bodies

in ways that we know the police will just respond differently to. So DeRay, you know, you did this incredible conversation with two of the students that were on the ground. And I, first of all, I just think everybody should listen to it because they were inspiring and so smart and caring and brave about how they approach this protest. But what did you take away specifically from them, from their experience? Like, what were you surprised about from what they told you?

I don't know if I was surprised so much as, you know, what did you guys take away from it? I feel like I talk to organizers all the time, so I don't know if I'm so much surprised so much by the organizing community. I'm always in awe of how skilled so many people are at such a young age. Like, I'm just like proud, and I think it's incredible. What did you guys take away from it? There were two moments in the conversation that really stuck with me. One was when, I'm sorry, I don't remember which person was speaking, but they were describing the experience of being at the protest and seeing these people with torches and both feeling scared and feeling in the moment and worried about their friends and just observing this, but at the same time aware that they were doing the right thing, that they were where they were supposed to be, that this was sort of where they were supposed to be in the struggle. And I found that really moving and inspiring to hear that they were very aware of how important it is that they were about the entirety of what was going on,

about the police response, the threat to the entire community, police and counter-protesters, and the community at large by these violent extremists, and their nuanced take on what McAuliffe was doing. I mean, these were students. They're young people, but they were as mature and aware and as smart as any people that you can hear talk about this subject. Yeah, what really stuck out at me is when Devin Willis said to you, when he was looking at all these torches coming at him saying, you know, am I doing this right? Is this what Dr. King would have done? It was pretty powerful. And to have that awareness and sort of that consciousness about the connection to history was pretty inspiring.

And it's a reminder, too, that young people who are on the streets know what they're doing. There's this image that's like, these kids just walk out into the street. And it's like, no, people are really thoughtful, really organized. And it's one of the reasons why I had Terry McAuliffe on, the governor virginia on the second time to you know just help us understand from from the state's perspective but but to have like real organizers who are there who were there who saw the trauma who are still trying to figure out what to do who have to live in community help us like process it because that's often the voice that you only hear for two seconds on the news and like you never hear again you know right yeah and by the way they also just made the larger point of where this protested counter-protest sits in the larger set of issues confronting charlottesville virginia

the country that this was not a one-off that the ways in which this protest was outside of of normal but also spoke to some some deeper issues i, they were just so conscientious about why they were there. Some of you, two of you have been speechwriters and all of you have worked in PR. What did you make of the political statements that came out in the aftermath of the violence of the white supremacists in Charlottesville? Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about this today. And I mean, I mean, we've been talking about this today. And, I mean, the Trump thing is separate and awful. And, you know, like we said, the very least you can do as a politician, the least you can do is to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Didn't he just do it, though?

I think he literally just did it. He just did it. Yeah, no, he did it while we were recording. With gritted teeth. But the fact that that was not his instinct, that was not his advisor's instinct. When he was asked after the statement, do you condemn white nationalists? He saw the question. He heard the question. He chose not to answer it. It says something very dark about him. And look, you just, I mean, I'm, I'm used to whether it's a president I agree with or not. When something like this happens,

when a tragedy happens, when violence happens, the president of the United States stands up and he says something unifying. And he says something to try to bring the country together. And, you know, Republican presidents have done that, even though I think a lot of them, you know, I disagree with a lot of them, and a lot of them have given winks and nods to racism. And yet, at a moment like this, you expect a leader to stand up and do this. And the fact that he didn't, you know, it's not surprising, but it's still shocking. Yeah, no, I agree. You know, it was, it's interesting to see people be like, you know, thank God Trump's so God, you're like, let's be clear that everything Trump has done has been bad for people. You know, like, he's not that this statement is not in line at all with his actions.

You know, I think Kamala Harris is. Did you see Kamala Harris's statement? Yeah. You know, she was right on where she's like, you know, you can't condemn something on Saturday and then vote vote on Monday in a way that actually disadvantages these communities in similar ways. Right. That like that doesn't actually work., so I thought that that was real, you know, on on pod save the people tomorrow, we sort of do a history lesson a little bit around some of the monuments so that people can like, have a little more context about sort of why, why the statues and why these symbols and the iconography of hate become a target for the white supremacist. You know, I've tweeted before, I don't know if we haven't talked about it. I went to college with the guy who now runs Richard Spencer's think tank,

which is like still crazy to me. Yeah, I saw you tweeting with him. But like that is a reminder to me that like these are people we know, you know? Yeah. I mean, I asked this question earlier, but how do we remember this going forward? I worry that sometimes the focus on the statements, is he going to say the right thing? Did he take too long? So now he's made this like very delayed condemnation of this. And then, you know, if there's not another

violent protest like this, where white supremacists descend on a town in a couple weeks, whatever, then we all sort of forget about it. And the focus on the statements and the action sort of takes away the focus on the larger institutional racism that we're still grappling with as a country. How do we remember this? How do we not let this just sort of fade away like another news cycle? Yeah, I think that's a fair question. I think in these moments, I'm always, the thing as an organizer that I'm trying to think through is like, how do we make sure that we prioritize the structural change that needs to happen? I believe that the reason that white supremacists are mobilizing so boldly and so openly is that they understand that they may lose this time, right, that we on the right side of justice can organize and that we can figure out how to actually change the system once and for all in a way that really advantages equity. Now I say that they may lose because I know that progress isn't

inevitable, right? That like, it will actually take people doing real tough work that the arc of justice may bend, but it only bends because people bend it, not because it just like naturally bends. So, you know, I've seen incredible work happening at the at the national level around like any mass incarceration and equity and so things like that so i think we need to continue to imagine and we have to make sure that we fight to push back on the stuff that this administration is doing because what the republicans have figured out how to do is that they play not only the long game but they play the long long game right that like that trump is doing things that it'll take us two generations to try and

figure out how to undo if we're not really thoughtful about monitoring it. And like, that's the stuff that we have to figure out. What does it mean that every governor elected in 18 will be the governor that signs the redistricting plans, right? Like that, these are the things that like, aren't very sexy, but will have a huge impact on the way that people interact with democracy in the long term. And I think that the right gets that. Yeah. So one of the things that I was sort of struck by in all this is you see some Republicans go further than Trump and denouncing white supremacists, denouncing the KKK, denouncing Nazis in our streets, which as John has been saying, is sort of the least they can do. What would you push these Republicans to do to address some of

the rot inside the party? Because even as they denounce these sort of publicly fringe elements, there is still, you know, there is still systemic injustice, there's still still policy difference that seemed to flow from this desire to kind of appease white grievance. Like, what would you want these people to do as a next step to prove that they mean what they say? Yeah, there are a host of things. I think about the Department of Justice is Congress can force Sessions to stop prosecuting at the highest possible level, which was a decision that he made in overturn the Obama administration's decision to not necessarily prosecute people with the highest possible consequence. At the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos has essentially, I don't know if you saw, we didn't cover this on Pod Save the People

last week because there was other news we talked about. But she's essentially cleared the backlog of civil rights complaints and dismissed the vast majority of them. It's things like that that actually harm people and communities. And I think Congress can step in. I think about, you know, too bad they already put Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. But that is, I think that that is something that we will be dealing with for a generation or two. I think there are a host of criminal justice reforms that can happen, right? That like the end of civil asset forfeiture at the legislative level, requiring police departments to report use of force and police killings, like changing the disparities in sentencing, removing marijuana as like

changing it on the schedule, right? Like so many things we know these are common sense things that can happen at the federal level that there doesn't seem to be the political will to do right now, but there could be. DeRay, thanks for joining us today. And everyone go listen to the bonus pod on Pod Save the People because it's a conversation that you all need to hear, that we all need to hear. Thanks, DeRay.

Thanks for coming on. Thanks, DeRay. Good to talk. Thanks, DeRay. All right, man. Talk to you later. Later. On the pod today with us in studio, Julissa Arce, the chairman and co-founder of Ascend Educational Fund,

which provides mentorship and scholarships for immigrant children in New York City, regardless of their ethnicity or immigration status. You're also the author of My Underground American Dream. Julissa, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. So you have a pretty extraordinary story. How did you become an immigrant rights activist? Well, I was undocumented for like 15 years. And then I became an American citizen because I got married to my boyfriend. And once I became an American citizen, I realized how many young people were still going through what I was going through, which was like being in the shadows and being scared and not having the opportunities that other people our age were having, like just even like having a driver's license or going to

college or being able to have a drink with your friends without being scared that like you didn't have an ID to show how old you really were. So that's when I decided that I needed to share my story. And hopefully through sharing my story, really show people who undocumented immigrants are, why we come here. Like, we're not here to replace you. We're not here to take your jobs. We're not here to bring drugs and everything else that you're hearing today. And you were working at the time, you were on Wall Street? Yeah. So I worked at Goldman Sachs and I was there for about six years. I was the vice president there and then went to go work at Merrill Lynch. And, you know, I think that that's I never I never had to worry about ICE coming and raiding the Goldman Sachs trading floor.

Because when people think about undocumented immigrants, they don't think someone who's working on Wall Street. And so that that in a way gave me like a really good cover for nobody really thinking that I was undocumented, but I was undocumented. And so I still was dealing with sort of the same feelings and anxiety about being undocumented. So one of the things you were advocating there was for the rights of immigrants to attend California colleges. One of the things you're here to talk to about today is DACA, which is Deferred Action for Children. Why is that so important? What happens when these kids apply to college? Yeah. So if I can just take a step back and just say what DACA is, because I think we are sometimes so insular and we think that everybody knows what DACA is. And the truth is that most people don't know what DACA is, even people within the immigrants right movement, and especially within the progressive movement, like there's a lot of progressives, we're still not behind this issue as they are with like healthcare and women rights and, and and all the other issues that we're fighting for. So DACA is it's a program that allows young undocumented people to be able to work. And

it's supposed to protect them from deportation. And that's all it is. It's not a path to citizenship. It's not amnesty. It's it's just those two things. You get a work permit and you don't have to be afraid to get deported. And in order to get it, you have to go through like very extensive background checks and fingerprinting and provide all sorts of information to the government. So people like the government knows who you are, right? And you and these people, 800,000 of them came out of the shadows, provided all this information on the good faith that they would be able to work and that this information wouldn't be used against them to be deported. Right. And now we are here. Now, here we are on the Trump days. And what's happening is that Texas sent a letter to Jeff Sessions and said, if you don't end DACA by September 5th, which is just around the corner, then we will sue you and we will try to terminate

DACA through the court system. And that's a really big threat because like we all know that the Justice Department under Jeff Sessions is not going to, they're not going to spend any resources on protecting DACA, right? And what we have is 800,000 people who have lives who have been here, some of them since they were two years old, I got here when I was 11, that are now working, and they're going to school and they have bought homes and they have bought cars and to think that the program can just end. And from one day to the next, you know, all these people are going to lose their jobs because they can't work legally anymore. How are they supposed to pay their mortgages? And how are they supposed to pay their car payments and continue to support themselves?

So not only is it bad for these young people whose lives are being threatened, but it's also bad for our economy. And it's bad for our small businesses that are employing these people that all of a sudden they're going to have to replace hundreds and thousands of people from one day to the next. So that's what's going on. And, you know, beyond just, you know, I, through the scholarship fund, I get to meet a lot of these young people through my work. And it's really crushing to know, especially because I know what it feels like to know that, like, day to day, from now until September 5th, like, we're on the edge of our seat waiting to see what happens. And so we really need every progressive, like, even if this is the first time you've heard about DACA and what's going on,

like, we need you to take action and we need you to, like, call your senator and tell them to support the DREAM Act, which would be a permanent legislative solution, because DACA is not that. Then we don't have to worry about the court cases if we can have a legislative solution. You wrote an op-ed for The Huffington Post, and you have a financial services background. You made a really strong economic argument, which is a study by the Center for American Progress found that ending DACA would reduce our GDP by $433 billion over the next decade. Do you find that that economic argument is one that allows you to reach people that might otherwise not be supportive of this issue?

Yeah, I think some people, you know, I think one of the biggest concerns about immigrants to the country, whether legal or, or illegal immigration into the country is that we're draining the system, right, that we are taking more than what we are giving. And that is false. And it's been proven by dozens and dozens of studies, right? I think the problem is that there are people who are kind of on the edge and giving them this kind of economic information will bring them to our side and say like, okay, I can be supportive of this issue. The other side of it though is that you can give people the facts and they can still shout at you like lies, lies, lies,

even though you're providing them with like factual information about this. So I do think it helps with some people and other people, that's not the way to like lead the conversation. But those are the facts, right? The fact is that DACA recipients are good for the economy. They have better paying jobs and therefore can pay more taxes.

They can spend more money. They can create more economic activity. So this is good for the economy. good for the economy. Okay, that's a broader question of like, when you hear the language and the tone of the conversation coming out of the White House and this administration about immigration, about immigrants, how does that impact the people you speak to who are listening? How does it feel for people who hear President Trump talk about immigrants as rapists or murderers or drug dealers?

Yeah, I mean, that's how this president announced his candidacy, right? It was by calling Mexicans rapists and Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. And some, he assumes, are good people. Which, by the way, I always laugh about this because Ivanka Trump actually tweeted about my story. And she said, you know, we love this story of this undocumented person. Like, a couple months before Trump announced his presidency. And so now I'm like, what? Like, and now here we are, you know, six months into him being president.

And the chants in Charlottesville were also, you won't replace us and immigration, right? Like, you will not replace us, like get out of our country. So it sort of just makes you feel very unwelcome, but very unwanted in this country. And, you know, for me, especially living in California, I'm sort of like, this was my land. Like, this was Mexico before it became the United States. And, and, and the reason we have a country is because immigrants, like, you know, probably some of the people that were marching in charlottesville were probably maybe their parents their ancestors great

grandparents came on the mayflower but like the majority of them are here because of immigrants because of immigration right and so it's difficult sometimes i mean i get attacked on twitter all the time um about you know you immigrant, we should deport you. And I'm like, I'm an American citizen. You can't deport me anymore. But it's just something we have to deal with all the time. It's sort of like having to justify the very air that you breathe. You just mentioned Charlottesville.

One of the main organizers of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville over the weekend was someone who's also been fighting against the city's status as a sanctuary city. How do you respond to the kind of hate we saw this weekend? I keep thinking that these white supremacists, sometimes they want to divide Black Lives Matter and immigrants' rights activists and Jewish people. Do you see a need for sort of solidarity between people to fight this? Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, I was at this, on this panel recently, and one of the commentators on the panel was like, immigrants hate black people.

And I was like, what? Like, no, that's, and he was trying to make an argument basically pinning the Hispanic community versus the black community right and the immigrant community versus a black community and we've seen this from President Trump too right which is like the hardest hit people are like African Americans and communities of color and so it does create this division when in reality we should realize that so many of the issues that we're fighting for are so interrelated right the prison um the jail where sandra bland died has just been approved to hold immigrants right so like these things are are related like when you think about

um some of the immigrants that do have, let's say, a criminal conviction for like, having pot or smoking pot, right? Like, we see how much communities of color get policed so much more, and they get sentenced, like at higher rates, and they get thrown in jail more often than than white people do for committing the same crimes. And so then you take that and you say, well, now these people now have a criminal conviction. So now they are even more targets of deportation, right? So all of this is related and we should be coming together and recognizing that this white supremacist nationalist agenda

is very much rooted in, yes, racism, but it's also really incredibly rooted in an anti-immigrant sentiment right and it affects all of us right yeah i mean it's sort of you know you look at there is a direct connection between president trump refusing to denounce white nationalist fox news inciting anti-immigrant sentiment and the chants being shouted on the streets of charlottesville i mean you just sort of see that every day. So maybe there's one, there's at least people can see that these things are sort of connected to each other.

Yeah, I hope they do. Yeah. You mentioned asking people to call their senators and representatives. What else can listeners do to help protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program? I know there's also a Day of Action tomorrow, Tuesday, right? Yeah. So and listen, like, within the immigrant rights movement, we're trying to find like a bunch of different fights, right? Like detention centers and immigration rates. So what I'm about to say is, it's not to take away from any of the other fights. But the very immediate

fight that we have in front of us because of this pending Texas lawsuit on September 5, is protecting DACA and making sure that this 800,000 people don't lose their livelihoods, right? And so tomorrow, August 15th, there is a nationwide data action to support and defend DACA. So listeners can go to defenddaca.com where they can find different rallies which i'm sure are going to be you know hopefully we can sort of create some synergies between the the anti charlesville protest and and what's happening with daca and we can sort of have a louder voice around it but one of the things that that so they can they can check out the website um attend one of the rallies tomorrow tweet with the hashtag defend daca to show your support tomorrow. And again,

like the number one thing you can do is to call your senator and tell them to get on the DREAM Act. The first time the DREAM Act was introduced was in 2001, which is when I started going to college. And I had such high hopes that the DREAM Act would pass. And like in my mind, I was like, for sure, by the time I graduate in four years, like this will be the law and I'll be able to like work. And this is why I had to write a whole book about it because like there was so much, so much that I had to go through and so much that I couldn't contribute

because this never passed. And now we're 16 years later and imagine like how many people have had to suffer and we can do something about it. Like we can all pick up the phone and call our senators and tell them to support the dream act. When you hear this language, I mean, you talk about this timeline for 2001 until today and you, and you know, when I hear the rhetoric out of the Trump administration currently this minute, or, you know, that Tucker Carlson interview you did, which I think, you know, embodies the tone you hear from Fox News about immigrants all the time. Do you think that the politics have gotten worse or more difficult? Or is this a more vocal minority that has just gotten more caustic?

both. I mean, you know, having been undocumented, I can tell you that, like, we've been waiting for 20 years for there to be some sort of relief for immigrants, right? And it hasn't happened. And, you know, I always think back to the last time the Dream Act was introduced, and it failed because five Democrats voted against it. Yeah, right. There were three Republicans that voted for it, who probably committed career suicide, and then five Democrats who voted against it. So, you know, I think I do think that this is beyond sort of Democrat and Republican because we've been we've we've failed that we failed this people on both sides of the aisle. I do think that what's happening now, though, it's become acceptable to say this anti-immigrant things. I mean, I just think back like people used to have to wear hoods and cover their faces to be able to say the things they said this weekend. And now they're like marching emboldened and empowered without covering their faces because we have a precedent that is saying it's okay for you to do that right and i

think the biggest thing is like when i was like tweeting out telling people like i don't i don't want to replace you you know like my mom didn't bring me here and said like okay you know you're going to go to sixth grade and take the spot of a white kid in your school like that you know like the conversation doesn't happen it doesn't happen you You know, you're told you're coming to this amazing country that you're willing to risk your life to come here because of the opportunities it provides you. And my mom always used to think of the U.S. as like going to a strange, like a friend's house where you have to be like on your best behavior and you have to bring, you have to bring something to like share with people. And that's, you know, that's how I've always thought of this country. Like no one's here to replace you. Like white people, stop worrying. Also, the this country like no one's here to replace you like white people stop worrying also the united i'm not here to replace you we

need immigration to grow our economy at the rate we want to do countless jobs that are being created every day i mean the united states needs immigrants in this country to be as strong as we want it to be period and the other thing it's like so like the race act right which was like gonna cut immigration by half like legal immigration by half literally the only promise of the race act to the american people is more minimum wage jobs right like that is a promise of the race act is saying we're going to bring in like really really smart people so that and we're not going to let low-skilled immigrants come into the country anymore so that you can have those jobs but like really you know do we really want those jobs like do we want to be out in the field picking strawberries and gardening and like in hot kitchens and

restaurants like do we really need more of those jobs is that what's is that what a person who's struggling in ohio do they really need a minimum wage job like no they don't they need skills to be able to take better paying jobs right and by the way like if republicans at least supported a 15 minimum wage then maybe those jobs would be better but six seven dollars an hour like that's not going to make your life better and like we should be demanding other things and that's the thing about immigration is that it's really easy to blame immigrants for all the stuff that is wrong in our country. Like, you don't have a job because immigrants. Throughout centuries of history, it's been returned to. Julissa, thank you so much for joining us. And please let us know if we can do anything to help. Thank you for the work you're doing. And everyone, go to DefendDACA.com and participate if you can in the Day of Action tomorrow.

And remember to call your senators and representatives about this. And I'm just like, there is a connection between what's happening in Charlottesville and what's happening with DACA. Because all this white nationalism, all this anti-immigrant sentiment, who is it going to come down on? It's going to come down on children who came here, who only know this country. And all of this, all of this noise and anger and hate is about making people forget that these are just kids that don't know another place. So it's like if you've been watching Charlottesville and you don't know what to do, you can do this. This is connected. It is part of it. All of it leads back to,

for some ungodly reason, a decision to try to punish these children to score some kind of political victory. Yeah, exactly. Julissa, thank you for coming. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Thanks. Thanks again to our guests today, DeRay McKesson and Julissa Arce. Appreciate them joining, and we'll talk to you guys soon.

Very lighthearted episode today. Lighthearted. Thank you.