Transcripts For MSNBC Martin Bashir 20130816

We have to look at what has been happening over the last ten years. After afghanistan and iraq, you have a president who is saying im not going to be so fast. Its not up to the United States to determine the future path for egypt. Thats a task for the egyptian people. Im joy reid in for martin bashir. One day after president obama condemned the violence on streets of egypt, not much has changed. Calling for a quote day of rage, thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and ousted president Mohamed Morsi filled the streets today with protests and rallies. Many in the u. S. Are calling for stronger language and actions from the administration including officially declaring the situation a military coup and thus cutting the 1. 38 billion in military aid we provide egypt every year. The death toll is now at over 600 with an additional 4,000 or moral injured and it continues to rise. Reports saying that perhaps 80 or more protesters have been killed today alone. And the violent response from the military and police simply continues, as well. Operating orders to use live ammo if necessary. As president obama returns to washington this weekend, hes expected to reassess our policies toward egypt in an attempt to wield whatever influence we still have. And hopefully, to work towards bringing this conflict to a swift and peaceful conclusion. Lets get right to the nbc news Foreign Correspondent ayman mew ja who dean. The day of rage, assess for us the level of violence were seeing right now. Sure. Were seeing a very varying degree of violence in different protests that took place across the country. Here in cairo, mo are than 28 different marches were organized to converge in this one major square. Throughout the course confident day, weve seen for ourselves as well as images on local satellite channels here footage of civilians wielding weapons, firing weapons in the air and in some cases attacking government buildings, residential areas. So according to at least some of the evidence that weve seen, there was definitely enough to suggest that not all of these peaceful demonstrators or these demonstrations were peaceful. At the same time, theres also plenty of evidence to suggest Security Forces have used live ammunition, perhaps the greatest evidence is the death toll that emerged from todays demonstrations. All of their marches were supposed to converge in this one area. A makeshift Field Hospital is reporting at least 80 people have been killed. In other areas of the country, the death toll numbers in the tens, as well. Well probably get more accurate numbers in the coming hours. The ministry of health says at least 27 people have been killed. Obviously, this comes at a time when the country has gone into its third night of an imposed curfew by the interim government. Theres indication that the militarys continuing deployments across varying parts of the city and the country to try to get the upper hand on this increasingly lawless situation stemming from the sustained protests which the brother hood is still calling for in the days ahead. Give us a sense of i think in the u. S. Theres the sense that the Muslim Brotherhood is being a small group thats fighting a government that was generally at least before the crackdown supported by the country. What is the level of support from your reporting of the Muslim Brotherhood in egypt . Well, the muslim brother hood support has definitely waned as a result of two very important things. One the year that they ruled egypt, that of president Mohamed Morsi and the parliament. They have lost a lot of support, a lot of popularity. In fact, many in egypt you could say with a certain degree of confidence that the overwhelming majority of egyptians given the fact by the millions they turned out june 30th rejected the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. Theres no doubt they had their core supporters and perhaps some sympathizers who still answer their calls to participate in these protests and these marches. No doubt the overwhelming majority of egyptians have rejected the brotherhood as a political and social organization for the time being. One more question the rejection of the brother hood aside, what is occur sense of the way people feel about the crackdown because it has been so bloody . Well, this is the very difficult question that many egyptians are now grappling with because of the packet that they are very disturbed by some of the images of the military and the police cracking down on these protesters and their demonstrators. Many people here have been shocked by the soaring death toll given the fact this has been one of the deadliesiest we in egyp in decades leaving them worndering whether the return of the authoritarian rule of former regimes has begun to return to egypt. There are a lot of indications there are some returning forces, if you will once under the former president starting to emerge. Former president of hosni mubarak, that they are slowly reemerging on the political scene here. Thank you. All right. Lets get right to our panel, former assistant secretary of state p. J. Crowley and steve clems. P. J. , to you first. Ayman was talking about the situation where you did have protests that were sitins. And the question being whether those were initially peaceful and were broken up violently by the government. Is there an understanding whether the Muslim Brotherhood was attempting to use peaceful protest in the beginning . I dont think you can look at the death toll something approaching and the preponderance of power as the president said is with the government and with the military. So the whether there are some elements within the Muslim Brotherhood that have broken from a pledge of nonviolence clearly much of the death toll here has to be laid as a responsibility of the government. I dont think that they just quite know how to do crowd control. And i mean, p. Y. , one more question to you. What is the real influence at this stage of the u. S. On the military government . They are the ones who whom we give this great deal of aid, ta were supposed to be able to communicate with. Is there a sense we have any concrete influence over that government now . We have the ability to give them good advice. As far as i can tell, we have been giving them good advice but theyre not necessarily following it. We have influence. Others in the region do, as well. But ultimately, this is a process and there will be an outcome that is egyptian and not american. And steve, i want to come to you because the source of our influence is understood to be the 1. 3 billion in aid, the money that we give essentially to the military there. If that aid were to go away, wouldnt just the saudis and others fill it in . Would that at all make a dent in what seems to be a lack of ability to maconcrete change with that government . I would dispute the notion that mona loan is the source of our influence there. The source of our influence is that most of the egyptian command staff have worked their way through American Military universities through the National Defense university, have been engaged with and developed relationships with our command staff. Over not just one year, five years, ten years, but decades. And so the human relationships between our military and their military are extremely deep. The partnership between the intelligence operatives we have in both countries is very, very deep. So the money coming on and off, if they flipped over to china, over to russia, to replace that money, theres no way they can replace the great depth, the tectonic depth of that relationship with the United States. So signaling the cancellation of the joint military exercises is a signal to those commanders that theyve overstepped. I dont think theyve gone nearly far enough in sending is the signals they should to the command staff. Its not just the money at stake here. It is a very strew deep profound relationship between their commanders and ours and we should be using every element to try to get those command staff to realize theyve gone over the line so far and in my view, one of the things were not talking about is is general el sisi has to go. That general went so over the line commanding that staff. You can reach out to other generals and say youve got to let this guy go. Weve talked about this. You feel they went too far in the sense weve had influence in building that command staff but one of the things that didnt get through was the notion if this is a democracy, you probably dont want the military to make political decisions and determine the government. That has now already happened. Theyve crossed that rubicon. Is there something we sort of undertrained in the sense the military cannot just operate this way . I think from the moment that morsi was deposed and you had 14 Million People in the streets in the 48 hours before when the military said they were going to take action iffing there wasnt a political deal done, we should have known at that moment the military already decided it wanted to go to war against the Muslim Brotherhood. We should have put every red flag up we could. If you run the brotherhood back underground, youre not only creating a longterm problem for stability inside egypt, youre sending a signal consequential to us throughout the middle east. Whether its jordan, libya, this is going to be a hot spot that the really helps to destabilize, in my opinion, many other countries. Last question to you, p. J. Crowley. Advise for a moment the american administration. What would you advise them that they should do now to send it the correct signal to egypt and to the world . Well, i agree with everything that will steve just said. You know, if we call, they will pick up the phone and they will listen intently. But understand on the one hand, constructively, the Egyptian Military is the strongest and most respected institution in egyptian society. We saw that two years ago in the constructive role they played in the tahrir square. On the other hand, they have a privileged position within egyptian society. They control roughly 40 of the egyptian economy. And they will view the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to the that position. So ultimately, theyre going to do whatever they feel is necessary regardless and theyll risk the relationship with the United States and the shorthand to assure the role theyre going to play going forward. Now, on the other side of the coin, we dont have the trouble communicating with the Egyptian Military. The real question is, can anyone get through to the Muslim Brotherhood because ultimately to get to the goal weve outlined here, a more inclusive democracy than existed under morsi, the brotherhood has to be enticed back into the political process. The more days we have like yesterday and today, the much more difficult that will be. Steve, last question. How do you entice the Muslim Brotherhood back into a democratic system when the message thats been september to them by empty morsi being taken away is that thats not the way the process is its an extremely difficult task. They were coaxed into elections before. Its not been a new thing. Under mubarak you had many groups studying the trappings of democracy or the democratic process as a way they thought they could come to power. You need to think about institutions struggling to come in. You come in and basically say in some formula, some new social contract is, maybe general el sisi goes. Maybe you start with a second tier of leaders and say you need to push reset, Everyone Needs a chance to participate. Its very hard to sell that message but its important that we try. Steve clemens, p. J. Crowley, thank you both. Coming up, a summer of selfinflicted wounds for the gop. Well look at the partys vote today and how it might impact the president ial debates for 2016. Stay with us. 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[ groans ] all these stops to take more pills can be a pain. Can i get my aleve back . For my pain, i want my aleve. [ male announcer ] look for the easyopen red arthritis cap. Commerce, education, and the, whats the third one there. Are you just going to keep talking . Are you going to let me finish what i have to say . Oops. Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney. Oh, newt. If only pious baloney wasnt whats on the menu. No, today your party voted to boycott any upcoming gop primary debates sponsored by an nbc network including this one along with cnn. Possibly the biggest oops moment for the party. Reince priebus has been pushing for this for a week saying this is about taking a stand for Media Support for Hillary Clinton. Never mind the party doesnt usually control the Purse Strings for debates. This may be more of a hollow threat. Really, reince, arent you doing this for the same reason these networks might do the features about clinton because it might rate well with the demo. A network that spends millions of dollars to spotlight Hillary Clinton is a network with an aub bias. Thats a network that wont be hosting a single republican primary debate. And joining us now, democratic congresswoman Louise Slaughter of new york and msnbc contributor goldie taylor. Congresswoman, doing democrats just high five every time they hear things like what priebus is saying . Its not as if the rnc puts on the primary debates anyway. He is just trying to placate a base that isnt helping him win elections. I watched all the debates of theirs and they were so instructive. President ial candidate who couldnt remember three cabinet posts recommending people selfdeport and telling critically ill people to just die. Where else could you hear things like that. Im going to miss is very much if they do that, but it is going to hurt them. Democrats wouldnt even think about telling their candidates a thing like that. And goldie, politico had a scathing assessment of whats really wrong with the Republican Party. The sense that theyre alienating every group they need to grow with, whether its women, whether its africanamericans, latinos or gays. Shouldnt they focused more on trying to stop offending those people rather than worry about who is producing an i documentary about hillary . They should be. When you placate a base this extreme, you literally nail your foot to the floor so you cant reach out to the middle when it comes time for a general election. You cant reach out to other constituencies who dont happen to live in this base. You just cant get there from here. To placate this base, by pandering to them with a boycott of nbc, of cnn or anyone else who would not tow their line the way maybe fox news would i think is to cut off your nose just to spite your face. Especially the fact at least at one point it was thought foxs entertainment unit might be producing the documentary in part. Congresswoman, speaking to what. That is the part i liked. Go ahead. I was just going to say, that was the part i liked the best when it was discovered that fox was looking to produce one of those documentaries. That sort of leaves them with no network at all almost. I think they could do it on rush limbaughs show. That might be one of the options. Or they could buy their own radio station. Weve had at least one of the house members, one of your colleagues endorse birtherism this week. Oh. How do you start to get through Immigration Reform when you have people talking about the cantaloupe thigh sizeded thais of latinos . Where do we go from here . They cant. I spend most of time at home here making sure everybody understands whats going on because our chance to get the house back is greatly enhances by the fact that the house does absolutely nothing and has spent about 53 million just on the votes to kill health care. Did you know that . It cost 24 million a week to run the house of representatives. Weve done practically nothing. I want everybody to know that. We talk about deficit reduction and we cut this and that, and yet every week when the house is in session we waste all that kind of money. Its deplorable. I really cannot understand what theyre doing. I really enjoy the business about ted cruz trying to say hes an american because his mother was american. So was barack obamas. I sometimes wonder if they know that hawaii is part of the United States. Im sorry. Geography has a liberal bias. I want to go back to goldie for a moment. So one of the things thats happening this week is youre starting to see the fashions of the party. You do have the ted cruz faction that wants to make it the party extremely doctrinaire. The rubio faction is now in retreat. In addition, Chris Christie. He might be the most fascinating member of the go right now because hes trying to tell them, i can win in blue states. Now it seems like hes trying to trend a little bit lish tear yab. Weve got news he may be easying the r the easying the tree strictions on children having access to marijuana. You know, i am one of the people who doesnt believe in a Chris Christie candidacy. He does have to appeal to the southern very red states and those states that move to the west, arizona, idaho, new mexico, oklahoma. Places where Chris Christie does not play no matter if he decided to legalize all marijuana for all americans. So i think thats real problematic for him. Does he do moderately well in the northeast . Absolutely. Will he get the opportunity to show that he can reach across the aisle, im not sure that he im not sure he gets that opportunity given where this gop is today. Congresswoman . I think being a northeasterner hurts him desperately. They dont care if he can win in blue states. They care whether or not he believes that obama should not get anything passed. That we dont help people in states in trouble like his was during sandy or tornado or hurricane, excuse me. But no, i dont think he has a chance. His philosophy doesnt match theirs. They appeal to a very narrow part of the country. One small section of the country. And theyre continuing to do it and making it more apparent every day. God bless them. God bless them. Goldie, the last word on this. If its not going to be the ted cruz faction because he wont be able to get past any internal birthers. En an hes born out of the country. So we can mark him off. If you cant go with marco rubio because he dared to do Immigration Reform or Chris Christie because hes from the night of the, who do they have thats potentially viable in 20816 . You know, we didnt know the who the democratic nominee would be in 2008 before barack obama stepped onto the stage. Im not sure we have seen who the republican nominee will be at this point. Theres some great names out there. Theres marquee names who can certainly raise the money. Paul could raise the money. Ive heard that governor cacic is testing the water today. And so there are a number of names, governors from big states thinking about it. You know, i dont write off cruz. I dont write off marco rubio. Any of those names. We dont know who this nominee is going to be. There are some people like Michele Bachmann we can take off the table. I think this really remains to be seen. Its going to be a very, very very open field. Theyre not going to make what they think is the same mistake they made the last two times around. Theyre not going to nominate someone who does not carry the gop party mantle with those governing principles and theyll stick to that and their narrow base. One almost hopes its ted cruz just to confuse the birthers. Thank you both. All right. Stay with us. The days top lines are coming up. Congratulations, youve made it, mr. President. This is the height of achievement. Really. To be made fun of by the rodeo clown is actually success. This is a big deal. If you get made fun of by the clown, have you made it. It guides you to a number that will change your it guides you to a number life your sleep number setting. It will give you the soundest sleep youve ever had. Its a bed so intuitive it even knows you by name. Now its easier than ever to experience deep, restful sleep with the sleep number beds dualair technology. 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And youll see Martin Bashirs full interview with lee daniels director of the butler coming up in a few minutes. Next the days top lines. Look who has a new appreciation for the performing arts. This is an artist. A very brave artist, believe it or not, rodeo clowns. They could he get mauled by a bull at any time. This is art, this is entertainment. A good athlete . No. Oh dad, you remember my friend alex . Yeah. The one that had the work done. Good to see you. Where do we go when we die . The ground. Whos your girlfriend . His name is chad. And thats where babies come from. [ male announcer ] sometimes being too transparent can be a bad thing. This looks good [ male announcer ] but not with the oscar mayer deli fresh clear pack. Its what you see is what you get food. Its oscar mayer. [ male announcer ] when you wear dentures you may not know it, but your mouth is under attack. Food particles infiltrate and bacteria proliferate. Protect your mouth, with fixodent. The adhesive helps create a food seal defense for a clean mouth and kills bacteria for fresh breath. Fixodent, and forget it. What are you guys doing . Having some fiber with new phillips fiber good gummies. Theyre fruity delicious just two gummies have 4 grams of fiber to help support regularity i want some. [ woman ] hop on over [ marge ] fiber the fun way, from phillips. From the height of achievement to the depths of stupidity, here are todays top lines. Cant you all take a joke . My gosh, somebody making fun of a president . Have you ever been to a rodeo. Its obama. Hey, let me tell these people who we got helping its a joke. Thats all it was. Its mere t pure haircy. Certainly not one of the finer moments. This is a very brave artist, rodeo clowns. They could get mauled by a bull at anytime. Were going to smoke obama. What was the violence threatened there. Obama, theyre coming for you. Im so glad when lincoln was president there werent cartoons portraying him oh, wait, there were. You compare it to lincoln, are you sure you want to do that . I dont think so. 50ids say lighten up. Heres how you react to a rodeo clown at a state fair. Hes a rodeo clown at a state fair. Its a joke. The clowns been fired. The announcer has resigned. And countless bulls have been jabbed in the gonads with electric cattle products. Today i declare myself officially a rodeo clown. Every president is always made fun of. They are the subject of ridicule. Id officially declare that we are all rodeo clowns. Maybe the mask was intended as a compliment. This is the height of achievement. Really . To be made fun of by the rodeo clown is actually success. There is no higher honor than having a clown run around a dirt arena wearing a grotesque mask of your face while the announcer ask the cheering crowd who wants to see this guy trampled. We have to get beyond being antiobama. Barack obama has not thanked the rodeo clown. I guess i shouldnt be surprised. He never seemed grateful when the tea party honored him with the Charlie Chaplin mustaches. Yeah, lets get to our panel. Toure, cohost of the cycle here and msnbc contributor jimmy williams. Toure, what is wrong with us that we cant appreciate the special artistry of a racist rodeo clown . I mean, look, let me say one thing that being a rodeo clown is difficult and dangerous work. That small piece of what will glenn beck said in that top lines which is maybe the best ive ever seen, that small piece is true. Ultimate will i what we have is like the Republican Party the conservative movement saying racist things, using dog whistles and then going, what racism . What are you talking about . Youve been using the southern strategy for over 40 years to work racial anxiety to pull in voters to vote against their economic interests and still youre like what racismle . I dont understand what youre talking about. Its kind of ridiculous. They have this way of saying these ridiculous absurd things and then go, oh, now youre going to call me a racist. Its disingenuous. Its disgusting and you know, just that they keep saying these outrageous things is just sort of like expected at this point, but it brings in voters in terms of the southern strategy. You know what, i wont take credit for the term, blessings for bigots. They almost want to be thanked for it. I want to read you a bit of wisdom from peggy noonan, famous for writing slip the earthly bonds from reagan. Thee said let me suggest a classy move, that might go over well. From his vineyard vacation spot, he should have the press office issue a release saying his reaction to end fooing out a rodeo clown was rudely spoofing had ip was so what saying he loves free speech including did he riggs directed at him. And hopes these politicians damning the clown and the crowd would pipe down and relax. That would be graceful and nice. Wouldnt it . But he would never do it. He gives every sign of being a person who believes he shouldnt be made fun of. If it is, its probably racially toned because why else would you make fun of him. Discuss. This is the same person peggy noonan than said Ronald Reagan was completely not to blame at all for irancontra, that it was bad handling by his staffers that he was not to blame, et cetera, et cetera. Im not im confused as to why this same litmus test that she uses for Ronald Reagan she cant use for the current occupant of the oval office. Now, lets set aside miss noonans information here which is disinformation. Its actually its snarky and its beneath her. Lets talk about what this is. This is purely 1,000 racebaiting. In missouri, okay, there are two parts to m, by the way. Theres the part people dont talk about, the racial part and then the cosmopolitan part of missouri, if you will. I know racism. My father was a bigot. He was a racist. He thought me the n word was a perfectly fine word to use. One day when i came out of the closet, it occurred how would you like it if someone called you a faggot. I bet you ten bucks people dont like it when you use the n word. Titfortat. When you put a rodeo clown in a pile of crap and dirt in missouri and you put a black face on him and say the word obama 100 times, if youre going to tell me its not racism, you go back and you live in missouri because in real america, thats modern day lynching and racism and nothing less. Toure, the interesting thing. Joy go ahead. Everything that jimmy said was courageous and important and powerful. The break youve had in your family in your personal work to move past what you were taught inside your Nuclear Family and also i see within all this with peggy noonan is this constant way of we are blamed for noticing racism when we notice racism, then we are the racists injecting race into the conversation where it did not exist. When you put this sort of grotesque obama mask on somebody and then say were going to get that person and he becomes a proxy for your anger about a black person being president , being in power, and then just like, well, youre a racist for noticing that. We didnt notice the racism. None of us said the n word. So were not racists. It just gets maddening and frustrating. Its signal jamming in that we cant call it racism because then suddenly we are the racists. Toure got to something i wanted to talk about. There does seem to be this obsession on the right with them being able to call people racist and doing it a lot. Constantly saying you know what . Were going to own this notion of calling people racist but we also want to pass for being able to do things that are received as racist and how dare you even point it out. You blame the blamer is what you enunder doing here. I used to be a republican. You know, when i was a kid, Ronald Reagan could do no wrong. But one day i woke up and naught maybe he did things wrong and right. Thats irrelevant. In conservative circles, you dont talk about racism or Sexual Orientation. You dont talk about abortion. Theres a desire to want to the really push the line, particularly the party is becoming neocon federate. They want to get right up to that line. What is this obsession with wanting to do that . Rush limbaugh wanting to say the n word. There seems to be this desperation to push the line on race baiting understand, the only time that will republicans talk about the issue of race is when it is about them being called racist. Otherwise they wont address the issue. Have they dressed inequality in american schools between black and white students no, they have not. Have they talked about the issue of food stamps other than say there are more people on them under obama than before . No, except to leave it out of the ag bill because oh, my gosh, thats the welfare. Remember the movie st. Elmos fire and they were around that georgetown dining room table and the mother says did you hear about so and so. She has cancer. She whispers it. Thats what you do you in republican circles. You talk about Sexual Orientation and race and abortion and women and this sort of thing quietly but you never speak of it publicly until youre called a racist or homophobe or misogynist. Lee at water talked about this. You dont want to be a racist and you dont want to feel like a racist and like youre voting for a racist but the white racial anxiety crucial to rallying the wagons in this 90 white party is critical. So were using these dog whistles and its sort of a shield of saying, were not racist. Theyre racist for calling us racist and then youre able to go about your day not feeling a racist for being against Immigration Reform which has this is obvious racial undertone being for gun safety which has this rather obvious racial undertone, being against the welfare state which has this is extraordinarily obvious racial undertone and on and on. Then you get to also be steve king and call for a rodeo clown summit at the white house. That would be awesome. Thank you very much, toure and jimmy you williams. Appreciate it. Coming up, the nsa pushes back against the Washington Post and allegations an of mass private sit violations. Stay with us. [ man ] 5, 4. [ command center ] this is command center. [ man ]. 3, 2, 1. [ command center ] all systems go. [ female announcer ] introducing swiffer steamboost powered by bissell. Steamactivated cleaning pads penetrate deep. [ command center ] we have lift off. [ female announcer ] dont just clean your floor. Boost it. 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Told ya im feeling better already. [ male announcer ] new alka seltzer fruits chews. Enjoy the relief as the president short lived vacation comes to an end, he heads back to washington this weekend with quite a bit on his plate. For more, lets go to nbcs chris kin welker live from marthas vineyard. I understand the news today is the nsa is pushing back against a new report they violated rules thousands of times. What can you tell us about the nsas response . Joy, i can tell you that the nsa is holding a Conference Call as we speak. I ran outside after having listened to part of that call to give you the latest information. Its being conducted by jim delong, the director of compliance with the nsa. And so far, hes made a few points in an attempt to push back against that Washington Post article. First he said no one at the nsa tolerates mistakes or thinks that mistakes are okay. When mistakes are determined they try to correct eb them as quickly as possible. He tried to put the number of mistakes into context, that report of thousands of instances, he made the point that over the course of just one month, the nsa conducts about 20 million queries. So according to mr. Delong, the fraction of mistakes is really minuscule when you look at that 20 million figure. And then he also made one more point, joy, which is that some of those mistakes occurred with foreign nationals. So he really tried to put this into that broader context to tamp down some of the fuhrer that emerged today. A lot of that. Coming from capitol hill, of course. Nancy pelosi came out and said that the reports in the Washington Post were disturbing. Patrick leahy who is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Said that he plans to conduct another hearing about this. No response yet from the white house but i can tell you that president obama will undoubtedly be dealing with this when he returns from vacation. Of course, hes mapped out a second term agenda but this issue with the nsa continues to dog him both on vacation and when he returns. Very quickly, is there an expectation the president will say anything else on egypt when he comes back . Reporter i would anticipate some continued white house response on egypt. We know that he is being briefed regularly here while hes on cation in marthas vineyard. He was briefed this morning by his National Security visor susan rice. This is obviously something that is quite concern together white house. Joy . Kristen welker, thank you. Coming up, a conversation with lee daniels, director of one of this years most talked about films the butler. We hear more about why he made the film and his thoughts on the countrys progress on civil rights. Were back in a moment. Humans. We are beautifully imperfect creatures living in an imperfect world. 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Look at you. All puffed up. Your hat on your head. Coming in here, saying whatever you want. You need to go. What . Get the hell out of my house get out. Everybody just im sorry, mr. Butler. I didnt mean to make fun of your hero. Everything you are and everything you have is because of that butler. That was a clip from lee daniels the butler telling the story of cecil gains who served at the white house through seven president s from 1957 through 1986. The film is based on the story of eugene allen who viewed the history of our country from the Civil Rights Movement through watergate and beyond all from within the walls of the white house. Martin bashir sat down with the films director this week. And im delighted to say im joined by the very director of the butler, lee daniels himself. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon to you, sir. Its a great privilege to have you here. Thank you. What was it about mr. Allens story that inspired you to make a movie . What specifically was it . It was the father and son. It was the father, i have a at the time, i got the script, my son was 13. And it was a love story and you know, my friends had problems with their kids, but i said no, my kid, hes wonderful. But all of a sudden at 13, he turned on me. I would say day, he would say night. I would say go to bed, he would say hell no. When does it stop . The film it stops. And i wasnt i didnt set out to make an important civil rights movie. It wasnt till we started showing some of the atrocities that happened i thought oh, this is not just a father and son. So it started in your mind between the relationship between this apparently subservient father who does deferring right in the workplace and his son who refuses to accept institutional racism and fights for that . Correct. And yet, the movie is sympathetic to the father. Theres no right. Theres no right, theres no wrong with it. I think its generational. And for example, when i showed my son the film, im nervous because hes the only one that i know that will go for the kill. And you know, he said i loved the movie, dad. I said havent we come a long way . This is an important step in film making for black people. And he was like no, he said its not important until i see myself as spiderman. I want to see a 17yearold spiderm spiderman. Im thinking its no different than it was with cecil and louis, our two leads. Yeah. Politics doesnt seem to come into it for cecil. He sees his role as one of public service. And theres immense dignity and pride in what hes doing. Hes almost like a soldier. It doesnt matter whether hes serving a democrat or a republican. And theres a great deal of stature and beauty thats built out of that, particularly when oprah winfrey, the character she plays, slaps the boy when he casts aspersions on the notion that a butler is nothing. Correct. The butler is something. The butler is something. And. What is the butler . The butler stands for every servant that serves america. The butler is you. Youre serving america. The butler is me, im serving america through my cinema. And he happens to be looked down on. Thats how we look at how we look at class, how we address class in america which transcends race, too. The film itself starts with the Civil Rights Movement and ends with the inauguration of the first black president of the United States. And yet, as weve seen with seconds 4 of the Voting Rights act knocked down, as weve seen in attempts to suppress the vote, as weve seen with the continuing racist animus towards this president , we havent come that will far yet, have we . When i did the movie, when i began the movie,ing the words any white man could kill any black man and get away with it, the law was against us. It was notten 0 our side. When i am making a mean, im in a bubble. And i dont like leaving that bubble for anything. And when i came out of that bubble, Trayvon Martin happened. I no dale that Trayvon Martin happened. I dont watch the news. I neglect my children. So him. You grow a beard. In the bubble of making the film. Sure. So how ironic and so i thought, i thought about that. Also i thought about, you know, when we do that scene with Lyndon Johnson who passes that incredible Voting Rights bill. Remarkable. And i come out and the Supreme Court has done what theyve done, you know, i wonder. And so when you look at the film on reflection, how far have we really come . I think weve come enormously far, but my son doesnt seem to feel so. Which is generational. It goes back to, you know, the dna of what my film is about. Final question and briefly, what do you hope that viewers will take from the movie . What is the theme that you want them to take with them . That we need more heroes. We need more people that are willing to put their lives on the line for freedom. Thats a wonderful motivation to make the movie. Lee daniels, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Stay with us. Well be right back. And secretly served it up in the heart of peach country. Its a freshover. We want you to eat some peaches and tell us what you think. Theyre really juicy. It must have just come from the farm. This right here is ideal for me. Walmart works directly with growers to get you the best Quality Produce theyve ever had. What would you do if i told you all this produce is from walmart . Wow is it really . laughter find fresh peaches and all your Quality Produce. Backed by our 100 money back guarantee. Walmart. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. And that their Homeowners Insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesnt. Stop pretending. Only Flood Insurance covers floods. Visit floodsmart. Gov pretend to learn your risk. Accomplishing even Little Things can become major victories. 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[ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biologic medicine prescribed by rheumatologists. [ babies crying ] surprise your house was built on an ancient burial ground. [ ghosts moaning ] surprise your car needs a new transmission. [ coyote howls ] how about no more surprises . Now you can get all the online Trading Tools you need without any surprise fees. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Thanks for watching. And as always, you can find todays interviews on our website bashir. Msnbc. Com. Dont go away. Hardball starts right now. Uhhuh, honey