It. We know because weve seen it. Its planted on wall street. The head of the Federal ReserveJerome Powell said as much in march at the start of the pandemic. Is there any limit to the amount of money the fed is willing to put into this economy to keep it afloat . Is it a blank check . Essentially the answer to your question, though, is no. Less than two weeks ago the fed basically repeated itself, keeping Interest Rates near 0 , which is essentially free money. The fed said it is, quote, committed to using its full range of tools to support the u. S. Economy in this challenging time. As you know, in normal times im a financial journal icht. When i translate that out of banker speak into english, it means the fed is willing to do whatever it needs to do, including printing money to avoid a repeat of the credit freeze that jambed up the Global Economy in 2008. So you see there is a money tree for the banks and for the stock market and for investors, and for people who can access credit right now. But if youre just one of the tens of millions of unemployed through no fault of your own, theres just month money tree for you. Were in the middle of a recession. We have double digit unemployment, literally millions of people on the verge of losing their homes and republicans say theres no money because theyre worried about an increase in the National Debt. Well, they werent much worried about the increase in the National Debt when they passed the giant tax cut bill in 2017. They dont seem much worried about it when they carry 0 not about increases on defense spending. When regular folks need money for housing and transportation and food, its about the National Debt. You might be wondering why im talking about a money tree. The reason is senator ted cruz of texas. His state has had over half a million cases of coronavirus with more than 7,000 people in the hospital and almost 9,000 people dead. Testing has plummeted. There is an increase in testing by all accounts. Senator ted cruzs state is a hot spot and this is what he tweeted today. Quote, why be so cheap . Give everyone a Million Dollars a day every day forever and three soy lattes a day and a foot massage. We have a magic money tree, we should use it. Senator cruz was met by this tweet from senator ed markey, democrat of massachusetts. Its not a goddamn joke, ted. Millions of families are facing hunger, the threat of eviction and the loss of a job every day. Hears get real. Senator ted cruz is right and senator markey is wrong. There is a magical money tree and you can eat its fruit and you can sit in its shade if you are rich or hold stock or are a major american corporation. If youre lost your job or about to lose your job, theres no money tree for you and that in a nutshell is why we dont have a deal now because republicans dont want to share the fruits of the money tree with the americans who are suffering. This is why the federal Eviction Moratorium lapsed and why the extra 600 Unemployment Benefits expired over the weekend. The president kindly interrupted his long weekend at his new Jersey Golf Club and signed four executive orders on coronavirus relief. Those orders are insufficient. Theyre really just part of a p. R. Stunt. Included in those orders is a plan to suspend payroll taxes, which would actually hurt americans more than anything because it takes money away from Social Security and medicare, not to mention the obvious. That suspending payroll taxes doesnt help people who arent on a payroll at all. Its kind of incredible that in the depths of this economic despair republicans are taking this moment to deceive americans, because it conforms to a conservative fetish about poor people getting freebies and running up the National Debt. Just to be clear, there is a magical money tree. Its just not for americans. For more on this im joined by congressman Hakeem Jeffries, democrat of new york, chair of the democratic caucus. The president has done something unusual. He can be relied on to do the wrong thing. Hes done something that people say he got this executive order out so i can get my federal bolster to unemployment when congress couldnt get its act together. Whats your response to people who think what the president is was a good thing . The executive order by donald trump is nothing more than a dog and pony show. Nobody is feeling it. The constitutional scholars are not feeling it because they know its an unconstitutional power grab that will go nowhere once it is sued. The republican leaning Republican Chamber of commerce knows it has done nothing meaningful in terms of dealing with the economic distress that exists all across the country. Senate republicans, at least in part have criticized it as well. Democratic and republican governors arent feeling President Trumps executive order because they know it will do nothing to help out the state and local budgets that will collapsing across the country which will undermine the ability to provide public health, public safety, public education, public transportation, and the public good. The president s socalled executive order will even cut in the middle of a deadly pandemic with depressionlike conditions in many communities 800 per month from everyday americans. Its shameful. Talk to me about this debt issue. The debt issue comes up every now and then. Mitch mcconnell has said, because his bill was stuck in the senate. You passed it in the house. He said he has 20 or so members who say its too much. Its enough, weve done enough. We cant run up the debt. This is the same congress that passed a tax cut bill two years ago when a lot of us were screaming from the roofs that this is going to inese debt. They said no, its not. Its going to increase Economic Growth and everybody will get 4,000 more, everybody will pay more taxes, it will reduce debt. It had the opposite effect. That is absolutely correct. Republicans could careless at the end of the day about the National Debt. Exhibit a is the gop tax scam that they passed in 2017 where 83 of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1 in america without any credible justification. And in doing so, they exploded the National Debt by 2 trillion. And now they want to talk about fiscal restraint in the middle of a pandemic, where youve got more than 150,000 americans who have died, more than 5 million americans infected by the coronavirus, more than 100,000 Small Businesses have permanently closed. More than 55 million americans have filed unemployment claims for the first time. I mean, what were dealing with here is a group of republicans who care about promoting the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. Period. We are fighting as House Democrats to try to stand up for the least, the lost, the left behind, working families everyday americans, displaced workers, the middle class and those who aspire to be part of it and, of course, our senior citizens. Theyre all about the wealthy, the well off and the well connected and thats what this moment truly reveals for the American People to see with great clarity. We always know that if you go into a recession in good shape, you often come out in better shape. But this recession is remarkable. The s p 500 is almost at a record. We are in a recession. Weve got tens of millions of people unemployed. Weve got tens of millions of people food insecure, we have tens of millions of people who might actually lose their homes, but the stock market is at a record because the fed has provided free money to businesses. Im not saying they shouldnt have. Its a good model. Why cant we do that on the other side for regular people . That is why we continue to fight for a meaningful congressional intervention. We passed the heroes act, as you noted, ali, on may 15th. Almost three months ago republicans have done nothing. And we would provide an extension of the emergency Unemployment Benefits of 600 per week into next year. We would provide approximately 175 billion in assistance for homeowners and tenants struggling to pay the rent or their mortgage. We would provide Food Assistance to americans who are increasingly food insecure. We would provide an additional round of direct stimulus payments of approximately 6,000 per family of five because we know that people are struggling in the midst of this moment. Theres a lot of pain and suffering and death that the American People have experienced. That is why led by speaker pelosi, we are fighting for a real congressional intervention, not a nickel and dime intervention which is what the republicans would like us to settle for. Meanwhile, as youve pointed out, the fed is propping up the stock market and corporate america. I dont understand how money to people who have lost their jobs or may lose their homes through no fault of their own is a partisan issue. Congressman, good to see you. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries is a member of the democratic black caucus. The president of the association of Flight Attendants Union is the cochair of the Biden Sanders task force on the economy. Unique to this discussion, sarah nelson was involved in the negotiations around earlier relief bills to try and figure outweighs so that were not in this pickle all the time. Sarah, every few months were not sitting here about whether its too much money or going to increase the debt. Were you trying to come up with a durable solution. Your complaint here is by the president working around this, hes done an end run around something that could have been more durable and more permanent. Absolutely. In march what we did in aviation, we hoped would be a model for every other industry and for our government, is to turn these relief packages on their head and actually build them from the ground up so the aviation relief package is a Payroll Support Program that requires the money from the government to go directly to peoples paychecks. It requires the airlines to keep people employed, connected to their health care, and that money can only be spent on that payroll and benefits. And that keeps people connected to their jobs. It allows us to start up again. And it is durable and it is successful during a crisis. You gave an example of a flight attend ant who couldnt work because or was worried about working and getting coronavirus because her husband had an underlying condition. Explain to me how your system works better than what weve got right now. Ali, we were absolutely in a crisis and were in a unique position in aviation where we are actually an essential service, essential workers and yet demand fell off a cliff, 97 in march. Its just barely back to 20 of what it was before. So there is not enough work to go around and yet we still have to go to work. The money from the federal government was enough to keep people in their jobs and connected to their benefits, but they didnt fully fund the program. What the airlines did was they also asked people to take voluntary leaves. There were people like my Flight Attendant friend who has a husband who is waiting for a heart transplant. She was getting ready to go back to work after caring for him in a recent surgery, getting ready to go back to work in march when covid hit. Her doctor told her, if you go to work your husband will die. She stayed home. She took the voluntary furlough. She stads connected to the benefits because of the program we had in place. So she could continue the medical benefits, stay on the list for a heart transplant. Theyre still waiting for that and they were able to use the 600 Unemployment Benefits to get by. Now if we dont continue this, if we dont continue the 600 plus help, if we dont continue the Payroll Support Program, she is on the furlough list at united airlines, will lose her job, will lose her health care and her husband will lose his life. She is one story, but this is the story of millions of americans right now. We are in crisis, and we cannot wait. Congress has to get together. Congress has to fix this because the president does not have the power of the purse. The president does not have the ability to allocate the money to do what those executive orders said. Those executive orders are empty. Its not just a legal challenge. They just the money is not there. The money is not going to show up for people. Sarah, thank you for the work that youre doing and thank you for continuing to work with congress on getting a durable deal that makes a lot more sense. Sarah nelson is the International President of the association of Flight Attendants cwa also the chair of the Biden Sanders task force. As children return to school, a report that nearly 100,000 kids tested positive for the coronavirus in just two weeks. Well talk about that next. Hat t awesome internet. Its more than just fast. It keeps all your devices running smoothly. With builtin security that protects your kids. Protects your info and gives you 24 7 peace of mind that if its connected, its protected. Even that that petcamera thingy. Can your internet do that . Xfinity xfi can because its simple, easy, awesome. Get advanced security free with the xfi gateway. Download the xfi app today. My view is the schools should open. This thing is going away. It will go away like things go away, and my view is that schools should be open. If you look at children, children are almost and i would almost say definitely, but almost immune from this disease. So few, theyve got stronger hard to believe. I dont know how you feel about it, but they have much stronger immune systems than we do somehow for this. And they do it, they dont have a problem. They just dont have a problem. Thats a lie. That was President Trump obviously last week saying children are almost immune from the coronavirus. It is a lie, not just a lie. Its a lie thats so recklessly dangerous that twitter and fashion book actually removed the video of that interview from the trump campaigns account. Pop over to my twitter time line sometime or chris hayes. Its kind of amazing how low the bar is for twitter to make you take down a tweet. Kids are absolutely not immune to the coronavirus. The science is still up in the air about the exact risks to children, but its clear they can catch t they can spread it and they can die from it. In fact, a new study found 97,000 children in the United States tested positive for coronavirus in just the last two weeks of july. 97,000. Thats a 40 increase in cases in children in a matter of two weeks. Joining me now for more on the coronavirus and children, d dr. Nahid badilia, director of pathogens unit at boston hospital. Thank you for joining us. On the one hand, i dont know anybody believed the stuff donald trump was saying about children being almost immune. I dont know how many people still take his word about science at face value. But lets just talk about what the relationship is between coronavirus and children. Ali i think you summarized it pretty well. You and i have often talked about the fact with emerging infections youre building the ship as youre sailing. The no noenknowns, as you said, children get sick. The American Academy of pediatrics, thats the total cases children make up. Whats concerning is in that report, some areas they makeup 5 of the total hospitalizations of all covid19 cases. Thats a big number. And so children do get it. Children can be hospitalized and children have died of covid19, at a lower rate than what adults do. Not only that, but as weve seen schools open up and summer camps open up over the last few weeks, what weve seen is children actually can get sick and they will present the illness thats going on in their community because theyre bringing that disease into schools and transmitting it back potentially to their homes. So one of the issues, of course, which you were just i think leading into is that children, while they may not have the rate of infection of adults, they mimic what we see in the larger community. So we see in poorer communities or communities where there are forced multi generational homes in small square footage, or communities where there are high numbers of preexisting conditions or no medical care, the same patterns exist amongst children in those kinds of communities. Thats right. I think the problem is in those communities we talked about the no knowns here. We dont know what happens, but can predict what would happen if you open up schools without all the proper protection for teachers, for the kids themselves, in areas where there is High Community transmission, and where there are schools that have huge class sizes, and potentially as you said, where do you see large class sizes, potentially students who are going home to Multigenerational Families . These are metropolitan areas and these are areas potentially kids of essential workers who may not have other options, such as other options for remote learning. And so it does carry an undue burden. I think if we push inperson learning it might carry a new burden for those areas and those families that dont have other options for schooling. And you have done some studying as to how we should reopen. I think everybody would like schools to reopen. I think we understand the damage to children if they are not properly educated and theyre not socialized in a school setting. There are places in the country where it might make sense to start it on a slow basis and learn, as you say, while the ship is sailing. Right. Well, just going to the study we started with, i think the question is what does the study tell me. The study basically tells me that the reason its not that the virus changed why we are seeing more kids getting diagnosed with it. Kids are maybe out more, theyre getting tested more because they have to return to school. And when we have more testing, so that existing disease that exists in kids is being picked up. And if thats the case, what its telling me is, a, the kids are getting sick and at a higher rate than we thought they were. And the second is the importance of testing. As you know, the current cdc guidelines sort of downplays the role of testing and reopening schools and potentially surveillance of disease in schools. To me i think the few important things are, as you said, children will reflect disease in children will reflect the disease in communities. The number one step, however, what we do, have has to be to decrease Community Transmission. And in some of the states being the most aggressive in reopening have the highest positivity. Texas has a positivity of 20 . As you know, the recommended is about 5 by the cdc and the White House Task forces own aye tier i can criteria. I think there is a role for testing. We need to go back and look at what that role is and how we pickup these clusters early. Three, i think if were going to open, reopen schools, the reopen needs to be in areas of low transmission. Give those places all the resources. This is about learning, unfortunately about this disease as we learn. Lets learn from low prevalence areas and apply it to other areas once they bring the Community Transmission down. Well talk about sports for a second. Headline today, the big 10 is expected to cancel the football games. No game for Michigan State in 2020. Donald trump subsequently tweeted, the student athletes have been working too hard for their season to be canceled. We want to play and play college football. I guess the problem ive got with this is i want students to go back to school, i love football to be played. We cant be making decisions on the basis of theyve worked too hard. The decision has to be made on the basis of can they stay safe. Can spectators stay safe. Can these young people stay safe. The problem is the same. We keep on talking about what we want when weve got science that can actually be guiding us. Thats right. A few things here. You cant wear personal protective equipment when youre playing sports, you know, or if you could i dont think it would look like what you think its going to look like. And not only that, but some of the things that were noticing is that patients who survive covid19 a small proportion of them have persistent symptoms for at least in the short to moderate term. What does that mean for these college students, these athletes who are neear adult . We know they get sicker than kids who are younger. The other thing is you spoke about data and science. We do need the science, but we also need the basis on which we can base create that science and knowledge. Right now, for example, the academy of pediatric report, only nine states actually reported testing. What percentage of people who get tested are kids . We dont know what percentage are getting tested. Only 20 states in new york city reported the number of kids that are hospitalized from covid19, or what percentage of hospitalizations are kids. So we need that data from all the states to really get the better picture of whats going on. Doctor, good to see you again. Thank you for joining us. She is the medical director of the special pathogens unit at Boston University school of medicine and an msnbc medical contributor. Still ahead they say the United States postal system fell to a friday night massacre. The disat the matt i can dismantling on the postal system and your ability to vote safely this november ahead. I got it all from you im always pushing through i know well make it to the finish line i know youre waiting on the other side im like you ondemand glucose monitoring. Because theyre always on. Another lifechanging technology from abbott. So you dont wait for life. You live it. There are some deeply distressing antidemocratic events going on around the country right now. Remarkably, appalling news around the world, by the way. Appalling news out of hong kong where the new secretly drafted National Security law Police Arrested a prodemocracy media mogul named jimmy li. Officers raided the newsroom of his newspaper which is critical of the Hong Kong Government and of chinese leadership. They arrested activists and a freelance journalist who works for britains itv news. This is an attempt to silence hong kong as it tries to exert control over the region. In yesterdays election in belarus was rigged after the Central Election Commission announced longtime ought karat i can leaderal aleksandr drer lukashenko won 80 of the vote. He controls the vote counting as well as Security Services and the state media in recent days they arrested many protesters and journalists in belarus. The country is being rocked by major protests as the main opposition candidate refuses to accept the governments results and has not conceded. Now, in normal times when faced with these kinds of situations around the world, they would look to the United States to do something. Were supposed to lead the free world l world. Were supposed to shine as the beacon of democracy. But were not doing that because similar things are doing that here. They attacked protesters in lafayette square. Were seeing it now as the president tries to undermine the upcoming election in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to violate the important civil rights of americans, the right to vote. Were seeing whats happening with the Postal Service where trumps crony and major donor, the new postmaster general executed whats being called a friday night massacre after a host of cost cutting measures at the Postal Service that is slowing down mail delivery ahead of the election when we expect a record volume of mailin ballots. Im going to talk to the head of the National Democratic committee about what he plans to do to protect the election after this. You know when your dog is itching for a treat. Itching for an outing or itching for some cuddle time. But you may not know when hes itching for help licking for help or rubbing for help. If your dog does these frequently. They may be signs of an allergic skin condition that needs treatment. Dont wait. Talk to your veterinarian and learn more at itchingforhelp. Com. They have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4 week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com save and never go to the post office again for weeks now weve been covering the slow down of the Postal Service during this pandemic in an Election Year where mailin voting is going to be crucial. The newly installed postmaster general, a major trump donor, has denied that his agency is slowing down mail delivery. But then in the midst of all this, pulling the old hide the news on a friday night routine, he quietly and completely gutted the leadership of the daytoday operations of the United StatesPostal Service. The Washington Post reports that, quote, 23 postal executives were reassigned or displaced, moving some to new positions and others out of leadership roles entirely. The latest friday night massacre is one of the many recent changes that undermine the ability to deliver mail. For example, the american prospect is reporting that states will now need to pay first class 55 cent postage for mailin ballots instead of the normal 20 cent bulk rate. As a result, states and cities may decide that they dont have the money to mail absentee ballots and will make them harder to get. This is not a philosophical issue. People died for our right to vote. This is an actual violation of civil rights. Trump is trying to undermine the constitutional requirement to deliver mail because delivering the mail actually threatens his reelection. To talk about democrats and what theyre doing to combat this violation and protect the election im joined by tom perez, the chair of the Democratic National committee, former assistant attorney general for the department of justices civil rights division. And i want to talk about that. I want you to take off your dnc hat for a second, tom, and talk to me as a guy who has a deep and rich history with civil rights. This is our right to vote that is being tampered with. Exactly. This is what john lewis said. The right to vote is the most important nonviolent tool to build a more Perfect Union that we know. And john lewis gave us his marching orders, which is we need to make sure that everyone gets out to vote and everyone has that right to vote and they do that. And what youre seeing with the postal sabotage is another effort to make sure that less people vote. Thats the fundamental philosophical underpinning of donald trump and the Trump Republican Party is we want less people to vote. We do better when less people vote. This is Voter Suppression on steroids. And you know what . We knew it was coming as a party, ali. So we have were using every tool in the tool box and were actually building new tools to make sure that people are able to exercise their right to vote this november. The problem, tom, is that weve got just a little more than 80 days to the election. In a normal world and you realize we went from about 23 mailin ballots in the last election to, i dont know what its going to look like this time, 40, 50, maybe 60, maybe higher. We need to be doing everything in every state to get up to the Gold Standard in mailin ballots. Were not only not doing that. Were going in the opposite direction. Well, government the executive branch, donald trump, theyre supposed to make government work, not make government fail. Thats exactly what theyre trying to do with the Postal Service, is make government fail. And heres what were doing in a nutshell. Were doing many things. Number one, litigation. Weve been winning cases. The we isnt just the dnc. Its other partners in the eco system. Weve been winning cases in places like minnesota, in wisconsin, elsewhere, and we will continue to File Lawsuits whenever justice demands. Number two, educating and organizing. The reason we were able to win a Supreme Court seat in wisconsin in april, in addition to the litigation success we had, was because we outhustled the other side. We worked with our partners in the eco system to educate voters on the need to vote by mail, vote early, and so we were able to get so many people out there to vote. If you look at places like florida right now, you have a major vote by mail advantage for democrats because everyones been doing their homework, reaching out to voters. 600,000 vote advantage. Same thing in north carolina, major advantage because we are organizing, organizing, organizing. Were using a lot of tech tools to help people. You go to iwillvote. Com. Find out where to vote, how to vote, do it early and register to vote. Weve actually were working with local authorities to make sure that there are rather than having a vote by mail, you can put drop boxes. Thats what they do in colorado. Yeah, colorado does that. And elsewhere. When i say were building new tools in the pool botool box, w dock that as well and working with other partners in the eco system. This is an affront to our democracy. This is a civil rights challenge. But you know what, weve confronted these challenges before. The eco system working on this is stronger than its ever been. Its more robust. Its not just the dnc and the biden campaign. Its other partners in the eco s system and we are united in our unfailing desire to make sure that we allow every Single Person to exercise their right to vote however they do. Every Single Person, not democrats. Everybody in this country should have an equal right to vote. You do have one tool in your tool box thats particularly good. Your old boss was talking about this the other day. Lets listen. Even as we sit here there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting. By closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive i. D. Laws and attacking our Voting Rights with surgical precision, even undermining the Postal Service in the run up to an election. Its going to be dependent on mailin ballots so people dont get sick. Tom, this is an interesting thing because the point you were making is that actually we can overcome this, right . People can actually as hard as the Trump Administration is going to try to stop people from voting, people cant do this. Barack obama is a good weapon for you. No, we can overcome this and we will overcome this. Not only is barack obama on this, but my other former boss, erik holder, is all over this and hes a remarkable partner in the eco system. Whats shameful about this in addition to undermining our democracy is that people depend on the Postal Service, ali, for prescription drugs. They depend on it for thursday Social Security check. Making government fail isnt the way to treat people well. Rural america depends so much on the Postal Service, and this president is undermining their ability to carry on life and death activities in their everyday existence. And that is why there is so much energy being devoted to this. Its not going to be easy, but the number of people working on this, we are winning in court. We are organizing everywhere. We have republican governors who have said, you know, yeah, we should allow vote by mail. We are doing things that weve never done before. Were going to have drop boxes in certain places. Were going to make sure that everybody has choice. Thats the key to voting. People who want to vote in person should have the right to vote in person. People who want to vote early, we should have a maximum number of early vote days so we can eliminate we can have social distancing and eliminate or minimize coronavirus challenges. And people who want to vote by mail and by the way, donald trump says vote by mail versus absentee ballots, theyre the same darn thing. I dont know what the heck hes talking about when he tries to draw a distinction. People who want to vote at home, vote by mail ought to be able to do it. And if you drop it in the mailbox by election day and, by the way, the government ought to pay the postage. Thats the Gold Standard. Drop it in the mail by election day. That should be the Gold Standard and were going to sue everywhere and anywhere we need to do that in order to get those rights for people. This is too important of election to allow someone to steal. And were not going to allow that. Yeah, i never realized how suitable it might be that a civil rights lawyer is the head of the dnc, but now that is the case. Tom, good to see you again as always. Thank you, tom perez is the chair of the Democratic National committee. Coming up next, down to the wire for joe biden to make his vp pick. Im going to talk to former congresswoman katie hill about whoever gets the nod right after this. Find your keys. Find your getupandgo. Find pants that arent sweats. Find your friends. Find your sense of wander. Find the world is new, again. At chevy wed like to take you there. Now during the chevy open road sales event, get up to 15 of msrp cash back on select 2020 models. Thats over fiftyseven hundred dollars cash back on this equinox. Its time to find new roads, again. Reinventing. Its what with comcast business, your Small Business can work faster, with powerful internet from the nations largest gigspeed network. Work safer, with all your connected devices automatically protected by securityedge. And work anywhere, with comcast business at home, our new businessgrade Internet Solution for remote workers. Whatever your business needs, comcast business has the solutions to help you not just bounce back, but bounce forward. Call or go online to find out more. Joe bidens selfimposed deadline to name a running mate came and went august 1st. His next deadline came and went last week. The deadline he cant miss comes next week, the Democratic National convention. And so tonight as the New York Times is reporting, the pick is imminent and will likely be announced in the middle of this week. Joe biden went through this very vetting, same vetting process back in 2008. Hes been very open about how seriously he takes this decision. Both for his campaign and for the future of the democratic party. What we do know is that his pick will be a woman. Hes told us that. We all remember what happened the last time a woman was on the ticket. Opposite donald trump. And so when you hear the name of the woman who is going to be joe bidens running mate, you might be impressed by her credentials. You should be. But what you will really need to be impressed by is the fortitude of someone who is going to have anything she has ever said, written, or done scrutinized, dug up, and held against her. So tonight im going to talk to someone who knows what its like to be at the receiving end of those attacks. Katie hill flipped a district held by republicans more than 20 years in the historic 2018 wave that saw more than 100 women elected to congress. Less than a year later then congresswoman hill found herself resigning from congress after her exhusband leaked revenge porn of her online which led to an allegation of an inappropriate affair with a staffer. But before she left, she delivered a fiery speech on the house floor calling out, quote, the dirtiest gutter politics shed ever seen. Im leaving, but we have men who have been credibly accused of intentional acts of Sexual Violence and remain in board rooms, on the Supreme Court, in this very body, and worst of all, in the oval office. Katie hill is now detailing her experience in a new book. She will rise, becoming a warrior in the battle for true equality. Former congresswoman katie hill joins me now. Good to see you again. You and i have not talked since you were in congress, and now you have come out with a book that tells a story many of us thought we knew, but it really tells a lot more. Tell me about this moment in which youre releasing this book, this moment we are in in america where were on the footsteps of having a woman named as a vicepresident ial candidate. Yeah, i mean, i decided i wanted to launch this book in conjunction with the anniversary, 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment which is when women got the hardfought right to vote. And, of course, that was only for white women. It took a lot longer for women of color to be able to fully exercise their Voting Rights. But the truth is that we have weve come a long ways in these past 100 years, but we have a long way to go. Its a monumental feat that we have a woman who is going to become vicepresident well, who is going to be nominated as vicepresident and i really think has the best shot at winning. But we still have so much more work to do and one of the things that we see the most is the double standard to which women are held and were seeing this play out perfectly in the vp process. Lets just dig a little deeper on that one because we use different language when we talk about women. We criticize different things. As i said yesterday, we ask women for a plan and for receipts and when we just take men at their word theyre going to do it. But your particular experience was different. Particularly about the things that we dont pursue men for that we destroy womens careers for. Yeah. I mean, we have someone like donald trump who has multiple allegations and proven allegations of Sexual Assault and certain sexual harassment. And the reality is weve seen that over and over with male politicians, with male candidates and, of course, you know, in my casey decided that the right move was for me to step down. And i dont regret that choice. But i think it is a perfect example of when, you know, we hold women to this kind of heightened standard of what we want to see, this sort of you have to be perfect if youre going to have a female politician. And we do not expect that from men. And in many cases, scandals involving male politicians actually boosts their numbers. So i think there is a real reconciliation that we have to have as were looking at more women running for office, being elected to office, making it to the highest levels as a nominee of the party or as a vicepresident ial nominee for the ticket, then we really need to rethink the way that were looking at women, and its simply not an equal Playing Field right now. The problem i have with moving forward is electing women. In fact, youve started a Political Action committee called her time which is devoted to supporting younger women and women of color. What do you hope to achieve with that . The goal is to get us to actual parity, which means 50 of elected bodies are made up of women. And i dont think that were going to be able to achieve true equality until we hit that standard. You know, weve got a huge legislative agenda that is very common sense and honestly i dont think its controversial at all, that can help us really dismantle the barriers women are facing in terms of equality altogether. I dont think well be able to achieve those outcomes until we have enough women who are elected to office. And so really thats the purpose of her time, and i think that we have this moment in history where, you know, we know were going to have a woman nominated as the vicepresident ial nominee. And i think that last time in 2016, we saw this as a historic moment. So many of us thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win. This is now a time where we realize, you know, such gains are fragile. We start with my own case. What we thought was a huge victory, and it was, can be taken away in a moments notice because of the misogyny and double standards that are at play. So i think we have to have that same realization when it comes to the vicepresident ial nominee and im concerned about the way weve already treated that process and the way its going to be used moving forward. So what do you say to people because ive had tweets about it who say we dig up anything on anybody. If you run for president or vicepresident or any office, people are going to dig stuff up on you and anything youve ever done, written, tweeted, said will be held against you. How do you see it being different for a woman . Well, i think that the way that we hold things up for women is different. We have this sort of purity test, this angelic standard test where we dont want women to be too ambitious, we want them to be kind and matronly and appealing, but not too sexy. We want them to be, you know, bold, but not aggressive, we want them to, you know, be smart but not seem like a know it all. And there is this very fine balance that seems to be acceptable or and the reality is no one can meet that. Weve seen that with play out over and over again. I want to elect a woman or i really want to vote for a woman, but not this woman. I dont really think she can beat donald trump. We saw that with so many people playing out. And i think that we just were at a place where we cant expect that as the status quo any more. One of the things that was very interesting to me when you ran, you have experience in an issue that i really enjoy talking about because its such a serious issue that we can solve and that is homelessness in america. We have 500,000 people by some estimates sleeping on the street every night. That was before the pandemic. Now we have possibly millions who will lose their homes. We dont have any infrastructure in this country to deal with millions of people who will lose their homes. You like. Of your fellow women, freshman congressmen, brought a policy focus to congress and that was going to be a big step for you because you had gone from being working at a nonprofit into making law. How did that make you feel . Yeah, i mean, its a tremendous opportunity. I think being in congress at a time when the senate was held by republicans and the white house was held by not only a ru republican but donald trump in particular, you realize its forced in your face every single day how the limits of the way our government was set up can be a real barrier to try and get things done. That said, im very optimistic about what were going to be able to did if we flip the senate and get joe biden in the white house because we have these huge systemic barriers that are in place in terms of income inequality, money in politics, in terms of the lack of health care for people, and housing, the expense of housing. I think were seeing that just play out in such a magnified way because of the coronavirus. And all of those at their heart are also womens issues. So i think that this is our moment where we really have to say that were not going to accept this any more, and we have to set an aggressive agenda thats going to its really taking steps to ensure that not only are we solving the issues that have been ignored for the last several years and fixing the damage that has been done by President Trump, but were really sending out the pathway for moving forward and creating the sustain able future all of us want for the next generation. What does the future hold for you . You know, right now im really dedicated to the work at her time. Im excited about the pac, we are supporting candidates, young women of color trying to reach the highest levels of elected office. But, you know, aside from that, we are also working on mobilizing young women as a voting block. I think that has not truly been activated in the way it could be. Women between the ages of 18 and 40 are sort of on target demographic to figure out what issues motivate them most. And i dont think its ones you will necessarily expect right off the bat. And how do we ensure that that is useful as a Political Force moving forward so we can go on with our agenda. So im excited for that. Former congresswoman katie hill, thank you for joining us. It is good to see you again. Katie hills new book she will rise is out tomorrow. Thats allin on this monday night. The Rachel Maddow show begins right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, ali. My friend, much appreciated. Thank you for joining us this hour. Happy to have you here. On the western border of russia in the northernmost part of that border you have finland. Below youve got finland, below that youve got estonia and latvia. The really big country on the southwestern part of that border between russia and the black sea is the large nation of ukraine. Lots of news about ukraine in recent years. Russia recently took part of that country. Russia is currently occupying other parts of it. But on top of ukraine, between ukraine and the baltic states, is the large and still quite soviet country of belarus. Belarus did become an independent country when the soviet union collapsed in 1991. They established a new form of government. They constituted themselves as the republic of belarus. They held an election for president of that republic for