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for a while, we've heard the term bidenomics and sort of a pejorative way. we've seen conservative writers use that term to talk about the economy and issues of the economy. but president biden and his advisers feel like he hasn't gotten enough credit here. even though people might have seen rising costs at the gas pump or in the grocery stores, what wasn't being talked is maybe the jobs report or the fact that inflation has cooled. so they're really trying to turn things around. the "washington post" put it so well when they said bidenomics is really in the eye of the beholder. right now i think that is going to be a tough sell for biden, especially as garrett was saying about like 33% of americans feel that biden is handling this issue well that is lower than his own approval ratings. it's something that i think even though he's going to be talking about and his team will be bringing out on the trail and trying to remarket bidenomics,
>> no, i don't. >> the whole idea about defunding the police and the whole crime issue happening across the country, i've been saying, gosh, now for months even before they had all the candidates stacked up for mayor, as goes new york so goes the rest of the country. and so that the new york mayoral race was going to be a litmus test for the rest of the country. and it certainly has turned out to be that way. i tried to get the candidates on from the very beginning. it wasn't time for it because the rest of the country just was not interested in it, it wasn't close enough. but i knew this would be az said a litmus test for the rest of the country. and i think that this really exposed where democrats -- you say this is a democrat problem -- where democrats actually are on crime, where they are actually as a party. i think it exposed so much about the left and the rhetoric on the right. this one race in new york city, i believe, did that. >> you wind up having eric adams, who is a former cop, came
it was on protecting voting rights. he was clear. he says we're facing the most significant test for democracy since the civil war. what we didn't hear is any mention of changing the filibuster. if democracy is on the line, how can the president avoid that? >> well, don, thanks for having me. as you know, you and i have had this conversation for well over a month where i talked about it being a most perilous point since the civil war, and i'm glad to see the president has come to that position, the real reality position of where we are. this is the way i see the president right now, and much of the administration and probably most of the senate democrats is they have been going through the stages of grief of what the republican party fundamentally is. it took them a while. they were first in denial of what the republican party really was. they thought donald trump was the bad part, he'll be removed, they'll go back to normal. they didn't. then they went into this bargaining position as you go into the stages. okay, we can bargain, we can figure it out, we'll do that. and then i think they went into sadness like oh, my gosh, this
true nature of critical race theory. >> you tweeted that it is, you are going to create something toxic when it comes to the way people think about critical race theory. that's what you yourself tweeted. isn't that bad for america? >> that's wrong, that's inaccurate. critical race theory is intrinsically toxic. i'm merely revealing it, and i'm merely exposing it and i'm merely creating a framework for people to understand it. but it's not that i've turned critical race theory toxic. >> reporter: but that is not what he tweeted in march. his tweet? "we have successfully frozen their brand, critical race theory, into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. we will eventually turn it toxic. as we put all the various cultural insanities under that brand category." judging from what is happening in some school districts across the country, the debate has turned toxic. but the school districts suddenly being targeted say they are not teaching critical race theory.
respond this way and it tells you kind of how to respond. if someone says there's systematic racism in this country. but i do think we need to recognize and folks need to look at how parents are feeling because some of the language that has been used to try and teach children, some of the new things that are being tried has really rattled people, not just white parents, not just conservative parents but parents across the board. and one of the things we talked about is that book, which is not critical race theory but a book for fourth and fifth-graders that said whiteness is a bad deal. imagine if that was flipped around and it said blackness is a bad deal. so you can see how parents would be very concerned. and the biggest concern, don, it really is fear. it's fear their children, particularly white children, are going to be demonized just for being white. and most people we talked to said they don't want to see anything like that. but this reminds them of something. it reminds them of the fight in
is not the party we thought it was. they've finally gotten to anger. the president's finally gotten to the point of anger, and i think the next thing, which i believe if the president's words are authentic, which i believe they are, and his anger is authentic, then they'll get to acceptance of this is who they're dealing with, this is the republican party, it's not what joe biden has worked with over the last 40 years, and they will get to that point i think because in the end you have to say -- and you know, you went over the history of the filibuster in the brief before the show, and before i came on, that it's always been used in a way to keep people from voting. it's always been used to keep people from civil rights and it's again being used to do that. so i think would i have preferred this to have happened a month ago or six weeks ago? don, yes. but i think the president's finally getting to the point of acceptance of who the republicans fundamentally are. >> do you think it's too late? just even for democrats. you have been saying as well,
the evils that do continue on in society today shouldn't be taught. >> reporter: the audience took photographs of slides and diligent notes on her presentation. >> i have a question. >> reporter: when protesters shouted out during and after the event -- they were confronted with chants. when you do read a cabal of progressives want to rewrite how students learn about their american heritage, that's pretty tough language. and you can see someone being really upset about some of that. what about the role of you all in this as well, making it more vitriolic? >> i would say what would be a better way to frame that that gets the point across of how serious all of this. >> reporter: activist and educator raj sekiwaju attended the meeting and thought it was racist. >> critical race theory fundamentally asks the question where does our loss come from and how it is informed by our racialized practices. racist practices. why are we not questioning that?
before had had good crime policies and this soft on crime thing has never been the right rap, now they have the right rep. including in new york, where my brother is the governor. bail reform is important. people rot in jails wrongly. but did the reforms go too far? are judges' hands tied on discretion for gun crimes in a way and releasing people from prison in a way that is making things worse when it comes to shooting? they're going to have to defend the proposition. >> well, that's a discussion. especially the thing about bail reform. i know it's been said a lot. bill bratton, who i respect highly has been on the show. even during the pandemic, we had a town hall with police chiefs from major cities all across this country talking about those issues. so far, though, so far, and they could be right, i haven't seen any empirical evidence that it is bail reform. of course people who are violent criminals should not be let out. if someone commits a violent crime they should not be let out -- >> new york, chicago, and san francisco are all test cases of reforms that -- >> much has been anecdotal.
so the crime issue is really important. is it the way that republicans are framing it? no. should we accept that framing? no. we should tell the truth about it. and it's not just a democratic problem or as the right would say a democrat problem, which is not correct grammar, which is used in a pejorative way. so i think it's up to us folks in the media to tell the truth about what it is so that people can make up their own minds about it on factual information. zblon, i couldn't agree with you more. part of the reason the last five years we got into this problem is not enough people, many of us included, clearly and fiercely sang out the truth, clearly and fiercely told the truth, and not treated politics just like a game like oh, there's a and there's b. we have to clearly and fiercely say the truth and say one political party is an autocratic party, the republicans, and one political party is the last party we have to protect our republic. that's a fact, and i say that as somebody who's a former republican. >> listen, there's so much -- we
>> do you think republicans actually -- do you think they heard or listened to the president's speech, and if they did, did they do it with open ears? because he denounced republican efforts to restrict voting rights. at one point he asked, have you no shame? similar question to what i asked before. but i mean we know what the answer to that is. how do you shame the shameless? >> you can't shame them. do i think their ears -- the sound waves went into their ears? yeah. do i think their brain picked it up as anything they would respond to? no. i think they'll say biden is being dramatic, biden is overreacting, this is not the -- you know, they'll go into their whole spin cycle of all of this stuff that they say. so their ears received it, their brains didn't. that's the problem we're in today. i was thinking as you were talking to chris, who i think is great, and that whole issue of crime. that's another whole issue that's being spun in a way that's nonfactual, and i think chris has a responsibility to say not what they're going to do