(inspiring music) (inspiring music) - As Stephen Colbert asked famously, "Was 2021 the worst year or the worst year ever?"

More than half of Americans now say it was the worst year of their lives, even more debilitating than 2020 when a deadly virus turned the world upside down.

From the second wave of the pandemic to the storming of the US Capitol, 2021 left many of us feeling sick and tired of being sick and tired.

As an antidote to that anxiety, whenever possible, we asked our guests to talk about silver linings that helped sustain them through dark times.

If there's a recurring theme in the clips you're about to see from last year's shows, Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. called it when he said, "Every moment of crisis presents a moment of opportunity."

(lively music) For some who doubted that climate crisis is real, this past summer was a wake-up call.

Catastrophic fires, floods, hurricanes, and extreme heat ravaged the globe.

For the skeptical, the reality of what our dangerously warming Earth looks like finally hit home.

If the bad news is that we're at code red to save the planet and ourselves, the good news is we can still beat the clock if we act now.

Here to tell us how is an all-star intergenerational panel we are absolutely thrilled to have with us, Xiye Bastida, founder of the Re-Earth Initiative, Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical climate scientist, Bill McKibben, the Paul Revere of the climate crisis, and Andrew Zimmern, James Beard Award-winning chef and climate advocate.

But before we get to our panel, here's what Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry had to say when I interviewed him about this issue earlier this week.

Secretary Kerry, we've been hearing about climate change for so long that a lot of people have just tuned it out.

But in the wake of a summer that saw apocalyptic extreme weather, suddenly alarm bells are being sounded, and you're hearing President Biden talk about the fact that we're at code red, or UN Secretary Attorney General Guterres is talking about the fact that we're out of time.

For people who don't know what to think at this point, can you help put those warnings in perspective?

- We're in the critical decade.

We have to be able to reduce emissions by a certain amount.

We have to be able to lay out a pathway to net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.

And it's very clear that right now the world has not yet responded with the urgency necessary.

I'm pleased to say the United States has joined together with Japan, with Canada, with the EU and the UK, and we have all set forward reduction plans in our emissions that keep faith with holding the Earth's temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The scientists tell us that if we don't do enough reduction between 2020 and 2030, then we will lose the 1.5 degrees, we go up to 2 or much more.

Right now we're on a course to 2.7 degrees warming.

And we also lose the ability to have net zero by 2050.

So that's what makes this a critical time.

Everybody must step up together.

We all have to be part of this solution.

- We haven't taken action to meet this moment, as you've just been talking about.

Now we're mired in these weather disasters, the extreme floods and heat and hurricanes, and people finally seem to be getting an understanding because now it's part of their lives.

You talk about the fact that man helped create this, and that means we can help stop it.

How do we stop it?

- We stop it by adopting intelligent, respectful-of-science energy policy, and we have to add to that nature-based solutions, that is, protecting the Amazon, protecting the Congo Basin, and protecting the ocean.

It gets pretty cataclysmic.

It doesn't have to, it shouldn't, because the science also tells us that we still have it within our reach to be able to reduce the emissions that are creating this problem.

- You personify what some people might consider an oxymoron.

You are a distinguished climate scientist.

You're the chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy.

You were also a devout evangelical.

You talk about how when you started to actually share your own religion with people in an effort to try and bridge the political divide, it was kind of like you felt like you were coming out of the closet a little bit.

So give us a sense of your sort of odyssey in terms of why you started speaking about your faith in terms of climate crisis.

- So I'm a climate scientist because I'm a Christian, literally.

I was well on my way to finishing my undergraduate degree in astrophysics, and that was what I was planning on doing when I serendipitously took a class on climate science, and that's where I discovered that climate change is not only an environmental issue.

It affects our health, the economy, national security, the safety of our homes, and most of all, it disproportionately affects the poorest and most vulnerable and marginalized people, and that is profoundly unfair.

So that's what made me decide to become a climate scientist, because I believe if we truly take the Bible seriously, then we're supposed to be recognized by our love for others, and how loving is it to just sort of stick our fingers in our ears and cover our eyes and pretend that we don't see this huge global problem that is already causing untold suffering today.

- Now, it's my understanding, one of your first converts was actually your husband, Andrew, who's also an academic.

He's a professor, but he's also a very influential pastor.

He has a great following.

And you actually had to convince him about climate change.

- Well, I wouldn't say I converted him because it isn't about conversion at all.

It's about showing people that who they already are is the perfect person to care.

Whatever is at the top of their priority list, and of course, if they take the Bible seriously, that's a good one to start with, but it could be the fact that they are a parent, that they enjoy a particular outdoor activity, that they're fiscally conservative, or they live in a certain place, or they have military experience.

So it's really about connecting with people and getting to know who they are, understanding what their values are, and then connecting the dots between climate change and what they care about, too.

So with my husband, it was actually a lot easier than most of us have it because we were very much in the same wavelength in terms of, you know, we both worked in academia.

We both believed the same things theologically, and I knew he was a really smart person.

He didn't doubt climate change because he didn't understand data and statistics.

He, like so many, had heard information from people and sources he trusted saying it wasn't real, no, scientists are just making it up, and the only way to fix it is to destroy the economy.

So when we start conversations with something we agree on and when we offer positive, constructive solutions that they can get on board with, that's often where so much of the denial just evaporates.

- So what's the biggest mistake we make in terms of trying to persuade somebody else that climate change is real, and in fact, taking it a step further, that a great deal of it was created by us basically?

- You've already heard this answer from Xiye and from Bill in two different ways, which is awesome.

We're all sort of singing off the same sheet, but different parts, and that is, we often begin by arguing over facts and data.

We think they have to agree with everything the latest IPCC report said before we can move on to talking solutions.

And the reality is, as I talk about in my book, often agreement on solutions eventually brings people on board with the science.

We're starting the arguments and the discussions the wrong way around.

We have to begin with the heart rather than the head.

We have to begin by talking about positive, constructive solutions and impacts that affect us.

The science can follow.

- See, that's why I was excited about this show because all of you are such uniquely gifted climate communicators, and I mean, in doing the research for this show, I'll be honest, I saw this issue in a totally different light, which brings us to Andrew Zimmern.

What is an Emmy award-winning, James Beard Award-winning influential celebrity world-known chef doing talking about climate crisis?

- Well, I think one of the most important ways in which stories of climate crisis touch each of us is when it comes to our food supply.

I truly believe over the last 30 years, many of us have been screaming at the top of our lungs and trying to find different routes in to preach the common sense that comes with everything that Bill referred to, what we learned in the '80s and also quite frankly in the '70s that we're not going to be able to feed our hungry planet, and in fact, our favorite foods are disappearing.

With movement in weather, it's very simple, what used to grow in one place no longer grows there.

Where soft rains used to fall up here in Minnesota, we can no longer harvest as many apples because hard rains are coming at the end of the season and causing huge stem-end cracks.

In Apalachicola, the largest oyster bed, most productive oyster bed in the history of America that at one point was responsible for over 10% of all oysters harvested in North America is no longer productive, zero.

There are more wild oysters in Apalachicola Bay, and it's simply because there's less rain there, so the water became saltier, and predators moved in from deeper waters and eliminated them.

We are going to lose, I believe, many other foods near and dear to people, coffee and cacao.

Cacao is extremely sensitive to humidity and to temperature, and we're just not going to be able to support the production of cacao that the world wants.

And I think sadly, much like you can't get a Caution, Children at Play sign put on a neighborhood block until there's some perceived threat, we're going to have to get shaken by something severe in order to realize that we have a global crisis on our hands of monumental proportions that is affecting the very existence of humankind.

You know, here at home, we have three different food Americas for those that are even able to eat, which is becoming a shrinking population.

We see here the dollar stores that don't even offer fresh food are expanding faster than supermarkets.

That's happening for a reason, and it's because of the tie-in between food and social justice that has been hinted at by so many of our other panelists, and that's also what brought me to the climate crisis table.

(lively music) - We're living in a time when celebrity is king, when more people know what Britney Spears is doing than can name a single justice on the Supreme Court, and when a Hollywood actor nicknamed The Rock gets more hits on social media than the first female vice president of the United States.

But a new generation is channeling that fixation on fame, not to promote themselves, but to tackle problems that plague our nation.

And when it comes to using the power of celebrity for good, nobody does it better than the dynamic and diverse women who we're honored to have with us today.

Joining us are Jerushah Duford, activist and granddaughter of the late Billy Graham, Deja Foxx, activist and founder of the GenZ Girl Gang, Daniela Pierre-Bravo, TV producer and Know Your Value contributor, and Kristin Tate, political analyst, author, and columnist for "The Hill."

Jerushah, part of what you did when you were speaking out before the election was in a sense try to redefine what pro-life actually means.

You talked about various policies that you found more, that were not compassionate, family separation, some of the immigration policies, that if you're going to be pro-life, you have to care about climate crisis.

Do you think people think in those terms, or do you think they're starting to think in those terms?

- I like to believe they're starting to think in those terms.

You know, I almost shriek a little bit when you say that I'm pro-life because what that means to so many people versus what it means to me.

What it means to me is, you know, from birth to the grave in all different facets.

I think what has happened so often is that we fight so much for the unborn, and then when they cease to be unborn, we turn our backs.

I think we turn our backs on the mothers who choose life.

I think that all of the policies that you just listed, I think statistics show us that if you can improve healthcare, if you can improve poverty, if you can improve all of those things that the abortion rates actually go down.

And so for me, you know, when I was a young teenager, I remember thinking, you know, "If I'm going to be pro-life, I also need to be pro-foster care, and I need to be pro-adoption, and I need to be pro all of the things that are leading these young mothers to feel like this is a decision that they have to make."

And so I hope that the term pro-life is starting to take a little bit of a turn to mean the whole person and really fighting for the mothers and fighting for the children once they are born, because what was happening is, you know, we, the people who are most outspoken about being pro-life, I don't really see a lot of work on any other issue.

I see a lot of yelling, and I see a lot of social media posting, but I don't see a lot of foster care.

I don't see a lot of helping impoverished communities.

And all of those things to me encapsulate being pro-life.

- People make assumptions about you when they hear that you're pro-life.

That's a hot-button label.

Is that just your experience all the time, that people just assume that you're one of the screamers?

- Yeah, a little bit.

I think as soon as they have a conversation with me or read something that I wrote, they have a different perspective, 'cause they'll see how I think about it a little bit differently than others.

I just think that when I say I'm pro-life, that's a personal decision, and it's not something that I would ever push on anybody else.

I feel pretty strongly about that.

But also, Jane, I mean, there are a few things that I can say.

I put my money where my mouth is.

I did foster care for eight years.

I adopted a child out of the foster system.

All of the children that I did foster care for went back to their mothers.

I was very pro-reunification.

These are mothers who chose life under really difficult circumstances, and I wanted to support them in every possible way that I could.

So I will say that that is the issue that I hear about the most, especially from, you know, other evangelicals.

I think unfortunately it's an issue that a lot of evangelicals use kind of as an excuse.

I think that being pro-life is what allows them to, you know, put their head down in the pillow at night and ignore all the other issues that I don't feel like you can ignore.

You can't look at these things in such an encapsulated way.

(lively music) - September 11th crushed our innocence about being safe at home from foreign terrorists.

Now 20 years later, we're grappling with how the violent attack on the US Capitol by our fellow Americans crushed our collective soul.

Today, we'll focus on the metastasizing disease known as domestic violent extremism.

Here to brief us on the threat that's infected our country's nervous system are three distinguished national security experts.

Joining us are John Brennan, former director of the CIA, Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, and Representative Elissa Slotkin, who chairs the House Intelligence and Counterterrorism Subcommittee.

Frank, when people believe in something that strongly, whether it's religion or a cause or an ideology, whatever it is, they are much more willing to do things they might not ordinarily do, like act out violently, especially, and this is the other piece of that, when they feel like they're being victimized, when they feel they're being repressed.

And apparently the polls on many evangelicals feel that they're discriminated against, feel that they are much more oppressed than African Americans, people of color, LGBTQ constituencies.

How does that make your job even harder in terms of trying to reign in this threat?

- Yeah, you're correct to identify this sense that Christianity is being targeted, this false perception that this is an existential threat to my religious belief system.

That kind of scenario is perhaps the strongest motivation that will lead someone to even give up their life for that cause, real or perceived, and then the wrapping of patriotism around that sentiment, redefining of patriotism, right?

You've seen all the people in the building on the Capitol at January 6th referring to themselves as patriots.

We've literally redefined what it means to be a patriot, and in some senses, some have redefined what it means to be a Christian.

The strength of the QAnon falsehoods is just that, that these evil people are controlling the world because they are Satan worshipers, they are cannibals, they are pedophiles.

You possibly couldn't come up with three stronger viscerally disgusting things to motivate somebody.

And so you see this in international terrorism, people willing to give their lives, why?

Because the other, that group called the other are infidels.

They are evil, they are somehow less than human.

That makes them worthy of destruction, and that's very, very troubling.

Where are we seeing that, for those who think I'm being a little bit too dramatic?

We're seeing people now refusing vaccines, even though it endangers their health, their children's health.

When you see people willing to endanger their lives for a cause, you need to pay very close attention to that, because that means the anti-radicalization process is going to be extremely difficult, and it's going to need all hands on deck if we can even get today a unified response to anything in this country.

- Elissa, I have a final question for you, and it really comes from, in a way, somebody you work with.

Former Republican Senator and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reminisced about one time when you briefed him as a 30-year-old CIA analyst and you knocked his socks off, and he said you were so direct, and he was just terribly impressed.

So I'm going to ask you for a very candid assessment of what Attorney General Merrick Garland said about one of the key drivers he feels to preventing domestic violent extremism is to promote tolerance and respect in this culture of bilious divisiveness.

How optimistic are you that that can happen?

- Well, I think that's a correct statement.

It's just hard to make it actionable, right, hard to turn that statement into something concrete that everyday Americans can do to help their communities.

And I'm being asked this all the time, right?

Right now the vanguard of American politics is happening in our school board meetings.

You want to see what's really going on in this country, look at how people are talking to each other and about what in school board meetings.

How does the average citizen worried about polarization and anger in their community take what the attorney general said and turn it into concrete things?

So the best thing that I've come up with that I recommend to people in my district is get away from politics, go and volunteer, do some community service on an issue you care about that has nothing to do with politics.

You care about rescuing dogs and cats?

Go work at a pet rescue.

You care about homelessness and hunger?

Go work on those issues.

Meet new people from your community and talk about things besides politics to build up that relationship, to try to build that common cause and decency between each other.

(lively music) - It's been called a cancer at the heart of our democracy, the malignant polarization that divides us, and yet an overwhelming majority across the political spectrum agrees we have to at least try to get past it.

We're just not sure if we can or how to start.

Today we'll explore whether resurrecting the concept of We the People is the impossible dream.

Here to help us do that is a panel of distinguished and diverse voices.

Joining us are David Brooks, bestselling author and "New York Times" columnist, Eddie Glaude Jr., Distinguished Professor of African American studies at Princeton University, Margaret Hoover, host of the PBS show "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover," and political pollster and strategist Frank Luntz.

Eddie, I want to go back to you because Ibram Kendi in "The Atlantic" as well, another "Atlantic" reference, talked about how denial is the heartbeat of racism and denial is the heartbeat of America.

As Americans, very often we somehow comfort ourselves with this notion that we're a work in progress.

So when a Charlottesville happens, you know, we're learning and we'll move on.

And then when Pittsburgh happens and there's a mass killing at a synagogue, we'll move on.

And then when El Paso happens, the same thing is what we tell ourselves.

And you talk a lot very powerfully about the myths and the legends that keep us from really dealing with these issues that we have to deal with.

Could you do that now, please?

- Sure, I think there's this efficient ideology of American perfectionism that secures us against our sins, that we're always already on the road to a more perfect union.

Yes, we once held slaves, but we don't now.

See, our inherent goodness has been verified, right?

No, we once, women were once limited to the home, to the domestic sphere.

Now they're out in the workplace.

No, no, that's a sign that we're on our way to being a more perfect union.

And I think oftentimes our myths and legends allow us to avoid or evade our actual practices where the practices reveal our commitments as opposed to our ideals.

And I think part of the work that we have to do in moving forward is tell ourselves the truth about who we are.

Racial injustice did not just happen.

It is the result of deliberate policy.

When we think about the wealth gap, the achievement gap, when we think about the different ways in which communities are policed, when we think about the way our schools look, all of this is the result of deliberate policy.

When you think about the vaunted American middle class, how it came into existence in the context of the New Deal, we know that there were deliberate efforts to cut Black people out of the benefits of the New Deal.

We know about redlining.

We know about FHA loans.

We understand the way in which police forces were deployed in order to contain Black communities.

We understand the impact of residential segregation and segregated schools.

Racial inequality is a result of deliberate choice.

It is the country we made.

If we're going resolve it, we have to be just as deliberate, but we don't want to be as deliberate because it will admit guilt.

We would have to admit complicity, but to admit such a thing is not to condemn one to hell of sorts, right?

It's actually to release you into a different way of being.

Until we actually acknowledge honestly what we have built, we cannot imagine ourselves otherwise.

And that's the key point, that we have to in some ways tell the truth in order for us to reconcile and repair.

Because if we don't tell the truth, then reconciliation is not possible, and repair will be a pipe dream.

- We're talking about a lot of big themes today that don't have obviously easy answers, but I have to ask you on the heels of that, do you see any progress toward achieving what you're talking about?

Do you see hopeful signs?

Do you have David Brooks's optimism?

(laughs) - Oh no, I don't have David's optimism.

(laughs) I'm not an optimist, I'm more, I'm never an optimist, actually.

I'm more, I have a blue-soaked sense of hope, and hope and optimism is different, to quote my neighbor.

But look, every moment of crisis represents a moment of opportunity, of potential.

We are at a crossroads as a country.

We have to figure out who we're going to be.

And the question is, will we double down on our ugliness, which we've done in the past in these moments, will we double down on our ugliness, or will we finally imagine a way of being together that's different?

Here's where David and I, we converge.

I think we need a new, robust moral and social contract.

What are our obligations to each other, obligations shorn of the belief that some of us ought to be valued more than others, but rather the sacrality of human being is at the center of our understanding of our relationship to each other.

The common good has been eroded over the last 40 years.

So what do we need to do to rebuild it?

We're in a moment of crisis, a convulsion.

The question is, what will we do with it?

Will we double down on our ugliness, or will we dare to imagine ourselves otherwise?

(lively music) - Once America led by the power of its example, a shining city on a hill that shone as a beacon for freedom and democracy around the world.

Then four years of the America First doctrine alienated our allies and emboldened our adversaries, and as American democracy itself came under siege, our light as a world leader dimmed.

Today, we'll explore if and how we can rebuild our preeminent standing in the world.

Here to help us do that is an all-star panel of foreign policy experts.

Joining us are Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, David Ignatius, foreign affairs columnist for "The Washington Post," and Robin Wright, columnist for "The New Yorker."

At this point, we are going to go to our final video question, which comes courtesy of Samuel in New York City, and it goes to how you see the future playing out.

Let's take a look at it right now.

- Many on the left and right are advocating for the United States to take a step back from global politics.

What would be the international consequences and implications if America were to take more of a backseat position on the international political arena?

- Robin, I'm going to go to you because- - Well- - Go ahead, please.

- I don't think America's going to take a back seat.

I think the American population is not as interested, but that doesn't mean the government is going to take a step back.

I think we have some big choices to make, and this is where I might disagree with my colleagues a little bit.

I think there are some tools and we, with Saudi Arabia, for example, we still don't know where Jamal Khashoggi's body is.

We're selling them a lot of military equipment.

There are ways we can use what we provide, whether it's Egypt or to Saudi Arabia.

We're not taking on China to begin with, but if we build a reputation for pushing back, using our resources to help those who are engaging in democratic practices, that we begin building a reputation that matches our ideals and not just ceding to the autocrats who have a constituency of one and who don't really care what their populations think, and it's all about them staying in power.

And I think that we need to draw some red lines and do some things about it and not just stand back and watch.

- Time for last questions, and Richard, I'm going to start with you because you wrote about a new concert of world power, and you wrote about how with change, tumult and chaos, or it's danger potentially when you start to really shake things up and that we're searching for a viable and effective way forward.

I know because I've seen you enough on interviews that the word optimism doesn't roll off your tongue easily.

But how optimistic are you that we're going to find a viable, effective way forward to try and improve the world situation?

- Jane, I'll get to that, but I'm going to take a one-minute detour, 'cause I thought that last video question was so important about the idea of America taking a back seat.

- Of course.

- It would be ironic and tragic if we did.

I mean, think about it.

We're about to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 when terrorists trained in Afghanistan, killed 3,000 people here in an afternoon, where, you know, we've lost, what, 600,000-plus American lives to a virus that began in Wuhan, China.

Climate change is increasingly making big parts of this country uninhabitable.

We talked before about cyber, that our democracy is not safe from it.

Our government is not safe.

Our economy is not safe.

So the idea that somehow we could turn our back on the world and deal simply with our domestic challenges seems to me fundamentally flawed.

I once wrote a book called "Foreign Policy Begins at Home," and I think we've got to address our domestic challenges, but foreign policy can't end at home.

We've also got to deal with the world.

The world's not going to call time out.

It's not going to say, "Okay, you Americans, go sort yourselves out, and when you're back up and running, then you can deal with all the challenges out there," 'cause these challenges still, every day they get worse, whether it is climate or health or Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs.

So we've got to figure out a way to do both.

I think we can, and this gets me to the optimism part.

It doesn't mean we send large numbers of American troops around the world to transform societies, to get everybody in the Arab world reading the Federalist Papers in Arabic translation.

No, that that cannot be a realistic goal for American foreign policy.

But I think we can push back against the worst aspects, say, of Chinese assertiveness.

We can do more to tackle climate change, to improve global health machinery, to set up some type of system globally to deal with cyber.

But the last 75 years has shown that American foreign policy can be enormously creative.

Indeed, Dean Acheson, the foreign, you know, the American secretary of state after World War II immodestly but not incorrectly titled his memoir "Present at the Creation," and we're still benefiting from some of the arrangements and institutions that he and his colleagues in the Truman administration built.

We haven't had anything in some ways equivalent to that in the aftermath of the Cold War three decades ago.

So the way I would set up the challenges, can the United States once again be creative in the world, not do it unilaterally, not try to transform the world, not simply use military force, but using all of our tools, working with others, can we build some arrangements that are able to contend with 21st century challenges?

If we can, that will be a good century, but if we cannot, then we're in real trouble, 'cause the problems out there will not stay there.

They will come here.

(lively music) - A year ago, George Floyd's six-year-old daughter Gianna proclaimed that her daddy had changed the world.

And last summer's protests played out against a counterpoint of hope that this time might actually be different, a catalyst for real change in the struggle for racial equality.

Today we'll explore what has changed and what hasn't in the year since George Floyd died.

Here to help us do that is a panel of distinguished and diverse voices.

Joining us are Jelani Cobb, historian and staff writer for "The New Yorker," Don Lemon, CNN anchor and bestselling author of "This Is the Fire," Richard Lui, NBC and MSNBC anchor and author of "Enough About Me," and Heather McGhee, author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Sum of Us."

Heather, the premise of your book "The Sum of Us" is that racism, we all pay a price for racism.

And I mentioned this to a couple people, and they kind of, they looked at me like, "What are you talking about?"

It's a concept that seems so simple and obvious, but it's not, so could you explain what the concept is?

- You know, when I set out to write "The Sum of Us," I knew that I was taking what had been an issue that we've talked about for so long and turning on its head a little bit and asking questions about the flip side.

You know, in many ways, racism, the way of seeing the world through a racial hierarchical worldview really sets up a zero sum.

This idea that progress for one group has to come at the expense of others, the idea that, you know, if I win, you lose, if I get a job, you lose yours, this is this zero-sum racial hierarchy, every advantage for white Americans mirrored by disadvantage for people of color.

And yet ultimately if that's the paradigm that we seek to uproot, then don't we need to make sure that we are zooming out and seeing how that paradigm might also be embedded in some of the stories we tell as racial justice advocates?

And so that was the sort of controversial question that I set out to answer in "The Sum of Us."

Now, as a person with, whose background is 20 years in economic policy, you know, I had some hunches, right?

I knew that, for example, just last summer, Citigroup calculated that the racial economic divides between Black and white families around income, wealth, business investments were costing the overall economic growth of our society $16 trillion over the last 20 years and that if we closed those economic gaps today, our economy would be $5 trillion larger in the next few years.

So on an economic basis, it's clear that if you have so many of your players on the sidelines saddled by debt, discrimination, and disadvantage because of explicitly racist policies and racist systems that have been set up and haven't been reformed, then you aren't going to have as many of those players on your field scoring points for your team.

And yet the fallacy that has been, really the lie at the heart of America from our founding has been that we are not on the same team and that some part of our population can profit at the expense of others inevitably and throughout time, and I just reject that.

- Jelani, I have a big assignment for you right now because I'm going to ask you to explain critical race theory and why folks like governor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis say that it teaches kids to hate their country.

It teaches kids to hate each other.

Can you explain what this controversy is about?

- Sure, critical race theory is an outgrowth of the thinking of a number of legal scholars in the 1970s, 1980s, preeminent among them was the late legal scholar Derrick Bell, in an attempt to understand how after the victories of the civil rights movement legislatively, but specifically the victories in terms of litigation and the civil rights movement and the civil rights era had not yielded societal equality, how there was still deeply rooted inequality in American society that became apparent as early as the decade after the civil rights movement had ended.

And so if we are looking at those questions, we then have to ask about our systems and our structures, our criminal justice system, our housing policies, our employment institutions, our healthcare institutions, every kind of major institution that impacts American life and as well as, you know, the legal system.

And so that's what critical race theory was really attempting to understand and what had been the shortcomings and what had been the problems that people had overlooked in the course of the civil rights movement that allowed this pathogen of inequality to mutate and continue to infect the body politic.

It has nothing to do with white people, has nothing to do with hating white people, has nothing to do with your contempt for any particular group.

The really exasperated and indignant demands that critical race theory not be taught to 10-year-olds, if your child was learning critical race theory at 10 years old, you should really be very proud because it means that kid is a genius and was in law school.

(lively music) - Years ago when I interviewed Ivana Trump, she was seen as a superwoman, a dynamo inside and outside the home.

So I asked her, "Ivana, you look like you have it all.

You're a bestselling author, a successful businesswoman, a wife, and a mother.

Ivana, can you have it all?"

And she replied, "Yes, you can, just not at the same time."

Now as COVID continues to decimate women's hard-won gains and derail the fight for gender equality, the question is, what can women have, at all?

Here to help answer that question are Katty Kay, executive producer of Ozy Media and former BBC correspondent, Sophia Nelson, scholar-in-residence at Christopher Newport University, Stacey Plaskett, delegate to the US House of Representatives and Cecile Richards, cofounder of Supermajority and former president of Planned Parenthood.

You wrote a book called "The Confidence Gap" that basically talked about the fact that in the workplace, women lag way behind men when it comes to really feeling that they have a contribution to make, that they're sure of themselves.

And now we have this, this pandemic comes rolling in, and I can't even begin to imagine how that's exacerbated the problem for so many women.

Have you talked to women who have basically sort of, they feel they're backsliding instead of going forward because of what's happened with COVID?

- Yeah, my co-author and I, Claire Shipman, are working on a new book actually on the subject of women in power and women's relationship with power and how women wield power, how the world would look different if more women wielded power, and we spoke to a lot of women during the pandemic including you know, full-on lockdown time to try to get a sense of how they were feeling.

I mean, I think what Sophia was talking about earlier, that incredible emotional toll of COVID and of having to do everything, of that feeling that you were failing somehow if you weren't keeping your family together, if you weren't keeping your job together, if you weren't keeping, you know, meals on the table, if you weren't juggling all of these balls and somehow you were letting some slip.

It did, I think, produce something of a crisis of confidence in individual women.

Women have suffered from a setback in sponsorship, a setback in mentorship.

Particularly women of color have seen a decline in both of those important workplace tools during the pandemic, that it's been harder for women in the world of Zoom to get their ideas heard, to get their ideas leveraged, to get their own promotion and their own pay raises.

Things that were already perhaps harder for women have become even harder, and that lack of sponsorship and mentorship is particularly concerning.

- Sophia, you were inspired by Shirley Chisholm, who's already been mentioned during this broadcast, who was the first African American congresswoman, the first candidate to run as president for one of the major parties.

There's somebody out there right now, Sophia, watching this show who feels they're at the end of the line, basically, they're dancing as fast as they can.

They're frustrated by the pandemic, they've lost during the pandemic.

You are such a proponent of somebody who believes in inspiration and aspiration and self-care.

What would you say to the woman who just feels like there are no better days ahead for her?

- If we're honest, the word that describes most women, particularly working women right now, whether single, single moms, married, et cetera, is exhaustion, we're all tired.

When you start to feel like you're at the end of your rope, when you start sinking into these depressive places and you're isolated, it means that you're not taking care of you.

What I'm telling you is, girl, you can only change what you can change, and all change starts with you taking care of you and giving yourself a minute to breathe and to think clearly and to come up with a plan, because one thing we know about us women, we are resilient, and we can always find a way to stretch a dollar, to make it work, to take care of what needs to be taken care of, because we're women after all, and that makes us amazing.

So hang in there.

You're going to be okay.

- And at this point we have the final question going to Cecile, who also, I know, has an amazing daughter, possibly more than one, but your daughter, Lily, who is feisty and has moxie and possibly because when she was a baby, she was in a backpack on a picket line with you and your husband, which sort of is what happened to you as a child with your legendary mother, Governor Ann Richards, and your father taking you out to be on a protest line.

I guess my question to you is, there's so many things that can discourage us right now.

We're living in a world that every day breaks our hearts in some new way.

And my question to you is, if we're built for this, for this fight, how do we really believe that we're built for this fight?

- It's kind of a perfect question, I think, because I do think about my mom a lot, and she believed that so many times as women, we just sort of take ourselves out of the equation.

And I think this has been a bit of the thread, and I love being on with all these other incredible panelists and just their encouragement.

But I think a lot of times as women, we think, whether it's running for office or trying for that C-suite job we've talked about or changing the world, that we don't have the right skills, or we don't have the right education, or we don't have the right contacts.

And so I guess what I really think is important to just be communicating to young women in particular now is just start before you're ready.

You know, don't worry about all your deficits.

You know, men look in the mirror and think, "Oh man, I look like a congressman."

It's time that we have, as young women, you know, that we encourage young women to just get going.

And I think to the thread that has also been through here, which I just can't support enough, is what I have found, I know there's a lot of conversation that women don't support other women, but what I actually feel like I have seen over these last few years is women taking joy in the success of other women in a way that, you know, it used to be there was only one woman, right, in every thing, and now there are women everywhere.

And so I feel like if we can encourage women who need that encouragement to start before they're ready, just jump in and go, and then we can all collectively take joy in their success.

It's infectious, and I think that whether it's shine theory or whatever you want to call it, the more that women see other women breaking out and being successful, it reduces our sense of isolation.

It reduces our sense of, I think, despair and feeling like things will never change, and it makes us hopeful about the future.

And I'll just say, you know, spending this hour with the rest of you, it makes me hopeful, too.

So thanks for having me.

(lively music) - When the pandemic first struck, it seemed surreal, like the plot of a science fiction movie.

Then virtually overnight, a deadly virus turned our lives upside down as many of our darkest nightmares morphed into our new reality.

That reality, fraught with fear and uncertainty, has changed our nation, our world, and each of us in ways we never dreamed possible.

Today, we'll ask our guests how this inflection point in time impacted them and how they think it's changed our culture for better or for worse.

We're grateful to have with us Tim Daly, actor and president of The Creative Coalition, John Lithgow, actor and bestselling author, Dr. Kavita Patel, a fellow at the Brookings Institution whose book on grief and loss will be published next spring, Danielle Ponder, public defender by day and musician by night, and our first two guests, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, co-hosts of the MSNBC weekday broadcast "Morning Joe."

Going to switch gears a little bit, Mika, because you wrote a wonderful piece recently about your extraordinary 89-year-old mother, Emilie, who's an artist of renown who has had a very tough time since your father died, and you had an experience where, and I think Joe was instrumental, at least you gave him credit, in suggesting that the two of you go away for three weeks together, you and your mother, and that it was one of the best times of your life, why?

- Well, the pandemic kept us home, and my mom actually is right nearby, like a neighbor, and so I got to see her every day, 'cause I wasn't traveling anymore, which was one of the, you know, unexpected silver linings of the pandemic.

- Our animals liked it as well.

- And our cats love it.

- They loved it, the dogs.

- Cats and dogs and kids.

- Yeah, all of 'em, yeah.

- So, but no, and I really, our relationship has become much more, it's been enriched by the time that we've had together.

And my mom was a little discombobulated and confused a little bit about where, what happened to her life, because when my father passed almost four years ago, God, is it that long, she had two heart attacks and then was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and like all this stuff was coming down on her.

We really didn't think that it would, she would have a good time ahead of this, she would even be able to really get by.

We have a house in Maine that we've been going to for 54 years, and Joe suggested that me and my mom just go, just ourselves.

My God, we had the best time.

She came, really came back to life.

It was just me and her, and we could really talk.

I mean, I am so grateful that he came up with the idea because it was really one of the best trips of my life.

- Can you, tell quickly, 'cause we did ask, it's gone quickly, what is, is there a silver lining for you out of this?

- Yeah.

- Out of this last 18 months?

- There is, there's a silver lining in that number one, we have new relationships, and those new relationships spark actually our ability to come forward with meaning in different ways.

And I actually think that for many people, myself included, Jane, it's a reset point where we can actually use what we've gone through to say, "This is a direction, I'm going to take my life in a direction where every day I'm going to try to figure out what meaning is to me."

And that could mean a number of different things for every individual, but it could just be changing one habit a day.

For me, it's a silver lining that we will create meaning kind of one person at a time and within ourselves, and it's possible, it's within our reach.

- Let's just talk about the pandemic, because you had been quoted as talking about how the last 18 months for an African American, for people of color in this country has been excruciating between the fact that people of color are disproportionately affected by the pandemic and of course the protests of last summer and the murders of Black people.

How much, were you in lockdown?

How much were you affected, and you were alone during this?

- Oh yeah, absolutely, I was in lockdown like most of the country, and I was in a place where I thought I would be playing shows, but there was just complete silence.

For 15 years, I've been able to get up and perform, and I could no longer do that.

And then it was a George Floyd summer as well.

So as folks say, it's difficult just being a human being, you know, and it's extra difficult being a Black person, especially in this country.

So we went through all the trauma that everyone went through in the pandemic and then additional trauma seeing on television folks that look like my brother being killed.

And then the crowd against Black Lives Matter, the crowd that came out against folks like George Floyd was so loud and amplified I felt like more than in recent years, that that was also disheartening.

So it was trauma on top of trauma, and for me, it really took a heavy toll on me, especially because I couldn't do what I always do, which is go to a show, talk to it about the, talk about it with the audience, perform.

So I had to go inward, and that was difficult.

- But you got through it.

- I got through it, I did.

And I think actually being at the protest, as difficult as that was, we had a very violent protest in Rochester.

The police were violent towards the citizens who were protesting, but we did form community at that time, and I've just made friends through that protest who I'm still very connected with, and I think that's what helped me get through it.

- Final question, Danielle Ponder, for today, what would you say to people, let's go back to the labels that you talk about.

What would you say to people who think they know when they hear somebody is a convict or that they've been in prison, what would you say to people?

What do you want them to take away from this show today?

- Yeah, I think this is really heavy for me, 'cause I deal with this when I say that my brother was incarcerated.

I think that we all are not the worst things that we've done.

One thing, I teach at a local college, one thing I like to do with my students is go through all of the crimes that they have committed that they were not arrested for.

I'd like us all to remember that we have done things that we are ashamed of.

We have all done things that hurt people.

We are all human beings doing our best.

Some of us have more supports than others.

Some of us have less trauma than others.

But everyone is attempting to do their best, and what is really required for us is to bring those folks into the community and say, "We love you.

We are here for you, and we want you to heal."

And I think that is the path that we should be going in in our criminal justice system, and I hope that's the heart and mind that folks can bring to criminal justice reform.

But just in general, everyone you meet, realizing they have a journey, they have a story, and they're doing their best.

- And here at "Common Ground," we'll continue to do our best to bring you guests who reflect that spirit of tolerance and optimism and may even help you hear disparate opinions in a different way.

So thanks for joining us today.

Originally from the other Washington, Washington, Connecticut, now from Litchfield, Connecticut, until we see you back here for "Common Ground," I'm Jane Whitney, take care.

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