during these extraordinary times. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicole. i am ari melber. we're covering news on civil rights, health care and the looming impeachment trial. we begin with president biden pressing ahead on this important issue of the vaccines announcing 200 million doses arguing this administration wants to do more than one thing at a time. he's also announcing the justice department will rescind donald trump's very controversial and very well known zero tolerance policy that led to the harsh policies with imprisonment and cages. four new orders on racial justice including what he says will be better, fairer housing and taking on the controversial private prisons industry. >> today's generation of young americans is the most progressive, thoughtful, inclusive generation that america's ever seen. forcing us to confront systemic

racism and white supremacy. >> we have seen, and it's been plain for all-americans on their television sets, just how serious a problem we face from nationalists and white supremacists. as president biden has made clear, advancing equity is everybody's job. >> important issues and we have quite a bit more on that in our special coverage including a special guest coming up momentarily. you should also know as we track everything going on in the first full week of the biden administration, the president has won now fast confirmation for janet yellen who is the nation's first woman to be treasury secretary and for his secretary of state anthony blinken signs that the senate is going to work on the nominations as it swore in senators for a separate project, swearing them in today as jurors for the upcoming impeachment trial. democrats argue they have new and compelling evidence there. plus an update to a story we brought you last night. new clues on mitch mcconnell's breaking point.

he is publicly blinking in his standoff with the new boss in town, majority leader schumer. they now have what they didn't have yesterday, a verbal agreement to hammer out the senate business plan, what's called an organizing resolution, that does not, not grant mcconnell's initial and many said farfetched request that there should be absolute protection for him to do filibuster obstruction. no protection for that. what you see when you take this altogether is a president working hard on a health care and health crisis emergency, the effort to staff the white house cabinet, the effort to get mcconnell out of the way as well as this ongoing preparation for the trial of the former president for the insurrection against that very capitol. it is a lot to juggle even as there are signs that some things are working. to paraphrase cold play, nobody said it would be easy but this looks really hard.

let me bring in our experts to kick us off. alex wagner is a co-host of show time's "the circuit" and veteran of msnbc and juanita oliver. good evening to both of you. your thoughts, alex. >> there's a lot of work to do, ari. the country's in crisis. the biden administration realized they're going to have to walk and chew gum and cook dinner and dance backwards in heels and all the things at the same time. look, i think in addition to the multiple crises facing the country, we're dealing with a republican party that's imploding before our very eyes. we talk about the fact that mitch mcconnell be is trying to weaponize an organizing resolution. everybody should take a moment and absorb that. this is the organizing resolution is a pro forma piece of senate parliamentary procedure. mitch mcconnell tried to weaponize it. that to me indicates the

republican party will leave no stone unturned in terms of the levers of power. if they could weaponize the senate gym, they would. anything that there is, they will try to use as a lever of power because they understand they are dealing with an administration and a democratic party that is emboldened, that is scared for the future of the country and that is willing to do a lot of really big things to save what i think they see as the country on a precipice. >> well, alex, as a student of washington, may i ask you then a relatively silly follow-up question? >> you can always. >> what do you make then of mitch mcconnell's argument which he made bluntly and in public that he would continue to basically try hostage obstruction tactics unless he was given the commitment that he could endlessly try hostage obstruction tactics? >> right. the -- it's completely

counterintuitive. mitch mcconnell doesn't want anybody to do away with the filibuster because it's the one tool he has. it is a very, very effective tool the way the republicans have used it. he's virtually guaranteeing the democrats are brought to the edge of getting rid of the filibuster because his tactics to preserve it are so willfully wrong, if you will. i mean, it is so plainly obvious what he -- he's laying out his agenda of obstruction and hoping that the democrats don't fight. i think honestly if you had asked me a week ago whether there was momentum within the democratic party to get rid of the filibuster, the antics of the past few days have almost ensured there is going to be a real ground swell of consensus inside the democratic caucus to do something about the filibuster because of mcconnell's behavior over the last couple of days. >> you make such a great point, which i want to present that point and evidence for it to

juanita. here's senator tester, part of that manchin block of people who say, well, hold me back. i don't really want to do it unless i had to do it. here he was reacting to what you identified. mitch mcconnell saying he would literally filibuster anything if we had tester. he says, i feel pretty damn strongly, juanita. i will also tell you this, i'm here to get things done. if all that happens is filibuster after filibuster, roadblock after roadblock, then my opinion may change. this was among our homework for tonight's show, we had this ready and it's exactly the point alex was teaching us. your thoughts? >> honestly, i'm not sure what tester needs to see more of. in fact, not only this moment when mcconnell tries to, as alex says weaponize a procedural moment, look at the past four, six, eight years when mcconnell had leadership and absolutely did nothing but his own agenda,

ignored the needs of the american public, ignored the needs of this pandemic, ignored the needs and realities that people are facing in exchange for what? pursuing his judicial plan? mcconnell has already shown everybody his hand. he's already shown how he moves in this body and as he continues to i guess come to terms with the reality that he is now minority leader, he's going to keep kicking and screaming. so, again, i don't know what else center tester needs to hear or see. the evidence is there. it's already shown that mcconnell and other republicans are going to be obstructionists to the very end. democrats absolutely have responsibility to stand up. you know why? for the millions of voters who elected them. for the black and brown community that turned out in georgia to deliver the senate. those voters are expecting big, bold actions and democrats absolutely do not have an option to not deliver on that. >> yeah.

alex, there is plenty of legitimate debate in policy, the size of the government, whether a program should be led more by the feds or the states, who's going to pay for it, tax and fiscal policy. plenty of legit stuff. there is not a big market right now to say that after everything we just went through the federal government should do nothing on covid or jobs or the recession, right? people who have suffered under these business restrictions, they say, okay, if stuff is closed or restricted, is there support? because closing down stuff for public safety and supporting people's paychecks in the meantime is very different than shutting them out. aspect of this story we've reported on. we could all come up with five more. i'm curious what you think about the pickle mitch mcconnell is in where he would rather fight about rules or other side shows than perhaps politically admit they don't want to pass the biden plan to do any of this stuff, not to say it's perfect, but it's something on those

issues. >> well, having to actually legislate forces you to actually have a governing agenda. in the age of trump what we saw was the republican party rip up any platform and feed it to the fire. i mean, the republican party is the party of trump and i don't mean that sort of just rhetorically. it's whatever he thinks. the fact that mitch mcconnell on january 12th was keen to get rid of trump, pushlg him from the party then on january 13th said we're not going to convene the senate because we can't have an emergency session and then in the beginning days of the biden administration say it's too late to have an impeachment trial tells you everything you need to know about how mitch mcconnell is going to lead his party. it's been keeping the finger in the wind and understanding which way the winds are blowing, that is towards trump. there is a reason that kevin mccarthy is begging and scraping on the phone to donald trump. there is a reason that mitch mcconnell is behaving the way he

does. 85 to 91% of the republican voters would pull the lever for donald trump. the party is still very much his. without his tweets to guide them, they are basically men and women without a country, without a platform, without a party. and as such, will do everything to delay and obfuscate around actual legislation because they don't know where they're going. they are a flock whose shepherd is down in palm beach kicked off social media. so where do you go from there? >> well, yeah. if you don't have a tweet, you don't know what to think. i'm running over on time for this because i have a special civil rights guest. juanita, briefly your final thoughts on this washington topic. >> absolutely. i think alex is right, that the gop is at an absolute loss right now. and it's a little bit conflicting, right? they couldn't stand trump in private but now they need his guidance. now they feel beholden to him even still, especially what we saw today with a vote on senator

paul's notion that this impeachment trial is unconstitutional. he's not there but they're still afraid of the boogie man. >> h'm. juanita, alex, thanks to both of you. we turn to president biden's other new action today on racial equality. >> i ran for president because i believe we're in a battle for the soul of this nation, and the simple truth is our soul will be troubled as long as systemic racism is allowed to persist. we're not a nation of morally deprived because of systemic racism, we're less prosperous, we're less successful, we're less secure. >> biden making the argument in several ways and discussing new policies on housing, civil rights, but this is about more than words. he also wants to take, he says, concrete action to tackle scenes like this. you're looking at a private

prison in mississippi. this is a "new york times" report where they found this very controversial video of an inmate getting brutally assaulted by these other inmates. as the "times" reports, no guards in sight. no effort to protect the human rights of this individual as they were brutally beaten, helpless on the ground, quoting the "times." there was a guard navigating the surveillance camera in that area. there are many experts who say this is exactly why poor policies and lack of accountability make private prisons worse. now biden's solution tonight? he says he's pulling america out of the private prison business. no federal contracts will be renewed or made with private prisons going forward. it's a break with what the trump administration had done. this is just one piece of a much broader and more systemic issue. there are many people who point out more should be done if you want to deal with the prison problem in the united states. for that reason, as i mentioned here near the top of our broadcast, we want to bring back

a guest we've heard from before. germ main mckes son is the co-founder of campaign zero. he goes well beyond rhetoric which is why i wanted to see you tonight. thanks for being here, sir. >> it's good to be back. >> as i mentioned in our reporting so folks understand, there are many reasons why experts see private prisons as a particularly big problem with less government oversight. biden returning to something that was more in line with what the obama administration wanted to do, limit their use federally, and yet you and others have pointed out there's a lot more to be done. walk us through what you think of today's actions and what more should be done. >> yeah. so i'm reminded this is day six of the administration so it's good this is a priority from the beginning. when we zoom out we're reminded that about 8%, little bit less than 8% of the people across the country are in private prisons. we know that private prisons aren't run more officially, they are often worse for people. we should be moving away from

incarceration in general. we look at the federal system, 1% of people are incarcerated in federal prisons. this will be a good first step. where i hope the administration goes over the course of these four years is to also address i.c.e., right? 75% of people in immigrant detention are in private facilities. i'm hoping that is the next step. today was a good start, right? feel like this signals a return to the obama era. this was an executive order obama did. trump undid it. then there was a flourishing of the private prison industry. biden is saying that's unacceptable. it's good that in the first ten days this is a priority. i'm excited to see where they go next. >> i appreciate how you sound pragmatic and it's interesting because we've talked about these issues before. it's power. it's also how do you get it done? it's how do you get it right? there's a moral force or power force. whether we study mlk or malcolm

x, they were sophisticated about political and rhetorical power in addition to having a moral crusade. you just talked about timing. the obama administration didn't really take on private prisons, at least from my view in reporting, until the second term. you mentioned this is in the first ten days. i wonder what you think that means about a seat at the table that blm has, which is a large and not monolithic group, but you're also, whether you want to be humble or not, you're one of its visible members. what else do you tell them needs to happen in the early period where everybody knows you can make more change in the first 100 days than the last? >> yes. i think it's true. many of the obama actions around policing, prisons, they were great actions. they came sort of at the end of the second term and they were good. it's exciting that this administration is starting off there, that they are picking up where trump dismantled things and they'll run with it. i'm excited to see what happens around policing. with the police most is local and state but i think the biden

administration has signaled they will do strong things. when we think about the prison action taken today, it's like they know people are going to press around immigrant detention. they know people are going to press around clemency, pardons like they know what's coming. i have to believe the people and a great set of people at the doj, like the whole set of people over there are really strong on these issues. i can't wait to see what's coming next. it's heartening this is the beginning. six days in. this will be 1% of the people incarcerated. i think a lot of people get confused. the end of private prisons doesn't mean freedom. it means public prisons. i'm excited to push them even more. this is a good first step. >> really interesting, dure. especially your points on the numbers on the immigration piece which is huge. you mention ms. clark. we'll be reporting on ms. clark who is a former guest but who

ran the leadership conference civil rights under law, the lawyer's committee which used to represent mlk and those organizers to see what she will do under doj will be interesting. we'll be tracking it. we'll hear from you again, sir. thank you. >> good to be here. we have our shortest break of the beat tonight. just 30 seconds. when we come back, an update on this impeachment trial, an update on feds arresting a former police officer for threats against congress and we have an expert on the new plans to vaccinate everyone faster. nothing more important than that these days. later in the hour, a special guest on a very important traffic stop that might get new accountability. stay with us. ay with us research shows people remember commercials with nostalgia. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance,

here's one that'll really take you back. it's customized home insurance from liberty mutual! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ . the first steps of the trial are here. we are speaking about the impeachment trial of former president trump. his fate in the hands of now 100 senators, some of them newly elected, and today each was formally sworn in for the impeachment trial. senator leahy sworn in to preside over the trial. he has extensive experience, of course, having headed the judiciary committee and then late today a surprise. senator rand paul trying to force a vote on the constitution constitutionality of this trial. the motion killed in a 55-45 vote but it may reveal what some

republicans think. the very same republicans who fled that chamber over donald trump's lie that the election had been stolen, which turned into the riot, well, some of them don't seem interested in going forward with the trial at all. now here's the count. 5 republicans did vote with democratic senators. that's murkowski, romney, sass, toomey and collins on what, again, was basically a procedural vote who revealed who's more critical of trump. mcconnell had leaked that he's pleased about impeachment. well, today he voted with senator paul on this procedural argument that's basically an attack on the trial or even considering evidence and considering accountability for the former president. now you should know constitutional law experts note there is nothing unusual or unprecedented about the trial. there have been plenty of precedence for reviewing the conduct of an officer, including

one who may have left the government. so now we're seeing a new talking point. >> where is the constitutional power to impeach him? private citizens don't get impeached. impeachment is for removal from office. >> we're about to impeach a man who's out of office for the express purpose of making sure he can never run again. i think it's unconstitutional. >> it's a big constitutional question about impeaching a private citizen. should congress under the constitution even do it. >> a trial after the president has left office is beyond the senate's constitutional authority. >> fact check. false. let me be very clear, the senators have every right to oppose this, to criticize it, ultimately to vote to acquit the ex-president. so no one's taking away any of those rights. we know it's constitutional though because the constitution says that you can bar any former

official for life. and they only become a former official when convicted through the process of impeachment. president biden speaking out on this. he says the trial has to happen, and i mentioned senator leahy's important role here. within just moments ago we heard from his office that he has been taken to the hospital because he was, quote, not feeling well and he was taken there, we're told, simply, quote, out of an abundance of caution. we're joined by emily baslan at "the new york times" magazine, staff writer. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> let's start with the substance. given how clear the constitution is, what do you read into those who are sympathetic or defensive of the former president, which they have all their free speech rights to be, focusing on making that relatively frivolous argument rather than defending, say, what donald trump said on january 6th? >> well, i think you're right, that it's a minority legal position, but it's a useful one. if you say that the constitution

provides that the impeachment trial can't happen because president trump has left office, then you don't have to get to the merits of the impeachment case which involve his role in, you know, allegedly leading up to the assault of the capitol and that's a tougher set of questions for republicans. i think supporters of president trump don't necessarily want to talk about that and so this is a good way to start for them, by saying, we just think this whole thing is out of order. >> yeah. and this also goes to what happened today, legal procedure can be tricky. senate procedure is particularly complex. so, emily, how about we do both real quick? does that sound like a fun way to spend part of your evening? >> i can't wait. >> here we go. so viewers who follow the news understand there's this filibuster thing. so you usually need the super majority if people are threatening to filibuster to get

anything done. there are exceptions. rand paul used one of those. he used a loophole to at least try to get this vote and it was tabled. what's important is not much of that detail or whether it was on a table or under a table or, you know, thrown out of the room, what's important politically is rand paul appears to have done a politically clever thing, whether you like it or not, we give people the facts. poliico put it like this. rand paul forces the vote on the constitutionality question. if 34 people support my resolution, it shows, he says, they don't have the votes to convict and we're wasting our time. what is your view of his point, which is allowed? so it's a trick but not over the line, where he's trying to take the air out of the democrat's prosecution by saying, look who i'm riding with. i've got enough people to acquit and they're here on this tabling thing so we gucci now?

what do you think of that strategy? is it possible to change minds or is he right? >> well, he may very well be right that there are not enough votes for a 2/3 vote to convict president trump, and he did force -- his party forced everybody voting today to show their hand. the trial hasn't happened. senators like susan collins says they want to see the evidence. you could argue that might seem less important because the members of congress were themselves there for the attack on the capitol. they are in effect the witnesses, but there may be other information that comes to light during the impeachment trial about former president trump's role that may convince them. i don't think by any means senator paul is correct that it means the trial is pointless. it did show some interesting senators going on the record, particularly for majority leader mitch mcconnell, who as you said

thought trump had committed impeachable conduct and yet here he is voting against the trial happening at all. >> yeah. i mean, we're out of time, but you provide the evidence that raises the question of whether you can believe the things mitch mcconnell says. a query for our nation. emily, always good to see you. go ahead. one more quick thing? >> thanks for having me. >> okay. thank you, emily. coming up, a new lawsuit invokes a police reform law which was specifically passed after those large protests, after the killing of george floyd. children detained on video. we have a special guest. i'm telling you, this is one of those important stories far outside of washington that you need to know tonight. also, new reports on the arrest coming out of that riot, but first president biden making a major announcement on why he says the government, state and federal, can make you safer and get vaccinated. that's next. that's next. this is what community looks like.

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we'll soon be able to confirm the purchase of an additional 100 billion doses for each of the two fda authorized vaccine, pfizer and moderna. 200 million more doses than the federal government had previously secured. >> president biden there just within about the last hour detailing plans for taking charge of sometimes rocky vaccine rollout. it's a critical challenge complicated by problems inherited from the last administration and also just coordinating with 50 different states. it's something biden's new press

secretary spoke directly about as well. >> we're not asking states to do this on their own. in fact, we're asking -- we are trying to reset and be partners here in a more effective way than we've seen over the last ten months. this is going to be hard. we are not trying to sugar coat that. it will be very challenging. this is why everybody who comes and speaks about covid talks about our -- the challenge of vaccine hesitancy. >> this is a challenge of both resources, the money and logistics to get it done, as well as what she referenced there. jen psaki talking about perception. the public hesitancy, of course, is a big issue. there are as many as 27% of americans who say they just may not get this vaccine at all. so how do you combat that? partly with scenes like this, vice president harris today publicly getting her second dose of the moderna vaccine. with the ongoing efforts by

public health experts and officials to reach people wherever they are. that means online, or in pop culture, or people who get information from places other than traditional news. dr. fauci talking all kinds of people from athletes to actors. just to put out the word that even if you don't follow the news daily, the fact is the vaccine is safe and will save lives. tonight estimates are that about 15 million people in the u.s. have gotten covid at some point and recovered. now those who survived are largely immune in the short term. another 22 million have now been vaccinated. but you do the basic math, it leaves roughly 290 million people walking around still at the risk of contracting or spreading this. it will take time to vaccinate all of those people, of course, but in some places policy failure and human error have problems making it worse. vital shots going to waste. new york state tossing vaccines that were not allowed to be used while some people who are directly going through this say

even patient efforts to get vaccinated can run into a brick wall. >> it's a disaster. >> it's been an hour and a half of our time, another half hour in line waiting for something that never happened. >> i've tried every single day sometimes on the hour on all of the different sites and a 65-year-old cannot get an appointment. >> every week we get our allocations and it's half of the week before. >> now we are in the early days of this phase but the facts are instructive. some states are already breaking out of the pack with strong vaccination rates. about 1 out of 10 people are vaccinated in states like new mexico and west virginia. the rate is half that in california currently battling its own huge spike while missouri comes in roughly last at about a 4% vaccination rate. some of this reflects long-term problems and state's own

priorities. missouri's health care has ranked in the bottom 10% of the states in america according to u.s. world news and report. that's a state struggling to contain a pandemic or struggling to provide or choose to provide health care for its citizens for a long time. unlike other issues of health and poverty where we all know what happens, the rich are connected, they buy in and some may tune out to the problems that face everyone else less fortunate but here even as we go through what should be the better phase of vaccination, any failure to curb a virus this infectious will put the whole community, even those rich connected people, at additional risk. we have a collective interest in solving this. now it's not, by the way, as a medical matter that you need absolute 100% levels. here's how dr. fauci explained the goal. >> i believe that if we do get

that 70 to 85% of the population vaccinated we would reach a degree of herd immunity that would get us to approach strongly a degree of normality. >> we're joined by dr. odalia, infebt shus disease specialist at boston university. >> ari, as you were speaking, the thing that struck me even before we get to vaccine hesitancy there seem to be two opposing forces at play right now and a race against time, you know, literally to save lives. you have the force of vaccinations. the quicker we get vaccinations into arms, what we're seeing in countries that have done a better job, mortality goes down because even though people of all ages get hospitalized and die from this, a lot of that mortality is for people who are over 65. the quicker we can be we might see the death rates go down. the opposing force, the one that's scary and keeps me awake and a lot of other folks awake

are the variants. we're seeing plateauing of decreases in daze cases of hospitalizations. the worries of the more transmissible strains, the one in the u.k. in 20 u.s. states, the one in south africa and brazil that make monoclonal antibodies less effective. the longer we give those strains to spread, the more disease that will spread in our communities and potentially lead to more hospitalizations and deaths. it's not just what we have to do today but with the speed we have to do. if we can't match the vaccination rates, we have to work on the nonpharmaceutical interventions and some of the things that you saw president biden talk about, the travel restrictions, that's great but we have to work on strain surveillance and make sure they are not a lot more prevalent. we need to keep supporting hospitals and personal protective equipment and

essential workers to keep that transmission down where we're seeing it spread in this community. >> all important points you raise in addition to everyone understanding the road ahead so we can try to do it the right way. dr. bedelia, thank you very much. >> thanks, ari. we're also tracking breaking news tonight. one of the most pivotal democrats in the united states senate, senator leahy, is set to preside over president trump's second impeachment trial. an update on him. a key police reform law out of the blm. it's important. that's coming up later in the program as well. ram as well. i guess i look pretty... ridiculous. [ chuckles ] no one looks ridiculous, bob. progressive is always here for you with round-the-clock service. just so you know, next time, you can submit a claim with our mobile app. good. thanks again for -- for rushing over. are you kidding? this is what 24/7 protection looks like.

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breaking news. senator patrick leahy was just taken to the hospital. he was not feeling well and was taken there, according to his office, for observation, quote, out of an abundance of caution.

senator leahy was just sworn in today to preside over former president trump's impeachment trial as president pro tempore and third in line of succession in the white house because of that seniority. there is the 50-50 split in the senate. his state of vermont has a republican governor. we will keep in touch with all of our reporters, and we wish him a speedy recovery. coming up, there is a big announcement i have to tell you that regards bill gates who has been so vocal on vaccine and covid issues, but first a very important story on how we can fix justice across america. it's what i mentioned earlier tonight involving this controversial video. plaintiffs and advocates say there may be good news here. we'll explain when we come back. y it goes way, way, way back with your great, great, great grandparents.

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turning to a very important story that you need to see. colorado police under fire for taking a woman and four clearly unarmed children, the youngest just 6 years old, and holding them in custody, often at gun point, forcing them to lie cuffed face down as you see on the ground scared and humiliated. this was in a salon parking lot for upwards of two hours. >> there's kids. there's kids. they have guns on kids. >> i want my mother.

>> can i hug my sister please? >> okay. >> no. >> that is hard to watch, even for a few seconds. imagine living through it. that went on, as i mentioned, for upwards of two hours. this is america. this happens all the time. most of the time, i'll be honest with you, it's not even on the national news. now tonight what's new is the woman you saw there, her name is brittney gilliam, is now suga rohr ra, colorado. she alleges in court that entire spectacle was an invalid and illegal arrest. she alleges the police were

breaking the law. she also notes in her new suit that it hurt and traumatized those innocent children, you heard their cries. she says they now struggle with basic activities like eating and sleeping and they are in therapy for this. police department, to be clear, is not even claiming they had an accurate reason for the arrest and conduct you see there by the officers. instead, they do apologize. they say they incorrectly thought that vehicle was stolen. it wasn't. an explanation that many law enforcement experts say does not even justify the force and guns drawn that you saw. now here's what else is new tonight. you may have heard that elections have consequences. so do social movements sometimes. the protests over the may killing of george floyd led colorado to reform police rules in june passing a new law that bans some aggressive tactics and also a type of automatic legal

immunity for officers, which means they can, when warranted, be held personally responsible in court. this is one of the first cases based on that new law, and while everyone's entitled to their day in court, this is the first time citizens in that state have actually been entitled to take on police officers directly and personally for their own day in court. it's very important and we have some special guests on the story. we are joined now by the attorney for ms. gilliam and her family, david lane. we're joined by mark claxton, director of political affairs for the black law enforcement alliance. good evening to both of you. david, it's hard -- i want to start with the human part. it's hard to watch even a little bit of that. you're representing someone who lived through it. walk us through, first, the reality and then we can talk about the law. >> well, brittney was seriously

traumatized because her four closest relatives were screaming for her to help and she was completely helpless. she was trying to show the police her registration and her license plate number matched the registration. the police wouldn't look at a piece of paper to determine that this is not a stolen car. these kids had been for weeks and months seeing on the news every night white police officers killing african-americans for no reason whatsoever, and these little kids get pulled out of a car at gun point and how any cop believes there is any justification for pointing a gun at a 6-year-old child, it's beyond me. but these kids are -- this is a life-changing event for these kids. and we are now taking this civil rights statute that the colorado legislature passed in july and we're going into -- >> i'm organizing it to say i

want to get to that because i mentioned it. it's very important just in my role moderating to make sure we're clear on what happened. thank you for what the family is going through. before we turn to the law, mark, what we saw on tape there with the what the available evidence shows, is this proper policing? >> not at all. and it's hard to reject the claim that the occupants of the car were traumatized and victimized, but early on, even, the police attempted to make the stop appear ordinary. i remember hearing this spokesperson indicate they're trained to conduct a full-on felony stop for all suspected stolen vehicles. that's absolute nonsense. reality is all too often with black people, it's important to put that in, the police use reasonable force with a mandate

to use reasonable force. it's with a mound of discretion, and if you don't believe that, look at the police action at the capitol on the 6th. if ever there was escalated use of force, that was it, but with all the video you've seen thus far even of police officers being assaulted or retreating, they didn't take the weapons out of their holsters. this stop was absolutely traumatizing, as you indicated, just to watch it and the vulnerability of these young ladies, especially with what occurred at that very police department with elijah mcclain. >> david, we turn as mentioned to this second important piece. a new law passed only after george floyd was killed on tape, after the protests. tell us how you were deploying

it. >> this law is the most sweeping civil rights law passed anywhere in the country. it's better than the federal civil rights law. the federal civil rights law, because of very conservative activist judges back in the '70s on the supreme court built in various kinds of immunity for cops, known as qualified immunity. meaning if there is no case that's been previously decided where the facts are exactly like this case, the cops, even though they violated constitution, they get immunity and the case gets dismissed. the second huge feature in the colorado law is if the department at the end of this case decides that the cops should have known better but they did this, anyway, these individual cops are on the hook out of their own pockets for up to $20,000 in any settlement or judgment that's rendered in this case. and what will change police misconduct faster than just about anything is the day a cop loses a paycheck or a car or a

house. that will change police behavior. because right now the rich uncle in city hall is paying the tab for all these police misconduct settlements. this statute goes a long way towards stopping that. we had to file in state court also under the state constitution, and that gives us a much better jury of aurora citizens. it's a much more diverse jury than we ever would have gotten in federal court and it will be a much better trial. >> david, as you know, we've invited miss gilliam on. she's not here tonight, but we have that invite out to her. i want to play for the audience a little bit of her response. take a listen. >> that's police brutality. i don't give a damn what anybody says, that's police brutality. >> it's like they don't care. who am i going to call when my life is in danger? >> i have just about 40 seconds

left tonight. marq claxton, your thoughts on the road from here? >> i agree, there are reforms that were instituted last year, so i think it will be significant, but i want to add something. in addition to changing cops' behavior based on paychecks and material things, also if you deprive them of their freedom by jailing them, that would also significantly change the conduct of a lot of these police officers. >> yeah. and as i think folks know, we have civil and criminal, and there's been a lot of evidence that you need to reform both those lanes if there's going to be equitable policing in the united states. it's a story we've stayed on and we'll be tracking this case as well. marq claxton, larry lane, thanks to both of you. you

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finally tonight, a programming note we promised. bill gates has been working a lot on vaccines and covid, and tomorrow mr. gates makes his "beat" debut. we'll get into his covid fight, the billions he's spending around the world, hopefully his issues on technology, thoughts on administration and a lot more. that's tomorrow, 6:00 p.m.

eastern. bill gates right here on "the beat." if you have thoughts on that or any more stories we covered tonight, i always welcome your ideas, questions and feedback, even the constructive kind. you can find me online @arimelber. good evening, everyone. lots and lots of news ahead on tonight's readout, starting with word that senator patrick leahy of vermont, the pro tem of the united states senate and the man sent to preside over the impeachment trial is hospitalized tonight. we'll have more on that coming up. we turn first to joe biden's presidency, now seven full days old, and we've already seen a serious turn of page. the president took several calls with foreign leade