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NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas

Lester Holt interviews Meek Mill about criminal justice reform

NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas

NBC News

Politics, Congress, News, War, Campaign, Information, President, World, Policy, Political, Government

3.92.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2019

⏱️ 8 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rapper Meek Mill was part of a group that launched the Reform Alliance, a new organization aimed at reforming the criminal justice system in the United States. He talks to Lester Holt about how he turned the momentum from #FreeMeekMill into a push for justice for all.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I remember you had been hours out of prison. We sat down and talked. You told me you wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. Is that what this is about?

0:08.0

Yeah, definitely. I committed my words to some of them people that I knew were like incarcerated where I was incarcerated at.

0:15.0

People that stood up for me when I was in prison, a lot of people marched and came out in the rain and the cold for me. And I know they have family members that are affected by the system. I just wanted

0:26.4

to keep my word to most of them people that I told that I would get them a voice. Yeah, that's what

0:32.5

it's about. What are you hoping this foundation will accomplish? First, shed light on injustices of the system.

0:40.2

Actually kick an effect and really does real damage to help fix the system. I say this is not

0:45.0

us going against the system. This is us trying to fix the system for society because as we spoke

0:51.2

earlier, these problems affect America. They affect families.

0:55.1

They affect taxpayers.

0:56.3

They affect men.

0:57.9

They affect women.

0:58.9

They affect children.

1:01.0

And, you know, I hope we bring real change and help fix the problem where we have

1:04.4

millions of people sitting in prison actually for not even committing crime.

1:09.6

I think it's a better solution as Americans meet. I always

1:13.5

told people it was to Americans. I come from the other side of America where we didn't value

1:18.8

ourselves much. We have been treated very bad. I always tell rival craft on Mike. Jay-Z come from

1:24.3

my world. I always tell like a rival craft like, you yo, going to prison for something like this was just normal.

1:30.3

And now world, I got pulled over yesterday.

1:34.0

If I didn't have this much support and public power behind me

1:37.8

where people actually standing behind me,

1:40.0

this is the first time I actually got pulled over out of probably 100 times

...

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