Welcome to the beat. I'm in for Ari Melburgh. We start tonight in Nashville, Tennessee. Suddenly, a national flashpoint.

Vice President Kamala Harris making a surprise visit to the city. She will attend a service for the group known as the Tennessee Three, where she's expected to speak soon.

Harris also expected to meet in private with the trio of state Democrats, who face an expulsion

vote from Republicans for their protests over guns.

And again, I want to be clear, their protests over asking for legislation to stop the massacre

of children.

Two of the Democrats, both of them black and among the youngest in the General Assembly,

were expelled yesterday by the Republican

supermajority. One lawmaker, Gloria Johnson, and older white woman narrowly avoided expulsion.

Tonight, fears about the precedent this sets and the potential for a kind of revenge politics

spreading to other states. This is what happens when you lose democracy.

Cries of anger and accusations after an extraordinary move by Tennessee House Republicans.

Kids are still in body back.

Expelled for so-called decorum violations.

It might have to do with the color of our skin. It looked like a

Jim Crow era trial. If it could happen in Tennessee, you can happen anywhere. The first partisan

expulsion in the state's modern history. To expel voices of opposition and dissent is a signal

of authoritarianism. We're going to keep fighting.

It was so nice to have somebody to fight with me for the first time.

But I will keep fighting for you all.

I won't stop.

Former President Obama speaking out, denouncing the expulsion as the latest example of a broader erosion of civility and democratic norms. But Justin Jones and Justin Pearson say they are not giving up.

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