Information on Joe Biden has pleaded guilty to a Campaign Finance charge. And for the second day in a row, a Passenger Plane left afghanistan and has now landed in Qatar Carrying Americans and other foreigners trying to leave the country in the wake of the taliban takeover. This as america prepares to mark the 20th Anniversary of one of the darkest days in our nations history. The attacks on the World Trade Center and pentagon on september 11, 2001. We begin with the president sweeping plan to try to put an end to the coronavirus pandemic. Joining us all to start this hour, Nbc News Correspondent Steve Patterson in north hollywood, california, Nbc News white House Correspondent and ceo of advancing Health Equity and msnbc medical contributor. Great to have all three of you with us. Mike, how is the White House responding to all of this pushback, mostly from the right and the threat of lawsuits and other actions aimed at trying to overturn its rules . The White House is really welcoming
Questions. Also tonight, the justice department is suing texas over its near total ban on abortion, calling it clearly unconstitutional. Does visit a case? the americans on board the first passenger flight out of afghanistan since the u. S. Military withdrawal. Where they are tonight. Our team in the region. Our nbc news exclusive. Americans still waiting on refunds for flights impacted by the pandemic. How to get your money back. Nearly 20 years since 9/11. The first responders with lingering health issues. The company accused of breaking promises to them. And countdown to kickoff. The new nfl season just moments away right here on nbc. Announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. Good evening, everyone. Clearly frustrated by the covid vaccinations in this country, president biden tonight is trading out the velvet glove for a hammer, unveiling a broad and largely new covid strategy heavily grounded in vaccine mandates, meant to compel millions of american workers to be vaccin
Covid cases and hospitalizations are at levels we have not seen since early february. Before the majority of the country even had access to the vaccine. They ve also leveled out and are basically flat in the last two weeks. Deaths, however, jumped more than 30%. Nearly all of them among the unvaccinated. Going to say it one more time. Nearly all the deaths recorded are unvaccinated americans. Let s break it down, bring in mike memoli at the white house. Cal perry, eugene daniels, and dr. Paul offett. He is on the fda vaccine advisory committee. He knows what he is talking about. Mr. Memoli. Let s be honest, the six points, all of us would say sure, let s do that. How is it going to happen? reporter: that s right, steph. We re going to get more specifics through the day. This is clearly a major moment for the white house after a period of months they moved from july 4th celebration of independence from the virus to seeing just in the past week in fact one of the highest daily case count
Significant. And this call for schools to implement regular testing. Talk us through what you re hearing from sources. Reporter: hallie, obviously, this is shaping up to be a pretty significant speech from the president after a summer in which he had hoped we would be looking at the downslope of the covid19 pandemic and focus on other issues, but instead the delta variant changed those plans. White house officials are casting this speech as sort of everything they ve been trying to do, but bigger and bolder. One of those specifically already has to do with something the president himself did a couple of months ago. We talked about in july when the president ordered federal agencies to require a vaccine requirement on their staff or give them an option short of a vaccine of doing regular attestation of their negative status from covid19. What the president is expected to do today sign an executive order, directing those federal agencies to give up that second option. You have to be vacc
And they re still going to the feed stores and getting ivermectin. Can you believe that joe rogan, eating dewormers for cows. Yeah. Joe rogan who contracted covid and attributed his recovery to ivermectin. Did he do that? yeah. He said he got better because he ate cattle dewormer. He said he ateivermectin, yes. So he attributed his recovery to that. But to your point, a guy like jim justice, a republican in the state of west virginia, a guy like nick saban, these are not the elites that people who won t get the vaccine have been taught to distrust. So it s not the media, it s not dr. Fauci, it s not a democrat. These are people they trust in their lives saying clearly and by the way, mitch mcconnell did again yesterday, too, go get the vaccine. He said these conspiracy theories out there, he said are insane, go protect yourself and your family and our community and state and let s get through this. And it does come from, you know, tommy tubberville in alabama. Nick saban in alabama. Go