Participate. House republicans take their ball and go home over the January 6th investigation. Plus weve got two epidemics go on right now. One of those biological caused by a virus. The other is informational. The head of the National Institutes Of Health on how to fight covid misinformation. Then there are very few businessmen that ever survive in the political part of washington. The latest on the arrest of trumps inaugural chairman and what it can tell us about the expresident s actions in the Middle East when, all in starts right now. Good evening from New York, im chris hayes. For the last two days, much of the northeast and midwest look like this. The haze of the sun, a thick smog over an entire region of this country that is very much not used to it. Unlike the Mountain West which lives with forest fires, this kind of smoke settling over the Eastern Seaboard has Felt Dystopian and new. In fact, its not just your imagination if it feels that way to you, if you live in that part of the country. The Air Quality Index in parts of new York City yesterday was over 170, which is the worst it has been in 14 years. The thing about bad Air Quality is theres no way to escape it. No matter how much money you have, where you live, in the End Everyone has got to breathe the same air. It was a real Wakeup Call Yesterday for everyone in the parts of the country covered with this smoke. Breathing that same air that emanated from wildfires thousands of miles away in the west. It turns out we share the same climate with them. Right now there are more than 80 fires burning across 13 states, many more burning across canada. As this incredible New York times interactive map shows, the smoke from those fires is why the air is so hazy in these parts of the country here on the Eastern Seaboard and the midwest. The biggest fire in the country this year is the Bootleg Fire in oregon. You can see it there on the map. Its about the size of Los Angeles and has burned more than 340,000 acres of forest. It is so large that it is generating its own weather, like Fire Clouds that manage to create their own lightning and even fire tornados. The Bootleg Fire, like so many out west, is fueled by the drought and last months record heat. You may remember that june was the hottest june on record in nearly 130 years. Records were broken across the northwest with multiple days topping 100 degrees. Completely unseen before. In oregon and washington, nearly 200 people lost their lives to the heat. Across the west, thousands more are now in the path of fastmoving and dangerous wildfires. And its not just happening in the u. S. Siberia, which, you know, if you know one thing about it, you think its cold. Famous for its freezing temperatures. Is experiencing its worst Fire Season in memory. Four million acres burned, with villages already evacuating their children because of the dangerous smoky air. In germany last week, hundreds were killed and dozens of towns destroyed by the worst flooding in A Thousand years. Tens of thousands of people are still without gas and power. In china, another once in A Thousand year event, nearly a Years Worth of rain falling in just three days, causing flooding that was so intense it left passengers trapped on a Subway Car as water poured in from all sides. Hundreds of people had to be rescued. A dozen passengers died. Extreme temperatures, extreme wetness, extreme drought, extreme weather events like this. As we said many times, a new normal. A new normal that has been brought to us by decades of inaction, led chiefly by Fossil Fuel interests, the politicians they donate to in the american right and American Media while speeding us towards this disaster and worse. This is the context for one of the big News Stories of this week, which is, and it seems sort of weird and small in relation to what i just showed you, but the fight over the bipartisan infrastructure bill. You may have seen today there was a procedural vote just to begin debate on that bill that failed because republicans filibustered it. Even though the bill omits what president biden had pledged to support to fight Climate Change, it does include 47 Billion to help communities become more resilient to disasters and severe weather caused by a Warming Planet and up to an additional 530 Billion to support electric vehicles, public transport, Energy And Tax credits and some other climate friendly policies. Now, it sounds like a lot of money, i guess, until you remember the Trump Tax cuts alone cost the government 2. 3 trillion. Okay . Those tax cuts, which by the way continue to fuel inequality and produce a world in which the richest man on earth seeks to leave it with aims of polluting a new frontier. We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space and keep earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is. Now, thats going to take decades and decades to achieve, but you have to start. I saw that Quote Yesterday and 100 thought it was a parody, but thats what he said. Now, the rest of us couldnt get on a Rocket Ship Yesterday to escape whats going on. This is the one Planet Weve got, were all in it together, whether bezos thinks he can get away or not. What is going to happen as the disasters intensify in ways that weve only begun to get our heads around is that people will start moving to escape climate catastrophe. As i wrote in a piece for the 25th Anniversary for msnbc, which is on msnbc. Com, in the last decades in the u. S. Have seen a steady internal migration driven less by Persecution And Deprivation instead of weather. Rather, its people choosing to leave winter, moving to the Sun Belt and the Pacific Northwest to get away from harsh winters. Guess what . A lot of those places that people have moved to over the last few decades are the ones getting rocked by our weird new climate. Were probably going to start seeing massive migrations again. As the climates we have acclimated to change radically, in some places probably rendering places in our own country essentially unlivable. All of this, what youre seeing there, this is whats happening right now Day By Day By day while the republican party fiddles and the rightwing media whips up a frenzy against an imagined threat or tries to get people not to take their covid vaccine. Fires are scorching the west, the smoke is settling across the country. As the New York times put it, No One is safe. Governor Kate Brown is the democratic governor of oregon, where thousands of firefighters are battling Wildfires Tonight and she joins me now. First, governor, maybe you can just give us an update on how things are with that fire in your state . Well, thank you, chris, for having me. We are incredibly grateful to the firefighters battling the Bootleg Fire in southern oregon. The roughly 300,000 acres, we have over 2,000 firefighters on the fire and were working hard to make sure its contained. I literally got a text from Governor Murphy Yesterday of New Jersey saying they were seeing the smoke in New Jersey from these wildfires in the west. And you are absolutely right, Climate Change is here and we must be taking action, we must be better prepared, and we must do everything we can to mitigate the effects on our people. You know, i think of oregon as a pretty wet place, but i know its a big state and the part thats west are probably more coastal. But i wonder sometimes whether states like yours or states around the country have Modeling Or Planning regimes that allow them to think about what you know, what is an oregon Fire Season going to look like over the next 25 years and what that means for where people develop and where they move in your state. Do you have your hands around that . Were working on it. To give you a sense of the Fire Season this year, weve had twice as many fires around burned at least four times the acreage as this time last year. The reports on the ground from the Bootleg Fire are that the conditions are napalmlike. So we have a couple of things happening. Obviously drought and unseasonally warm climate and its created the perfect storm for these catastrophic fires. But i think theres a couple of things. Number one, we have to take action and thats what were doing here in oregon. We have now one of the most aggressive clean energy policies in the country. We are working to invest in Ev Infrastructure on the climate side to reduce our reliance on carbon fuels. Secondly, we have got to mitigate these fires. With legislation i just signed this week, we are going to invest in more modern firefighting equipment, more people on the ground, and frankly the efforts to create more resilient landscapes. And thirdly, obviously, we have to be better prepared for these climate emergencies. Just to give you a perspective, since april of 2020, we have had four federal Emergency Declarations in oregon. In addition to the pandemic, we had the horrific wildfires of last fall. We had flooding. We had Ice Storms in february. And of course most recently, we had the horrific heat dome event. It strikes me that a big a large part of governance any time is managing disaster. But that that is going to become a larger and larger part of what governance means in this century. I mean that its not you know, its not this sort of Oneoff But Disaster management, preparation, mitigation and then dealing with its aftermath and through it is actually going to be like a central thing that governance is about. Thats absolutely right. And you mentioned the green parts of oregon, which is primarily the willa met valley. Last year we had evacuation in klakmas county. A very green city both literally and figuratively. In terms of Emergency Preparedness and management, we have been in Crisis Management Mode in terms of these Climate Change events. I am incredibly grateful that we have the Biden Harris Administration in the White House that understands that we need comprehensive, collaborative partnerships to develop Wildfire Strategy for the entire western region. As you know, Climate Change knows no boundaries and certainly these wildfires dont either. All right, Governor Kate Brown of oregon, thanks so much for making time tonight. Naomi kline is a professor of climate justice, author of a number of books including on fire, the burning case for a Green New Deal and she joins me now. Naomi, i know that you have reported on and written about Migration And Population movement in response to the warming of the planet. I think its something that we dont think about a lot because i dont think we think of our era being an era like the Dust Bowl or the Great Northern migration where huge amounts of people are going to move around. But it seems to me inevitable theres going to be huge Population Displacements and movements in the era that were entering into. Well, i think were in that era, chris. Its good to be with you. I think when we see these huge migrations from central america, climate is absolutely already a driver. U. N. Figures put it at 20 Million people on the move because of the Climate Crisis. Theres often an intersection of issues. It isnt just one single issue that pushes people to make that decision to move. Its usually multiple issues. But, you know, youre talking about migration within the united states, and Thats Something i dont think we talk enough about, because that is happening. You think about the paradise fire, the Camp Fire in 2018 that burned paradise, california, to the ground. That fire displaced 50,000 people at its peak. And the Neighboring Community of chico suddenly had 20,000 new neighbors. Thats significant because chico only has 100,000 people, right . So one of the municipal officials talked about that as 35 years of both overnight. You go from 100,000 to 120,000. So that raises all these issues around housing, transit, all kinds of infrastructure. And thats why we need such an expansive approach to what we think of as disaster management. Its not just firefighters, though its certainly firefighters. Its what makes a community resilient, able to absorb shocks, and in chico its all been about the lack of affordable housing. And so when we think about something like a Green New Deal, we often hear these critiques like Whats Housing doing in there, Whats Health Care doing in there, Whats Education doing in there, and that is Disaster Preparedness because its investing in the infrastructure that is going to allow communities to absorb these kinds of shocks that are pretty much locked in. Yeah, the locked in part i think is the hard part to get our heads around because were coming up on one degree of warming. Were probably going to get at least one more. Thats already the Carbon Weve put in the air. I do think i mean theres a lot of grim news, right . But one thing thats palpable to me is this issue rising up peoples priority list. This caught my eye today, this was the economist new Government Polling people. They asked some openended questions about what are you most concerned about and one of the pollsters seeing for the first time since conducting polls, americans rate Climate Change as their second most important issue, ranking above every other problem except Health Care. I feel like if you watch the political discussion, if nothing else in the u. S. , the salience and primacy of this really has gone up partly, i think, in correlation to the frequency of disaster. Yeah. You know, its a reminder that when it comes to the political calculus of the Climate Crisis, we often hear from politicians we have to meet people where theyre at. Where people are at changes, right . Its never wise to count out the earths Climate System as a key actor in this, right . Our planet has a way of intervening in these debates and changing peoples views very, very quickly. I think thats whats happening. Youre right, that poll is really dramatic. Its the first time that climate has ranked second. You know, crime, gun control, abortion, education, all trailed far behind. As you know, chris, in some ways i think separating out climate from other issues like the economy or health, in some ways it doesnt make sense. Climate isnt an issue, its our literal infrastructure. We are all inside it. Every other issue is inside climate, but it is really striking that people feel that sense of urgency now. Well, i had that Thought Yesterday and it changes whats possible. Yeah. I had that Thought Yesterday breathing the literally unhealthy seaboard and remember reading articles about political mobilization in china. If you were a rich businessman in shanghai, theres lots of things that you can do to avoid the traffic, but at The End of the Day Youve got to go outside and walk in the same Air Everyone else does Isnt Shanghai and send your kids out to play in it. I thought about that yesterday, theres literally no escape from this air. Obviously people have to work outside, have it worse. But there is a commonality here that i hope is increasingly dawning on people. We dont get out of this one. Yeah. You know, i live in british columbia, and weve had this Experience Summer after summer. There is something unique about that claustrophobia, where people dont have Air Conditioning or any kind of filters. The truth is you can buy your way out of it a little bit. You can have a sealed climatecontrolled environment can good Hepa Filters and so on. Look, in china, the private schools are under domes so never underestimate what the super rich will do to escape the impacts of their behavior. Just look at Jeff Bezos in his Cowboy Hat scanning the horizon for his next toxic waste dump. We were told when billionaires went to space they some ecological awakawakening. We didnt know theyd be looking for new waste dumps. An amazing moment. Truly. Id like to think i cant be surprised by these guys, but that was something. That was something else. Yeah. Going up to space, suborbital, about where the Soviet Dog went but coming back and saying, you know, i had a revelation we need to pollute up there. Naomi klein, its a great pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for making time tonight. Great to see you, chris. Take care. As i mentioned, you can read my essay on how heat is about to restructure american life in ways we can only begin to imagine on msnbc. Com, the next 25. After Kevin Mccarthy named his appointments to that January 6th select committee, including members who tried to overturn the election, there was a big question about whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi would exercise the power she had reserved to do something about it. In fact, we asked that question right here on this very show last night. Today we got the answer. Up next, the Speakers Surprise Announcement the theatrical flop from trump supporters in the house and a fiery takedown of Kevin Mccarthy by a fellow republican. All that after the break. 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Say Show Me the olympics in 4k so you can watch in stunning 4k ultra hd. I have to tell you, i did not see this one coming today. Two days after House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy named his five republican choices to sit on the select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of those choices, congressman Jim Banks and Jim Jordan, both of whom voted to overturn the election in the hours after the mob ransacked the capitol. Pelosi explaining in a statement, quote, with respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern with statements made and actions taken by these members, i must reject them. The unprecedented nature of the January 6th demands this unprecedented decision. Mccarthy yanked the rest of his selections and claimed pelosi was responsible to politicizing the investigation instead of the republicans who actively encouraged the insurrection. Its an egregious abuse of power. Pelosi has broken this institution. Pelosi has created a Sham Process. Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five republicans, we will not participate. They voted against a bipartisan commission. I feel duty bound to reiterate that. Even if Kevin Mccarthy takes his ball and goes home, the committee is still bipartisan because Speaker Pelosi named Republican Liz Cheney to the committee. Cheney was not having any of mccarthys lies about whos to blame here. At every opportunity, the Minority Leader has attempted to prevent the american people from understanding what happened, to block this investigation, and the rhetoric around this from the Minority Leader and from those two members has been disgraceful. This must be an investigation that is focused on facts. The idea that any of this has become politicized is really unworthy of the office that we all hold and unworthy of our republic. You personally did you personally urge the speaker to take this step . I agree with what the speaker has done. Im joined by two excellent reporters who have been tracking the story all day. Sahil kapur and olivia beavers, congressional reporter for politico who covers House Republicans. Sahil, let me start with you. Before we get to today, i just feel the need to reset. There was a long negotiation between Bennie Thompson and John Katko in the Homeland Security Committee that we tracked for months to work out the details of a bipartisan commission, equal Subpoena Power, equal members on the committee, John Kkatko signed off on it, mccarthy came out against it, mcconnells republicans vetoed it by a filibuster in the senate. That led us to where we are now. It just seems like that History Cant be lost on anyone on The Hill on either side. Chris, i think youre right to note that Kevin Mccarthy has moved the Goal Posts here. When the year began, he said the former president , Donald Trump, bears some responsibility for the January 6th attack. He called for an investigation into it and said, yes, but Speaker Pelosi, please give us equal representation, please make sure that republicans have equal say and Subpoena Power and that the gop members of the committee simply cant be steam rolled. One by one, pelosi made those concessions. Mccarthy tapped his ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, John Katko, to negotiate that out. They came to a deal. Mccarthy said he doesnt support that because he wants the scope of that investigation to extend beyond the January 6th attack. He wants to also investigate other forms of political violence associated with the left. That was a Deal Breaker for Speaker Pelosi and that is where it all fell apart. I should note here, 35 House Republicans did vote for that. 7 senate republicans did vote for that commission. Now the choice has become for democrats, when republicans were not going to give the bipartisan to this, democrats were going to be accused of running a Sham Process regardless of what happened. This decision by pelosi according to democrats close to this process is about her choosing to keep republicans off the committee that she believes are going to be running interference on behalf of former president trump, specifically Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, who she believes were linked to individuals and or meetings associated with the January 6th attack, chris. Olivia, i want to play Today Cheney seems like an interesting fulcrum here, right . Obviously she was very outspoken, she voted for impeachment. We have reporting that she cursed at Jim Jordan and said you fing caused this on the day of the insurrection while they were huddled in some secret location. She is on the committee now. I was curious like what she does here. Heres a little more of what she said today and i want to get your reaction to how important you think that was and how much coordination there was with the speaker. Take a listen. Today the speaker objected to two republican members. She accepted three others. She objected to two, one of whom may well be a Material Witness to events that led to that day, that led to January 6th. The other who disqualified himself by his comments in particular over the last 24 hours, demonstrating that he is not taking this seriously. He is not dealing with the facts of this investigation but rather viewed it as a political platform. What do you think the effects of that are . And what to make of the meaning of cheney rising to the defense of pelosi there . That certainly was something that was really an incredible Moment Today watching that. Seeing that Liz Cheney was basically saying she supported Pelosis Decision to boot off banks and jordan. We actually heard that pelosi and her office consulted with Liz Cheney before this decision was made. So she was brought into the fold. They were able to kind of suss out their plan and now you have cheney saying she supports it. Chris, you wont be surprised to hear that republicans that i talked to were very pissed off about cheney doing this. They were trying to say that she should become a democrat if she isnt a democrat already, even though shes one of the more traditional house conservatives, just go look at her voting record. But this is the member that democrats are going to lean on that they say is part of their credibility for having a bipartisan investigation and republicans are saying she doesnt count effectively. You know, part of the political calculation here, sahil, and i dont think this is the most important thing, but to your point is trump didnt want an independent commission because it would have more stature and more credibility and so they turned against it. Same Reason Mcconnell whipped against it, calling in favors, why mccarthy went against it. They wanted to attack the commission as partisan and were going to whatever the makeup was. It seems like pelosi just being like enough, youre going to run against us anyway. Yeah, there is a difference of opinion, chris, between how the two parties have come to view January 6th and what congress should do about it. Republicans have come to believe the vast majority of them, including the leadership of the party, have come to believe that the Justice Department should look into it. They should arrest people. They should make their charges and let the Justice System work it out and everyone should move on. Democrats have a very different view of it. They believe that was a fundamentally fundamental crisis, an attack on american democracy that needs to be zeroed in on and investigated as a way to prevent anything like that from happening again, to save the american experiment. Ive talked to many democrats and they emphasize and overemphasize and reemphasize that part. I think they do believe that. I dont think theyre blowing smoke there. That difference turned out to be irreconcilable, especially when you factor in the uncomfortable reality for republicans, which is that it was supporters of Donald Trump who violently attacked this building in an attempt to overturn the result of the election, to overturn Joe Bidens victory. So the day of, there were many republicans who appeared very troubled by this and wanted an investigation. But i think as time has gone on, the politics have turned, and republicans have taken it in a different direction. Both doing Great Reporting on this today. Thank you both for making time with us. Thanks, chris. Dont go anywhere, the latest on the arrest of Donald Trumps inaugural Committee Chair and what it might reveal about the Trump Administrations very shady foreign entanglements. Thats next. Entanglements. Thats next. 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We cant predict when an emergency will happen. So thats why its important to make a plan with your parents. Here are a few tips to stay safe. Know how to get in touch with your family. Write down Phone Numbers for your parents, siblings and neighbors. Pick a place to meet your family if you are not together and cant go home. Remind your parents to pack an emergency supply kit. Making a plan might feel like homework, but it will help you and your family stay safe during an emergency. Federal court in the eastern district of New York unsealed a huge sevencount, 46page Indictment Yesterday against Trump Fundraiser and inaugural Committee Chairman Tom Barrack, charging him with acting as an agent of the United Arab Emirates as well as Obstruction Of Justice and lying to investigators. Now, we all of course remember special Council Robert Mueller was investigating russian sabotage of the 2016 election. We heard about that for years. Over the course of his Investigation Mueller also started looking into whether lobbyists for the uae were funneling millions of dollars to the trump campaign. Now with the indictment of Tom Barrack, that shady and weird relationship between Trump World and the United Arab Emirates is starting to make a little more sense. So we know that three months before the 2016 election even happened, Donald Trump jr. Met with an emissary for two wealthy arab princes at the trump tower. The emissary told Trump Junior at the time that the princes, the De Facto rulers of Saudi Arabia and the uae, were eager to help his father win election as president. A few months later, well, Donald Trump did win and that Crown Prince from the uae, prince muhammed Ben Ziad flew to New York to meet with the president elect. It is customary for foreign leaders to notify the american government when they travel to the u. S. But mbz did not do so. He arrived at the Trump Penthouse with an entourage of 30 people. He was dressed in combat boots, jeans and some of his men were armed. Then on Inauguration Day Donald Trumps incoming national security advisor, michael flynn, was texting with former Business Partners about a hugely controversial private Sector Plan that would reportedly be funded by the gulf states, including uae to bring nuclear energy to the Middle East. In Fact Flynn was texting about this plan literally ten minutes after Donald Trump was sworn in as he watched on the dais. Weve got a deal, whats going to happen . Seven days into his presidency, Donald Trump, you might remember, signed an Executive Order known as the muslim ban, which, well, left out the uae while including other Middle Eastern countries like syria, yemen and iraq. During trumps first year in office, the Deputy Finance Chair of the republican national committee, elliott broidy, was helping spearhead a secret campaign to influence the white House And Congress for the Crown Princes of Saudi Arabia and the uae. That keeps popping up again and again. Broidy was later charged with conspiring to act as a foreign agent on behalf of other interests, malaysian and chinese interests, and on the day before Donald Trump left office, he pardoned broidy. Now we have the indictment of Tom Barrack who allegedly, quote, acted to aid the uae in its dealings with the Executive Branch of the u. S. Government doing things like advocating for the appointment of individuals favored by the uae in the new administration and taking steps to advance the uaes Foreign Policy Interests by attempting to influence united states foreign policy. One of the people whos been reporting on these influence efforts for years, connecting the dots between the uae and Trump World before anyone else, joins me next. Joins me next. So the national Eye Institute did 20 years of clinical studies on a formula only found in preservision. If it were my vision, id ask my doctor about preservision. Its the most studied eye vitamin brand. 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I can tell that they used your milk, matilda. Great Job Moo youre welcome. Breyers natural vanilla is made with 100 grade a Milk And Cream and only sustainably farmed vanilla. Better starts with breyers. On june 10th, 2019, reporters Alex Emmons published this piece about a secret Influence Operation in the united states by the United Arab Emirates involving an emirati businessman and Tom Barrack, a longtime ally of then president Donald Trump. He was a top fundraiser for Trumps Campaign and served as chair of his inaugural committee which would also spur its own investigation. Ten days after that article was published, the fbi interrogated Tom Barrack about his activities and relationship with the emeratis. They say he repeatedly lied to them. Matthew cole is one of the reporters and he joins me now. Matthew, maybe you could just start with describing what your initial reporting uncovered about what you termed an Influence Operation by the emeratis. Yeah, thanks, chris, for having me. What we found was that the u. S. Government and u. S. Intelligence community had discovered that Rasheed Al Malik was acting as an Intelligence Agent for the head of the Intelligence Service and that his job was to conduct its not espionage in the sense that he was a spy trying to pull secrets out as much as he was trying to gain access to the trump White House and assert emerati influence into trumps the Trump Administrations foreign policy, in particular with the Middle East. And he used his relationship with Tom Barrack, which went back a few years in Real Estate, as the means to do it. And so what we reported was, was that the emeratis had looked at the Trump Administration early on and decided what they were going to do was use wealthy emerati citizens, businessmen, business people, to try to get them into the trump inner circle. And Rasheed Al Malik who was also charged for the same thing, for acting as a foreign agent without registering with the government. So this Influence Operation didnt seem that secretive in some ways insofar as the sort of presence of Saudi And Emerati interests were sort of swirling around the administration and they were constantly doing things that seemed to be favorable to the Saudi And Emeratis. He went to the emeratis first. What was the agenda here . Was it just they were fighting with the qataris . Why were they crawling all over the Trump Administration . Well, what we know now looking back after four years is that the emeratis, the gulf you know, the gcc and the gulf monarchs, in particular Saudi Arabia and the uae, wanted a total revamp and reset of Middle East policy from the u. S. They were very unhappy with the obama administration. They wanted to come in with a new slate and have someone like trump who was going to be aggressive on iran, for instance. So qatar and the blockade with qatar, their neighbor, was one such thing. But one of the things you can see is, for instance, this week visiting first Golf Monarch to visit the biden White House is King Abdullah of jordan, and thats not an accident. Thats because the uae, what went on between the uae and the Trump Administration is just now starting to get picked through by the biden administration. There was a lot going on that we dont yet know that i think is going to have to be its going to take more reporting both from journalists but also the biden administration is trying to figure out what went on there. Yeah. And we should note that one of the big priorities for netanyahu, mohammed Bin Salman and Mohammed Bin Zied was all to get rid of the nuclear deal with iran because they were all united in their contempt for fear of, you know, hostility to the iranian regime. And that was ultimately successful. The lobbying of all those folks ultimately did produce that outcome. One more question is what is the big mystery that hangs over this is what was in it for barrack . Its not enumerated in the indictment, but he has Real Estate interests there. What do you make of that . Well, there are sort of two things to look at. What our story found was the reason they used Rasheed Al Malik was to use his business and real Estate Background as sort of the lure of barrack and others around trump. I think the unsaid assumption there is, is that by getting them invested and entwined financially, they would be able to exert influence on trump and the inner circle. Thats number one. Number two is if you read the indictment, although theres no discussion about money exchanging hands, at The End of the indictment, the doj makes it very clear that if mr. Barrack is convicted, they will bring in asset forfeiture. And that opens and raises the question of whether or not what barrack was doing was hoping that by being this gobetween between the White House and the emeratis and the saudis, that his business, his fund, would get money. Theres no question that he got something well over A Billion Dollars in new investment from the Middle East, from the sovereign wealth funds in Uae And Ksa after trump became president. All right, matthew cole, Great Reporting. Thanks so much for coming on tonight. Thanks for having me, chris. Still to come, as Covid Cases climb around the country, my interview with dr. Francis collins, director of the nih, over the debate on vaccine mandates, in hospitals and beyond. Thats next. , in hospitals and beyond thats next. Hold my pouch. Trust us, us kids are ready to take things into our own hands. Dont think so . Hold my pouch. man ive made progress with my Mental Health. So when i started having unintentional Body Movements called tardive dyskinesia. I ignored them. 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Its flexible if we need to cancel. Cancel. I havent left the house in a year. Nothing will stop me from vacation. No canceling. Flexible cancellation. Kayak. Search one and done. Flexible cancellation. Great idea. [gasps] look at the little cutie. Hes coming for a visit. Hi. [chuckles] aww oh hes leaving nice work, guys introducing togos new cheese steak melt, featuring fresh artisan bread, layered with tender seasoned steak, sauteed mushrooms, roasted red peppers, and smothered with melty american cheese. The new cheese steak melt, now at togos. As covid19 cases continue to rise in every state, schools and work places across the country are trying to figure out how to keep people safe. Last night we shared the story of how fox news, of all places, has implemented an eternal vaccine passport system. Yes, you heard that right. Earlier this week a federal judge upheld indiana universitys new policy mandating that all students and staff members on campus be vaccinated against covid19. Today with less than 60 of new York City public Health Care workers vaccinated, Mayor Bill de blasio of New York announced all public Health Care workers must get vaccinated or be tested weekly. Will this be enough to curb the rising Case Count . Dr. Francis collins is a geneticist, arguably most known for his work leading the team mapping the human genome. In 2007 he was awarred the president ial Medal Of Freedom by president george w. Bush. In 2009 he received the medal of science from President Obama and that same year he became the director of the National Institutes Of Health, the primary agency responsible for biomedical and public health research. Hes been at the helm of that agency throughout the entire pandemic. With the spread of the highly contagious Delta Variant, he and his team at nih are trying to make sure the public has the most uptodate information on vaccines and Breakthrough Infections and he joins me now. Dr. Collins, its a great pleasure to have you on the program. I thought maybe wed start with this question about mandates. I know its a policy question, so slightly outside of pure research, but im still curious to get your thoughts about what we know about whether institution, be they private companies or the u. S. Army or the new York City police force, whether those mandates can be effective as means of boosting Vaccination Rates . Well, if mandates were applied, they would definitely increase Vaccination Rates. People wanting to know, though, is there a legal basis for this. Well, go back to 1905, jacobson versus massachusetts. The Supreme Court said, yes, there is a legal basis. That was a case about smallpox vaccination, which then required people to undergo that in order to protect the public health, because there was a disease that was killing people. Well, we have one now thats killing people called covid19. So many people would say the legal basis is there. Theres a wrinkle, though, chris, that currently the vaccines that are being used are authorized by the fda under Emergency Use. And ideally they ought to be fully approved before this legal opportunity fully kicks in. You know, i run a hospital, the National Institutes Of Health has the largest Research Hospital in the world. I would like very much to be sure that all the people who interact with immunocompromised patients are immunized against covid19. Right now i cant require it because this is still Emergency Use, but i sure as heck am exorting people to do that and fortunately since they work at nih they are mostly agreeing. Okay. So you bring up an issue that is the subject of some controversy and consternation, which is the Emergency Use authorization. Critics have said that the lack of full authorization is one of the impediments to more vaccination for two reasons. One in terms of the kind of legal predicate for requirements and mandates, and two because people, if you swim in the waters of Vaccine Hesitancy or vaccine skepticism, theyll say, well, its just Emergency Use. People at the fda say, look, weve got a process and rushing it doesnt help at all. How should we think about this . Well, i think we should think about it that the likelihood of fda giving full approval to pfizer, Moderna And J j is extremely high and potentially will happen in the course of the next couple of months. So this is really not a good reason for people to hold off rolling up their sleeve. This is going to almost certainly going to come through. But i do want to defend the fda. Theyre working 24 7 on going through this. They dont want either to be in a circumstance where somebody would say, well, you didnt really look at all the details of the manufacturing and the thousands of pages of application. They have got to do their job. Its coming. Come on, folks, if this is the reason that youre still deciding not to get immunized, this is a pretty flimsy one. This is definitely the case that these vaccines have been proven. Lots and lots of public data as being safe and effective already. We really dont need that full Fda Approval to accept that. Right now weve got an outbreak happening in the country. It is primarily affecting in terms of hospitalizations and severe illness the unvaccinated, but weve got cases up 200 in the last two weeks. Weve got the number of hospitalized up 49 , deaths are up 42 . Those are growing on fairly small Base Rates thankfully. We keep being perpetually surprised the disease is still there. What is your assessment of this outbreak, how bad it will get and how people should be thinking about protecting themselves, even if theyre vaccinated . Well, chris, its like weve been to this movie before and didnt like The Ending, why do we think well like it better this time . I think the Movie Wont be too bad because we do have something like 162 Million people right now who are fully vaccinated in the country. Thats getting close to 60 . That is going to protect them. The good news in our conversation here is if youre fully vaccinated, even with Delta Variant out there, even with these numbers going up, its not probably going to have much of an impact on you. But if youre unvaccinated, this virus is looking for you. And this is the moment it seems for everybody to hit their reset button. If they have been hesitant about getting immunized and look at whats happened. 99. 5 of the deaths in the last few weeks from covid19 have been unvaccinated people. If we dont want to see that terrible Tragedy And Loss of life continue at this pace, then maybe its time to get off the fence and say, okay, i heard those things about conspiracies, let me look at that. Most of them, all of them i can tell you will turn out not to have a basis. This is one of the most remarkable scientific achievements that humankind has put together. Vaccines that are this safe and this effective. Its astounding. Ive got to say disheartening that still we have some 85 Million americans who are resistance to taking advantage of this gift. Dr. Collins, were out of time but i would love to have you back, theres a lot more i want to talk about, including some of the controversy over the wuhan Virology Lab so if you would come back, that would be great. Id be glad to. Thanks, chris. Fantastic. That is all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Heres how it lays out in the new book by Carol Leonnig and philip rucker. Its not a long thing im going to read you but fair warning, even though it is a short excerpt, theres a whole bunch of swears here. I am not allowed to swear on tv and i am disinclined to swear on tv so ill try to slalom around those Cuss Words as