democrats are aware that mcconnell is playing pure politics with this and have yet to signal whether his offer is feasible in their view. one democratic senator has already called it, quote, b.s. for the u.s. the stakes could not be higher. if republicans follow through on their obstruction effort in effect they would be responsible for the delay of benefit payments to tens of millions of retirees, medicare, and medicaid providers and numerous rouse others receiving checks from the u.s. treasury. it could lead to a catastrophic default on the nation's deb. the government has never defaulted on its obligations so how this all works is unclear. but its impact to be wide ranging. this morning, six former secretaries of defense who worked in republican and democratic administrations sent an urgent letter to congress warning them of the national security implications of a default writing, quote, if they default on the full faith and credit of the u.s. it will send a signal to our friends and our adversaries that america does not keep its word to our military forces. we can hardly think of a more damaging message in an era of global instability and the rise of great power competition. so why, you my ask, is a measure with such potentially devastating implications being blocked today in the senate? well, according to the "washington post," it's because, quote, republicans are once again refusing to supply the votes as part of their broader campaign to oppose biden's economic agenda. so if republicans in the last 24 hours holding potentially everything from medicaid to school lunches to our country's national security hostage for the sake of obstructioning president joe biden's agenda, democrats have finally -- they finally seem to be taking a good, hard, long look at the filibuster. president biden leaving the door open yesterday to a change to the filibuster that would allow the senate to carve out the debt ceiling for a simple majority vote bypassing that 60% threshold that gives republicans all this power to obstruct. >> raise the debt limit using a carveout with the filibuster to raise the debt limit? >> i think that's a real possibility. i will be on the phone until this is finished and maybe meeting in person. >> mr. bum all this described as a long time filibuster foe saying republicans are making the case more powerful than i could a million times on the floor. what they are doing is obstruction and utterly exposed the filibuster. it is not just inconvenience convenience. it is desperately dangerous. too many advocates -- the conversation around the fill buster is long overdue. it goes without saying any conversation to remove the filibuster for the sake of the debt ceiling could ramp up pressure for other priorities that republicans already vowed to simply obstruct. we will start today with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. alexi mchavens is here. also, luke broad water. and steve schmidt is here. steve, i want to start with you. what would mitch mcconnell do. >> well, mitch mcconnell would use all the power at his disposal to press forward and to achieve this strategic political goal to achieve his agenda. and i think the democrats have to face up to the intransjens of the republican majority in this way and separate out the issues to two categories. and there are two issues that are moral issues. the debt ceiling is a moral issue. and voting rights is a moral issue. and the filibuster should not stand above the outcome to those two moral issues. now, the question of the debt ceiling, what we are talking about, is a default on the full faith and credit of the united states of america. so this is not a debate around whether joe biden and the democratic congress wants to spend too much money. and there are a lot of people who look at that amount of money and say that that amount worries them. i would be one of those people. that's not what this debate is about. what this debate is about is whether the $8 trillion of spending, the money that was already spent, gone, poof, spent it, on the national credit card -- whether we should make the debt payment on that spending. and if we don't make the payment on that spending, we risk many, many things to the american economy, and we risk harm to tens and tens and tens of millions of american families. and the reason for that is mitch mcconnell and the republicans want to create chaos. and then they will run on turning that chaos into restoring what was not broken before they broke it. it's extremely, extremely cynical. and the other issue is the voting rights issue, which in 2021 is inappropriate to peel back a senate rule that is all that is stopping legislation from moving forward that would protect the idea at long last that voting is for everybody in the country. so that's what mitch mcconnell could do. he would -- he would win. but that's not what the democrats have done as nine months on we have seen the republican party grow more extreme, more intransgent, more hostile, more dangerous, but not yet confronted by the side that believes in decency, humanism, pluralism, and democracy. >> luke, i want to start this. because this notion that mitch mcconnell put out a deal and we are waiting to see how the democrats respond. i will show you how one of them responded in a second, suggests the asymmetry once again with which the democrats are confronting the republicans. they control the house, the senate, the white house and they have public opinion behind just about everything on the table and yet they refuse to use the tools that they have. let me show you what senator hi rhona had to say about mcconnell's -- i don't want to call it an offer. but his move. >> what's my reaction to his so-called offer? just what i said. it's b.s. we need to get on with it because the consequences will be dire for your economy as well as millions of people who will be impacted. but i would like to remind you mitch mcconnell is the person who caused a one-month government shutdown where hundreds of thousands of federal employees didn't get paid. they were actually going to food banks to get their food. this is who we are dealing with. he's heartless. he could give a rip. he should get out of the way so that the 50 democrats can avoid what would be an economic catastrophe. >> that's senator hi rhona. luke, is that where a majority of her colleagues are? >> well, the democrats are meeting right now to try to figure out what their next step is going to be in response to this latest move from mcconnell. i think it's important to understand the sort of two sides of play here. on the republican side, they are trying to disrupt as much as they can president biden and the democrats moving forward with the $3.5 trillion economic plan he has. so one of the offers they made on the table, if you can call it an offer, is that if they drop that, then republicans will allow the debt limit to be raised during the normal functioning of government. on the other side, though, we have now seen the democrats float -- president biden just last night float this idea that maybe there could be a carveout to the filibuster. that's something that mitch mcconnell does not want. and he has now made a move on this to force this debt limit vote back two months i think in part in response to that. i guess we will see how this plays out from here. but i think the average person watching at home thinks that this is not a whole lot of fun and probably somewhat of a disaster for the country. but we'll see how this goes. >> alexi, what luke just said is really important. i think what people understand -- i have to say, this is one of the hardest stories for me to dig in and really understand. i think what people understand is there is one party viewing it as a disaster for the country and another party that views it as a great opportunity for the mid term. that's the reality. i guess what's disorienting is how senator manchin views it. let me show what you he said this morning. >> this should not be a crisis. i have been very, very clear where i stand, where i stand on the filibuster. i don't have to repeat that. i think i have been very clear. nothing changes. but the bottom line is, we have a responsibility to be the adults. our leadership has the responsibility to lead. and that's what i am asking and imploring them to do. we should not have these artificial crises. we are not going to default on our debt. we are still basically the currency of the world and we will remain that. anybody who thinks any different than that is basically speculating for the sake of theatrics. >> so, that man is a lot of things, dumb isn't one of them. he's either saying yeah i am going do this, reform the filibuster or he is living on a planet where he thinks republicans are going to go along with not creating, precipitating a global economic crisis. which is it? >> look, we know that senator manchin and senator sinema have both not been supportive of eliminating the fill buster in the past. there was a meeting where neither of them spoke out against it or in support of it. that suggests potentially there is some movement there. i think the other interesting thing that was brought up earlier by steve strks voting rights act, the freedom to vote act in the senate that was led by senator joe manchin. he came up with this compromise legislation. he is has been getting praise from stacey abrams,os outside progressive groups who are putting out ads inest west virginia. he and other democrats are going around trying to figure out whether there is even support for that amongst republicans even though he's one of the ones who helped craft it. it is still likely going to fail because of republican opposition. that's another scenario in which you could see the filibuster coming up and joe manchin having to reconsider his position and because of his own legislation facing failure in a moment that's so critical. >> steve, i want to put up all the real world implications of our country defaulting. we talked about the six secretaries of defense talking about what it could do to our allies and our adversaries. here's what it would do to americans. impacts social security, veterans benefits. the cost of borrowing goes up. medicare, medicaid. all of the services for kids who in most places are back in school. it impacts their lunch and breakfast programs of course all the nutrition assistance programs and child tax credit payments. all these things are really popular. i want you to articulate for me because i don't understand where mitch mcconnell comes down in thinking that this is a winner. >> well, mitch mcconnell is playing a game of brinksmanship. at the end of the day, the dollar, the united states dollar, is the reserve currency of the world. it won't be for so much longer if we were to for the first time default on the full faith and credit of the united states. it's never been contemplated before. so this moment that we are in right now is a soft default of sorts because something that is unthinkable is actually being contemplated. right? we are at the edge of the cliff. and that's where mitch mcconnell and this brand of kneelism has brought us. now, what does that require? it requires somebody -- could be the president, could be chuck schumer. it requires somebody from the only responsible governing party to walk in and say, hey, mitch, someone's going to blink, and it's not going to be me. it's going to be you here on this. and at the end of the day, if we have to break the filibuster, we break the filibuster to protect the economy, the actual dollar payments to our veterans, to our senior citizens. we will have a deep, fast, profound economic crisis according to every economist, it will be like taking out a side arm and firing a bullet into your own leg for the purposes of i don't know what. but, certainly, it's the case that downrange from that act of political vandalism you will have tens of millions of americans hurt. and something like this does not happen in a serious country. it happens in a country that's rotted. right? that's politics are rotting. that's rotten at a level of governance. we don't and have not had, in 250 years of history, any previous leaders who have ever even walked up close to this line. that's how serious this is. that's how unprecedented this is. and that's how deep the malignancy, the spirit of partisanship against any concept of the public good has gotten in mitch mcconnell's washington, d.c. though he is the minority leader, cultural, he rules the zeitgeist of the city, much to the misfortune of the united states of america. >> up in of the miss fortune, if this comes to pass, active duty troops, it would mean no paychecks for troops. is there at least private consternation among republicans that they are going to head out to the country in the mid terms as the party that deprived active duty troops of their paycheck? >> i think most republicans you talk to believe they will get a deal but they are trying to force the democrats to do it on their own. so they -- i don't think they really believe that we are going to have a default. but it's getting very, very close to the edge here. and so this is sort of a dangerous game that's being played. but they are trying to force the democrats to vote for this unilaterally, slow things down. they have to use the reconciliation process, push the broader bill out into next year. when it is getting closer to elections. and there will be more and more pressure on the moderate democrats to go along with progressive ideas. they are very confident right now in what they are saying, in that eventually the democrats will give in and raise the debt ceiling on their own. but the filibuster threat may be the leverage on the other side that may get republicans to give in. i don't know. i guess we will see. but yeah, this is a dangerous game that's being played with real world consequences if these two sides can't come together and raise the debt limit. >> alexi, lucas laid it out. if these two sides can't come together -- these two sides can't come together. their place of work was attacked with the motto of hanging mike pence and they couldn't come together to form a commission to investigate. they can't come together. there is a lingering threat of domestic extremism from the big lie. and these two sides are not interested in protecting the right to vote. these two sides can't come together. there is something infuriating watching democrats have to use a tool that mitch mcconnell used to appoint mid-level federal judges. explain to me what is going on behind closed doors among democrats. >> we have a president, biden, who, as you will remember well, during the presidential election believed and said to reporters and anyone who would listen at different points that he thought with donald trump out of the office the republican party would essentially snap back to what we knew the republican to be, good-faith actors who are willing to come to the table. that has not happened at all. whether it is on police reform, or immigration reform or something as historically bipartisan as raising voting, to raising the debt ceiling. now we are seeing how the rest of his agenda is getting blocked. he has all of these priorities that he has promised americans to get done and those same republicans he promised to work with are simply not working with him in the same way. i think maybe folks at home are not going to care so much about the procedural logistics, what got us here and they are going to think about which party? power and what's not getting done. i think we are having president biden figuring out his own party, the manchins, the sinemas, and also the -- in order to eliminate republicans from the calculus. so far they have been holding their own line trying to bring him to their own side. now he is trying to figure out his own party so they can stand on their own. today could be an interesting moment whether or not they vote to remove the filibuster. last night president biden signalled that's on the table. things are moving so he doesn't have to consider republicans in the same ways he had before. >> steve, take me through what your advice would be to democratic leaders today. >> use the power you have immediately. today. end the standoff over the debt ceiling and signal that within 30 days, if there is no agreement on a consensus around protecting voting rights in the country from the hundreds of pieces of malice legislation that have been filed in the states, that you are going to strike the filibuster to move forward on that also. there is no snapback to the republican party. it's gone. it's dead. it's gone forever. we are living in the fifth year of -- the first year of the biden presidency, three years shy of the next presidential election, a year out from the midterm election. republican party is more extreme, more radical than it was on the date of the insurrection. it's more hardened. it's more hardened in its faith to delusions. we have a real-life autocratic movement in this country that is-teaming with intimations of violence, that is an open coalition with extremist grips, fascist groups, militia groups, heavily armed groups that routinely show out to exercise their first amendment rights with a long gun, a semiautomatic rifle and all of the implications of that in a free and democratic society. we have a serious problem in this country. and we have a political party that has become wholly kneelistic in its application of power its obstruction. there are legitimate debates about spending in a range of issues between theers pa. but a purseful default on the debt, the purposeful weakening of the country, the signal that it sends to our adversaries and to our ally -- there are no comparable acts of public irresponsibility in the history of the country. but let's make it accessible for everybody and just say, in the post world war ii era. we are at a grave moments in our politics. and the big question on the ballot for the majority in the country is going to be around whether this biden coalition can hold together and that there could be any type of forward progress in government in the country and to be able to hold back this autocratic movement from taking power. because, clearly, it has made its ill will towards democracy as clear as day. can't be any clearer about its communication around those issues. >> luke, where do you put the odds of the democrats doing what steve just suggest, putting aside the filibuster, reforming it for the purposes of the debt ceiling and voting rights? >> i think it's going to be difficult because of senators manchin and sinema. they have been less full throated so far in their support of the filibuster on this narrow carveout but they still both said or indicated that their position is to support the filibuster -- the legislative filibuster broadly. so it would take pressure from party leaders. i mean, the one key distinction is that president biden has endorsed this, or said it's at least under serious consideration which is different than his stance on the broader filibuster. if -- you know, there is always a chance in politics things can change. >> that's why we watch around the clock. right? yeah. yeah. there is always -- >> i don't like to make predictions but it does seem like a little bit of a stretch. >> i agree with that assessment. alexi and luke thank you both. steve is sticking around. when we come back, don't be fooled by mitch mcconnell's 1 th hour offer. no, he did not swoop in and try to save the economy from the rifts its under. our next guest says the chaos created by mitch mcconnell is exactly how the gop leader and the dark forces behind him. plus taking on one of the expresident's biggest allies in congress. an upcoming senate race the local paper in utah says could be the most definitive rebuke of trump's republican party so far. later in the program the fight to protect voting rights marches on in the u.s. senate this afternoon. are enough lawmakers standing up to the states that continue to take swings at democratic voting in our nation? 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>> yeah, nicole. i think there are some major question marks here depending on just how this race shapes up. he faces a formidable contender opposition in mcmullen who had a successful showing against donald trump and hillary clinton in 2016. whether or not this brand of trumpism sticks going into this election remains to be seen. if democrats do decide to run a strong democrat, it could be a problem for both lee and mcmullen. that being said, i think mike lee like many republicans have not been -- and towed the party line when it comes to dealing with president trump. he hasn't in recent months been trump's outspoken biggest supporter. but he also as you noted has not necessarily been out there admonitioning the former president for his false claims and attempting to stage an insurrection. i think this gets at the issue that republicans are all over the country are.greateling with, the fact that trump is the potential front-runner for 2024 right now, but also struggling to break a 45% approval rating across the country. and in internal gop polling found support for his candidacy right around 40%. there is recognition that his brand is toxic. whether or not mike lee can actually convincingly communicate to voters that he is no longer in the cult of trump is the biggest question mark. >> it is a tattoo at this point. mike lee's affiliation in the cult of trump is -- he can't run from it. steve, i would like to understand -- i would like to have you explain. utah republicans are not texas republicans. they are not alabama republicans. they are not florida republicans. explain utah. >> well, utah is an interesting state. the last mayor of salt lake city was one of the most liberal in the country. i believe has the only city council that had a majority of its members were gay not long ago. utah, specifically salt lake city is not majority mormon, it's a minority mormon population. there is a lot of islanders. expanding as we speak. construction everywhere. there is a culture of tollerance that is born out of the work of the lds church, the missionaries that they send all around the world. mike lee is mormon royalty by birth and upset a lot of people in the church by comparing trump to the angel moronai and beclowned himself in the state. it's a state that has always looked with contempt on trump but is a conservative state. now, for evan mcmullen, really, the question is in the hands of utah democrats. utah democrat will likely not beat mike lee, almost certainly so, in a general election. but if the utah democratic party were to endorse an independent candidacy by evan mcmullen, mike lee could certainly be defeated if that choice was available. so, you know, it's an interesting season. but come out of this moment, this autocratic moment in a america, we are going to see more moves like evan mcmullen's in the state of utah. and sooner or later, you are going to start to see the disruptions that come with it to the american political system out of necessity if it's to survive this autocratic movement, and this autocratic moment. >> steve and jaky are both sticking around for the hour. we will head back to capitol hill when we come back. senate democrats have been meeting this afternoon on how the proceed with the debt ceiling and mim's obstruction. what are they going to do? 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>> i suspect he was starting to get a lot of pressure from the financial interests behind him who realized that he was plague with dynamite that would blow their fingers off. >> you mentioned the financial interest behind him. i have seen some of your comments since the texas abortion ban has made its way through to the supreme court. and i wonder if you can speak about whether the extreme nature of the republican party that's so brazen now. i guess maybe what's a distinction is that this version of the republican party is so openly extreme, on abarings, on the supreme court justice, on the debt ceiling. and i wonder if you think it gives renewed interest to look at something you have talked at something you talked about a long time, the forces, the dark money forces. it's the reason the republican party is openly extreme is partly donald trump. but more than that, it's that there is basically unified command and control over the party by a small group of extremist donors. and when you have the control by extremists over a party, you have an extreme party. and we know this because we have seen the heritage action tape that showed the dark money driving volter suppression. we know this -- voter suppression. we know this because we read the "washington post" expose of the hundreds of millions of dollars of money spent on court capture. we know this because we have seen the money laid out behind the scientific journals behind the climate cooperation. it's dark money. it is the same crew. they are pulling all of these levers ask. the sooner the democrats start telling the public about this, the better off we will all be. >> explain. help me understand how the dark money interests were against what you just said, what the democrats are going to be able to do, which is to avoid our country having to default, something six former defense secretaries warned against yesterday. >> i think their play was make mitch take us as close to a debt limit crisis as we can to see if the democrats fold. and when we didn't, they realized that a global economic meltdown led by a u.s. debt limit crisis was going to blow them up with everybody else. so they pulled the plug on the plan, mitch fold asked now we have got time to go ahead and do build back better. which was probably their goal anyway, they wanted us taijed up in the debt ceiling fight so we couldn't do build back better. >> tell me what you do next? >> build back better. >> take me through the steps. i think people feel the alarm. >> immediately, we go to the floor with whatever mitch agreed to, whether it is us doing it with 50 votes or them providing ten votes and clear the debt limit to bees in regular order. that's now done and off our backs through december. then we finish up the deal making between the white house and speaker pelosi and senator schumer and make sure our caucuses are all united and pass build back better for once and for all. then the american people see why they voted for democrats. >> you said something -- in this description of mitch mcconnell folding feels like a development that we shouldn't skip past. it seems like mitch mcconnell's "hardball" tactics take on a mythology that exceeds mitch mcconnell's political acumen. but he still seems to be in the heads of a lot of political observers. i wonder if you could speak to what the president said yesterday about filibuster reform not just around the debt ceiling because it sounds like there is a legislative solution to that. but around the rest of a lot of these priorities, voting rights, reproductive freedoms, perhaps gun legislation? >> that's a battle for the future. i think the thing immediately in front of us is to pass build back better which already gets around the filibuster because of its reconciliation nature. we have got put all of the effort into getting that done, getting the bipartisan bill done with it and putting that whole package before the american people to enjoy and appreciate. and i think that's got to be our key and immediate goal. longer term, there are going to be more threats. in december, i think mitch is going to try to run this same play. it's going to be a question for historians whether mitch mcconnell is a sock puppet who is doing what he's told by a crafty, very well funded dark money operation that's pulling his strings or whether he's the evil genius that people sometimes fear. i am not going to offer an opinion on that right now. >> okay. i had to try. i want to ask your personal views about filibuster reform. are you for it? >> i think that we have got to work our way there, but there are definitely things that we need to do. and if the filibuster is abused against us, we've got to break through it and get it done. we can't have a situation where a party that is run by dark money can use the filibuster to keep democracy under the thumb of dark money. at some point, democracy and majority rule have to prevail. that's the american way. we have to got to find our way there and make it happen. this shows that mitch can also be made to blink when it looks like the caucus is unifying on something. >> well, is that where you are on voting rights? are the democrats unified on voting rights? could you see -- and respectfully, doesn't it feel like we are already there? >> yeah, we have the new voting rights bill that was negotiated with senator manchin that all 50 of us are ready to vote for. it includes within it the clean up for dark money. so, you know, we have to get build back better done. and after, that we will have floor time to put pressure on the republicans on other matters. but i think for them to go into the election being the party that defends dark money corruption is not a great place for them to be. i think we could put immense pressure on them either by finding a way around the filibuster for that matter, or by simply putting so much pressure on them, like old school, so much pressure on them that they have to answer for their conduct every single darn day in the senate that they finally throw in the towel and say look we are tired of being painted as the party of dark money, tired of having to vote for dark money when people hate it, we give. i think both strategys can work. i don't want to get in chuck schumer's way about which strategy he chooses. but we can get this deny. >> -- we can get this done. >> i hear that you are saying build back better has to be done snooshs we have got do that now. >> i want to ask you about the role of car, money and the investigative report being the voter suppression laws. they seem to have been crafted in right wing conservative think tanks. both of us know who they are and where they were distributed. it seems because they are so malevolent it is hard to attach description like willedly successful to them but they have been. 3 voting suppression laws and measures have already basketball put in place. do you feel urgency to after the build back better bill to protect voting rights in america? >> yeah, absolutely. particularly the dark money piece of it. the way that i think we should think about this is that, essentially, a covert operation has been run against our country. and we are democrats, so we are nice people. so we don't think americans would ever do that against their own country. but the fact of the matter that we have to face is that a bunch of creepy billionaires have done exactly that, using the trade craft that intelligence services use to run covert operations in other countries. they have used a dark money operation in this country to capture the supreme court, do voter suppression, deny climate change and take over the republican party. that is something that we need to fix. and it is really important for our country that we need to fix it because a country that's run by creepy billionaires through a crow vert dark money organization isn't the country we want to hand off to our grandchildren. >> the too nice piece is what other countries anticipate when they prepare to do battle with democrats. i appreciate you weighing in on all the headlines. i hope we can continue the conversation as we continue to watch the agenda moving through and continue to watch whether the president and other democratic leaders talk about filibuster reform which seems to be the only way to get voting rights done. >> thank you. >> thank you for spending the time with us. we'll be right back. with us we'll be right back. the airport can be a real challenge for new homeowners who have become their parents... okay, everybody, let's do a ticket check. paper tickets. we're off to a horrible start. ...but we can overcome it. we're not gonna point out our houses, landmarks, or major highways during takeoff. don't buy anything. i packed so many delicious snacks. -they're -- -nope. would you say, ballpark, when group two is gonna get boarded? 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>> super interesting to hear the senator try to spin that as mitch mcconnell folding. but the way i'm seeing it is this staredown is just being prolonged until the end of december so that they were willing to take a short term hike but not reconciliation, that process, at the end of the year. they do not want to put a dollar figure on it, althoughplicitly . but that is what we've gathered. which might leave democrats back at this position that we're in right now. it is still unclear whether mitch mcconnell is going to accept the terms of this part of the agreement, whether he would accept a short term debt limit hike and still no on the reconciliation process. but with regards to the filibuster which senator whitehouse has supported nuking in a variety of different ways, this has been a potential solution to this issue right now to avoid default that has been -- gained traction amongst democrats in a surprising way according to a few aides that i've been in touch with throughout the day. they have noted that senator manchin has not explicitly ruled out nuking the filibuster in order to avoid a default. but he hasn't quite explicitly commented on it. but that is better than his reaction to the filibuster on voting rights. the argument being that this is -- the filibuster is a process that is -- getting rid of it is easier, faster do, it can be done on the floor, in the process of, you know, 30 minutes or two hours depending on how long people move through the motions. so it is much preferable at this moment to reconciliation for democrats although we're still figuring out why exactly that is. >> so, steve, jackie is right, senator whitehouse said that mitch mcconnell has folded, it is probably also accurate to say that congress has kicked the can down the road a little bit. your reaction. >> well, we've averted withdrawing that weapon proverbbly from the holster and shooting, you know, ourselves in the leg as a nation today here in october. maybe we'll do it in december, right? but, you know, the confrontation has been postponed and recklessly we go down the road without a strategy, without a plan. and look, i think that jackie's synopsis of this, you know, i understand it because i've worked in politics for all of my adult life. but no normal person in america understands the reconciliations, the this, the that, the minute by second coverage of all of this. and one of the things that the senator said that i feel like this deserves comment is this idea that this is all planning out covertly, like a tom clancy novel, in the shadows. none of what we're seeing is playing out in any shadows. it has happened in plain daylight. even since the insurrection, the party that he is talking about has gotten more extreme. it has gotten harder. kevin mccarthy in the hours after the insurrection came out and he hesitated for at least a couple of moments realizing what had just happened. but that gave way. and this help party is all in. and so i think to look at mitch mcconnell and say that there is any finality in anything that happened today, that he blinked, that matter is settled, nothing is settled. it is just postponed. and the democratic party i think if you are a senator and you look across the spectrum here, did they have a good september, did they have a good august? how about a good july? and i think the answer to that question is they haven't. and in about a year and two months out from the election, a year and 13 months out from the election, you know, this is something that becomes concerning when you consider the prospects of republicans returning to power given their faithlessness toward democracy and their big lie and the probability to create great national vandalism should they get the levers of the power. it will shut down governments completely in this country for two years. >> it is like careening republican manufactured crisis to republican manufactured crisis. and just to add to your comment, ken mccarthy followed his 15 minutes nondelusional acceptance of realty with a pilgrimage to mar-a-lago where basically played out you complete me. and so just a nanosecond of reality from the gop and everything since then has been a hard pivot to whatyou described. thank you both so much for spending time with us today. the next hour of deadline whitehouse starts after a quick break. quick break. ♪girl, i don't know, i don't know,♪ ♪i don't know why i can't get enough of your love babe♪ ♪oh no, babe girl, if i could only make you see♪ ♪and make you understand♪ get a dozen double crunch shrimp for $1 with any steak entrée. only at applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. with any steak entrée. only at applebee's. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ congressman john lewis is an american hero. i had the privilege of walking with him across the edmund pettus bridge. let us remember his courage and his contribution to strengthening america's democracy and in his honor, let us pass the john lewis voting rights act as well as the freedom to vote act to make it easier not more difficult for people to vote in america. >> hi again, it is 5:00 in morning. in a plea to her former senate colleagues, vice president kamala harris calling for the passage of the john lewis voting rights advancement act which was introduced in the upper chamber yesterday. the legislation faces an uphill battle in the senate as republicans have made it clear that they choose politics and power over the constitutional right for everyone to vote. the bill takes aim at discriminatory voting practices, its passage is necessary in the federal fight against the gop-led assault on voting rights which includes passing state laws that make it harder to access the ballot box and sowing distrust in election systems. texas republicans who were apparently not yet done after they passed one of the most restrictive laws in the country, yesterday seemingly undeterred by the frauded out of arizona which only solidified president biden's win there the texas senate advanced a bill that would make it easier for party officials to trigger county audits. and saying that trump specifically urged governor abbott to move on the audit legislation reupping his public lobbying even after the state announced a full forensic audit of four counties after trump's first request for legislation that would allow a review of mail-in and in-person ballots across the state. we shall repeat, there was no fraud. not in texas, or anywhere else in the 2020 election. ask bill barr. but this is the new nonreality we're in. one of the two parties doesn't accept the truth, doesn't accept the facts even when they come from republicans. and as republican efforts to suppress the vote continue, ramp up in fact, the people in power standing up to them become all the more vital to our democracy. people like the democratic governors who have blocked bills by their republican-led legislatures. this morning times takes a close look at three democratic governors in swing states and how the races for their offices in those states next year will be extremely consequential. quote, at stake are how easy it is to vote, who controls the electoral system and some democrats worry whether the results of federal, state and local elections will be accepted no matter which party wins. this has left governors tony evers of wisconsin, gretchen whitmer of michigan and tom wolfe of pennsylvania standing alone in what is already expected to be a difficult year for their party. as what democrats view as a seawall against arising republican tide of voting restrictions and far-reaching election laws. defending our fragile democracy is where we start this hour. some of our favorite reporters and friends. and nick's byline is on that reporting we just read from. and also host of show "time" the circus is joining us. and also eddie glaude from princeton university. john heilemann, you are either in texas or recently back from texas where a lot of this, i don't know a word that i could use on tv, but bogus mayhem is going down over recounting counties in the state that trump won. what the hell is going on in texas? >> i believe the word you are looking at is excrement. i think that is one that we can say on tv. >> except it starts with an s. yeah. >> i'm still in texas, i'm here all week. we're doing a episode on exactly this question for the circus on sunday night just looking at how the texas republican party is racing as far to the right as any state party in the country. obviously a hugely important state party because texas is so big. you talk about it all the time on the abortion bill and everything else. and on the voting rights stuff, what has happened is that texas has become a one party state even though we've talked for 20 years about how texas might go blue, the one party monopoly here has become so dominant and in a way so corrupt because of the way monopolies tend to corrupt that you see a state legislature here and lieutenant governor and governor who see the demographic changes coming in the state and understand that in some near, medium, who knows what term that they are not going to have this kind of dominance anymore. and so they are racing to push through what are laws that are totally disconnected from reality, laws that by any republican standards are wildly extreme, laws that no texas governor prior to greg abbott and dan patrick the lieutenant governor would ever have contemplated. rick perry would have considered these laws for be wildly extreme let alone your former boss. so it is totally off the rails here. and we could talk later about our friend matthew dowd who is running for lieutenant governor who i saw last night. but it is a crazy time down here. i love texas and texans. and there are a large number of texans who are discombobulated, disconcerted, upset, baffled, angry that their chosen representatives behaving this way that doesn't reflect the vote of the majority of texans. and so you are starting to see them lose support. i wouldn't say crater, but they look vulnerable. and that is all part of the story here. incredibly fascinating and scary. >> part of the reason that they are cratering, and i think that they are, i think that they are held up by these extreme factions, is this extreme excrement isn't popular. overturning 85% of all abortions in texas doesn't have the majority support among republicans. letting kids die by banning mask mandates is not popular and that state had one of the worst covid crises of the delta variant. and the voting restrictions, there is definitive reporting on how hard it already was to vote in texas. these things aren't popular. so they seem to be doubling down on things that imperil them politically. why? >> like i said, i think that there is a rush to try to get some of this stuff enacted before the change comes that they fear will render them a minority party in the way that the california republican party initially became a third party. in california, you have democrats, people who don't want any party and then republicans. and so i think that they are trying to do what damage that they can do or what they see is not damage. but the voting rights thing is maybe the craziest of things. the abortion rights thing has obviously enormous personal effects for women in texas who basically can no longer get abortions. we're reporting on that. and it is a dire state what is happening here. but the voting rights thing is the craziest. a friend of mine was talking to one state senator who wrote both the abortion bill and the voting rights bill. talk about a record, talk about a legacy to talk to your children about. and this guy, you know, they asked him is there a voter fraud problem we don't know about? and he said no, our elections are really secure. is this a long running problem? no, there is no problem. but you can never be too safe they say, you know, where there could be problems in the future. and it is the same thing with the audit. they are like that we think that the texas election was run fairly. there was not massive fraud here. but what does it hurt to check. what is wrong with udit. businesses do audits. of course we're doing it because trump told us to. but again, i say, i love texas and i love texans, but it is madness here what is going on in terms of the legislature and the executive branch. >> and if only you could never be too safe, what texas thought and did about guns. nick, i want to bring you in. you did some of the definitive reporting that i first really became aware of just how restrictive texas already was before they embarked on this live-fueled effort to restrict the vote. texas is a state trump won. and these audits seem so out of control in which they are not being paid for by trump, they are being paid for by taxpayers. what is fueling this and out voting restrictions signed into law didn't stop what trump was pushing in the state? >> well, i think when you look at the audits, it is all kind of coming from the obsession that trump still has with the 2020 election. even republican candidates for senate right now who have made auditing the 2020 election part of their platform. you see candidates in ohio saying trump probably won by more so we need to audit it. so it is coming from the trump centric base within the republican party and it is in pennsylvania right now. that is being led by the legislature. and it is held up by a lawsuit by the attorney general josh shapiro over their efforts to get personally identifiable information on 7 million pennsylvania voters, that includes driver's license and partial social security numbers, all in the name of an election that was perfectly secure and there was no evidence of fraud. in wisconsin just today, former supreme court state judge in wisconsin who is running their partisan election review said i don't even know how elections work. so you kind of see these partisan election reviews are more a messaging tool i think to keep the party energized while also sowing first doubt and distrust within the broader electorate. and at the top of almost every voting bill, there are 33 different laws now in 19 different states restricting access to voting and almost every single one, the preamble of the bill says we need to restore confidence in our elections. well, a lot of that confidence has been eroded by these audits. >> and i think supreme court justice alito also alluded to a similar mission. i want to ask you about your reporting today, nick, you talk about the prospect that trump may run again in 2024 only compound what is democrats fear, that republicans could gainful control over the three key northern states in 2022, two years later interfere with or overturn the outcome of a narrow presidential victory in 2024. this is the nightmare scenario and it appears to be on our doorstep. >> yeah, and it was explored by a bipartisan group before the 2020 election where they thought a bunch of different crises that could come up in the election both related to the pandemic and then also just related to sub version or other issues. and one was if state legislature decided on send their own slate of electors to congress to the electoral college, if one was accepted by the senate and one was accepted by the house, then looking at the electoral count act, interpretation was that it would actually go back to the governor who would then be the tiebreaker. and we'd be down a very dangerous road if we got there, but that is just one of the many reasons that a lot of democrats are looking at these three governors' races in these three midwestern states as vital to protecting voting rights. all three of these state legislatures are controlled by republicans in both chambers and have a pretty intense gerrymandering from a decade ago that is likely to withstand any changes in the 2021 restricting process and any electoral changes that could happen in the midterms. so you have three republican legislatures going against three democratic governors who has threatened a veto or actual vetoes have stopped voting by mail, to drop boxes, all of those have been stopped by the three democratic governors. tom wolf is term limited. and governor whitmer and governor evers. and so i think that governors races often focus on state issues. they are on taxes, they are on local health care, property taxes especially. and in talking to all three of theses what my colleague and i heard was, no, i feel the weight of democracy on my shoulders. governor whitmer specifically said i feel the weight of the entire country's democracy here. and it goes beyond michigan. it could even be a presidential election. so i think that it really resonates with them right now. >> i mean, look, what nick is saying is absolutely true on the republican side. these races are nationalized. they are nationalized as anti-democratic movements to discredit trust and faith in, quote, the most secure election in american history for one reason, to soften the ground for the next coup. and coup isn't my word, it is republican congressman adam kinzinger's word for the coup memo that john eastman wrote. this is real and this is happening and for republicans these races will be about dismantling our democratic norms. i just interviewed senator whitehouse for putting aside the filibuster for voting rights and you don't get any enthusiasm for do what needs to be done to protect our democracy. and i feel like i am covering something as asymmetric as the 2016 campaign where donald trump didn't do any of the normal things. he didn't turnover his taxes. democrats followed the rules. donald trump debased the election process, debased the traditions and norms of our politics. democrats didn't play any of those games. this is not what democrats do. will democrats stand by while republicans debase our democracy? >> i pray that they don't, nicolle. it is certainly the case that the democrats seem to believe that once donald trump was no longer in office that they could then return to some semblance of normality, normalcy, with regard to ohio to play politics. not understanding that the distortion that has taken root in the republican party has not only remained but has metastasized. look, we're seeing two things at once. we're seeing sowing of distrust in our democratic process, the messaging that nick talked about. and then we're seeing some crude politics, that is to say they are putting in place mechanisms to overturn outcomes that they don't like. on the one hand you sow distrust and on the other hand you put in place mechanisms to undo american democracy. and if we don't see the governors' races in michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania as in some ways another front to kind of connect to what you were talking about in your first hour, to see this as another front of this kind of push for autocracy, this illiberal thrust in the country, in some cases we're ceding the ground. democrats need to wake up in light of the danger that we face. >> and it is not from a place of this being democrats fight. let me he make it clear. it is because the democratic party is all we have. so help us help you. i want to play something because there is urgency and passion and people willing to get arrested to protect voting rights. this is sound from ben jealous, people of the american way, before he was arrested yesterday for peacefully protesting for voting rights in front of the white house. >> we're calling on joe biden to call on the senate to remove the filibuster as an obstacle to passing voting rights legislation. president trump called on the senate to remove the filibuster as an obstacle in order to pack the supreme court with far right leaning justices. every president has used the carve out in the filibuster to pass the budget bill. our democracy is the most sacred thing, it defines us. it is time for joe biden to call on the senate to remove the filibuster. >> and he writes in that same speech being made by chuck schumer every day. >> instead we're engaging in this -- they engage in this kind of democratic kabuki theater to make it seem as if they are committed to this while they won't touch -- why they let joe manchin and kyrsten sinema and those that they provide cover for do what they do. so whatever has been put forward with voting rights, they do it over and over. it is just kabuki theater until they address the filibuster. and if they don't, then we need to say what is hard to say. they are complicit. they are complicit. and that is the only thing we can say really. they are complicit until they do the carveout. >> that is the bottom line. that is tragically where we are. we'll stay on it. nick, john, eddie, thank you so much for starting us off this hour. when we come back, second in command at doj during the disgraced ex-president's final days in office testifies before the january 6 committee and he knows a lot about a lot. what investigators hope to learn, that is next. plus a new warning from the department of homeland security, extremists and white supremacists are likely to threaten and attack health care workers and facilities spewed by disinformation pushed by russia, china and iran. and new developments of troubling comments about vaccinations from some of basketball's biggest brightest stars as the nba season gets set for tipoff. at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner with access to financial advice, tools and a personalized plan that helps you build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner. you get more with aarp medicare advantage plans from unitedhealthcare. like $0 copays on tier 1 and tier 2 prescription drugs. ♪ wow! ♪ ♪ uh-huh. ♪ $0 copays on primary care visits. ♪ wow! ♪ ♪ uh-huh. ♪ and with unitedhealthcare, you get access to medicare advantage's largest provider network. ♪ wow! ♪ ♪ uh-huh. ♪ most plans even have a $0 premium. so go ahead. take advantage now. ♪ wow! ♪ this is... ♪♪ this is iowa. we just haven't been properly introduced. say hello to the place where rolling hills meets low bills. where our fields, inside and out, are always growing. and where the fun is just getting started. this is iowa. so, when are you coming to see us? 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politico reports that they interviewed a key figure in the pressure campaign to get the justice department involved in his push to overturn the results of the 2020 election. former doj second in command richard donahue. as we've reported before, donahue took expensive notes on a call from december 27th between donald trump and then acting a.g. jeffrey rosen in which trump tried to get doj to declare the election results fraudulent. eugene daniels is joining us. tell me about this reporting. >> i mean, this is the thing that we know is that they are talking to any and everyone -- trying to talk to any and everyone, the things that they are hearing from donahue are things that we've seen in reporting already. where what was president trump doing, how far was he willing to go. and i think that that is what the democrats on this committee are so concerned about and so interested in finding out the information for. and something that is when it comes to whether or not people will come, you are talking about people like meadows come and actually testify, this is not just about finding all of the truth and finding the information, it is also about asserting congressional power. because we saw during the trump administration how trump aides continuously dodged -- or didn't comply with congressional -- the congress asking them to come speak and that happened over and over again. so they are assuming that that will happen again. and so what happens next is that congress could as you saw -- you had a number of congress tweet today that that is something that they are looking into. there is a possible criminal aspect of this if you don't come with a subpoena, there is an issue, we will possibly chase you down. and those are the things that they hope will work. but there is no political backfiring for folks like this on the republican side to not go talk to congress, not to sit in front of them. so those are what some of the issues that they are dealing with. they are also trying to figure out what are the carrots, what are the sticks so that this doesn't last so long. that was something that people, republicans actually, had a concern about this lasting into 2022, but if they don't come and speak, then this possibly could because you have to go to court and continue to fight on these subpoenas. >> stay with us, i want to bring into the conversation congressman member of the house judiciary committee. the reporting is fantastic, but i want to come back to the donahue notes themselves. they seem to illuminate a different issue entirely. and that is gop complicity in the efforts to overturn the election. we know that it was rooted in legal theory, it was rooted in a memo written by john eastman who presented to the president and vice president. and we know that he said to mr. donahue, i don't expect you -- so jeffrey rosen says understand that doj can't and won't snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election. doesn't work that way. and trump says no, no, i don't expect you do that. just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. at other points, trump names names, jim jordan republican of ohio who he describes as a fighter. he names other names, representative scott perry, republican of pennsylvania, who at the time promoted the idea that the election was stolen there trump. and he mentions senator ron johnson of wisconsin who trump praised for, quote respect getting to the bottom of things. it is unclear what things those are. but you have names, you have a path, you want to know if those men were complicit in an attempt to overturn the result of the election. >> surely, of course. and it is good to be with you, nicolle. i think those notes are staggering and of course the conversations that they reveal equally staggering. i think that the fact that the select committee is interviewing mr. donahue is an important development, really important step. we know that the department of justice was weaponized or at least the president attempted to weaponized department of justice to ultimately subvert the peaceful transfer of power. but there is a lot that we still don't know about the interactions between mr. rosen, mr. donahue and the white house. obvious delay one particular exchange that was revealed within the notes as it relates to mr. eastman is something that should shock the conscience of each and every american. but there is a lot more to find out and i expect that the select committee will do precisely that. >> and you were an impeachment manager. we should always remind i think our viewers that it was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in the house. it was a bipartisan impeachment conviction in the senate. it came up short of course, but i wonder what you would have made of the sort of intellectual white paper aspect to the pre-meditated nature. i mean, eastman writes about what happened, that certification was delayed and it is only through some serendipity that pence goes back, that nancy pelosi -- you know, that everything continues. how would that have figured into the case you would have presented? >> well, clearly i think it underscores the culpability of the president and ultimately engaging in the conduct that gave rise to the impeachment resolution and the case that we tried in the united states senate. and you are right that it is worth remembering that it was and remains the most bipartisan impeachment in presidential history in terms of impeachments against presidents. look, i think that anyone who thinks that the select committee on january 6 is not going to take their work seriously has not met chairman bennie thompson. i've worked with him for many years. he intends to get to the bottom of it. he intends to get to the truth of what happened. and of course i suspect that much of what he will find will ultimately further underscore and support the evidentiary indicate that we put on in february of this year on the floor of the united states senate. of course as you know we didn't have access to much of what the committee has now been able to glean from witnesses and of course documentary evidence as well. >> i want to ask you to weigh in on something that was tweeted about yesterday. this is from congressman schiff. according to this facebook whistleblower, shutting down the civic integritity team contributed to the insurrection and they will need to hear from her and get information from facebook. just as someone who again put on this case, gathered evidence, what does that look like? >> well, look, again, we talked about this at great length during the course of the impeachment trial. the proliferation of social media activity in the days an months leading up to january 6 and the insurrection that happened on our nation's capitol clearly was a big component of that terrible day. and so i think chairman schiff is right to want to have the select committee learn more information. i'll defer to him as to the specifics of how he believes that that should be -- that information should be obtained. but yeah, i think that it is clearly relevant. there is no question that that is the case. and you will remember during the course of the impeachment trial we spent a great deal of time talking about the president's tweets and facebook posts and posts made by a variety of different organizations affiliated with the president that were clearly calling for the type of violent conduct that ultimately our country experienced and witnessed had tragic day. >> congressman, i know your time is tight. thank you for spending time with us. eugene, i want to come back to you and follow up on something that you started at the beginning of this segment. and that is this deadline, the aides subpoenaed -- you're right, not a lot of political fallout for them not cooperating. i guess they could go on steve bannon's internet show and pound their chest. but there is a consequence it would appear if -- liz cheney has said kevin ccarthy should be subpoenaed. are you picking up anything cross pressures for them to cooperate with a bipartisan congressional investigation should they be asked to? >> the thing that is most interesting about that whole line is mccarthy, if he doesn't -- let's say he was subpoenaed, they just asked him do speak because according to him he talked to the president that day and he says no. what that does, it chips away at the power that congress has. part of their role is to be able to do exactly what this committee is working on. and so i think those are the things that members on this committee democrats and republicans, the two republicans on the committee, are hoping that they can use the pressure, that they can say, you know, when you're one day going to be in power, we have to make sure that the congressional subpoena, the congressional request to come and speak before us, continues to hold power and continues to put a little fear in folks' hearts to actually come and do what is legal and not do the illegal he will thing here. >> that is such a good point. eugene will be sticking around. and when we come back, a rash of violence against health care workers has the department of homeland security issuing a warning, that reporting is next. . ♪ there are beautiful ideas that remain in the dark. but with our new multi-cloud experience, you have the flexibility you need to unveil them to the world. ♪ people with moderate to severe psoriasis, or psoriatic arthritis, are rethinking the choices they make like the splash they create the way they exaggerate the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not an injection or a cream it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. growing up in a little red house, on the edge of a forestt or in norway,o be. there were three things my family encouraged: kindness, honesty and hard work. over time, i've come to add a fourth: be curious. be curious about the world around us, and then go. go with an open heart, and you will find inspiration anew. viking. exploring the world in comfort. almost two years in to a seemingly endless stretch of working long, long hours caring for the millions of people who have become sick during the coronavirus pandemic, our country's health care workers could now be in direct threat of violence from the far right. according to a dhs memo obtained by abc news, white supremacists and domestic terrorists are, quote, likely to threaten violence or plot against health care personnel, facilities and public officials in response to renewed and expanded covid-19 measures. the memo also states that anti-vaccine misinformation will spread as mandates are instituted across the country with countries like russia, china and iran reportedly spreading it as they attempt to sow more distrust in the u.s. joining us now, david jolly. and eugene daniels is still here. david, i have a loved one in the hospital right now. and i have said to the face of everyone who has helped her, you are a human super hero. and no man, woman, democrat or republican, who has a child or parent or relative in the hospital feels differently about the people who keep the people they love healthy and alive. how is this happening? >> nicolle, we're seeing the behavior of patients and patients' loved ones, they will be hafing in a way that simply is the culmination now of over a year of disinformation, misinformation about both the virus and the vaccine. and suspicion fed by some of the loudest voices in the land. but it is also important to recognize the intelligence piece that you referred to. this is as vulnerable moment for us as a nation as the false information around the 2020 election was. all of this seems exactly the same. you have a relatively passive american demographic that is suspicious because they followed certain voices of leadership but now that suspicion is being fed by outside bad actors like china, iran and russia. and they are playing the long game. what they want is to destabilize american culture and there is nothing more destabilizing right now than the debate around covid-19 and the vaccine. and the long game comes to an end when the vaccine becomes fda approved for children and school districts begin to require it for admission to school. that is what the foreign bad actors are waiting for, that is what they are feeding. and culturally that is where we need political leadership to begin the process now to prepare a nation where children may be mandated to have this vaccine to return to school next school year. >> it is a terrifying picture, eugene. and if you go by the tv i'll call them performances from republican governors in states that mandate all sorts of vaccines for children with no exemptions permitted, you see them already carving out what david is talking about. and i want to just line up for our viewers the company they are keeping in terms of their messages. this is from the "new york times" back in march. these groups portray vaccines as a symbol of excessive government control. if less people get vaccinated the system will have to use more aggressive force on the rest of us to make us get the shot. this was linked to the proud boys. julia ainsley is reporting on the foreign actors also in the company of anyone on the right spreading disinformation. a bulletin warns that nation-state adversaries have repeatedly amplified conspiracy theories. in some cases amplifying calls for violence targeting persons of asian descent. so that is the braid of messengers and vectors, proud boys, adversaries and right wing disinformation. >> no, absolutely. and the thing is outside of iran and all of these foreign actors, that is happening right here, all of those people that you are talking about. and what is really interesting and to connect some things for folks here, because we were just talking about before the break january 6 and all this covid disinformation, those aren't disconnected. the groups that talk about these things are groups that feel like, you know, the election was stolen which it wasn't and that feel like if you put a vaccine that keeps you from dying, that kept me from being out of the hospital when i got covid-19 weeks ago, then you are bowing down to some kind of leftist government. those connections are there. the people who believe and who are likely to believe those kinds of things. and one of the questions that i continue to hear even from medical health professionals is what is leadership. if leadership is saying and doing whatever your people say, or is leadership telling people this vaccine is safe, it is going to keep us safe, it will keep us out of the hospital, it will move -- you'll be able to leave your homes, virtual events no more, you will be able to be around your families, what is leadership. and i think it is the latter where you have to say to the people that you are in charge of the honest truth. and i think that is something that is missing because they are trying to -- a lot of this in the republican part it i trying to figure out culturally what is allowed to be said in the republican party, what is the thing -- what are the things that they believe in. and that is one of the struggles fighting this misinformation. >> and there are real victims, real heros being victimized by the disinformation. and i want to put up a couple headlines. missouri hospital workers are being assaulted on the job. they are asked to carry panic buttons that allow them to summon security. there are other stories of folks removing their scrubs and changing in to other clothes so that they are not identified as they leave the hospital. we've talked a lot about the debasement of our politics. this is now extending into the debasement of some of the most vital people in our society, health care workers, doctors, nurses. let me bring david back this. sorry, eugene. >> yeah, so i would say it is the result of voices of political leadership namely the former president who was willing to degrade and tear down institutions that we otherwise would hold with a certain degree of integrity from the courts to our intel agencies to the media to the clinical physicians and research scientists around covid. when a political leader is able to break apart the construct with which we formerly looked at these institutions, in this case health care, then any behavior in response to that is okay. there is now a permission structure to engage in violence or assault if that is notionally being done to protect your liberty. and nicolle, i think that we are inevitably heading toward incidents of violence particularly around vaccine mandates in schools. hard to see a world in which we don't see isolated incidents of violence after the behavior we have around mask mandates. and i know this white house has a bunch on its plate, but i think that this is an area where they should be playing offense hopefully in coordination with the nation's governors to determine what are the guard rules for vaccine mandates so they are state measured. how to build up a construct to which the approach whether or not children get vaccinated in public schools is held nationally that reduces the fringe violence we otherwise might see. otherwise the voices of leadership from the right, coming from the white house now, will be playing catchup when we do finally hit that that inflection standpoint. >> and you are right to stay on top of it. thank you both so much. when we come back, speaking of vaccine mandates, the nba vaccine success story is being undercut by just a couple of high profile superstars, some speaking out about their ongoing skepticism, that reporting next. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ your doctor gives you a prescription. let's get you on some antibiotics right away. you could have it brought right to your door, with 1-to-2 day delivery from your local cvs. or same day if you need it sooner. but at a time like this, aren't you glad you can also just swing by to pick it up? and get your questions answered. because peace of mind is something you just can't get in a cardboard box. that's healthier 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irvings both play for teams in cities that have ordinances that prohibit from playing or practicing in their own home arenas. so faced with that prospect, andrew wiggins finally got vaccinated. here was his reasoning. >> time was not on my side. the season was starting soon. and i didn't want to miss it. you know, miss basketball. i didn't want to get the vaccination, but something i had to do, you know. >> so now wiggins can play, practice and be with his team. and then there is brooklyn's kyrie irving, legit superstar. espn is reporting that the nets franchise still doesn't know what kyrie will do and they haven't endecided whether or not to accommodate even as a part-time player should he remain unvaccinated. he would look $380,000 for every game that he misses. joining us is jemele hill. what do you think? >> well, i think in andrew wiggins' case, he is schedule food make about $31 million, $32 million a year. he had to probably have a very honest conversation with himself, are his beliefs, and he explained in that press conference that his hesitation stemmed from a bad reaction that i believe that he had to tylenol. because of that bad reaction, he looked at more natural remedies which i can understand. my own mother was not on board with getting vaccinated because she had bad reactions to things throughout the course of her life. and so eventually after doing her research and i don't mean memes, but actually doing research particularly because she as medical was the best one fit what her particular health challenges are, and my issue with people with andrew wiggins is they provided a doctor that could answer the questions and probably the reaction that he had was such an anomaly that he decided to base his entire medical decision on this, and the thing is if andrew wiggins, you know, god forbid, if he goes out tomorrow and messes up his knee, i promise you he's going to put something quote unquote unnatural in his body, and not to mention, to even play sports pretty much everywhere in this country you have to have been vaccinated or immunized. so i think, you know, that's kind of the thing that people have to kind of realize here is that there's a lot of people picking sort of a selective stand to make when it comes to this vaccination. and it boils down to the money. with kyrie, i think that's a little bit different. kyrie is very strong willed. he's certainly been very outspoken about number of issues, social justice issues. i mean, last year, you know, after some incidents in our country, he took a few days off. he's somebody who is very cognizant of what's happening in the world. i could easily see a scenario where kyrie irving decides not to be vaccinated and costs himself $381,000 per game. he's going to be making $34 million this year if he's not vaccinated and this will cost him roughly half his salary because he can't play any home games. >> what is the cost, these are household names. these players have followings all the way down to young kids. anyone who knows basketball knows kyrie. what is sort of the public health consequence of him taking a stand like that? >> well, because kyrie is such a thoughtful person, i really want him to look at the bigger picture here. the bigger picture is that this virus has disproportionately impacted his community or actually two of his communities, he's native american, and what the disease has done to native american indigenous communities is devastating. the same has happened in the african-american community as well. and with somebody in a position of leadership and influence, he needs to think about how his message is being received by the people who look up to him, who watch him, who idolize him. everybody that watches kyrie irving doesn't have millions of dollars, and they don't have $33 million coming to them this year, and can't afford to lose that kind of money. a lot of them have lost family members, grandparents, mothers and sisters and brothers. he has to think, is he really being responsible in how he's using this platform that he's been gifted with. and so i would love for him to see this an as opportunity to really speak to the communities that he cares about and not further endanger them by holding out from these vaccinations. >> who can convince him to do that, not from the negative sort of vaccine shaming side but what you're saying, incentivizing him to use this opportunity to save lives? >> i would like to think it's other players because, you know, this is something we have seen in the last couple of weeks as more players have expressed their hesitancy. the pressure is coming from inside the house. a lot of these guys don't publicly feel comfortable saying guys should be forced. one of the things that makes the nba great is there's a different level of player empowerment. i think on a private level, some of the players, some of the people on his team, they need to really have a strong conversation with him. not as you said, from a negative place but to get him to understand this whole picture. i mean, he's a young man, and even from a selfish standpoint in terms of winning a championship, the next knicks are one of the favorites. does he want to miss out on an opportunity to do that. does he want somebody like james harden to miss out on this opportunity because he's chosen to take this stance. >> it's so interesting, and you're right, it's about the opportunity they have because the nba has an incredible vaccination rate, and that should be touted as well. jemele, thank you for jumping back on and staying on this with us. we'll be back after a quick break. don't go anywhere. we'll be back break. don't go anywhere. at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner with access to financial advice, tools and a personalized plan that helps you build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner. do you take aspirin? plain aspirin could be hurting your stomach. new vazalore is the first 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5 million cases and 23,000 deaths in children under age of 5 every single year. so even as science endures unprecedented attacks, it's still saving lots and lots of lives, and most of us are quite thankful. quick break for us. we'll be right back. thankful quick break for us we'll be right back. or psoriatic arthritis, are rethinking the choices they make like the splash they create the way they exaggerate the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not an injection or a cream it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. ♪ ♪ there are beautiful ideas that remain in the dark. but with our new multi-cloud experience, you have the flexibility you need to unveil them to the world. ♪ baaam. internet that doesn't miss a beat. that's cute, but my internet to ustreams to my ride.orld. adorable, but does yours block malware? nope. -it crushes it. pshh, mine's so fast, no one can catch me. big whoop! mine gives me a 4k streaming box. -for free! that's because you all have the same internet. xfinity xfi. so powerful, it keeps one-upping itself. can your internet do that? thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. "the beat" with ari melber starts now. >> we're tracking news in a congressional class that could seriously impact the whole nation. negotiations continuing over biden's proposed spending and as the president huddles with business leaders, concerned about gop threats that could make the u.s. default, that is the big story. republicans have been threatening to complicate basically everything in washington and around the country by pushing the u.s. to default on its debt, even mitt romney recently saying we're not voting in any way to help raise the debt ceiling as a group we're all