following a fresh wave of optimism in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. maybe more optimism than we've heard in months. listen to this bold claim from a doctor our viewers and listeners will recognize. >> we have definitely turned a corner. i think the worst is behind us. >> there are lots of reasons he's feeling so positive. this morning pfizer put in a formal request for emergency news authorization to get its vaccine to children ages 5 to 11. vaccine rates are also up. new white house research showing vaccine requirements have cut the u.s. unvaccinated rate by a full third. in fact, vaccine requirements have been so effective president biden leaving the white house for illinois in a few hours to talk them out. and that comes as the labor department gets ready to rule out a new rule requiring shots for tens of millions more americans on top of all that, cases are down. hospitalizations are down. deaths are down. even in the south where things were so dire just a few months ago. let's get right to it. mike memoli just outside of chicago in outgrove, illinois ahead of the president's visit. we have an infectious disease physician, director of the infectious disease and msnbc medical contributor. stephanie gosk is in new york city with a look at what to expect from the virus next, and allison barber in anchorage j alaska where unfortunately cases there are still climbing. doctor, let's start with the pfizer news out a few hours ago. the company formally applying for emergency use authorization to give the vaccine to children 5 to 11. realistically, how soon do you think it will happen? will we get the shots in the arms and how much of a difference is that going to make in the fight? >> yeah. craig, so pfizer has been submitting their data since the end of last month when they showed very good antibody response with the lower dose in this younger population. and today they've made this formal request. the fda said it's going to be a matter of weeks. they've set a meeting on october 26th. and if the data looks as good as pfizer is saying it does, you might see approval really right after this 26 th meeting. that means before halloween we may get the boosters. this affects 20 million american children. and the reason it's important is that sometimes you hear the numbers of over 70% of americans are vaccinated and in reality when you look at fully vaccinated all americans at the 70% is referring to adults and eligible folks currently. when you get look at all americans, about 57 % of americans are vaccinated. and with the approval in children, you are going to see the number go up in addition to the over efforts including the mandates. >> doctor, just to be clear, pfizer has already been manufacturing for kids. i mean, these doses are sitting in a warehouse somewhere. so as soon as the approval happens, they'll be able to rule those shots out for children. correct? >> that's right. and, again, just this is a different dosing. it's one-third of the dose, and so the -- this is part of the effort they've been working on knowing that schools, parents are looking at this. also not just because of the schools that -- the schooling that started but also holiday travel is coming up and kids are going to be traveling with their parents through thanksgiving and holidays. the christmas holidays. this will be very important. >> mr. memoli, vaccines again, top of mind for the president today on this visit, leaving for illinois next hour to talk about the importance of vaccine requirements. he's doing this at a time where the poll numbers are starting to take a hit. meanwhile, mike, the labor department about to rule out a rule requiring vaccines for millions of additional workers. break that down for us if you can. >> yeah. well, you remember when the president announced those tough new vaccine requirements last month. there were some pretty significant opposition, especially from republicans. and what the president is coming here to the chicago area today to try to point out is there's also been some really significant success as a result of some of those new policies. you mentioned it. the new white house report released overnight saying that the number of unvaccinated americans has dropped from 95 million in july to now just 67 million. that 35 organizations that includes hospitals, institutions of education, as well as businesses, have already imposed some form of a vaccine requirement for their work force as well. and that includes places like the construction company that the president is going to be coming to today. it includes united airlines and also based in the chicago area. one of the first major airliners to impose these vaccine requirements. and that's the message that the president is going to deliver here. even before the labor department finishes the rule making for businesses of 100 or more employees, take this action now, it is delivering results. but you step back. you mentioned the poll numbers. the president has had a tough stretch here. his numbers dropping below 340% in terms of overall approval yesterday. and most troubling to the white house, they have been saying since even before his inauguration they knew this president was going to be judged first and foremost based on his response to the pandemic, and so even his handling of the coronavirus in the new poll under 50%. so just like the president did on tuesday, leaving washington to go to michigan to tout the infrastructure plan, today leaving washington to come here to really tout what they think is a strong bit of good news here as it relates to coronavirus after a tough few months. >> yeah. stephanie gosk, medical experts seem to be cautiously optimistic now that the worst may be behind us. cases down. deaths down. hospitalizations down. especially in the hard hit south. but there are some concerns about the winter. what are you hearing? >> reporter: yeah. you know, health officials are measured if nothing else. we can rely on that. so to hear them sound somewhat optimistic is really good news for everybody. and you have the numbers dramatically dropping since the start of september. case numbers down 40% nationwide. where you're seeing the most dramatic drops are in the southern states hit the hardest. florida in the last month down over 75% in case numbers. this has a lot of people looking around asking themselves what will the winter bring? people going back inside. you have the flu. wondering whether are we going to see a kind of surge again in the winter like we saw last winter which was pretty dramatic, or are we going to have a leveling off? i spoke with an epidemiologist at john's hopkins. here's what she had to say. >> is it reasonable to expect that we will reach a point with this virus where it feels less like a deadly pandemic and more like the flu? >> i do think so. i think that as we use vaccines, what we're effectively doing is taming the virus. we're taking off the table its abilities to put people in the hospital, and kill us. >> so the vaccines are bringing those numbers down. the other thing that's bringing the numbers down as well, and it is worth mentioning, is that a lot of unvaccinated people contracted the virus and now they have antibodies. it's a tough way to get there, but it means less people could potentially be susceptible to the virus this winter. >> that's a good point. a very good point. doctor, i want to play something we heard from our good friend doctor ashish shaw. >> we're going to hear the fda authorize j&j and moderna. >> for booster boots? >> for booster shots. we go into thanksgiving and the holidays with a whole new set of tools. it's going to be helpful. that makes me optimistic we're going to have a better holiday season. >> doctor, do you share that optimism? >> i think that we are much better off than we were last year. we've gotten a huge portion of the country vaccinated. unfortunately some of us also had to go through the infection. we're approaching a period of time where we're not as vulnerable. we're going to see a hyper local pattern of outbreaks where places didn't have outbreaks in the past. the vaccinations aren't as high, you may see more infections in that area. the other things are the announcement about rapid tests. if you can really get the tests out ahead of the travel, ahead of the activities we're doing, not only does that help people make decisions that help curb transmission, but the addition of the oral anti-viral, the data proves well, that's more of the taming of the virus. i share that optimism with a caution, but in some places you may still see outbreaks in the winter. >> yeah. the white house announcing that they're going to invest a billion dollars in the at-home covid testing kits. alison, we're talking about turning a corner. but in alaska where you are, cases rising. medical workers apparently being harassed for doing their jobs. what are you hearing there? >> reporter: hospitals here are overburdened. they've moved to in 20 different hospitals all the three major hospitals in anchorage, operating under a crisis standard of care. so this is the rare state right now where things are not good as it relates to covid-19. and in recent days contentious assembly meetings over an in-door mask mandate have shined a late on some of the hostility and harassment workers are dealing with. we spoke to health care workers who say they are not just experiencing hostility speaking out at public meetings, but this is something that has been building for months. >> i got assaulted when i swabbed somebody for covid who was literally on the verge of dieing from covid. she didn't believe she had it. and she struck me and another nurse after we swabbed her. the last surge, i think, people are just sort of over it. and the conspiracy theories have really gained a lot of momentum, and that small population has just gotten very loud and emboldened, and it's -- it feels like we went from heros to martyrs to enemies now. >> and she's an er nurse in anchorage. she's finishing up maternity leave right now and it ended up being a helpful mental reset for her. health care workers, respiratory therapists, nurses, doctors are dealing with an unprecedented health crisis. when you add in verbal assaults, physical assaults for a lot of people, it is too much to take. and people are walking away. we already have a nationwide nursing shortage. it's incredibly difficult to recruit health care workers to places like alaska. and there is some concern here that people who might be considering a field like nursing, they might see all of this, see the harassment, the aggression, particularly that has been elevated and really have a national spotlight in this city in the last week or so, they might see all of that and say hey, this isn't for me and we could have a problem long-term down the road. >> yeah. alison there in anchorage. doctor, it seems like not long ago folks were taking to their balconies and banging on pots and pans to celebrate the doctors and nurses. now you have folks in the hospital rooms attacking nurses. >> yeah. it's not just the intensity of this antagonizing. we're in the 19th month and we're exhausting. studies have shown high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression. impact on health care workers and the question of what happens to our health care worker force coming out of the pandemic, even if we're turning a corner is a big one. and part of what's happened is because in this very politicized world of the pandemic, health care workers have been discredited. right? all the conspiracy theories, part of this is like health care workers are making money off of this. they're not. public health folks have been working for very little for very long hours throughout the pandemic. again, same thing. the demonizing of the public health officials in the state and local level. i think you'll see an impact coming out of the pandemic for a long time as we lose people in that job. so we're not over that hurdle yet. >> the real world effects of misinformation and disinformation. doctor, thank you. mike memoli there in illinois traveling with the president. stephanie gosk and alison barber for us on the ground in alaska. a big thanks to all of you. we're following breaking news from texas on this thursday. a federal judge has temporarily blocked that state from enforcing one of the most e strictive abortion bans in the country. the july calling it unconstitutional. in a 113-page rolling the judge writes, quote, this court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right. texas appealing the decision. the law you might recall, bans abortions once a fetal heart beat is detected. that can be as early as six weeks before many women even know they're pregnant. a lot more to get to including a big court win for a black former tesla worker. a jury says the company has to pay him nearly $137 million after agreeing with his claims that he was subjected to racial harassment in the work place. i'll talk to that former tesla employee. and we have a deal. senator schumer announcing an agreement with republicans on extending the debt ceiling through december. it punts the problem for about two months. it does not answer the huge conflict at the heart of the issue. so how will this all work out? 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>> this is an agreement to left the debt ceil by $480 billion, and they think that's how much money it will make to get them through early december. that's the number that the treasury department had suggested. now, there was some back and forth over the night on what the number was going to be. they settled on this $480 billion number. as far as a vote is concerned, it should happen as early as today. leader schumer is doing the preparations to set up the vote as we speak. it is expected to pass, because, of course, this is an agreement between leaders schumer and mcconnell even if some of the rank and file members aren't necessarily happy with it. but this was getting extremely close to that critical deadline of october 18th, making everyone extremely nervous. and after a lot of serious discussions among democrats about altering and changing the senate rules and getting rid of some components of the filibuster, that's when mcconnell finally came to the table and thus, this deal has been reached. >> correct me if i'm wrong, early december, wouldn't this be around the same time we could be looking at another potential government shutdown? >> yep. that's exactly right. so december third is when the current government funding bill runs out. this is linking directly, these critical issues of default and government funding. so this is creating a huge cliff. this is not solving the problem. this is kicking the can down the road, and so the holidays could be extremely busy up here. democrats say that it gives them two months to deal with their issues, including passing president biden's agenda of the human multitrillion dollar human infrastructure and climate change plan. but they are leaving a lot until the end of the year. we know congress loves a deadline, but we also know that congress causes a lot of chaos when they do this. >> david, again, this kicks the can, punts the football. choose your analogy, for a couple months. are we right back here dealing with the same issues in early december? >> cliches bound, and here we go again. right? i don't think that the charger issue has been solved. i think it's a relief probably to anybody that's been paying attention that we're not going to blow past the deadline and risk the fault. i think this is one of the rare instances the debt ceiling where no deal is worse than a bad deal. most of the times up here these days, people would rather strike no deal than a deal they think is imperfect. that's part of the problem. and so now they've managed to get themselves to december, but the underlying disagreement still exists which is leader mcconnell is saying that there are not going to be any republican votes or virtually no republican votes to raise the debt ceiling on a permanent basis or to get us to the next time we have to go through this again like a big circus. and that he did this in order to give democrats the time they said they didn't have to run their reconciliation package. and include the debt ceiling hike in that. so democrats, of course, said yeah, we still have no intention of doing that. great, you caved, thank you. it was telling, i thought, that many democrats were just thrilled to be able to say that mcconnell caved. and it maybe seemed like that in some instances and to a degree, he was buying himself some insurance to make sure senators manchin and sinema didn't change their mind on a carveout or getting rid of it altogether. but at the end of the day, we don't have an agreement on the underlying problem. democrats want reasons to join them in voting to raise the debt ceiling. the republicans are insisting since democrats are in the majority and are running this multitrillion dollar reckon stilluation package, they can include it and do it themselves. why do they have a problem with it anyway being they're being excluded from the bill itself. it's the president's agenda. it's something you want to do. you're not interested in what we have to say. this is the republican point of view. so you deal with it. and next time we're in the majority, it will be our problem. >> but here's my question with that line of thinking, david. with regards to the president's social safety yet bill, whatever you want to call it, that's new spending. democrats and republicans have been bickering over the past few weeks. they've been bickering over paying bills that they both incurred. and you could actually make the argument that it's republicans who spent the better part of the last few years providing significant tax cuts to wealthy individuals. >> well, you can make two different arguments here. and i think both are valid. republicans don't have clean hands when it comes to keeping the debt under control. they've been willing to spend and spend and spend as long as a republican was in the white house. the past four years it was president trump. on the other hand, you had an unprecedented pandemic that they came together to spend the money the public wanted. the arguments the republicans make is if you want to add more to the debt after we had to spend an unusually emergency, unprecedented amount of money to deal with the pandemic, now we don't think that's what we should be doing. if that's what you want to do, we're not going to make it any easier, but you are right to point out, and this is very true, that republicans spend as much money as democrats. they just spend it on different things. >> that's a great way to summarize the positions of both parties. lee ann, the debt ceiling fight taking up a lot of oxygen on the hill with this deal at least for two months, does it make it more likely the democrats will be age to work through their issues and pass the infrastructure and spending bills? >> well, i don't know about more likely, because they have their own problems in doing it. at least now they can focus on that and not worry about this existential crisis that was upon them. so they can focus the media attention, their press attention on this. they can focus on their negotiations instead of president biden holding meetings with ceos about the debt limit, he can hold meetings with democratic lawmakers about his build back better agenda. this is a complicated time for democrats, because while they are still trying to figure out a topline number, how much they want to spend on this multitrillion dollar human infrastructure plan which is probably going to be around $2 trillion, but they don't have an exact number, they also have to figure out what exactly is going to make it in this bill. and they have different factions of the party wanting different things. not only different priorities, but then you have the progressives pushing really hard to include everything in the agenda in this bill even if it's going to be scaled back. and they have a lot of difficult decisions to make, and it's extremely difficult and complicated as they move forward to meet the deadlines. >> yeah. lots in that bill. i mean, a couple hundred million dollars for home health care workers. free community college. lee ann, thank you. david, thanks to you as well. thank you both. up next, we are on vote watch. that's right. vote watch in october. because the latest on a heated hearing happening right now into arizona's audit of the 2020 election. we just saw a pretty eye-watching moment, sitting congressman just said we do not know who won the 2020 presidential election. also this morning, some new details about how former president trump pressured the justice department to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election. blns a hearing on arizona's controversial audit of the 2020 election. two weeks ago the audit confirmed president biden's win in that state. it did not find any fraud. moments ago the arizona republican congressman would not admit that in a heated exchange. >> the gentleman yield, you asked if i would respond. happy to respond. >> by all means, to you accept this audit which showed that joe biden won't and indeed, by more votes than -- >> that is not what the audit concluded. you know better than that. have you read the whole audit or cherry picked the line that talked about the recount versus the tabulation machines. anything that -- >> the election is my question. i'm happy to yield to you -- who won the election in arizona? donald trump? >> we don't know, because as the audit demonstrates clearly, there are a lot of issues with this election that took place. we're going to go through those today. but you can continue -- speaking of the big lie, you can continue to perpetuate it as long as you want. >> we continue to follow the results of the 2020 election. jane, it speaks to a deeper current than continues to run through this country with regard to the election results. give us some context to what we just saw and what's happening in that hearing. >> this really devolves quickly with the early statements from the members essentially before they even started questioning their witnesses. essentially devolving into the problem that we've seen with all of these audits, these partisan reviews that essentially people are seeing what they want to see in the audit. particularly in arizona. they're reading what they want to read in the report put out by the third party contractors. while democrats are eager to highlight the problems inexperienced contractors really people who are casting things they don't understand about the election process and common place election issues, and essentially voter fraud because they don't understand it, they want to cast a spotlight on that, they're having trouble. there's republicans who are continuing to perpetuate the idea the election wasn't one by joe biden in arizona. those are the problems with the partisan reviews around the country. the arizona review in particular and the attempted hearing as well. >> i don't know if you know the answer to this question. that's not going to stop me from asking it. we're about a year out from the election. what -- why is it taking so long in arizona to even recount the recount of the recount? like, what are they doing? >> we should be careful with the word audit. the official ones were down by the count and found they worked as they should. there was no irregularities in the way the republicans would like to see. but this one took a long time, because it took months to get the ballots. they didn't know where they were going to count the ballots. they thought they could do everything in the county facilities and had to move into this large auditorium and move out because there were high school graduations happening. this was a difficult process for them. because essentially they didn't know what they were doing or how to plan. >> it's a side show. it's just a side show. jane, thank you for staying on top of it. do appreciate it. i want to read you this alarming new statement from democratic senator dick durbin. he said, quote, america was only a half step away from a full blown constitutional crisis. that is what the senator says he took away from the latest report on the 2020 election. it was released just this morning. it's a 394-page report, and it gives some new details on just how former president donald trump pressured the justice department to pursue unfounded reports of election fraud. nbc's garrett haake is on the hill following this part of the story. garrett, walk us through these new revelations from this report. what more do we know about what happened? >> this report from the senate judiciary committee focuses fairly narrowly on the relationship between the trump white house and the department of justice in the period between election day and inauguration day. we learned all the ways in which former president tried to use the doj to lean on states to change election resultser or otherwise get involved improperly in elections. so much the way the department of justice and white house communicate is set by informal rules and sanders that were -- standards were almost blown out. a u.s. attorney in georgia getting pushed out by the white house after not investigating fraud claims. and we learn a lot about a january 3rd meeting in the oval office. it's described in the report as members of the doj senior staff at the time talking about a murder/suicide makt. meaning they would all resign if members were fired so the former president could install loyalists to push his election fraud lies further than they were going. democratic members of the committee involved in the creation of this report were really alarmed by what they learned. here's richard blumenthal, the senator from connecticut i spoke to about this this morning describing what he took away from the report. >> this moment was spine tinglingly chillingly close to betraying the constitution because donald trump tried to subvert, corrupt the constitution and the department. >> reporter: this an interim report from the committee. we expect to learn more as they continue their investigation and already some lawmakers on the committee are talking about how to take the largely unwritten inform rules and formalize them in a way that no future president can lead on the department of justice officials in an election again. >> garrett haake, thank you. up next, nearly $137 million is what a jury says tesla must pay a former worker who claimed he suffered from racial harassment on the job. he and his lawyer join me next. t daily harassment with racist epithets, other offensive things written on the walls. that's what one black former worker said he had to deal with while working at the tesla san francisco factory. he said the hostile work environment was so bad he sued the electric car giant. and won, i might add, close to $137 million. we reached out to tesla to ask if it had a comment and also to ask whether it planned to appeal the decision. we have not heard back. tesla has previously denied knowledge of the alleged racist conduct at the plant which has about 10,000 workers. joining me the former worker, owen diaz and his lawyer, larry. owen, let me start with you. what was your experience like at tesla, and what made you finally decide to take legal action? >> you know, my experience was atrocious. not only was i being degraded and called the n-word and told to go back to africa. i was also assaulted -- not assaulted, but accosted by one of my supervisors. that same supervisor decided that he wanted to draw an effigy or on a cardboard bell and drive it through the factory and proudly display it. i had other co-workers telling me n, hurry up and push the button, and ns are s-h-i -- you know the rest. >> did you bring it to anyone's attention that they were throwing around the n-word left and right at tesla? >> yes, they were. i brought it to the attention of supervisors. investigations that sometimes were started and then they were killed by upper management. you know, one of the breaking points was when i was coming around the corner, and a caucasian supervisor was calling my son -- telling my son he couldn't stand on f eeing ns. at that point my son was looking to me for guidance. i'm supposed to have his back, and i couldn't do anything. at that point, i was broke. and my son had to watch his father go through that. >> it took four years. you've got a favorable verdict. what does the outcome of the lawsuit mean to you, owen? >> well, the outcome of the lawsuit is -- i really wanted to be less about me and more about what's going on in the tesla factory. you know, we have people like dewitt lambert, that is a pioneer. the first one to have the courage to come out, and he gave me the courage to be able to step out at the same time. so, you know, this jury had listened to all the evidence and substantiated this is what's happening in tesla. they sent a message to tesla, letting them know clean up this factory. >> larry, do you expect tesla will try and appeal this ruling? have you heard anything from them about that? >> i haven't heard, but i do expect that they are -- they're spinning this case, again, saying that since 2015 and 2016 when this happened, things got better, but we have a class action lawsuit against tesla, and in that lawsuit we've got over 100 african american employees at tesla who all got called the n-word. so things haven't gotten better. and this is all part of tesla's zero responsibility platform where they are blaming everybody else but themselves. they just need to clean up their factory and make sure that no one is using the n-word there. this is a workplace, and cannot be tolerated in the bay area or in america. >> and here's the thing, larry. you just alluded to it. first, it's 2021, and we're talking about more than 100 people being subjected to having the n-word hurled at them in the workplace, and this is san francisco. we're not talking about some red neck deep southern hick town. you know, san francisco is supposed to be some paragon of progressive ideals. >> i got to tell you, craig, when owen came to me, i didn't -- i couldn't believe it. i could not believe that was happening here in the bay area. and -- but -- you know, we got multiple witnesses who received about the n-word being everywhere, hearing it daily. and that was the evidence the jury heard. they also heard that tesla wasn't taking responsibility for it. they were blaming contractors, saying owen wasn't an employee, and the jury found that he was. and so we're heartened they sent this message to tesla. i hope tesla gets the message and changes things so that black workers there are protected. >> owen -- >> well, you know, one of the things they did is they retained one of my harassers. they put him back in a position of supervising other african american employees. so we don't know today that this employee that they retained is not still dishing out that harassment and that abuse to other african american employees. >> again, to point out to our viewers and listeners on the radio, we did reach out to tesla. no comment. owen diaz, larry, a big thanks to both of you. keep us posted. we want to continue to follow this case. thank you both. breaking this morning, breaking a short time ago, more than a dozen former nba players arrested and charged in an alleged health care scheme, accused of stealing millions. what we're learning about that next. is struggling to manage your type 2 diabetes knocking you out of your zone? 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"andrea mitchell reports" starts now. good day, this is andrea mitchell reports. an agreement between senate leaders comes with the nation just 11 days from a mobile economic melt down. >> we have reached agreement to extend the debt ceiling through early december and it is our hope that we can get this done as soon as today. >> president biden going to chicago this hour for an event