months that we would make them do it without our help, and we folded. i hate that. we're in a hole. we got to dig out of this hole and we can. we shot ourselves in the foot tonight, but we'll revisit this issue in december. >> i believe democratic leader schumer was on the verge of surrendering, and then unfortunately, yesterday republicans blinked. i think that was a mistake. i understand why republican leadership blinked. i wish they hadn't. i wish they hadn't, because i believe we were on the verge of victory. >> chuck schumer won this game of chicken. as two trucks drove toward each other on a country road, one or the other was going to turn, or you were going to have a lot of dead chickens. i wish republicans hadn't blinked. we shouldn't have done that. >> we're going to have to take that. >> oh, my god. you know, that's the capitol of the united states where serious stuff is supposed to happen. right? but it hasn't been happening. it hasn't been happening because there's this group, they don't understand. they're talking about your retirement savings. something i'm not talking about a portion of your retirement savings. i'm talking about your entire retirement account. come to me. i don't want anyone else associated with my remarks. your entire retirement accounts, the u.s. economy, your job, america's standing in the world, the supremacy of communist china over the united states of america. that's what those guys actually were playing with. they think that's a game. these comments are just -- incredibly revealing. we gave them a lifeline. we had the weapon, the weapon, the weapon. we shot ourselves in the shoot. no, no, your weapon that you had was making the united states default on a debt for the first time, on our debt for the first time in the history of the united states of america. and in so doing, what would you do, republicans? you would have set fire to our economy. you would have trashed retirement accounts in donald trump's florida and mcconnell's kentucky. retirement accounts would have been trashed and really the worst thing is that ted cruz, donald trump, lindsey graham, i hate to say it, i got a say it, mitt romney, other republicans that did not vote to let democrats pass a three-month extension, you would have helped communist china more than anybody has ever helped communist china economically. by letting them say to our friends, enemies, adversaries all alike, we told you the united states' political system is so dysfunctional, you can't trust them. don't look to them. look to us. communist china, we are the rising power in the world. we'll get things done. you need money? we'll give you money. we'll pay off our debt. we don't have ted cruzs over here. we do, but if they step out of line, we don't have lindsey grahams over here. we have people who actually -- we'll force them to pay off the debt, so the united states, they're dysfunctional. so look to us. now, of course, the great irony is that we never have this problem when the republicans are in the white house. not because they're more responsible. we have all republicans. republicans are less responsible with deficits and debt than anybody. donald trump won up the biggest debt in the history of the united states when he was in office. what did mitch mm come and the republicans say? of course, we're going to raise the debt ceiling. if we don't do it, it will trash the economy. it's the responsible thing to do. what did mitch start saying a couple weeks ago? we have to do it. we have to raise the debt ceiling. but we're not going to do it. ted cruz is not going to do it. lindsey graham is not going to do it. donald trump from mar-a-lago, i mean the guy never pays any of his debts anyway. how many times has he gone bankrupt. republicans are listening to a guy who went bankruptcy what -- >> he just fell off the forbe's list. >> this guy, "the new york times" got ahold of his tax returns over a decade. what did they find? over the course of a decade, no u.s. taxpayer had ever lost as much money in the history of the united states of america as donald trump. and this is what they're listening to. it's simple. i've said it all along. if the republicans wanted to make a point, and be irresponsible, and not raise the debt ceiling, that's fine. it's america. they can do that. there are 50 democratic votes. but what's happened here is mitch mcconnell and mitt romney and ted cruz and lindsey graham, they've all said not only are we not going to let you save the united states' economy. we're not going to even let you vote on it. we're not going to let you vote on it. we're going to wreck the economy. we're going to help communist china, and we're going to destroy retirement accounts. and the nerve of these people. democrats have to get tougher. they just -- they've got to get tougher. mika, they've got to be able to look republicans in the eye and say oh, you're a nihilist. i'm so scared. what am i going to do? you know what? i'm a nihilist too. and we're going to vote every day. and by the way, democrats are going to have to say this in december because these back up in december. in december what's going to have to happen is chuck schumer is going to have to come to mitch mcconnell every day and say guess what we're going to do. we're going to give you the 50 votes. we're going to have the business community at 50 votes. we're going to give people the retirement accounts in kentucky the votes they need to save their retirement accounts. we're doing your job for you. we're going to do your job for you because you're such a hypocrite who said we have to raise the debt ceiling and yet, you're trying to block us on this? we're going to do it, but here's the deal, you think we're going to reconciliation? we're not. no, we're going to get 50 votes. that's it. and we're going to let you get on the floor and go, um, um, um, the democrats won't -- there's this procedure called reconciliation, and, um, while the stock market is collapsing. while communist china is holding parades in beijing with banners of mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham and ted cruz, because they have done more to destroy the u.s. economy than anybody by by letting us default on the dollar for the first time in u.s. history. chuck needs to say we're going to keep doing that. we're just going to vote every day. and guess what the vote is going to be. 50 democrats to save american's retirement accounts, to just say no to communist china, to save the u.s. economy. versus zero republicans. not one republican would vote to save your retirement accounts. not one republican would vote to strengthen the u.s. economy. not one republican would vote to push back communist china and not hand them the greatest propaganda victory they've ever had against the united states of america that we're so dysfunctional that we default on our debts, and you think that's a game, donald trump? you think that's a game, lindsey graham? what's wrong with you? it's a game? no, you're playing with people's lives, and worse than that, you're playing with the reputation of the united states of america. and you are playing right into the hands of the communist chinese. if you think it's a game, and you think you're going to be anihilist, and watch as this country burns, well, chuck schumer and the democrats, they need to grow a backbone. they need to stand up to him. they need to do what bill clinton did to us republicans in congress quite frankly and stare us down. the man who said it is better to be strong and wrong and right and weak, because americans, they won't follow you if you're weak, even if you think you're right. that's the problem with democrats. they're always going around thinking they're so right and self-righteous, but they act like snow flakes. stop acting like snow flakes. stare mitch mcconnell and donald trump and lindsey graham down and say all we're giving you is our 50 votes. if you want to destroy our economy, we'll be in our offices watching as the markets collapse, as retirement accounts and your states collapse. we'll be watching, but we're here. we're going to be voting every day, and you guys can crawl on board any time you want. someday, sometime, the doors of the arc are going to close. it's not going to be the democratic party outside knocking to get inside. they've got to get tough. that's all i have to say. >> if there's any time to get tough for democrats, it's now. with what we have coming on later with the attempts to hold republicans and people close to donald trump and donald trump accountable for the january 6th attack on the capitol, the insurrection. if anything is fueling you, it should be where we are right now on every level with these republicans. we'll get to that in just a moment, but the latest on the debt ceiling, willie? >> let's be clear to underline what you said. donald trump doesn't care about the debt ceiling. he cares mitch mcconnell did not overturn the election. this gives him a chance to go after mitch mcconnell, and all this for a deal that just buys two months until washington has to do this all over again. here's what we're talking about. just days before the federal government was set to default on its national debt for the first time ever, the senate did pass a short-term measure to raise the country's debt ceiling. after a tense stalemate, mitch mcconnell provided democrats the ten votes necessary to advance the bill. the new measure lifts the country's borrowing cap by $480 billion. temporarily putting off with treasury secretary janet yellen warned would be a catastrophic economic crisis. senator mcconnell insists senators will not help again in december. chuck schumer spoke on the senate floor after the vote. >> republicans played a dangerous and risky partisan game. i am glad their blinksmanship did not work. they insisted they want a solution to the debt ceiling, but said democrats must raise it alone by going through a drawnout convoluted and risky reconciliation process. that was simply unacceptable to my caucus. and yesterday senate republicans finally realized that their obstruction was not going to work. this is a temporary but necessary and important fix. i appreciate that at tend of the day, we were able to raise the debt limit without a convoluted and unnecessary reconciliation process that until today the republican leader claimed was the only way to address the debt limit. >> let's bring in columnist and associate editor of the washington post eugene robinson and executive editor and sere your vice president for the associated press, julie pace. gene, we can talk about the meme later. effectively, mitch mcconnell gave chuck shumer the votes for a two-month extension until this blows up again in december, and he's been crushed by the likes of donald trump and ted cruz for doing so. >> right. and what does he expect is going to happen in two months? i mean, this is -- this is a ridiculous stupid game the republicans are trying to play to score political points and really kind of imaginary political points. and risking as joe said, the u.s. economy, and the world economy, and our standing in the world. and our competition with china, and risking everything for absolutely nothing. you know, the debt ceiling had to be raised, and mcconnell in the end was afraid that democrats would just say okay, we'll get rid of the filibuster for debt ceiling votes or something like that. and he realized, i think, that one way or another, the majority was going to have to move and that his whole stance on this was absurd, and self-destructive in the most literal sense of the word. and so now there are recriminations within the republican ranks as well there should be, because the whole thing was as bone headed and ridiculous as anything we've seen on capitol hill in a long time, and that is saying something. >> julie, as you know, i haven't covered washington for a long time. the raising of the debt ceiling has been used as leverage by one party or the other. but never quite like this where republicans have just said we're not going to help you raise the debt limit. and maybe that leads to the collapse of the economy. maybe that leads to all the things that joe just laid out. yet, republicans appear to be willing to go that route to score political points. >> what we've seen over the last several days has been this extraordinary escalation of a fight that's been happening in washington for some time. the debt ceiling. something that historically had been a step parties took because it was good for the economy and our obligation to raise that debt ceiling. it's now become this game of chicken. and this, again, was an escalation to a point that we haven't seen before. and i think what gets lost in the conversation is just exactly what the debt ceiling is about. it's not as though the debt ceiling is a ball work against future spending. it's about living up to the spending already incurred. when you look at this from the perspective of the rest of the world, from china and other u.s. creditors, it signals that one, we may not be good to our word. but two, that our political system may not be up for the challenge of doing something as simple as living up to our obligations. >> now it's senate judiciary committee report that broke yesterday on our show on former president donald trump's intense campaign to get justice department officials to overturn the results of the 2020 election. the 394-page interim report based on an eight-month investigation is based largely on the testimony of three senior doj officials, mostly prominently former acting attorney general jeff rosen. the report says then assistant ag jeffrey clark was a key player in the effort to subvert election results -- >> yeah, a key player in sedition against the united states of america and the constitution of the united states of america. >> it also makes the following key findings. in at least nine calls or meetings president trump directly raised discredited claims of election fraud for doj to investigate. white house chief of staff mark meadows asked ag rosen to launch a fraud investigation based on a conspiracy theory about election data -- >> so meadows has this italian man thing. he says some italian dude fixed our elections. i don't know. is it jewish lasers from the west coast? am i mixing qanon conspiracy theories? it's amazing. and assistant ag clark tried to recruit rosen in georgia's certification process in exchange for clark turning down the president's offer to install him as attorney general. >> also trump allies including republican congressman scott perry of pennsylvania participated in the doj pressure campaign. trump forced the resignation of u.s. attorney bj pac for investigating but not substantiating election fraud claims in georgia. and the doj deviated from the long standing policy of investigating election fraud claims after certification to avoid politicizing the department. republicans issued their own findings based on the same system concluding the former president was concerned about election integrity in general, and followed the advice of doj. >> i mean, come on, willie, this is a joke. they were worried about -- >> it only gets worse. >> you had donald trump's own people that were in charge of cyber security saying this was the safest election. this was the cleanest election in the history of the united states. even in the states where he lost, they've had one recount after another recount after another recount. there's no evidence. even rudy giuliani when he went into a federal courtroom in pennsylvania and knew he couldn't lie to a federal judge or he might end up in jail. he said are you saying this about widespread voter fraud? he said no, your honor, this is not about fraud. maybe that's why none of the 63 courts said there was any widespread voter fraud and why the supreme court and donald trump's appointees said there's no widespread voter fraud, but here we have the doj firing people. donald trump firing people that wouldn't follow his conspiracy theories about italian dieds with space lasers stealing the election. >> you're not that far off. it was something to do with italian satellites changing the votes in america. something like that. i heard somebody mumbling that in the street in new york around the election. you're right. a report from the judiciary committee is breathtaking. it's not totally surprising because of what we know, but you have direct evidence and direct testimony in here of the white house whether it's the president of the united states directly or mark meadows putting pressure on the department of justice. more than that, try to take over the department of justice. trying to kick people out who wouldn't help them overturn the election. and to put in place people who would. now, rudy giuliani as you say and others were very bold and brave on cable news hits and on talk radio shows. when the rubber hit the road and they had to go before judges, did not present any of this evidence. the select committee in congress that is investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol now issuing a third round of subpoenas yesterday. these ones targeting additional organizers of that stop the steal rally that proceeded the insurrection. that comes as former president trump is instructing his former aides and allies not to comply with their subpoenas from the select committee. that's according to reporting by politico and confirmed by nbc news. in a letter reviewed by politico, a donald trump attorney directors former doj official, former white house chief of staff mark meadows and former senior adviser steve bannon to hold back any documents about the expresident's white house work, and to refuse to testify about his official duties. the letter claims they are seeking materials covered by executive privilege as well as other privileges, and quote, president trump is prepared to defend the fundamental privileges in court. let's bring in betsy woodruff-swan, and michael schmidt joins us as well. good morning to you both. betsy, i'll start with you as you broke this story with the letter. donald trump putting it down in writing in plain sight for everybody to see that he wants everybody to refuse those subpoenas. what does that mean? will they do it? i suspect they will. they follow everything else. he tells them to do. what happens from there? >> that's the million dollar question. if any of these four men defy the congressional subpoena, there are three basic ways congressional committees can try to force people to testify. the first is the one most common involving going to court using civil tools. that can take forever. it can take years to get testimony that way. the second way is by holding the person who defies the subpoena in contempt. congress would find they are in contempt and then ask the justice department to prosecute the person who defied the subpoena. it's clear that members of this committee are seriously considering going that route. multiple members have talked about it. it's also a pretty significant tool that they have. first, because, of course, the justice department is run by an administration, trump appointees, if they were, it would be a different situation. in this case, we think doj would take any referral seriously. if you're con viced of defying a congressional subpoena, you can go to jail for up to a year and face a fine of up to $100,000. the third route, i'd be surprised if they use it, but raskin, a member of the select committee, as mentioned it. the third tool they have the called inherent contempt. that's when the house sergeant of arms would arrest the person who defies the subpoena in a lone jail cell in the capitol building. i don't think that's going to happen. but it's notable raskin has mentioned it as one of the possible tools the committee has. so right now what they're doing is just figuring out their next step and how much pressure they're going to put on people who defy the subpoenas. >> 24 hours later, what is your biggest take away from the justice committee's report on the doj? >> well, i think what we're seeing in that report, and other thing that have come out in the time that trump has left office is the ability of investigators to get more information now that he's not president. we learned a lot of things during donald trump's presidency about how he operated. but now we are getting accounts from the people that work directly for him. people like the acting attorney general at the time who the president would have been able to more easily stop from talking had he still been in office. so as trump being out of office is neutered of these blocking powers that are allowing us to learn more, now, at the same time, what we learned in this report is similar to what we already knew. but the fact that it's backed up by these interviews that we could now read. we can read the firsthand accounts of exactly what the president was doing from a former justice department official under oath in an interview to congress. that gives it an even greater patina of credibility, and sustainability. i'm not sure that this is going to change the minds of trump supporters who have followed this conspiracy theory out the window and have turned it into ways of changing state elections and this has grown as a virus within the country. at the same time, it is a step toward officialdom and to officially recognizing what happened. >> one way for people to see it, julie pace, is if people are brought to testify and if there are a number of trump officials, former trump officials, republicans who refuse to testify, who avoid the subpoenas, at what point is oversight enforced? and how does that happen? >>. >> it's up to democrats to try to compel that testimony, but i think it is an open question whether we'll hear the officials testify in public. i think what the report does is it really, again, once again, clarifies that this was not just a campaign of political rhetoric in the days and weeks after the election. there was pressure being put upon our systems of government to try to roll back a free and fair election. i think moving forward as we look at future elections, it's really important to recognize just how much stress the system was under, and that if a couple of pieces of that system had not held, we could be in a very different situation. and so, again, i think going forward, that's what we have to focus on, the ways in which this system held, and the ways in which it could not in future contests. >> all right. julie pace, thank you very much. it's great to have you on on this friday morning. politico's betsy wood row-swan and michael schmidt of the new york times. great to see you all. still ahead on "morning joe," retired four-star army general stanley mcchrystal joins the conversation. plus the u.s. surgeon general dr. vivek murthy is our guest this morning. and just a note, the latest episode of the joe scarborough episode is up. how republicans and democrats fight, it's a big difference. and why it's time for the party of fdr to fight nihilism with nihilism. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. back. bogeys on your six, limu. they need customized car insurance from liberty mutual so they only pay for what they need. woooooooooooooo... we are not getting you a helicopter. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ 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. 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freestyle libre 14 day. try it for free. baaam. internet that doesn't miss a beat. yes. that's cute, but my internet streams to my ride. 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? all right. now it's time for mika's news grind. what did we get in the news today, mika? >> that's not necessary. >> on the fours. mika's news grind on the fours. >> here's a look at the stories making headlines this morning. a new study indicates the number of children in the country or fanned during the pandemic may be larger than previously estimated. and has affected more black and hispanic americans. the study published by the medical journal of pediatrics says more than half the children who lost a primary care giver during the pandemic belonged to the two racial groups which makes up about 40% of the u.s. population. it also says during the 15 months of the nearly 19-month covid-19 pandemic, more than 120,000 u.s. children lost a parent or grandparent who is a primary provider. and another 22,000 children experienced the death of a secondary care giver. imagine the mental health crises. >> terrible. >> pfizer officially announced or submitted that it announced it submitted a request to the fda to authorize the vaccine for children age 5 through 11 years old. if approved, this would be the first covid-19 vaccine for younger children. fda officials said once that vaccine data for younger children was submitted. the agency then could authorize it in a matter of weeks. an fda advisory committee plans to meet to discuss authorization at the end of the month. that could be a game-changer for kids in school. >> real game-changer. >> as layoffs slow, a report slows filings for jobless benefits last week fell for the first time in four weeks according to the labor department. the initial jobless claims last week fell to 326,000 from 364,000 the week prior. this put claims close to their pandemic -- reported the first week of september. meanwhile, the numbers oh americans claiming unemployment benefits continues to drop. a reflection of states ending pandemic benefit programs. >> all right. well, that's interesting. willie, very interesting news there. >> we'll see how this impacting the labor shortage. >> yeah. people are going back to work, and willie, i just -- one thing we didn't talk about in the news grind, baseball. the red sox went to where baseball goes to die, trop field or whatever it's called. >> oh, i fell asleep. what happened? >> it's a very ugly stadium. that's what i was focussed on. i wasn't even watching the game. unfortunately in the ugliest of all stadiums on the planet, there -- >> so they lost? >> there resides, really, really great teams. i mean, those guys are killers. and they do it with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. they are to be nothing but admiration for tampa. they are just -- what a team. >> yeah. second year in a row. best record in the american league. it wasn't that close. they won last night over the red sox 5-0 in game one. it's a short series. they only have to one three games. but they do it without the payroll our yankees and red sox have, that's for sure, and they keep finding guys to plug into the system, whether it's in the lineup, in the pitching staff. and then a lot of those guys leave ultimately to go get the big money from different teams like the yankees and the red sox, and they keep filling the roster with young talent. it's an amazing way to run a team, but they do it consistently. they have a great manager in kevin cash who has been there for several years now, and they have been the best team in the american league far and away for the last couple of years. so we said this a couple days ago. whoever won that yankees/red sox game would not have an easy job in the next round. celebrate for an hour before thinking about the rays. they proved it last night. they're a really good team. the astros won last night easily. >> now we're looking at the race. one final thing for my red sox. they stole home. they stole home. >> you hate to see it. >> really, it's unfortunate. one final thing. in mika's news grinds, willie -- >> oh, my god. >> the kids, old school, kids that are old school, they want that drum beat back. >> oh. >> you remember that drum beat? >> i'll take that. i like it. >> don't you think so? >> i like how we drop the grind back in every six months. >> yeah, exactly. thank you, willie, for pointing that out. >> it's a throwback. >> validated. >> yeah. throwback fridays. hey, t.j., can we get the drum beat back? >> let me make an announcement here this morning. we're going to do it every day, top of the beat block with music. >> she interrupts me all the time. people ask me joe, why do you let her interrupt you? >> willie, are you with me? >> let's grind it up. >> yeah. do -- >> why the word grind? i don't like that. >> can i have a d.j. cam, alex? why don't you have it? >> you don't -- >> you don't have -- we can't see all of you working? >> nope. >> 4800 people working in the studio? >> he's -- we're not sure he's dressed. just don't. okay? >> okay. >> wow. >> look at that. that is a beautiful morning. >> that's beautiful. >> and what do you see in the center of that, willie? >> mika's apartment. there it is. >> mika's penthouse right at the very top. she's going to go up to the top of it after the show. that's what she does every day. been doing it for a year and a half now. let's -- >> why does he do this? >> let's bring in another guy who i'm sure lives in a penthouse. >> that's for sure. >> bathtub of money. >> man of the people, steve rattner. steve, mika, i don't know, mika is just in one of those moods this morning. >> it's friday. >> we love her for it. >> anyway, steve, how are you this morning? i can't go right to the charts because, you know, she's talked about your bathtub of money again. and it's really offensive to all of us here on "morning joe." >> yes, indeed. i'm doing fine. it sounds like you guys are ready for a weekend. >> we are. >> ready for a weekend, steve. and we're also ready that -- what we're really ready for, kids across the america are ready for eating their cheerios, getting ready for school, the bus is outside, and the moms are going to the bus, and johnny is saying mama, let me see mr. rattner's chart. >> no, they love his charts. >> they do. could you show us the charts on how government support for americans in need is falling short? take it. >> joe, you sure you're ready? you don't want to go back to the red sox, mika's apartments? anything other things to talk about before we do this? >> no. >> the kids have to get to the bus, steve. the kids have to get to the bus. don't break the fourth law. all right. tell us about the charts. >> all right. >> so let's do it. now i've -- okay, here we go. look, as you guys talked about at the top of the hour, we've gotten past at least for now the debt ceiling. and attention is going to turn back to the 3.5 trillion, 1.5 trillion, whatever it is you think the package should be. it seems like a good time to remind ourselves of why it is so important to pass a package that addresses a lot of the needs that we have out there. so let's look at some charts that compare the united states oh other countries on what we spend on important things like social services. everything from medicare, social security, for older folks all the way down to what we do for the youngest people. and what you can see here is a percent of the size of our economy looking at the seven major countries in the world so-called g-7. you can see we rank at the bottom at about 19%. and this includes federal, state, and local spending for all of these countries. and you can see as you move to the right, japan and certainly germany, italy and france spending close to 30% of their federal spending on -- as a percent of gdp on these types of social services for people in need. >> let me stop you right there quickly, and let me stop you for a second. i apologize for doing it, because we have a delay, but we're sitting here with the united states. i know you're a big believer like me in american capitalism. the question is if you had your way, how far right on the chart -- i have a feeling you would want us to have the same social safety net as say, france or italy. how far right on that chart would you want us to be when, in fact, it's our economy has been the envy of the world for, well, since about the 1880s? >> our economy has been the envy of the world. certainly since around that time. early 20th century at the latest. and i don't want us to become like many of the european countries in terms of level of growth. but you have to recognize how far short we fall in terms of what we deliver to american families. and so the answer is somewhere inbetween. but if you move even between the two of those, france on one end, and the u.s. on the other end, 5 % of gdp is over a trillion dollars a year. you could spend a trillion dollars more a year and you still wouldn't be near germany, italy and france. i'm not proposing we spend a trillion dollars a year, i'm saying the amount of money goes a long way here. >> okay. there's your next chart. benefits for families and children. by the way -- >> so -- >> if you can circle into this chart as well, i would not have expected canada to be below us on social spending. but talk about that and then why we have such weak benefits for families and children in the united states. >> we have weak benefits for family and children in the united states because -- and this is where america is a little bit different. we've always taken the view that families should make their own decisions, do their own thing and take care of their own children. but other countries have a different view. so you can see here we spend 26 $00 a year on families and children, and then you look again at france and germany, $6400 and 84 $00 and numbers like that. and when you look at the difference between what we do and they do, for example, in the uk you would get 40 weeks of maternity leave. in most european countries you get over a dozen. we offer none. they offer low course or free preschool. we don't do that. we only spend $500 on kids in the first three years of their life, versus much larger numbers elsewhere. and i'm not here to talk for the build back better plan, but it includes provisions including things like the child tax credit that help us move to the right on this needle. let's also remember as we look at the last chart, why we need to do all this. part of why we need to do all this is to address our income inequality. and we all know how high our income inequality is. this chart shows a worker in the top 20% on average makes eight times, eight and a half times what someone in the bottom 20% makes in the u.s. whereas if you look at germany and france, it's 4 1/2 times for someone in the top versus someone in the bottom. we also have a low tax burden to your earlier question. our tax burden is about 30% of people's incomes for the average person. france, italy, and germany, it's close to 50%. so we have room to move to increase taxes on the wealthy, to pay for the programs. to reduce income inequality, all without i hope and believe and certainly don't want us to in any way destroy what you talked about which is the great american economic machine. but i think we have room to do some of both here. and make this country a better place. >> all right. steve rattner, thank you for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. some great insights with your charts as always. gene robinson, let me ask you, and steve has often said, steve rattner wouz over in london around the same time, i think that you were over in london, in the early years of thatcher. he had said that thatcher really shook great britain out of sort of a continued decline toward state-centered socialism and really did a lot of things that were controversial, but jolted that country back. i'm curious. i know you saw that as well, and understood britain before, britain after. and it's a balancing act. how far do we go? how much do we expand social services without losing what makes this country's economy the envy of the world? from your time in britain, seeing what worked there, what didn't work there, from what you've seen over the past 30, 40 years, how do we strike that balance? do you think we need to be france, great britain? where would you feel comfortable with us being sort of on that continuum? >> well, i think what we -- one thing we need to understand is that britain in general is to the left of the united states. still, and always has been. i mean, britain, you know, the labor party, you know, certainly after was a invalidly socialist party, and so thatcher came in and moved britain certainly to the right in ways that still reverberate in britain. but it was -- she didn't get rid of the national health service, for example. i mean, there's universal income in britain which both the conservative party and labor party are extremely proud of, and expand funding for. and so there are kind of safety net things that britain does, has always done that the united states doesn't do. it's not exactly right to say the conservative party is just like the republican party here. in fact, the republican party here at least now is way to the right of the conservative party in britain. and so that's one reality. as to where the united states should be, i tend to agree with steve rattner. it's not in the american -- it's not the american way to be. we're not france. and we will never be france, i think, in terms of that expansive safety net. but we simply have to do better. it is just something that wealthy, civilized countries must do to provide universal preschool and to provide parental leave, and to provide the decent minimum wage. that should come with being a wealthy country, and it is -- it allows your country to thrive in the long-run, and i think we're -- i think we are way too short-sighted about the way we approach this. t time for an adjustment, and that's what the biden administration is trying to do. you can argue about the specifics, but i think this is a long overdue adjustment. >> let's bring into the conversation retired four-star general stanley mcchrystal, the co-author of "risk, a user's guide". general, want to dig into the book in a moment. as a man who commanded the isaf in afghanistan for all those years, we haven't had a chance to sit and talk with you since the withdrawal from afghanistan just over a month ago. did president biden make the right call to pull up stakes completely out of afghanistan, and what do you expect that country to look like going forward? >> willie, thanks for asking. i think president biden made a difficult decision. remember, he had the cords negotiated by his predecessor's negotiators. he would have extended a war he had never been enthusiastic about. i think he made a courageous decision. it is not the decision that i would have made, or that i would have recommended. but i admit, i'm biassed about it. i spent a lot of time there. so i think now what we do is we've got a clear decision. we move forward. we see how we can still be helpful potentially to the people of afghanistan, and try to shape the religion with the new reality. >> and what would have been your decision, general? general petraeus said we should have left a small force to, sort of put out fires as they popped up threats to the united states, threats to afghan troops. what would you have done? >> i would have left a limited size force, and it would have done the things described, but it really would have built the confidence of the afghan people. what really i think undermined them more than anything else is the fact that they felt like they were suddenly left alone in a very dangerous region. >> were you surprised, general, at just how quickly the afghan army at a cost of tens of billions of dollars to the united states, all that training that you all did to give them an air force, to make them a fighting force that could stand on its own, were you surprised at how quickly the taliban rolled past them? >> i was disappointed. i know afghans are not cowards. i've watched them fight. and so the reality is that i think they suddenly lost confidence. well, actually not suddenly. over a period of time lost confidence. and then it turned pretty quickly. we see other organizations do that. once people decide that the new reality is inevitable, they accommodate. >> general, we're going to get to your book, i promise we'll get to your book. it's great to have you here with us. i just want to ask you another question about not only afghanistan but also what we've seen over the past several years with what our troops were able to do. a small fighting force, special ops, cia, a lot of different groups in syria. 25,300 troops were able to push back the russians, the syrians, the iranians, it's extraordinary what the small group was able to do in afghanistan. we know this ability that 2500 troops were providing there. we saw what happened when they left. i'm just wondering what you think about the last 20 years. we've made a lot of mistakes. we've made a lot of mistakes in iraq and afghanistan. i'm just wondering, though, if we did not learn over those 20 years how to put together small fighting forces like this with a small footprint to have an oversized ability to impact a region and to do it in a small sustainable way. >> yeah. great question. the patch of united states special operations command is the tip of a spear. and special operating forces typically refer to themselves as the tip of the spear. if you ever take the tip off a spear and try to stab somebody or throw it at them, you don't have much effect. the power of a spear comes from the shaft. the weight of the shaft that goes behind that tip. so i'm saying is i do believe we can do a tremendous amount with small forces, but it is the shaft, and that shaft is not huge military forces. it's national will. it's effective diplomacy. it's all the social things that give america credibility. special operators on the ground are effective, because they represent america, and when people interact with them, they think all america is supporting that. that's the way we need to think about it engagement around the world. we can use those somewhat surgical entities as long as we are united and focussed behind them. >> and what's a long-term impact of us abandoning our kurdish allies when we left syria in 2019 and abandoning our allies in afghanistan? what do you fear is the long-term impact of that to the united states? >> clearly, there will be sort of have a scars in both of those groups, but other people around the world will look and say how reliable is the united states as an ally? if they ask us to do something, will it stick? i remember we went to a place in afghanistan about 2003, and in 2001 american forces had gone there initially when it was the early hunt for osama bin laden. established a base and pulled out. when we went back in 2003, the locals were not interested in us establishing a presence. they said you're just going to leave again. once you pull out, you leave us vulnerable. i think it's a natural response for any potential ally to be a little less confident that if it gets tough, we'll stick with them. >> general, let's talk about risk. a user's guide. why did you write it? and what will we get out of it? >> i don't think we're very good at risk. dealing with risk. and there are a lot of risks in this word, and we came to the conclusion that the greatest risk of all is us. and we really drew an analogy to the human immune system, and -- which detects threats, assesses each one as whether it's danger, responds, and learns from that. organization, societies, have a risk immune system with the ability to defect, assess, respond and learn. and if you look at america's response to covid-19, we knew that a pandemic was likely. we had great public health experience. we even got a scientific miracle with early vaccines. yet, we dropped the ball. and we didn't drop the ball because covid-19 is ten feet tall. we dropped the ball because we didn't focus. we didn't make our immune system work right. and we can look in the mirror and figure that one out. >> general mcchrystal, how do you assess risk? you sort of began to get at this. in a society that is divided and can't really agree that there is a risk in front of us, whether it's covid-19, because bad information that people are getting. whether it's the shock to our political system that was the attempt to overturn the election last year. a lot of people in this country believe donald trump and his people were doing the right thing. how do you look at risk that big when you're an entire country and a lot of people don't see it as a risk? >> yeah. in communication, you either have terrific strength for an organization, or you have terrific danger for a risk. think about you're traveling with someone and you're both looking at maps but your maps are completely different. you think you ought to go one way. the other person thinks you ought to go the other because they see different realities. you can't get aligned, be effective. and suddenly everything is at risk. if we can't into a common understanding on certain objectives and on certain realities, then we're coming at things from such a different viewpoint, then how does the system function? i think it's the greatest existential threat to our republican that's out there right now. >> the new book is "risk, a user's guide". retired general stanley mcchrystal. thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. it's great to have you. >> thank you. still ahead, amid tension over vaccine and mask mandates in schools, there's been an up tick in threats against educators across the country. but one republican lawmaker is opposing efforts to combat the harassment, making some sort of argument about free speech. we'll show you the comments from senator josh holly. plus we'll check in with the nation's surgeon general dr. vivek murthy. we're back in two minutes. n two. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ finally yasso! a ridiculously creamy, crunchy, chocolatey dipped ice cream experience with 25% less calories because it's made with greek yogurt. so, thanks for everything ice cream, but we'll take it from here. yasso audaciously delicious >> tell me, how were you feeling? because it looked to me like you weren't comfortable the entire night. >> yeah. sorry. there. fine. now -- sorry. in the fourth inning i felt like i got in a direction better with my elbow. and so i felt like i was starting to execute my fastball and slider, and so at that point, that's when i finally started executing pitches better. but hats off to the cardinals for their ability to spoil pitches, foul pitches, and just extend at bats. >> i was waiting for the theme song of "cops" to kick in. >> welcome back to "morning joe." yikes. okay. >> i think the two -- first of all, what a beautiful view of new york city this morning. >> gorgeous. >> the chamber of commerce. >> happy friday, everybody. >> great friday. >> new york and across the country, really. but yeah, i got to say that we have two clips, the highlights of major league baseball this year. one is that one, and the second is gerrit cole's press conference about spider tag. >> why would you reach back to that? if you're max scherzer and your team wins 107 games and you beat the cardinals who won 16 games in a row, i think you're entitled to pound an entire bottle of champagne if that's what you're into, and clearly, he did. >> yes, he did. >> joining the conversation is white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lamire, and host of msnbc's politics nation and president of the national action network, reverend al sharpton. >> jonathan, we haven't talked to you since last night. we got pushed around pretty badly at trop field. it looks like that's where our title hopes may die. >> i had a break before this. i thought about pounding champagne. there was nothing to celebrate with the red sox. they hit a lot of balls hard right at people, but the rays are so good. with such a small payroll. they have young talent. a lot of stars last night were rookies. one stole home, a straight steal of home against us last night. you know, they benefitted from the really stupid ballpark as they got a home run was cruz hit a ball off the ceiling. but we were outhustled. the rays are young and talented. just one game. chris sail could pitch us back into the series tonight, but the rays are really good. >> yeah. regardless of how the series ends, though, we've talked about it before. the rays are so good. they're young. they are underpaid by major league baseball standards. their payroll. one of the smallest in the league and yet year in, year out, these guys are at the top. only 27,000 people there right now. you should move this team to nashville or montreal where they're going to get 40,000 people a night watching one of the best teams in baseball. >> look at that. when was the last time you saw a straight steal of home? they're great. as i said earlier, these are guys who they bring up through their farm system, draft well, they signed well. and they know that they likely are going to lose them. they're so good and they're going to play in new york or l.a. or san francisco where they can get a $200 million contract that tampa can't afford. they put out a graphic that showed within the al east since 2010, the yankees had number one payroll. the rays were dead last in baseball in payroll. and yet, here they are for the second year in a row with the best record in the american league. it's a huge credit to their organization, their gm, their ownership. and to their manager, kevin cash. they are a great team. >> and speaking of great teams, the houston astros took care of the white sox yesterday. the astros, i've got to say, we really, jonathan, even if light anything were to strike and we got past the rays, we would then go straight into the houston astros most likely another great team. >> yeah. it would a a real gauntlet. a lot of america reeling against the astros after the cheating was exposed. they lost their ace for the season to surgery. they're a terrific team. and they have taken, frankly, the arrows all year. we didn't have fans in the park last year. the first year after the scandal. there were this year, and they got a lot of boos all season long. it's so early. it's hard to predict a matchup, but certainly the dodgers who now have to play the giants, two teams that have won 106 plus games. dodgers, astros, that's a possible this year, too, and the dodgers feel like they were cheated out of that championship a couple years ago. there will be a lot of bad blood. the braifs and the brewers, good matchup. but whoever comes out of the other game, dodgers and giants are favored. >> i love the braves. my first team, the city i was born. brewers are a solid team. i wouldn't go asleep on the brewers. everyone is talking about the dodgers and the giants. but the brew crew pretty darn good. >> they are a good team. and the braves having lost their best player. that definitely focuses on dodgers/giants. they've combined for 213 wins this season. praying in the first round of the playoffs. the brewers are a really good team, too. >> all right. gene, your latest column for the washington post encapsulated where we are as a country, and you write in part this. how did we become such an alarming measure of so dumb? why is the use dominated by ridiculous controversies that should not be controversial at all? when did so many of our fellow citizens become full gloen nihilists who deny even the concept of objective reality? and how must this look to the rest of the world? our elected representatives in the u.s. senate which laughably calls itself the world's greatest deliberative body agreed thursday not to wreck our economy and trigger a global recession at least for a few weeks. the frequent games of chicken that congress plays over the debt ceiling are to use a term of art i recall from economics 101, drewingly stupid. covid-19 is a bipartisan killer. in the tribal political sense, the safe and effective vaccines are a bipartisan miracle developed under the republican trump administration and largely distributed under the democratic biden administration. people in most of the rest of the world realize, however, that vaccination is not political at all. and then, of course, there's the whole stolen election farce which led to the tragedy of january 6th. how dumb can a nation get and still survive? idiotically, we seem determined to find out. >> well, there's long been a saying that bismarck supposedly said a special providence protects schools, drunkards and the united states of america. that saying seems to be really being tested right now. it's interesting you wrote this. i was walking down the street a couple days ago. it hit me for the first time. i was looking around and i thought for the first time in my life, i'm looking around and thinking the majority of these people that i'm around, and a region that i won't mention, get all their news from facebook. the facts that are on the ground in all of our communities and across our country, across the world about medicine, about science, information they get from their own doctor, information they would get if they read the election results on fox news websites. wall street journal websites. just doesn't matter to them. they don't see it. they live in their own bubble of misinformation and are driven by conspiracy theories. and it was an isolating fact. a frightening fact. i feel sorry for them, because they're the ones who are putting their lives and family's lives in danger. >> yeah. no, that is tragic, really. i mean, and people -- the people who boo'd lindsey graham in my home state of south carolina last weekend when he meekly suggested that you might think about getting the vaccine. boo. boo. you know, really? i mean, seriously? these -- these are -- this is -- this is medicine that will save your life, and without which you might very well die needlessly from a deadly and highly infectious disease. you would think that's not a controversy. that should not be a question. yet, it's been made into a question by misinformation and ignorance. and there's so much of that going around. you know, we talk about the senate and republicans in the senate, and their idiotic game of chicken they wanted to play with everybody's retirement savings, and the world economy and the status of the united states as the world's economic superpower with the world's reserve currency, the dollar. all of that out the window if we default on the debt. but they wanted to play this game. i mean, we can't keep doing this. we have to get -- if not smart, then at least, you know, not totally dumb. not totally ignorant. we have to be more intelligent about our national life, our political life, and our personal lives if we're going to make it, if we're going to survive. people talk about this being another american century. how is that going to happen if we are acting like a bunch of clowns all the time? it's just -- it's frustrating and amazing, and yet, as you said, you walk down the street, and you look, and you say well, what's -- what's in those people's heads? and it's frightening to contemplate. >> it is frightening. a lot of conspiracy theories. the tragic news yesterday came out that i think it was a maryland man got a gun, killed his 85-year-old neighbor. stole her car. drove to his brother-in-law's house because he had been reading conspiracy websites. his brother was a pharmacist. he kept telling his mother that his brother was killing people, and he knew about the plot to kill people, to poison people. he went upstairs, shot his brother, shot his brother's wife. killed them both. these are the conspiracy theories that are spreading around affecting the minds of americans. so they're going to school board meetings and shouting and screaming an starleting fights, doing absolutely heinous things to fellow americans and citizens because of the conspiracy theories. but gene, there is -- there are a segment of politicians who thrive on that, and they thrive on that because they want people confused. they understand they don't have the majority of americans on their side voting anymore. you look at the supreme court. five supreme court justices were appointed, were appointed by presidents that got elected without the majority vote. and look at what's happening in republican legislatures across america and what are they trying to do? they're trying to take power away from local voting officials who just count the votes because they want to be able to throw out votes because they know they're going to be in the minority. they're trying to stay in office using ill liberal means knowing their day has already passed. >> right. and encouraging this ignorance by lying to their constituents and trying to scare them into continued support. it is -- so yeah. the politicians and let's be honest, we're talking about republican politicians, are in part responsible. they're certainly contributing to the situation. but also people have personal responsibility. and need to own their own ignorance, and do something about it. you know, really. you're going to get all your news from facebook? you're going to get -- you're going to -- that how you're going to go through life? it's -- well, look, you know, it was -- the column was just kind of a bleet of frustration. the question is what do we do about this? you know, politically what we do is the republican party needs to be crushed in an election, and -- because parties when they are crushed, that's when they actually reform and change. until that happens, i don't see that republicans reform at all or behaving any better. >> mika, now there are just platforms for conspiracy theorists to take off to spread the word in a way that we didn't have back in the 90s. we've talked about the emails we used to get about bill clinton. they'd be half in caps, half in red, half in blue. crazy emails from people with conspiracy theories, but now people can congregate and get credence for their theories and they spread and become fact in the minds of many people. >> and so far no accountability on that. it's something that is really impacting the overall state of our democracy. meanwhile, the justice department is taking steps to try and combat a rise in threats against educators. in a memo this week, attorney general merrick garland directed the fbi to meet with local and state police in the next 30 days to discuss strategies for addressing growing harassment. educators have become a major target of abuse and particularly of late, over vaccine and mask mandates in schools and warnings from some in right wing media over critical race theory. but in a senate judiciary committee hearing on tuesday, republican start josh holly from missouri accused deputy attorney general lisa monaco of trying to censor free speech. this montage demonstrates how disenjen wous the argument is. >> is waiting to express one's view at a school board meeting harassment and intimidation? >> we know who you are. we know who you are. you can leave freely, but we'll find you and we know who you are. >> harassment and intimidation? what do those terms mean in the context of a legal school board meeting? >> the death threat was you're going to get knifed you [ bleep ]. you're going to get [ bleep ]. you're dead. >> tell me where the line is with parents expressing their concerns, waiting for hours in the school board meetings. we've all seen the videos. this happened in my state. >> people are throwing fist and hitting each other over the auditorium after the board unanimously voted to approve requiring masks. >> if this isn't a deliberate attempt to chill parents from showing up at school board meetings for their elected school boards, i don't know what is. >> one of the board members, they called for her and her children to choke and die. another one said that the board member was about to get ruined. another one suggested another board member die by suicide calling by harassment and bullying of board members. >> you're attempting to intimidate them. you're attempting to silence them. >> it has an affect on you that you can't put into words when someone describes the way they want to come into your home and your life. >> i cannot believe that an attorney general of the united states is engaging in this kind of conduct, and frankly, i can't believe that you are sitting here today defending it. >> i've got to say, frankly, national josh hawly is sitting there. he should be in jail. why is josh hawly not in jail? a guy that committed sedition against the united states of america. he churned up the rioters when they were coming up there. a guy who still voted with the seditionists and the rioters. voted with the an,ists. voted with the people who were smearing excrement all over the walls of the capitol. a guy who voted with the people who were taking american flags and i understand, there are a lot of trumpists that don't like to hear this. i had some clown call me a couple days ago like -- guess what they did. they took american flags. the flags that we care about so much. flags that americans salute. the flags that supposedly trump and his allies are so offended by when people kneel when the american flag goes up. i understand that. i understand. it doesn't seem right to people. but this flag that you love so much was used to bash in the heads of law enforcement officers. it's on videotape. you can't get away from it. you can't lie. josh hawley can't escape what he did on january 6th, that he provided aide and comfort and guidance to the people who were trying to hang mike pence. the people who were trying to find the speaker of the house and beat and kill her. those people right there that were beating up the cops. bashing them with american flags. he can't escape that, so yeah, joshy boy, you're shocked that somebody else that wasn't a seditionist wasn't trying to overturn an american election is sitting in the senate? i think you got that backwards. we're all shocked that you're there. we're all shocked that you're not in jail. because you should be in jail. but given his background, given what he did on january 6th, given the fact, and by the way, i'm not out here. i'm not out on a limb. the major newspapers in josh hawley's state said he should resign from congress, but he didn't. but here you see an example, again, of a cancer on the republican party, a cancer on american democracy. once again confusing violence with free speech. confusing the beating up on school board officials, the threatening of school board officials with free speech. is this the republican party we're going to have to deal with for the rest of our lives? >> it is the republican party we're going to have to defeat, and we're going to have to make an example of what we will not toll trait in this country. we are looking in real-time at the normalizing of people saying that violence and threats are permissible in the american debate on which way we want to go with the country. whether you have a josh hawley who was part of inciting and supporting what happened on january 6th as an insurrection, or if you go to a ted cruz that talks about colliding of trucks that will kill chickens, as he's talking about dealing with the debt of the country. i've been a preacher all my life. who uses killing chickens as some kind of way to talk about debt limit and feel that this is getting their point across? but they absolutely are normalizing this kind of violent over the top incendiary kind of behavior as this is now protests in america, and those on the right and the left must resist this, because if we see it for those of us that consider ourselves on the left, we've got to denounce that, too. violence threats of violence and trying to in some way give people some va near of this is credible discussion and debate, we must all outright resist this and denounce it and defeat it. otherwise, we're going to go over the cliff in terms of where this country is headed. >> yeah. rev, most americans aren't going to take lectures on integrity from senator hawley where he's talking about school board meetings, they're contentious. these are volunteers who give up their time to try to help their communities getting death threats and everything else. this circles back to the column about being dumb in this country and in the case of josh hawley and political leaders willfully so. we keep hearing about how smart he is. he went to yale law school and clerked for chief justice roberts. so he knows better, but he plays cynical politics whether it's around sedition or insurrection on january 6th or to political points to own the libs in a congressional hearing. >> i think that's the point. i think he knows exactly what he's doing. my fear is the people that are being influenced by this, and then the broader public that begins to see this behavior as normal, because you have a harvard, stanford guy in the senate doing this or a ted cruz doing this, or because you have a president of the united states, former president trump, saying we should let haitians in the country because they'll bring aids. the more we start accepting this stuff, and i think that's why gene's column is right. i'm preaching sunday at howard university, and i'm using the book of gene robinson and preaching from that column. i think we need to really raise what gene is saying. this is really, really threatening to this country. >> yes. >> and all the people said -- >> uh-huh. >> amen. >> amen. >> there you go. >> amen, my friend. amen. hey, so jonathan lamire, while we're talking about january 6th, talking about what's happened over the past five years, the direction of the republican party, i think it's always good to check in with the republican party. because you can see a lot of different polls -- i'm talking about rank and file. i always see a lot of different polls that talk about how many americans, how many republicans still support donald trump and want him to run for reelection. i saw a daily caller headline this morning on twitter that said 44% of republicans want to see donald trump run for reelection in 2024. i thought that number was slow. it was a little low. i went into it and it linked to a pew poll. this is fascinating. 44% of republicans think as the daily caller headline said, that donald trump should run for president himself. 22% say they want to support another political candidate who shares his views. and 32%, we're now up to a third of the republican party, a third, a third. that's a big number for whoever decides to get in that lane, to run against the 20 republicans that are trying to be mini trumps. 32% say trump should not remain a major national political figure. one out of three. that is a telling number. again, you're going to have 20 people in the primary. you get the right person that can fill that lane and speak to one out of three republicans, while everybody else is splitting up the trump vote, they get wasn't out of three and they're off to the races. it's one of the lower numbers, and it's from the reputable polls. i think we've seen this trend coming for a while. this is one of the more pronounced polls when it comes to republicans saying thank you very much for what you did. now go back to mar-a-lago. >> right. there seems to be a breakneck race among most republicans to fill the trump shoes if he weren't to run. but maybe there's a lane to someone to speak to the third. whether it's a liz cheney or make a chris christie who seems to go back and forth by the way as to how much of trump's agenda he wants to support and how much he wants to separate himself from the former president. two things are true to -- trump is still the overwhelming figure in the republican party. full stop. but there does seem to be at least some hesitation with republicans whether he's the right person to win next time around. 44% of republicans say he's their guy. well, republicans want to make up half the eelectorate, and independents helped decide the last election. there does seem to be a sense they still want him to be part of the conversation. and this is i think a sobering stat from that same poll the other way. 57% of republicans right after the january 6th insurrection, 57% thought trump should still be a major figure in the republican party. that number has gone up 10%. now, to 67%. which i think also shows the effectiveness of the gop's attempts to whitewash and down play what happened at the capitol that day and try to an solve trump of responsibility. maybe they don't want to be the candidate, but they want him to be around and steer the party going forward. >> still ahead on "morning joe," our next guest has served three u.s. presidents as head of the national institutes of health and has become a prominent source of public information during the coronavirus pandemic. but after more than 12 years on the job, he says he's stepping down. dr. francis collins joins us to discuss his decision next on "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ darling, i, i can't get enough of your love babe♪ ♪girl, i don't know, i don't know,♪ ♪i don't know why i can't get♪ applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. 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aorneneys hehelpou the insurance company getenwasn't fair.ity y cablele. i didn't know what my case was worth, so i called the barnes firm. llll theararnes rmrm now the best result possible. ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ some great heros on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic. i love that picture. dr. francis collins has been director of the national institutes of health for 12 years. under three very different white house administrations. he joins us now after announcing he will be stepping down at the end of the year. welcome back to the show. thank you for coming on this morning. we'll talk about your departure in just a moment. everyone will be sad to see you go. having said that, over the course of the past 12 years and especially the last year, can we start by asking you what challenges the pandemic has uncovered, especially in your world, facing this country? >> it certainly challenged us to bring all of the tools and the talents of science together in an unprecedented way. to try to deliver what we needed here which was vaccines and therapeutics and diagnostic tests and nih which i've had the privilege to lead. i was right in the middle of that. this was all hands on deck. and it was remarkable to see how building on decades of prior research, basic science that becomes the foundation of everything, we were able, working in a collaborative way with industry to get those vaccines tested. found to be safe and remarkably effective, 95% efficacy, and approved for emergency use in just 11 months. that's at least five times faster than it's ever happened before. a huge amount of credit to all the scientists who dropped everything and worked 24/7 to make that happen. i had the privilege of setting up a partnership with industry, called "active" where we basically prioritized all of the treatments that might potentially be beneficial including antibodies. got them into a rapidly organized clinical trial. tested rigorously with lots of help from fda to be sure the regulatory part was done right. and we have treatments out there for people who have just been diagnosed in the form of the antibodies. and the diagnostic tests the president was talking about. it went from being a pretty difficult situation at the beginning to now where you can buy them on the shelf of your pharmacy. we've been working really hard. i am really grateful to have had a chance, although it's been exhausting over these 20 months to bring the best of science to this problem. >> that is incredible. i'm curious if you're surprised by the issues of trust in the american people, given all the work you've done with the nih and you know the credibility it has in its as much as to the american people? >> i have to say i was surprised. and i'm still surprised. i'm kind of disheartened there's close to 70 million people who have yet to roll up their sleeves to take advantage of something that's life-saving. even in the face of more than 700,000 deaths from the virus and all the evidence around us about how safe and effective the vaccines are. yet, the deluge of misinformation and of intentional disinformation that's out there, particularly in social media, has caused people to be fearful. i understand their fears. i just hope they can step away from all of those bad sources and look for what the evidence are and recognize it's not too late. it is still the opportunity to save yourself, your family, the people around you. i didn't see this emerging in such an enormous way. i knew they would be people who are opposed to all kinds of vaccination things from the past, but this many, i didn't see that coming. and that is disheartening. and it makes me worry about our country in terms of the inability of swaths of society to be able to distinguish truth from falsehood. what future do we have if we can't figure out what evidence is? >> dr. collins, good morning. it's willie geist. thank you for your 12 years of service in your position. you were appointed by president obama when president trump took over, republicans encouraged him to keep you on, and he did. then you continued under president biden. obviously now as well. you are someone who a lot of people can agree on. somehow you haven't been tainted by politics. your voice carries a lot of weight. i wonder what you would say to americans who still are hesitant about the vaccine and now that we know, we may get authorization for pfizer's vaccine for 5 to 11-year-olds, this will be a lot of parents who say if i'm not taking it, i'm not giving it to my child despite the fact their children immunized by a lot of other things to go to school. what would you say to those 70 million people who are skaept cal about this miracle vaccine you and others helped to bring along? >> i would ask them to kind of hit the reset button on everything they've heard about the vaccine. and actually say to themselves, let's look and see what the evidence is. go and look at a site. get vaccine answers and see the real truth about such things as the safety. people who say oh, it was rushed. it was not rushed in fact it was pushed forward with urgency, of course, but this vaccine, these three vaccines have been tested more rigorously than almost any vaccine ever has, and we know so much about their safety and efficacy. if you heard rumors about infertility, they're not true. if you've heard about chips in the syringe, those aren't true. look at incredible places like the cdc and look at what is happening. more than,000 people dying every day. this is not done with us. for us to have turned our backs on the best protection we've got, the vaccine, in such large numbers. it doesn't make any sense. yes, there's an enemy out there, but it's the virus. arm yourself. protect yourself. the evidence is so strong. >> doctor collins, it's jonathan lamire. let me say thank you for your service. let me get you to maybe a take a step back and give us a broad assessment as to where we stand with children soon to be eligible to get the vaccines with boosters now online for some and later for others. where do things stand? are you encouraged by the drop in cases and should we, another variant, one that even perhaps is worse than delta could eventually emerge. do you see anything like that on the horizon right now? >> my crystal ball is a little cloudy when it comes to the predictions about what comes next. it is encouraging to see cases dropping back, but there's still way too many happening every day, and deaths still over 1,000 every day. nobody should feel complacent like okay, now we got through it. we've had that sense of complacency before, and it didn't turn out well. everybody in this circumstance has to think about this virus as being out there in a significant way, and that means the vaccines and also means continuing those efforts to protect against spreading it. wear a mask when you're indoors. i know people are sick of it. i'm sick of it, but the virus doesn't care you're sick of it. it's going to take advantage of the indoor parties. don't be part of that. the variant, the delta vaernt right now is almost 100% of everything we have. and it seems to have outcompeted all the others. but i can't tell you there's not something else lurking out there. the best way to keep it from happening is to reduce the number of new infections. that's how variants arise is because the virus gets a chance to infect a bunch more people and makes a glitch in the copying and what do you know, you've got one that's even more dangerous. that's another responsibility of all of us, to try to keep from happening. i think we can stay ahead of that. i think what's happening next week fda's advisory committee looking at boosters for moderna and j&j. i'm a moderna guy. i'm interested to know how that turns out, and if you can mix and match boosters and get a good effect. by the end of october, fda will look at vaccines for 5 to 11-year-olds. the data looks pretty good, but they're going to look at it very carefully. we have the opportunity to get past it. it's frustrating people have not embraced that. >> it really is. >> i'm a scientist. i have a hard time understanding this. >> me too. director of the national institutes of health. dr. francis collins, thank you. thank you for your service. we hope to talk to you again soon. and coming up, another expert voice on america and its health policy. u.s. surgeon general vivek murthy joins the conversation. and as we go to break, willie, what do you have on "today"? >> this weekend on nbc sunday today, my guest is machine gun kelley. tattooed from head to toe. borrowed my peach jump suit for the interview. a truly fascinating guy. truly complicated guy. he has the number one album, ticket to my down fall. it was a -- you probably had some of these. confrontational, sometimes strange, but one of the enlightening interviews. we'll be right back here on "morning joe." 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neuroed to -- >> i'm happy to yield to you for that. who won the election in arizona? donald trump? >> we don't know. the audit demonstrates clearly, mr. raskin, there are a lot of issues with this election that took place. we're going to go through those today. >> republican congressman of arizona still believes there are unanswered questions about last year's november general election. in reality, that so-called audit of maricopa county ballots confirmed biden's victory. nonetheless, his aspired series of ballot reviews around the country. and arizona republicans say they will soon write new laws based on the report. the new laws republican state legislatures are writing and the impact on the minority vote are just part of the focus of the n entitled "the matter of black lives: writings from the new yorker" and co-ed tore of the book, staff writer joins us now, a professor of journalism at columbia university. thank you so much for joining us. i want you to tell us about this compilation really, but also respond to what you just heard, if you could, sir. >> among the more dangerous aspects of the audits -- i wrote about this in "the new yorker" this last week -- was the fact audits have not established anything that we didn't already know. as a matter of fact, representative raskin was correct showing it established joe biden won by more votes than was originally suspected. but the nefarious and more surreptitious purpose to sustain doubt, that even as they recognize joe biden had more votes than was originally expected, they also kind of swirled around more conspiratorial fodder. and so you wind up with this thing when you're both acknowledging what we already know and for people who don't believe that giving them some sort of ballast to continue doubting this election, more dangerous for coming elections. we really need to think about what happens in 2022 in a close house race or what happens in 2024 when people just decide they can audit an election until they get the result they want. i think that was what was most significant here. and it doesn't square -- it does fit with what we are talking about in this collection when we sat down in the midst of the aftermath of george floyd's death and combing through "the new yorker" archives to work that could speak to that moment. even going back to the coverage of the civil rights movement and those questions around voter access back then, we find those things re-emerging again and again and again. >> in the forward to the book you write in part this, race has exerted a profound distorting effect on american life -- all of it not simply the portion labelled with the modifier black -- this is not an anthology about race. it is a collection about a broad, fascinating set of events and the people who are most commonly tasked with confronting it. america's future is precisely as bright or as dark as our capacity to grapple with this enduring concern. i'll toss it to reverend al sharpton for the next question bouncing off that. >> you know, jelani, as i look at what we are seeing which does have a disproportionate impact on black and brown communities, but it also really undermines the whole principle of democracy and at some level how we deal with political truths. to have a man sit there with facts in front of him and act like the facts are not facts, it erodes the whole concept of american democracy or the promise of american democracy that was never fulfilled. and in your book as you deal with this, i think that the bringing together all of the articles to put this book together, i think most americans need to understand that if you do this to blacks and people of color that you're really setting the stage to just decide, as you said, that red is not red, it's really blue and that elections wasn't really won that were won. they were lost. the danger of that is what i want you to respond to is that you may that's them but them can become you if you don't stop this. >> that's absolutely true. what we're talking about here is a kind of a la carte reality where you get to accept only the parts of reality that you think work to your own best interests. and you simply cannot have democracy under those circumstances. democracy is only possible under a shared set of assumptions, a shared set of definitions. and so that becomes particularly dangerous. what i was writing about, that quote the future is precisely as bright or as dark as our ability to grapple with this, that was a line from james baldwin where he was trying to warn the country in 1962 in the incandescent essay he published in "the new yorker" that's the first piece in this book. he was warning the country we seem to believe that we can allow a two-tiered democracy in this society and continue to be a functional democracy and it's just not the case. if we didn't understand that, the civil war should have taught us that lesson. and so we find ourselves grappling with the same concern again and our failure to recognize these lessons of history place this is right directly in the center of our current events again. >> good morning, jelani. it's willie geist. great to have you on the show. congratulations on this book. the last part of it talks about the uprise and after. the uprise being the demonstrations we saw in the streets last year after the murder of george floyd in minneapolis. and you write eloquently not just about that moment but what comes after. so where do you think we are? have we capitalized on that moment? have the changes at least begun that you view as necessary out of that movement? >> well, i think some things have happened. we've seen the recognition of a shared language of what we were understanding, what we meant when we talk about race in this society. and we've seen a broader understanding of the way voting rights connects to this. certainly the people who were in the streets were galvanized in november and more likely to come out and vote and that translated into changing who was the occupant of the white house at the time. and so i think those things are important but, again, we look at this and see the scale of the work that was in front of us, and there's a lot more to be done. one other thing i will say is i'm very glad we were able to republish my colleague's piece that he spent just really drilling down in the streets of minnesota and exhaustively detailed reporting job that literally i give to my students as an example how work like that should be done. >> the new book is "the matter of black lives: writings from the new yorker." jelani cobb, thank you for sharing with us this morning. coming up, the number of americans filing for unemployment benefits last week fell for the first time in a month. and this morning's jobs report is expected to show a gain of nearly half a million jobs. but those forecasts don't always hold up. we'll have the latest numbers when they cross from the labor department. plus, after a tense showdown on capitol hill, congress narrowly avoids plunging the american economy into crisis. and senate investigators lay out donald trump's efforts to overturn the election. but the former president is instructing members of his inner circle not to testify. 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why not both? visibly diminish wrinkled skin in... crepe corrector lotion... only from gold bond. when a truck hit my car, the insurance company wasn't fair. i didid't t kn whahatmy c caswa, so i called the barnes firm. i'm rich barnes. it's hard for people to k how much their accident case is worth.h barnes. t ouour juryry aorneneys hehelpou the insurance company getenwasn't fair.ity y cablele. i didn't know what my case was worth, so i called the barnes firm. llll theararnes rmrm now the best result possible. ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ the republican senate needs new leadership. i've been saying it for a long time. mitch is not the guy. he's not the right guy. he's not doing the job. he gave them a life line. it's more than a life line. he gave them so much time now to figure out what to do because they were in a real big bind. they wouldn't have been able to do anything. he had the weapon and was unable to use it. >> we made a promise for two months we would make them do it without our help and we folded. i hate that. we're in a hole. we have to dig out of this hole. we shot ourselves in the foot tonight but we'll revisit this issue in december. >> i believe schumer was on verge of surrendering and then, unfortunately, yesterday republicans blinked. i think that was a mistake. i understand why republican leadership blinked. i wish they hadn't. i wish they hadn't because i believe we were on the verge of victory. chuck schumer won this game of chicken. two trucks drove together on a country road, one or the other was going to turn, or you were going to have a lot of dead chickens. i wish republicans hadn't blinked. we shouldn't have done that. >> i'm so triggered. you're going to have to take it. >> you know, that's the capitol of the united states where serious stuff -- i almost said something else -- is supposed to happen, right? but it hasn't been happening. it hasn't been happening because there are these group of people who don't understand they're talking about your retirement savings -- i mean, i'm not talking about a portion of your retirl savings, i'm talking your entire retirement account. i don't want anyone else to be associated with my remarks. your entire retirement accounts, the u.s. economy, your job, america's standing in the world, the supremacy of communist china over the united states of america, that's what those guys are playing with. they think that's a game. it is incredibly revealing. we gave them a life line. we have the weapon. the weapon. your weapon that you had was making the united states default on a debt for the first time, on our debt, for the first time in the history of the united states in america and in so doing what would you do, republicans? i would have just set fire to our economy. you would have trashed retirement accounts, ted cruz, retirement accounts would have been trashed and the worst thing is that ted cruz, donald trump, lindsey graham -- i hate to say it, i have to i say it -- mitt romney, other republicans that did not vote. to let democrats pass a three-month extension. you would have helped communist china more than anybody has ever helped communist china economically by letting them say to our friends, our enemies, our allies, our adversaries all alike, see, we told you the united states political system is so dysfunctional you can't trust them. don't look to them. look to us. dmunist china, we are the rising power in the world. we'll get things done. we don't have ted cruzes over here. well, we do but, you know, if they step out of line, we don't have lindsey grahams, we have people who actually -- we'll force them to pay off the debt. the united states are dysfunctional. so look to us. the great irony is that we never have this problem when the republicans are in the white house, not because they're more responsible. we have the numbers, republicans are less responsible with deficits and debt. donald trump ran up the biggest deficits when he got in the office. he ran up the biggest debt when he got into office. what did mitch mcconnell, what did the republicans say? of course we're going to raise the debt ceiling. of course, it's the responsible thing to do. if we don't do it it will trash the economy. what did mitch start saying? we have to do it. we have to raise the debt ceiling, but we're not going to do it ted cruz is not going to do it. donald trump from mar-a-lago, he never pays any of his debts anyway. republicans are listening to this guy who has gone bankrupt a dozen times. his daddy gave him $400 million and he just fell off the "forbes" list. this guy, "the new york times" got ahold of his tax returns and what did they find? over the course of a decade no u.s. taxpayer had ever lost as much money in the history of the united states of america as donald trump. and this is who they're listening to. i've said to it all along if the republicans wanted to make a point and be irresponsible and not raise the debt ceiling, that's fine. it's america. they can do that. there are 50 democratic votes. mitch mcconnell and mitt romney and ted cruz and lindsey graham, they both said, not only are we not going to let you save the united states economy with our vote, we're not going to even let you vote on it. we're going to wreck the economy, help communist china and destroy retirement accounts. democrats have to get tougher. mika, they have to be able to look republicans in the eye and say, oh, you're anilist. what we're going to do is vote every day. and, by the way, democrats will have to say this in december because they push -- as lindsey said, so in december what's going to have to happen is chuck schumer is going to have to go to mitch mcconnell every day, guess what we're going to do? we're going to give the business community the 50 votes, the retirement accounts the 50 votes that they need we're doing your job for you. we're going to do your job for you because you're such a hypocrite who said we have to raise the debt ceiling and yet you're trying to block us from even voting on this? we're not going to reconciliation. no, we're going to give 50 votes. that's it. and we're going to let you get on the floor and go the democrats won't -- there's this procedure called reconciliation and while the stock markets are collapsing, while communist china is holding parades in beijing that have banners of chairman mao and mitt romney and lindsey graham and ted cruz because they've done more to stop the u.s. economy by letting us default on the dollar for the first time in u.s. history. and chuck needs to say we're going to vote every day. 50 democrats to just say no to communist china versus zero republicans. not one republican would vote, not one republican would vote to push back communist china and not hand them the greatest propaganda victory. that we're so dysfunctional we default on our debts? and you think that's a game, donald trump? what's wrong with you? it's a game? no, you're playing with people's lives and worse than that you're playing with the reputation of the united states of america and playing right into the hands of the communist chinese. so if you think it's a game and you think you're going to be anilist and watch as this country burns. well, they need to grow a backbone. better to be strong and wrong than right and weak because americans won't follow you if you're weak even if you think you're right and that's the problem with democrats. they think they're so right, so self-righteous but they act like snowflakes. stare them down. stare donald trump down and say, all we're going to give you is our 50 votes. we're going to be in our offices. we'll be watching as your states collapse. we'll be watching. but we're going to be voting every day. you can crawl onboard anytime you want. some day, some time the doors of the arc are going to close and it's not going to be the democratic party that's left outside knocking to get inside. got to get tough, mika. >> another reason to get tough. there's the showdown over the investigation into the january 6 attack on the capitol. more when "morning joe" comes right back. vo: the damage it's causing is undeniable... climate change. and with the build back better act, congress can tackle it head on. with tax credits for clean energy companies that create millions of new jobs... ...and ramp up new technology and clean energy manufacturing. it means families pay less for utilities... ...and america becomes the global leader in clean energy it's time to build back better. and that means taking on climate change. with clean energy jobs congress: let's get this done 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. shingles? 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>> sedition. a key player in sedition against the united states of america and the constitution of the united states of america. >> it makes the following key findings in at least nine calls or meetings president trump directly raised discredited claims of election fraud for doj to investigate. white house chief of staff mark meadows asked an g rosen to launch an investigation based on a conspiracy data about election data in italian facilities. >> he has this italian man thing where he says some italian dude fixed our elections. am i mixing qanon conspiracy theories? it's amazing. assistant an g trying to recruit acting ag rosen to interfere in georgia's certification process in exchange for clark turning down the president's offer to install him as attorney general. >> and trump allies including scott perry of pennsylvania participated in the doj pressure campaign. trump forced the resignation of u.s. attorney b.b.j. pak and th doj deviated its policy from investigating after certification to avoid politicizing the department. republicans issued their own findings based on the same testimony concluding the former president was concerned about election integrity in general and followed the advice of doj. >> willie, this is such a joke. >> it only gets worse. >> you had donald trump's own people in charge of cyber security saying this was the safest election, the cleanest election in the history of the united states. even in the states where he lost, they've had one recount after another recount after another. there's no evidence -- even rudy giuliani when he went into a federal courtroom in pennsylvania and he knew he couldn't lie to a federal judge or he might end up in jail, the judge said, are you saying this? no, your honor. no, your honor. this is not about fraud. maybe that's why none of the 63 federal courts said there was any widespread voter fraud, maybe that's why the supreme court and donald trump's said there's no fraud. here we have the doj firing people. donald trump firing people that wouldn't follow his conspiracy theories about italian dudes. we've talked about that before. it's crazy. >> yeah, you're not that far off. it was something to do with italian satellites changing the votes in america, something like that. i heard somebody mumbling that on the streets in new york around the election. but you're right. this report from the judiciary committee is breathtaking. it's not surprising but you have direct evidence and direct testimony in here of the white house putting pressure on the department of justice. trying to kick people out who wouldn't help them overturn the election and put in place people who would. coming up, a look at the other stories making headlines including pfizer pushing forward on vaccines for younger kids. we'll talk about that potential game changer for american schools. regina approaches the all-electric cadillac lyriq. it's a sunny day. nah, a stormy day. classical music plays. um uh, brass 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possibilities. time for mika's news grind. what do we have in the news today? >> that's not necessary. >> mika's news grind on the 4s. >> okay, here is a look at some of the stories making headlines this morning. a new study indicates the number of children in the country orphaned during the pandemic may be larger than previously estimated. and has affected more black and hispanic americans. more than half of the children who lost a primary caregiver during the pandemic belong to those two racial groups which makes up about 40% of the u.s. population. it also says during the 15 months of the nearly 19-monaco individual 19 pandemic more than 120,000 u.s. children lost a parent or grandparent who was a primary provider and another 22,000 children experienced the death of a secondary caregiver. imagine the mental health crises connected with that. >> just terrible. >> pfizer officially announced or submitted that it announced -- announce it had announce it had submitted to the fda for children 5 to 11 years old f. approved this would be the first covid-19 vaccine for younger children. fda officials had said once that vaccine data for younger children was submitted the agency then could authorize it in a matter of weeks. an fda advisory committee plans to meet to discuss authorization at the end of the month. that could be a game changer for kids in school. and as layoffs slow, filings for jobless benefits last week fell for the first time in four weeks. >> that's good news. >> the initial jobsless claims fell to 326,000 from 364,000 the week prior. this put claims lower than the first week in september. the benefits continue to drop. >> more great news. >> a reflection of states ending benefit programs. and up next another important snapshot on the economy. moments from now the labor department will release the jobless numbers from september. we'll go live to cnbc next on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ welcome to allstate. where everything just seems to go your way. ♪ ♪ you're 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got my mo-ney! it's hard to contain yourself isn't it? uh- huh! well let it go! woooo! get a dollar for dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover. i saw that twitter is testing out some new prompts that will warn you before you jump into a potential fight or argument. yeah. to avoid fighting you click the prompt that says log off forever. that's right. twitter prompts you with warnings like that might be offensive, while facebook prompts you with warnings like that might not be offensive enough. welcome back to "morning joe." it's 32 past the hour. look at new york city from way above. how beautiful. happy friday, everybody. joining us now the surgeon general of the united states, dr. vivek murthy. thank you so much for being with us today. i guess i would like to start there with social media, facebook, twitter, disinformation. how much do you think it's impacting america's ability to get over this pandemic? >> well, mika, i think the disinformation and misinformation that is flowing abundantly on social media and other technology platforms is having a profound affect on our ability to address this. misinformation costs lives and earlier an advisory on the misinformation because we were seeing many, many people who have turned away from precautions like masks or vaccines that would save their lives because they encountered misinformation and this is going to be a real problem going forward and we have to make sure everyone is stepping up to do their part, individuals careful about what they share, government, the private sector, doctors and nurses, it is incumbent in the moral responsibility to address on their platforms. they have not done that yet. >> and until then if that happens, we hope it does, we're stuck with what we're stuck with and there are a lot of people out there who literally get their news from facebook and will not get the vaccine. >> back in terms of getting enough people vaccinated that we are not worried about the risk of not just the delta but monster variants. >> we novak seens are a pathway out of this pandemic and hundreds of thousands of people make a decision in our country to get vaccinated. that is good news. we have several vaccines in this country which still are highly effective in preventing the worst of covid, keeping you out of the hospital, preventing you from losing your life. mika, we have to do everything to accelerate this even more. we know that there are still nearly 67 million people in our country who are vulnerable because they are not vaccinated. what really is powerful in moving people and helping get them the right information when they hear it from sources they trust and those are often local -- their own nurses and doctors, their own family members and friends, faith leaders, people they know in their communities. it's one of the reasons we've been working hard to build a community core to support these trusted messengers so they can get accurate scientific information to people who need it. >> dr. murthy, good morning. we are hearing cautious optimism is a fair way to characterize it from hospital officials about cases and hospitalizations and hopefully ultimately deaths going down in the last few weeks. do you agree with that assessment there is some reason for optimism and what could continue that and what might reverse that? >> well, willie, i'm an optimistic person by nature. there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic right now. you are seeing cases come down, hospitalizations come down. you're seeing more people get vaccinated, more advance when is it comes to treatments as well as when it comes to testing and more investments in testing that will, as the president recently announced, will quadruple our over-the-counter tests. there's a lot that's positive. the cautious part is very important here because, look, we know covid has thrown curveballs at us before. we've seen increases and depp creases and haven't always been able to explain why. we have to remain vigilant. nobody should take the encouraging numbers as a sign weep need to no longer get vaccinated or it's no longer important to wear masks. if we keep doing the right thing or keep getting more people vaccinated i believe that will help us get cases to come down and ultimately stay down. >> u.s. surgeon general dr. vivek murthy, thank you once again for coming on the show. now breaking economic news. the 194,000 jobs in september fewer than the august number of 235,000 jobs. but the unemployment rate did drop from 5.2% in august to 4.8% in september. let's bring in dominic chu. i just don't think i ever remember a job market like this where the unemployment rate's below 5% and you have a low unemployment rate but more job openings, i think, than ever before and you still have employers saying we can't fill all the positions that we have. what's going on with this market? >> it's crazy. first of all, the market reaction has been relatively muted given the huge disappointment that you saw in the numbers there. that's a huge shortfall versus economist expectations. the interesting thing you wonder how much of the market really is focused on this particular jobs number as opposed to, say, maybe the drama in washington, d.c., with regard to the debt ceiling and the government shutdowns possibly later on this year. of course the infrastructure package, the budget reconciliation process. you mentioned this idea that people are perhaps not able to find work or are still looking for it. i mean, there are still 11 million -- close to 11 million unfilled jobs in america right now. we've spoken that there's a skills gap. it's one thing to say there's 11 million jobs but another to say who is qualified to fill them or what kind of jobs are they. we focus on the leisure and hospitality. that was the hardest hit and had been on a sharp recovery since the lows we saw last year. we got more muted jobs gains there. only 74,000 jobs were created in leisure and hospitality. that was a driver of the, i guess, the disappointment. the other thing i would point out is the government hiring, especially at the state and local level with regard to education in particular down 123,000 for government overall. that tells you something where the weakness is coming from. still, though, if you put all of this together right now the economic recovery still remains, i guess stable is the best way to put it. it's on track but there are some slowing data points, not just this jobs number but elsewhere in the spectrum as well and the markets right now are trying to figure out whether or not this leads to any kind of a change in the federal reserve's path for adjusting interest rates higher down the line, the tapering of bond purchases, all of those things. so, joe, that's going to be the huge discussion, probably the reason why you're not seeing a massive gain on the market because of this. >> a lot of people i'm sure would love to see the 500,000 job gains. they would love to see the economy just take off at a torrid rate. you are right. the fed will be looking at the lower expectations and, again, still, unemployment under 5% so that's great. but maybe they'll be less likely to raise interest rates. maybe the market likes the fact this is a slow and steady build. dom, you talked about the leisure and hospitality sector underperforming. i know it's anecdotal but mika and i have been one anecdote in after another whatever region we've gone to. i talk to small business owners, people who own family restaurants. they all say, all, in new england, in the deep south, they all say the same thing. we can't find workers. we're offering them more money than we've ever paid before. we're having to close our restaurant three days a week. we're having to cut hours much shorter. you hear it in the hotels. you hear it in restaurants. people aren't going back to work for jobs that they actually can fill. >> it's interesting you bring up that point because the anecdotes i get are exactly what you're hearing right now. in fact, it's not just small and medium-sized business owners. there is a starbucks not far from where i live. a massive coffee chain. this one small location where i'm at is closed at 3:00 p.m. every day. and you go there and the sign on the door says, sorry, we have to close at 3:00 p.m. we don't have enough staff to only any longer. the one number i didn't get to put out there for you that is important because it speaks to labor participation and earnings is the average earnings number did come in a little hotter than expectations. here's the big number. it is 4.6% higher than the same time last year, so when joe was just speaking about this notion some business owners are paying more than they ever have before it's being backed up by data. now it may not be gangbusters type improvements but 4.5% improvements year over year if done on a more consistent basis can lead to some real sustained wage gains. the issue now becomes, guys, whether or not those gains start to hamper businesses large and small and then what that does to sentiment overall this could be a huge paradigm shift. >> willie, we're talking about anecdotes and dom talked about starbucks. it has to close at 3:00 p.m. mika was visiting one of her daughters this weekend and starbucks had a sign on the door, we don't have enough workers. they basically -- >> they were closed for two days. >> they had to close for two days every week because they don't have enough people to fill the jobs. >> yeah, and as dom says, that's not a mom and pop shop, that's starbucks. i've walked into restaurants where half the dining room is empty. you say can we sit down and have dinner, i'd love to seat you, i don't have servers. you're going to have to wait a while. and, dom, you cannot go into a restaurant, you cannot drive through a gas station, walk into a grocery store these days without seeing a help wanted sign. so what is the answer to the question of why those 11 million jobs are not being filled? is it people still getting checks from the government who say, listen, this check is bigger than the one i would get working from the gas station? is it the kind of jobs, re-assessing their careers and lives? and how long do you see this going? if you have people making those calculations this can go on for some time. >> less of a factor now is the enhanced unemployment benefits. many of those have expired. there are probably still people collecting some kind of government assistance and the pandemic's effects were long lasting, we get that. to your point this idea there's a transition phase going on right now for the american workforce. if there is a time period when you've had such a shock to the employment picture that people have to republic assess their lives overall whether it be because of safety concerns, because of a career path, that they felt they wanted to do before but were prevented from doing so, now that there's a stronger jobs market right now are there available spots in certain places people didn't feel they could fit in before that they're going for. if that is the case that's not something that just resolves itself in a month or two. if you're talking about that kind of a real transition phase it could be people retooling themselves. it could take months before these things start to sort out. the one interesting point this particular jobs report was viewed as maybe less of a factor in the narrative than other jobs reports past, because of the summer months it kind of goes away in the month of september f. this kind of number comes out now you wonder whether or not the revisions when it comes through in, say, a month or two, could maybe make up for that. i would point out the july and august numbers were revised higher significantly by almost about 170,000 jobs between those two months. there could be some weeks we'll see maybe a shakeout or adjustment happening. >> cnbc's dom chu, thank you for that breaking news. maria ressa, dmitry muratov are the dual recipients fighting to defend free expression in the philippines and russia. ressa was credited for exposing abuses of power and growing authoritarianism in her native philippines. the editor and cheech of an independent russian newspaper that publishes fact-based news in face of the country's censorship. freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace. our congratulations and our deepest thanks to both of them. up next, a look at the conditions in haiti driving thousands of migrants to the u.s. s eat fresh refresh™? the new baja steak & jack, new all-american club™, the new italian b.m.t.®, new turkey cali fresh... and new...trevor lawrence? man, you're not a sandwich! order in the app now to save big. vo: the damage it's causing is undeniable... man, you're not a sandwich! climate change. and with the build back better act, congress can tackle it head on. with tax credits for 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just an investor, you're an owner so you can build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner. president biden's almost special envoy to haiti, ambassador daniel spoke publicly for the first time since his resignation and criticized the administration's decision to send haitian migrants back to the country amid worsening conditions. jacob was reporting in haiti all last week and he joins us now. what did you find out? >> it was an extraordinary trip. just a two-hour flight from miami. the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. this summer it endured a presidential assassination, a massive earthquake, life has become so hard for so many people there, doctors without borders says the situation on the ground in haiti is one of uncertainty and mortal danger, and we went there to understand why. >> across haiti's capital city, a landscape of despair. one that extends far beyond port-au-prince. >> this area was devastated by the recent earthquake and board a plane by the world food program and doing food distributions. look at this. >> we flew with the organization's country director in haiti, when we arrived we drove towards a remote come you know, an area that faced extreme poverty even before the quake due to a lack of job in the area. >> you need to properly identify who they are. >> they might be starving. >> exactly. >> this is one of the food distribution sites. pierre is leading us into it right now. >> i met several women waiting in line including a single mom of four kids. >> you can tell me what life is like here? >> this is not a great place. >> do you know anybody who has left, anybody who is leaving haiti? >> yes, there are a lot of people leaving. >> hunger isn't the only life-threatening reality for haitians. >> some areas already like a wild zone, you don't go there anymore. >> a war zone. >> really a war zone. >> and a u.n. chopper avoids violence in addition to aid. on the sy street, you understand why. >> much of the city here is controlled by violent gangs and we're headed to a clinic with doctors without borders and there is an uptick in violence. >> half of the patients who arrive here come with life-threatening gunshot wounds, offer with high-powered firearms. the haitian trauma surgeon tends to the neediest patients. >> how many of the people that you meet as patients do you think would consider leaving haiti for another country, including the united states? >> 90%. >> why so high? >> violence. poverty. >> and those are the patients you treat every day? >> yes. >> victims of gun violence. stabbings. car accidents because they have to move from one place to another due to violence in their community. >> uh-huh. >> and even you as a doctor, is it fair to say that you might think about one day leaving haiti because of the situation here? >> yes, i do. because at the end, i've got dreams, too. i want a better life. i don't need to be rich. i don't need that. but i need to have enough to feed my family. >> it is enormous pressure for you as well. >> yes. >> the doctor's dreams, too, he wants a better life, too and he is doing heroic week. >> the number of haitians our coast guard has stopped trying to leave by boat has tripled in the last year and huns in the last week alone and it is a situation that the biden administration says it is committed to addressing what it called haitian-led solutions. >> the masses of migrants we see at the border speak to the desperation of the haitian people. one thing we know, it is a culture and a people marked by hope, they go through earthquakes, they've been through the assassination of their president, and do you still feel that hope when you're on the ground in haiti? >> everywhere i've been, it gives me the chills to hear you ask that question, everywhere i've been covering people on the move, nobody wants to leave, and there is a great hope for haitians that they don't have to leave their country, to make a dangerous journey to south america or by boat to cuba, to the united states, to florida, but they're having a really, really tough time right now. >> so jacob, what does the biden administration do? obviously, there are so many haitians that are living in just absolutely deplorable conditions, at the same time, we obviously don't have the numbers, we don't have the support, to allow every hash than wants to come to america to come to america, so how does the biden administration, how does congress, how does the united states prioritize who gets in, and who stays in haiti? >> you know, i wish i knew the answer, joe, but i watched the ambassador yesterday and the briefing he gave to the congressional committee, and what he suggested was first, a security-based solution to stabilize the security situation in a place like port-au-prince where we couldn't go around, nobody could have gone around without the fear of being kidnapped by armed gangs and after that, hold election, baby step, politically and diplomatically until you can fix the much larger problem including the hunger and threat of violence on a daily basis. >> a great look from the ground at an extraordinarily difficult situation. jacob, thank you. let's bring in a host of american voices on msnbc, alicia, has a special show this sunday featuring interviews with hispanic and latino members of the biden administration. good morning. what were some of the threads you saw through these stories as you sat down for those interviews? >> so many threads. worth noting i was able to speak with four members of the biden cabinet, among them secretary of health and human services and one of the questions i asked is children being kept in immigration detention. take a listen. >> i am the son of immigrants and i understand well the immigrant experience. i made it very clear to my team, we're going to treat a human being, especially a child, the way we would expect a child to be treated. and i want to be very clear. that's exactly what we've done. these are children who have come through some very difficult means, with traumatic experiences that they're carrying, we're doing everything we can to make sure that not only do we follow the law, but we follow our moral compass in how we do this. >> it begs a bigger system and question though, which is in an immigration system that is fair, orderly, and humane, should children ever be kept in detention? >> we have a broken immigration system that leaves in the hands of the department of health and human services the care of children. where in any, you have two kids, would you ever want to see your children outside of your arms? no. so we have a broken immigration system that has put us, hhs, in this position. >> so of course, you can hear the secretary of health and human services pivoting back to a legislative solution and i asked him about title 42, the cdc authority that trump now biden has used to expel migrants from this country, under the guise of covid, advocates of course say it is not about the virus, it is being used as an immigration enforcement measure, but as part of a larger conversation, that included topics like vaccination rates, like health equity, a lot in that portfolio. >> that's really great, alicia. and in the final moments that we have, what else can we expect in your special which is this sunday night. >> this sunday night, 7:00 p.m., american voice, latinos inside the white house, it's part biographical we talk about their various pasts, paths to the white house, california, texas, connecticut, the experiences that have shaped their thinking when it comes to policy, we also got into a lot of big issues because all of the challenges that are facing the country as a whole are facing latinos, whether that is talking about ppp loan forgiveness, whether that is talking about how we get our kids back to school, community college, a big range of issues, i'm excited to bring it to you this sunday night. mika? >> alicia menendez, thank you very much. we'll be watching. the special "american advice voices, latinos inside the white house" this sunday october 10th at 7:00 p.m. eastern. right here on msnbc. >> that looks great. a couple of quick things that we learned today. one, a fallout, showing that only little more than four out of ten americans are republicans, who want donald trump to run for re-election, and that means 25%, one in four want him to do that, and right now the republican party, the senate at least in disarray, fighting with each other, yelling at each other, it seems they blew up one bridge too many where they decided they were going to play games or ted cruz says they were going to play chick within the united states economy and retirement accounts, and in texas and across the country. >> yes, and we get another crack at that argument in two months, because this just kicks the can down the road to december. also, it should be a big focus for people this weekend hopefully looking at that senate judiciary report which lays out in stark detail just how hard the white house led by former president trump worked to overturn the 2020 election. >> absolutely. we'll be seeing you on sunday today, that does it for us this morning. what a day so far, everybody. good morning, we're live here from msnbc headquarters in new york city, we've got a lot