and the fda considers emergency approval of a new anti-viral drug. and a remarkable story of espionage, nuclear secrets, and peanut butter sandwiches as the fbi accuses a u.s. nuclear engineer and his wife of plotting to pass state secrets to foreign government sources. welcome to "meet the press daily". i'm garrett haake in for chuck todd. the last 48 hours have been a sobering reminder about the current state of politics in america and the unstable future that lice ahead for us. it's not just that republicans in congress and across the country have acquiesced to trump, despite him losing the election. it's what they seem to be acquiescing to. that the future of the party rests with lies and misinformation like this. >> the election was a fraud. if we want to save our country and make america great again, we have only one choice. we must elect strong and unyielding america first republicans at every level, and we must pass a complete overhaul of our entire election system to ensure it's free, fair, honest, and able to be fully and quickly audited. the single biggest issue, the issue that gets the most pull, the most respect, the biggest cheers, is talking about the election fraud of 2020 presidential election. nobody has ever seen anything like it. >> what the president said there in iowa about our elections on saturday night is not true. but you can't dismiss that he keeps saying it, and more and more people seem to be believing it. it also comes following comments he made last week falsely claiming that the real insurrection happened on election night. alongside the former president this week was senator chuck grassley. that's the most senior republican in the senate. the ranking member of the judiciary committee and the man who would be president protem if republicans took back the senate. that makes him third in line to the presidency. it's notable to watch him, listening to trump's attacks on democracy and not pushing back at all. and why isn't he pushing back? well, grassley who is running for reelection gave us a pretty clear window into why. >> i was born at night, but not last night, so if i didn't accept the endorsement of a person that's got 91% of the republican voters in iowa, i wouldn't be too smart. i'm smart enough to accept that endorsement. >> that pretty much sums up the entire dynamic in the republican party right now. so does this interview with the house's number two republican steve scalise. >> do you think the 2020 election was stolen from donald trump? >> well, i've been clear from the beginning. if you look at the number, states they didn't follow their state-passed laws that govern the election for president. that is what the united states constitution says. >> i understand you think there were irregularities and things that need to be fixed. do you think the election was stole snn. >> it's not just -- it's states that did not follow the laws set which the constitution says they're supposed to follow. >> that's the number two republican in the house, and a possible candidate to be speaker if republicans take that chamber back. folks, the bottom line here, the day-to-day drama in washington over the fate of the biden agenda, the government shutdown threats and the interparty squabbles on the left, a potent threat to the long-term viability of u.s. democracy and instability. it's finding serious, serious traction on the right. and ignoring this isn't going to make it go away. we've got to talk about it and report on it and here to do that, nbc's lee ann caldwell on capitol hill. kelly o'donnell outside the white house. also joining us is the white house correspondent and msnbc contributor yamiche alcindor. lee ann, i'll start with you. you heard chuck grassley's rationale for hitching to former president trump. he's doing the same thing this the halls of congress. before congress buffed by the doj in early january, he wrote, president trump did what we'd expect a president to do on an issue of this importance. he listened to his senior advisers and followed their advice and recommendations. this is on a meeting about how best to overturn election results, meaning a lot of -- chuck grassley light know better. but this is the most senior republican in the senate saying these things, do we have to give up the wish it wasn't trump wing in congress anymore, or is this where we're at at the republican party? >> i think we have to give up on that idea. think of the people who aren't running for reelection and they made a choice. do they have to try to win over the trump voters or do they just bow out? you have people like senator richard burr of north carolina, senator roy blunt of missouri, and they knew that it was going to be very difficult for them to win reelection, especially if they had a tough primary which was expected. so in addition to looking at how people are running their races to get reelected, you also have to look at the people who decided to make that choice, to actually not move further right, not embrace the former president's lies about the last election. and as far as senator grassley is concerned, a source told me that he's getting a lot of blowback in iowa from his -- for his vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. and so he has to even though he served seven terms in congress in the senate, he still has to shore up that republican, that trump base in order for him to win this election. that's why you saw him on this stage with senator -- or former president trump just this weekend. now, there is some concern from some republicans, though, because they worry that the more that the former president is in the picture, the more focussed that democrats can put on the former president instead of republicans being able to focus on the current president who is under water in a lot of these states. >> kelly, i want to bring you in on that point. i feel like we heard this from president biden all the time when he was candidate biden. the idea of don't compare him to the al mighty. compare him to the alternative. how important is it to the biden white house to democrat's political efforts that the alternative still be the former guy as they like to call former president trump being out there, creating that contrast? >> it certainly is a big part of the approach from the biden white house. and we know how unusual this is. we have not had a potential rematch in presidential politics before. we've not had someone who has left the office conduct himself the way that donald trump has. and remained so much in the national political conversation. so in many ways, what brought president biden to this position in the white house was the unusual nature of trump and what he's got to do to stay there, and to fight for his own agenda. still has a lot to do with president trump, and the narrative that trump is able to build among not just republicans, but independent voters are important to the biden agenda. and certainly, republicans on capitol hill would be better off trying to take shots at what this current president has done or not done during his time in office going into 2022, compared to having to relitigate the trump era. that's not the hand that has been dealt to everyone involved here. and certainly the biden white house is concerned about the president's poll numbers coming down and wants to see action on things like its own agenda as a way to make that more real for voters to improve his poll numbers, they would argue, if people can see benefits in their own lives and communities with infrastructure and all the social programs that are related to this. if you can hear protesters, there are climate protesters outside. that's a big part of the package as well. >> meredith, i want to go back to a 30,000 foot view here. you were at the trump rally in iowa with these mainstream republicans standing by the former president as he was making the remarks. we played at the top, but what else were they standing by? i mean, you kind of own what former president trump says as it comes out of his mouth when you're on stage. what do these mainstream republicans now own? >> well, at this rally a lot of what the former president talked about was criticisms toward the biden administration, toward his immigration policies, what's happening at the border, and about his withdrawal from afghanistan, but the main focus of it was on his claim that his false claim that he won the 2020 election, and that there was widespread voter fraud that led to biden getting into the white house. but another thing was, too, he was going after people like the minority leader mitch mcconnell, saying he didn't have the courage to overthrow the election. he talked about his deal with the democrats to raise the debt ceiling and was slamming mcconnell for that. so while these folks were up on stage, they're also standing with a lot of the sharp elbows trump has had toward anyone who criticizes him, who criticizes his agenda, and what he stands for. >> yamiche, i want to play for you something that former trump national security aid fiona hill said on the network on friday. take a listen to this. >> the real danger is that we're moving forward on the basis of a lie. if we don't get to the bottom of what happened on january 6th, if we don't have an honest conversation about that, if members of congress and the republican party right now don't look themselves in the mirror, you know, face up to what happened there and to speak the truth, we're heading down a path that many other countries have tread before, toward the degradation of our democracy, and very unfortunately, on a path toward authoritarianism, and awe trok ra can i. i don't say that lightly this. we're in a dangerous moment right now. >> i want to ask you, a version of the same question i asked meredith which is how -- to what degree do republicans own the events of january 6th as they memory hold them and pretend in many cases that what happened on january 6th wasn't really what happened or wasn't as bad as we all witnessed it being. what does that do to that party as they try to figure out how they do want to go forward? >> for republicans, it continues the threat to democracy, and it in some ways, it provides a home for the sort of existential crisis. when she's talking about the deg ri gags of democracy, this is how democracies end. i've talked to immigrants over the last months and years in covering the trump administration, and they all say the same thing. this was even before january 6th. they were saying, the way that this happens where you have someone like president trump, former president trump who was rallying up his base and feeding them lies and saying if you're my political opponent, you are someone i will try to end. you are someone i will vil villianize and make sure doesn't have any power by any means necessary. that's how you end up with dictators like in haiti and venezuela. they said this before january 6th. i remember a haitian immigrant saying the former president has all these people angered by his lies. they can get violent and take out their anger on lawmakers. that's what happened on january 6th. what she is happening is something that's happened in other countries. i watched the trump rally saturday. one of the things that stuck out to me is he's upping the ante, former president trump. he's not saying the 2020 election was stole. he's saying we need to take back our country now. he's saying our country will not be here in three years if we don't change who is in power right now. he's feeding people this idea that not only do they need to sort of try to take back whatever power they have, but they need to by any means necessary take the power from president biden right now. that's a scary thing to say. when you look at chuck grassley, someone critical of former president trump after january 6th and you see the about face he's made because he's up for reelection, it tells you republicans are scared of former president trump. he has the power. he has the base. and you have lawmakers who'ven when they had a little backbone on january 6th, they've looked at this and said the calculation is i'm going to hold onto political power instead of calling out sort of lies. and one last thing. i think you can look no further than the former vice president, mike pence, to see the change in january 6th. this is someone who had to be evacuated. the crowds were chanting about hanging him, and he is on tv now trying to somehow down play january 6th. that tells you that this isn't just the people who are loyal to president trump who are in his orbit, but it's also any republican who wants power again. >> yeah. sort of the -- like the simpson's boo earns. meredith, you covered the state-wide efforts around this country to change how elections are dealt with. something like 92 republican lawmakers now in different places calling for a nationwide audit. this goes to yamiche's point. joe biden is going to be president until 2024. like, there's not going to be a trump reinstatement, but how much of what we're seeing right now is based on setting the table for 2022 and making it so that anyone who loses an election on the republican side who wants to can say we need an audit or recount or to throw out the votes altogether, and to win elections you didn't win on the back end? >> i think that's certainly an element of it. you know, so much of this is jumping off of the demands that the former president has had. i think, too, governor gregg abbott in texas responding within hours to a demand by the former president to hold audits in four counties, but when i was in iowa on saturday, i talked to over a dozen trump supporters there, and i was asking them, you know, do they want trump to run again in 2024? who would they want his potential v.p. to be? what are the issues that are important to them? the issues that were important to them are things the republican party would probably rather not trump be talking about. things like immigration, the economy, inflation, pocketbook issues. but the other question that i asked all of these people was do they believe the election was stolen? and overwhelmingly, all of them believe that. they said that. they brought up the fact that they're concerned about the integrity of our elections. that that's something that they're really worried about in elections going forward. this isn't something anymore that is a focus of the former president. the focus of the people around him. this is something that has become a mainstream belief for republicans across the country, and i talked to some of them on saturday. >> it's just going to be a huge problem for the next election, and every subsequent election. to that point, kelly, i think the one thing from the trump sound we played at the beginning, we talked about we need to change our laws and how we conduct our elections. democrats agree. they just want to change them in a different way than republicans do. when i talk to house democrats, for example, they are at the tip of the spear here. they want to see president biden really get out there and push for changes in how we vote in this country to protect democracy. does the biden white house understand the fervor there is on this issue on both sides, and the demands from democrats to protect small-d democracy while they can? >> it's been raised many times with the president. they talk about it being a top priority, a core of his leadership is that he wants to have protections for voting rights to make certain that all americans can exercise that right without fear of voter suppression or being knocked off the rolls for reasons unfair, being denied their franchise. one of the challenges is that is a hard path right now in the senate, and the president still does not believe in changing the filibuster. so that makes it difficult. and, of course, he's tasked his vice president with work on voting rights, too. so it is an ongoing tension point between the president and his own party over voting rights. he agrees with them, but he is not using as much of his time talking about that issue publicly. and it's been one of the criticisms democrats and progressives in particular have had of the president is using the time of the presidency and the bully pulpit on the issues they think are most important. certainly you can point to times and places where the president talks about these issues, but could he do more of that? many democrats say yes, he could. >> yeah, many democrats i talk to see it as an asymmetrical war. yamiche, there are still some areas where we see elected republicans go against trump. we talked about the infrastructure vote, for example in context of chuck grassley, the debt limit vote last week was an interesting example of that. a lot of our viewers don't like to hear this, but mitch mcconnell has stood up to trump on things like blowing up the filibuster when trump was in charge or the debt limit against his opposition, but the next congress could be very, very different. roy blunt is out. you could have likely more trump allies taking over in the house as well. what do things look like in the next congress where you have fewer institutionalists around to provide what mineral guardrail -- minimal guardrails they were able to bring? >> a great question. it goes to the heart of what the republican party is morphing into. there are some republicans who got their seats without having to sort of show their loyalty to former president trump. but as they start to retire out because they don't want to deal with being in the minority, as they're cased out as in this case of gonzalez. he said he had to hire security and try to protect his family against threats because he voted to certify the election and went against former president trump's wishes to try to take away the election that was won fair and square by president biden. you have republicans who are facing increasing pressure to either get in line with president trump or retire. and as that continues to happen, if president trump continues to have this sort of power he has in the gop, you can imagine that the people who are going to be elected into congress in next year and in two years after that, they are going to continue to be people who are more in line with president trump, and more in line with the lie he's telling the base. i think the question now will be will republicans want to at all or even try to at all step away from president trump if let's say in the next election in the 2022 mid terms, they don't see the sort of shift they want to see, because let's remember, it's not just that president trump lost the 2020 election. he also lost the house in 2018. he's really shown one time in 2016 he had a lot of electoral power. so republicans will i think also have to balance that reality. >> our team this morning called this a significant problem that we're not paying enough attention to. we'll stay on this. i thank you for your reporting. thank you. coming up, i'll speak to a leading democrat about navigating fights within the democratic party even as the threat to democracy looms larger. and up next, the latest threat and twist, rather in the legal back and forth over the texas law that effectively bans all abortions. you're watching "meet the press daily". people with moderate to severe psoriasis, are rethinking the choices they make like the splash they create the entrance they make, the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. wondering what actually goes into your multi-vitamin. at new chapter. and if you're pregnant or planning to be. its innovation organic ingredients and fermentation. fermentation? 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that's not a paperwork issue. it has legal meaning. >> sure. it's a ruling by an appeals court to block a lower court ruling without saying anything about who is right or wrong. it sort of is intended usually to preserve the status quo. now you could argue the status quo was putting the law on hold. it's -- it grants a stay but says nothing about who is right or wrong. >> what do we expect to see happen at the deadline? >> the justice department will file a brief saying why it should be withheld. this is on an injunction, not the merits of the case. in the federal courts, the way to win an injunction is to say you're likely to win when it goes to trial. we're in the early stages here. the government will respond and then the three-judge panel will issue a ruling. >> this is going to take a long time to adjudicate. is the owness on the state of texas to say they need this in place or -- you have to set it aside -- >> the real issue at the heart of the case is can a state do this? the justice department's argument here is it's unconstitutional. you can't pass a law the justice department says that deprives someone of a constitutional right and not give them a chance to challenge that in court. but texas says is judge went off the reservation. he said the government had authority to intervene in the case when it didn't. this is about state's rights. that's the issue before the court. and it is a brand new issue, because this law was you have to say no matter how you come down on the issue, cleverly devised to make it hard to do this. >> amateur legal scholars like myself are wondering when does the supreme court get involved in something like this. a lot of people were surprised they didn't take an opportunity to review this sooner. is this -- would the supreme court rather wait and deal with the mississippi case and only have to touch the issue once? how do they view when and where and how to get involved in a case like this? >> i'm sure they would rather not have the texas case. they have already two abortion cases. i'm sure they think this is the last thing we need. and this is a novel question here. this whole area of states devising a law to have other people carry out enforcing the law. what's going to happen here is, though, whoever loses before the three judge panel has a choice to go the full fifth circuit or to the supreme court. one way or another this case is coming back to the supreme court. either on the injunction or on the merits of the case itself. i wouldn't be surprised if it's before the supreme court way or the other before the end of the term, whether they look it or not. >> we're already seeing republican controlled states try to draft similar legislation. i think we'll probably be talking about this more sooner rather than later. >> if the government loses before the fifth circuit, it's an argument on taking the case now. there's no split among the circuits yet. it's early. that's the normal reason the supreme court would take a case. they usually like to let the things percolate in the lower courts before they jump in. >> pete, thank you for breaking that down. we'll talk about this a lot more soon. up next, i'll talk to a leading democrat about the catch 22 we told you about last friday. the party needs the president to be popular to pass the agenda, and they need to pass his agenda so he can be more popular. you're watching "meet the press daily". helping to prevent gum disease and bad breath. never settle for 25%. always go for 100. bring out the bold™ wondering what actually goes into your multi-vitamin. at new chapter. its innovation organic ingredients and fermentation. fermentation? 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(uplifting music) welcome back. with most of president biden's domestic agenda still in limbo, the divisions within the democratic party have been on full display the last month. negotiations on that package are continuing even as congress begins a two-week recess, and they seem to maybe kind of possibly be closing in on a $2 trillion price tag. joining me now is one of the key democrats in the house, kentucky congressman, the chairman of the house budget committee, and congressman, if we stipulate that democrats are close to agreement on that price tag, we know that the number's got to come down. there seems to be a significant disagreement on how to do it. do you do a few things for longer? do you kind of everything that's in the package now but for a shorter period of time? where do you come down on that? >> well, we actually had a discussion about this last week among committee chairs, and i would say the committee chairs were pretty much split. i come down on the side of taking down several of the most critical priorities we have, and concentrating on them. we can do another budget reconciliation package next year. so, for instance, and this is just hypothetically, the dental provision we are proposing to add to medicare doesn't go into effect until 2028 as it's currently written. we could put that in a budget reconciliation package next year. so that's what i would prefer to see. there are others who think we ought to do all of the things that we proposed in the larger build back better act, and do them for shorter period of time or else impose some limitations on who is eligible for the benefits. so -- but there's no consensus on either of those things, and even if you agreed with me, there's not total consensus on which the most important priorities are. we've got a lot of work to do. . >> is there consensus around the idea of another big reconciliation package next year? i think so much talk has been about the idea that this package could be the last train leaving the station. if democrats think there's time to do another big package, that changes the conversation significantly. >> well, i think it does. and i think -- i don't know that there's a consensus on it. i've talked to a number of my colleagues who seem perfectly comfortable with doing one next year. it would be right in the middle of the midterm elections, but that might pose an advantage for us, actually, forcing republicans to oppose some really popular initiatives. so it might be -- i think we should look forward to doing that. with this environment where we have virtually no hope of getting bipartisanship, we have to look to every opportunity we have to make progress for the american people. >> politically speaking, is the size and scope of what you're trying to do which has been obviously a problem in crafting it, is that a political benefit? is this package as far as democrats look at it, too big to fail? you kind of have to do all of it because everybody needs some piece of it? >> well, that's a really good point, and that's at the heart of some of our negotiations right now. we know that there are millions of kids who could benefit from early childhood education. millions of seniors who need home care to get them -- have them live comfortably, child care is a critically important issue to so many of our families. again, expanded medicare benefits. paid family medical leave is incredibly important. extending the child tax credit which pulled so many children out of poverty this year and could do it for a number of years to come. these are incredibly important things. and they're incredibly popular. the big problem we're having now, and i think it was illuminated very well in a poll that was on msnbc this morning, that only about between 25 and 30% of the american people actually know what's in the proposal. they know the proposed cost, but they don't know the elements. those elements are extremely popular. >> last week leader schumer said congress was going to try to get both of the tracks done by the end of october. obviously you have a deadline on the infrastructure bill to get that done by the end of october. how realistic duke that timeline is, and -- you mentioned there's not a consensus in the house. is the bigger challenge getting the consensus on the house side or what they're dealing with on the senate side, reaching the goals? >> it seems to me that we have challenges on both sides. it seems to me the challenge is more with two members on the senate side. you know, in my conversations with the various caucuses in the didn'tous ho side, and i've been trying to herd cats for about four months, there's very little disagreement on the overall objectives of what we're trying to do. there's concern about the price tag, but, again, this is money that's being spent over ten years. and it's all being offset by tax cuts -- tax increases, so i think there's not a great deal of resistance on the house side to doing something soon and doing something significant. so i would say maybe the senate side a little bit more than the house side. we have to resolve some differences. i don't think they're really differences that are strongly held. i just think people are looking for the best path forward. >> as you would expect. let's stay on the senate side for a minute. mitch mcconnell wrote a letter to the president on friday in which he says your lieutenant, speaking of the president on capitol hill, speaking of the time they claimed they lacked to address the debt ceiling through stand alone reconciliation and all the tools to do it. they cannot invent another crisis to ask for my help. he's talking about you will, i think, as one of the lieutenants who could handle a debt ceiling lift through reconciliation. is that the path now? and would it be as easy as an amendment vote? as simple as there for democrats to handle the debt ceiling in reconciliation if you so choose? >> first, i don't think you can trust anything any republican says because they can't control all 50 of their members. it only takes one or two to object on the senate side to foil any of the guarantees they might make to us. one thing that i need to make -- i get furious thinking about mitch mcconnell that he's my senator. he's being so deceitful with the american people. right now he says well, this is -- what they're asking us to do is pay for future debt. right now every minute we are incuring more debt because of the republican passed tax cuts in 2017. cbo projected at the time that between 2022 and 2028 the republican tax cuts would add $800 billion to the national debt. so that's their debt. that's not anything the democrats had to do. we all voted against it. that's their debt yerks and now they don't want to pay for it. >> all right. congressman, proudly supporting his f-rating from the nra on his lapel. we'll leave it there for now. >> thank you. a potential breakthrough in covid. the anti-viral pill experts say would bring a game-changer. this is... ♪♪ this is iowa. we just haven't been properly introduced. say hello to the place where rolling hills meets low bills. where our fields, inside and out, are always growing. and where the fun is just getting started. this is iowa. so, when are you coming to see us? ♪♪ welcome back. a big development today in the fight against covid. merck asked the fda to authorize the oral treatment for covid-19 this morning. the first step in getting a new weapon on the table to fight the pandemic. if the fda grants emergency use, it's the first anti-viral pill to hit the market to treat covid patients at home. clinical data showed it cut hospitalizations and deaths in half in unvaccinated individuals. the news comes as the fda is set to consider authorizing booster shots of moderna and j&j vaccines later this week. pfizer's vaccine for children could get an fda approval before halloween. this means the u.s. may well be heading into winter with a new arsenal of tools to help keep the worst of the pandemic behind us. joining us now is our medical contributor and founding director of boston sen for for emerging diseases and infectious diseases. i won't ask you to say the name of the pill, but how much of the game changer could a pill treatment be for ending the pandemic or cutting down the deaths? >> garrett, you know, the whole part of dealing with this virus at this point now that we know that we are not going to be able to get rid of it in the near future, tame it. despite all our efforts trying to reduce community transmission, that we take the things out of the disease and people don't end up in the hospital. something by mouth is important. even this weekend i had a friend who started developing symptoms, couldn't find access to a place open to get an infusion. long weekend. a pill makes a huge impact, because it sort of improves people's access to be able to protect themselves if they find out despite the layers of mitigation that they ended occupy getting the infection, that they don't end up in the hospital. here are a couple things that might impact whether or not it's a game-changer or not. one, who is it going to be there? the study's for high risk folks who wanted to see who benefitted? 50% still ended up in the hospital. who were they? two, how much of a supply will this be? government bought about 1.7 million courses of this, just to give you a sense. 100,000 infections a day. that's a lot. and merck said they might have enough for about 10 million people, and last, it needs to be linked to testing. we need to do earlier testing so people can take the pill. all those will decide how big of an impact they make. >> my understanding is merck only tested this pill on unvaccinated adults with at least one risk factor. so should we assume that that's who it's likely to be approved for, or what about vaccinated people who might experience a breakthrough infection? >> yeah. so vaccines reduce, even in the age of delta, they reduce chances of infections by five times. however, there are breakthrough infections in people who are high risk. i don't see this just being approved for people who are vaccinated. it's likely it's for anybody with confirmed covid. that's where the data was taken from. it's people who had a test that was positive. that's why the linking with tests will be important. the other thing that's going to be interesting is whether there will be further data either from this product from merck and the two other oral anti-virals, if any of those may also be used as a post exposure, which means you could give it to people after a high risk exposure so you don't have to wait until the test is positive. that might be another layer of how we make an impact. we'll have to wait and see what the data shows. >> the -- scott gottlieb was on cbs earlier today. he was talking about the idea that this review could likely take longer than usual, a couple of months. is that your understanding of what we're looking at here, potentially an end of the year rollout for the pill? >> well, we haven't seen the data. you know? it's hard to know. if the data holds up, the thing that holds promise for me is that we haven't seen the data, but there was an independent staft and monitoring board that basically said look, you got to stop the trial. the results seem to be very clear, and that gives some signal that an independent group has looked at the data but the data is not out. i think it will depend on whether or not, a, the data holds out that fda gets from merck, what it looks like. but b, as you've seen, fda has a lot on their plate. you listed the number of meetings. you might see that some delays because of that. but i don't see that it would be any different, for example, than the evaluation for the antibody treatment if the data holds out. i may be getting a thorough evaluation and getting it on the market. >> a lot of good news and new tools. doctor, thank you. >> thanks. and coming up, a serious spy craft story with a silly twist. a navy engineer with a top secret clearance allegedly trying to leak national security securities in a peanut butter sandwich. boy, is he in a jam? 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ask your health care provider today about once-weekly ozempic®. oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! you may pay as little as $25 for a 3-month prescription. welcome back. today is the international day of the girl. a day dedicated to empowering girls and lifting up the stories of women and girls around the world. we need to shine a light on the challenges girls face worldwide in achieving equal rights and equal opportunities. it's as urgent as ever especially while afghanistan's taliban is restricting women's rights. one leading activist for the education of girls is the youngest ever peace prize laureate. malala sat down to share her message. >> women are challenging this islamic thing that women cannot be equal. that is why we need to listen to the voices of afghan women and gills. >> what's your message to girls who want to make a difference in their own communities? >> believe in yourself. believe in your voice. believe in the dedication and determination that you hold for the things you believe in. you can make it happen. >> malala's nonprofit, the malala fund, has invested close to $2 million in afghanistan for the education of girls. we'll be right back. we'll b. i just became eligible for medicare, and i'm already confused. i just called humana; i talked one-on-one with an agent who suggested a plan that fit my life. you should call too! so i did. turns out an all-in-one humana medicare advantage plan includes coverage for hospital stays, doctor visits and prescription drugs. most plans include dental, vision and hearing too. my agent told me i could save money on prescription drugs. oh! and these humana plans offer telehealth coverage. so i can connect with a doctor from my couch. and humana has a large network of doctors and hospitals. my doctor was already in their network. oh! a humana medicare advantage plan can give me all that coverage for as low as a $0 monthly plan premium. i'm so glad i called humana. humana really makes medicare worth talking about. call and talk to a licensed humana sales agent about how you could benefit from a humana medicare advantage plan. call today. humana, a more human way to healthcare. this halloween, xfinity rewards is offering up some spooky-good perks. like the chance to win a universal parks & resorts trip to hollywood or orlando to attend halloween horror nights. or xfinity rewards members, get the inside scoop on halloween kills. just say "watch with" into your voice remote for an exclusive live stream with jamie lee curtis. a q&a with me! join for free on the xfinity app. our thanks your rewards. welcome back. a mysterious package sent to another country. a peanut butter sandwich. and a band-aid wrapper. all parts of a navy engineer's effort to sell nuclear submarine secrets. that engineer and his wife were arrested saturday in west virginia. details of the case against them were unsealed yesterday. for nearly a year, investigators say, jonathan and diana toebbe were selling information to who they thought was a foreign power. it was actually an undercover fbi agent. nbc's ken dilanian joins me now. what's more intriguing about this case, the broad strokes of it, or the details of how it happened here and how the fbi cost these folks? >> because of the way this unfolded, we have far more detail than ordinarily in a spy case. they were talking to jonathan toebbe and he was laying out the extraordinary nature of his crime, saying he had been secretly gathering this information for years. they paid him $100,000 in cryptocurrency and induced him to do what's called in the spy world a dead drop or multiple dead drops where he placed a memory card in a peanut butter sandwich, that's how he transmitted the image. you can't make this stuff up. it's deadly serious, these charges could result in life in prison. >> do we know anything about toebbe and his motivation? the whole case is weird to me, the money involved. >> he had these secrets because he was a navy nuclear engineer. we don't know a lot about his motivation other than he wanted money. i feel like there's something miss hearing. his wife is a ph.d. in philosophy who teaches at a tony school in annapolis. why were they providing this information to, we think, an allied country, not an adversary. >> that's interesting. >> that's how the fbi, we believe, got access to this in the first place. there was a moment in the criminal complaint where the fbi was sending a signal at the embassy, presumably they wouldn't be able to do that if it was the chinese or the russian embassy, in order to ensnare this couple. >> so the potentially allied company was in on the sting operation too. >> yes. >> what role did his wife play in all this? they were both arrested. >> the fbi says she acted as a lookout during these dead drops in rural areas. he entrusted the details of the operation to her, they say that explicitly in this criminal complaint. so she's on the hook for all these very serious charges. >> are we likely to learn more about this or is this the kind of case where we know as mucher was going to find out? >> i suspect that's how it would unfold. if there is a plea agreement, which you would expect in a case like this, we're not going to hear more about this. >> so we're stuck with our peanut butter version, no jelly, of this story. chuck will be back tomorrow with "meet the press daily." msnbc coverage begins with my friend geoff bennett right now. it is good to be with you. i'm geoff bennett and this is the number two republican in the house of representatives. >> do you think the 2020 election was stolen from donald trump? >> chris, i've been very clear from the beginning. if you look at a number of states, they didn't follow their state-passed laws that govern the election for president. >> so you think the election was stolen? >> what i said is there are states that didn't follow their legislatively set rules. >> the last time, i promise. do you think the election was stolen or not? >> it's not just irregular -- it's states that did not follow the laws set which the constitution says they're supposed to follow. >> that's steve scalise, house minority whip, second in command behind kevin mccarthy, perpetuating donald trump's lies about the election he lost. scalise refusing to say the 2020 race was not stolen. that's a long way from the aftermath of the january 6 insurrection when gop leadership slammed donald trump, squarely placing the blame on him for instigating the attack on the u.s. capitol. as the nbc news politics team puts it today, quote, america's

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