almost nothing. >> this instagram? >> hey guys, don junior here. apparently i got the rona. >> finally got that hug from dad. and what of tweedledumer? >> weekend of happiness. go back to t-ball with our kids. >> america's game, winter t-ball. all the trump spawn are in gay spirits. >> i wish i had some hats. >> or her father's phone number. now back to the movie already in progress. >> joe biden is a criminal. joe biden will delay the vaccine. if you vote for biden, it means no christmas. >> no christmas? jesus will be pissed. now, it is time for open mike. >> to borrow a phrase, come on, man! >> the crowd loves it. they'll surely never turn on him. this has been "this week in covid history." wow. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, october 27th. along with willie and me, we have the host of "way too early" and white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. professor at princeton university, eddie glaude jr., and co-founder of punch bowl news, jake sherman. msnbc political contributor. in a moment, we'll get jake's latest reporting on the ongoing are democrats close to a reconciliation deal saga. we'll also speak with dr. patel after the fda get one step closer to approving the pfizer vaccine for younger children. and it is a key day in the investigation into the deadly film set shooting involving alec baldwin. authorities will finally hold a news conference. we begin with new developments in the investigation into the january 6th attack of the capitol. the house select committee investigating the insurrection will subpoena conservative lawyer john eastman. committee chair congressman bennie thompson confirmed the subpoena in an interview yesterday, telling the "washington post," quote, it will happen. eastman is the legal figure behind a memo that detailed how president trump could potentially deny joe biden the presidency. he was a key player, working out the now infamous willard hotel command center in the days leading up to the capitol riot. the "post" reports the committee requested documents and communications related to eastman's legal advice and analysis on how president trump could seek to overturn the election results and remain in office. eastman confirmed the "post" last night, that the committee -- he confirmed to the "washington post" last night the committee had contacted him. committee chairman thompson after told nbc news yesterday, quote, there have been people who have cooperated without being asked or subpoenaed. this comes as cnn reports at least five former white house staffers are working with the select committee, including former director of strategic communications, alyssa farra. chairman thompson wouldn't confirm that at this point, willie. >> more on that day, mo brooks of alabama is denying that he helped with the stop the steal rally on january 6th but he would be, quote, proud if any staff members congressman's den at a report that alleged he was in contact with two organizers of the rally. brooks, who told the january 6th crowd to, quote, take down names and kick bleeps, as he had no plans to attend the rally until the white house asked him to speak the day before. brooks admitted in july he had been wearing body armor during that speech. quote, that's why i was wearing that nice little windbreaker, he told a reporter from "slate." in a since deleted video, the leader of the stop the steal movement said brooks was one of three republican lawmakers who helped to put, quote, maximum more on congress during the electoral vote count. msnbc has been unable to confirm "rolling stone's" reporting, derived from two anonymous sources. jake sherman, you cover mo brooks and congress every day. i guess we shouldn't be surprised he should be, quote, proud if any of his staff members participated in the stop the steal rally. he was concerned about what might happen that day that he wore body armor to his speech, admittingly. what about his involvement, what will the select committee look at in terms of what mo brooks and others did to directly impact what happened that day? >> they're going to have to issue subpoenas to these people because i can't imagine they're going to voluntarily participate. the big issue, willie, there is a precedent that has been set by steve bannon, that these folks are just not going to cooperate on their own. even if they get a subpoena, they're not going to cooperate. kevin mccarthy said last week, or i think it was last week, he said, well, it is an illegitimate committee, so he has a right to fight the subpoena. which is not true. this committee has subpoena power. it can subpoena people. people must -- and democrats have already submitted one motion to doj to hold steve bannon in contempt. i get the sense that democrats are quite serious here, along with liz cheney. and this investigation is going to go the duration of the congress, straight to the end of next year. there's going to be court cases. people are going to fight the subpoenas. we already see that. but they have to wrap it up before the end of next year because there is a chance, a relatively good chance, better than 50/50, that republicans take back the house, and this would be done. that's the framework to look at this through. >> eddie, if you and i are subpoenaed, we have to show us or there is a criminal penalty. now these have been referred to the justice department, they will, as jake said, get tied up in the courts. it may take some time before we hear that. we should point out for all the focus on steve bannon, he wants to be a martyr, there are trump staffers, members of that administration who are cooperating with the select committee, who are telling about what they know that happened the days leading up to the january 6th attack and what happened that day. so this committee will get its information no matter how long it takes. >> one way or the other. in relation to congressman mo brooks, one wonders if he refuses to answer the subpoena, to testify before congress, will a censure follow? what does it mean for a member of the house to not abide by a subpoena from a congressman hearing? it seems to me something must follow, whether it's a censure or whether something even more. >> certainly. a lot -- the big picture backdrop to this is congress showing it is a co-equal branch of government after the trump administration, while in office, basically said no, no, no, we will not cooperate with anything. the democrats tried to do it once taking control in 2018. now, of course we have a democrat president. trump is out. biden is waiving executive privilege, not helping there. saying, you know, typically you help out your predecessors on matters of the privilege, particularly on foreign policy. they're saying no, this is too important. january 6th is a singular issue, and something must happen. not just to get to the bottom and hold those accountable for january 6th, but to prevent something like this from happening again. they've cast a wide net. former communications director at the white house, other trump staffers called in, many of whom have no desire to be a martyr for the movement. who tried their best, some successfully, some not, to rehabilitate their image, to step back into the public life, try to get jobs elsewhere in the republican party not so controlled by trump. those are the people probably more likely to cooperate. >> mika, there is john eastman, who authored the memo, laying out step by step under the pressure from the white house how mike pence could help to stop the election from being certified. he will be a central witness for the select committee. >> we have so many more questions to address here, and we will get back to this. but we have a lot of other news to cover. now to facebook. if you have ever used an emoji to react to a facebook post, new information suggests you may have been unknowingly amplifying dangerous content on the site. morning, everyone. according to new internal documents recently provided to congress by former employee frances haugen, there were studies on facebook's algorithm for sorting posts on your news feed. when the social media giant unveiled five reaction emojis in 2017, it did not tell users that each emoji was worth five likes at the time. these posts with more reactions were then prioritized to appear higher in users' feeds. stay with me here. soon after rolling out this feature, internal studies reportedly found that angry reactions were, quote, much more frequent on posts containing low quality news misinformation, toxicity, health information, and anti-vax content. despite this knowledge, facebook took minimal steps to lessen the power of the angry emoji over the next few years, before finally changing its algorithm after the capitol insurrection. interesting timing, when they finally made a move, willie. >> yeah. so to bottom line that, a prem premium on that, anger is valued at facebook. top executives from tiktok, snapchat, and youtube were questioned on capitol hill yesterday over online safety for teenagers. this comes after months of outrage and criticism over facebook and instagram's harmful effect on children. these companies trying to distance themselves from facebook. nbc news correspondent hallie jackson has more. >> reporter: for the first time, reps from tiktok and snapchat facing fiery questions from congress. >> you're parents. how can you allow this? >> reporter: those executives from platforms hugely popular with young teens defending their practices, along with youtube, arguing they protect kids and trying to separate themselves from facebook. >> tiktok is not a social network based on followers. >> snapchat was a decidedly different platform where people could come and talk to the friends they have in real life. >> we do not support features such as comments or live chat. >> reporter: lawmakers looking for more. >> being different from facebook is not a defense. that bar is in the gutter. >> reporter: congress could put in place stricter privacy laws and other protections for kids and teens. for example, banning "like" buttons and "auto-play." requiring platforms have a way to flag harmful content and preventing websites from promoting influencer ads to teens. >> we're open to getting feed pak from outside experts, policymakers, parents, about way to improve. >> we're trying to balance the freedom of expression with being responsible. >> reporter: some senators looking for a stronger commitment to support specific legislation. >> this bill has been out there for years, and you still don't have a view on it. >> hallie jackson reporting there. mika, obviously, these companies seeing all the reporting on facebook, knowing the tone of the country toward facebook right now, trying to distance themselves from facebook. the fact of the matter is they have work to do too. tiktok and other sites for young people have been the site of anti-vax conspiracy theories, pushing those to teenagers and young adults as well. >> they criss-cross over into each other, and the information is exchanged. to try and say there is no responsibility there is hysterical at this point, given the damage it's done to our society and our young people. now to a potential only of the potential deal. framework for a deal maybe? moderate senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema both met with president biden at the white house last night as negotiations on democrats' social spending bill continue. the two senators are key to passing the reconciliation bill but have reservations about some planned measures. nbc news reports the problems are two-fold. senator sinema's objections center around how to pay for the package, while senator manchin is cautious about what programs to spend on. negotiations are ongoing, so these may change. democrats searching for new ways to pay for their programs after several avenues were proposed, introduced a new corporate minimum tax plan. they say it would require companies to make more than $1 billion in profit to pay a minimum of 15% tax on that. the white house has backed the plan. last night, senator sinema released a statement in support, calling the measure a, quote, common sense step. the white house had been working to get a final deal before president biden leaves for europe but is now lowering that expectation. jake sherman, it is not just the trip to europe. it's the midterms. what's the possibility of some sort of framework at least coming forward and emerging? >> yeah, i'm very -- our headline of punch bowl news this morning was, like, are they actually close to a deal? let me put a framework around this. they don't know how they're going to pay for this plan. don't know whether medicaid will be expanded. don't know if they'll fix the salt tax. they don't know if they'll do irs bank monitoring. in the last day, they've released two brand-new tax systems, tax schemes, tax frameworks that have never opinion tested, never had -- one has never had a hearing. they've not been judged by budgetary scorekeepers. i understand the sunny optimism. politicians have a job to try to make things seem better than they are. but we have no evidence or reporting, public or private, that they are any closer to a deal than they were a couple days or weeks ago. >> yeah. >> the main elements of this plan are still undecided. >> wow. first of all, i meant the gubernatorial elections next week, not the midterms. more time for that. but there's a lot they don't know here. >> they know nothing. they know absolutely nothing. i mean, we're talking about -- [ laughter ]. >> -- when they say they're close, i don't know what they're referring to. they believe they are in congress, and there should be a deal at some point in time. but, i mean, it's stunning when you think about this. i gave republicans a lot of flak in the trump era about how they talked about their tax plan and how they were giving unrealistic expectations about coming together. but, i mean, a billionaire tax and a corporate minimum tax have been released in the last day. these have never been -- i'm not judging their efficiency or whether they're good policy or bad policy, but we don't even know how much money they're going to raise. then furthermore, we don't know what's going to be in this bill. everyone disagrees. so maybe we're missing something here. maybe i'm missing something. but i really don't see how a framework can come together this week. i understand once it comes together, it'll come together quickly, i'm just extraordinarily skeptical. >> i don't think you're missing anything, jake. the idea that tomorrow, when the president leaves tomorrow, that there's going to be this massive, multi-trillion dollar package appear out of thin air at this point is laughable. speaking for the american public, they've tuned this out a couple months ago. call me when it is over. let me know what the bot bottom line is. if there will be a big deal here, give us one or two issues they can perhaps agree on or trade on that will clinch this. >> i do think this billionaire tax will be put into place. this billionaire tax taxes billionaires who make more than $100 million three consecutive years on equities and things of that nature, stocks. but all that said, billionaires have a way of getting around taxes. this has, according to experts, massive holes in it. there will -- it seems like this corporate minimum tax that corporations pay a minimum of 15% tax will be put into place. how do they deal with the health care provisions, expanding medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision, something bernie sanders is extraordinarily a big booster of, and joe manchin has been skeptical of, and closing the medicaid coverage gap. states that have not expanded medicaid under obamacare, this is extremely important in red states like georgia, where you have john ossof and warnock hot on this provision. >> yeah. >> i don't mean to oversimplify this, but what will joe manchin accept? what will kyrsten sinema accept? the white house is focusing really intently on joe manchin because they believe it is easier to get a deal with manchin than anybody else. again, the house of representatives also a four-seat margin, not paying attention to that, that will come creeping up in the coming days. the infrastructure bill is also laying out there unpassed because of the impasse on this larger social spending bill. >> infrastructure bill that terry mcauliffecauliffe, facing in a week, is desperate to get done. basically pleading, hey, get this passed so i can run on the campaign's final days. the president is not leaving tomorrow but 8:30 tomorrow morning. the clock is ticking, democrats. eddie, one thing the president was hoping to do was get to europe and be able to reestablish america's world leadership on the issue of climate change. he's got a summit in italy first. stop with the pope too. then it is glasgow after that. that is the centerpiece of this trip. it was -- it's a summit that was really meant to further a global commitment to battle emissions and reduce the climate change. china is not attending. how bad would it be? what is the consequence if the president goes empty handed? if the climate provisions are stripped out of the bill by joe manchin. and risks making americans -- america's allies thinking, we can't count on america. >> president biden sought to repair america's image around the globe. we're having weather issues, what, every year? a hurricane, 80 mile an hour winds hitting nantucket today. what does it mean for him to come empty handed? look, i know this is political sausage making. we are a show about politics. i said this on your show. >> also a show about politics. >> this is about politics, right? but we need to get it right. i understand we have to deliver for terry mcauliffe. we have the gubernatorial races and the midterms. but the country is broken. it seems to me whatever manchin wants, whatever sinema wants, right, let's get the bill right. and the editorial board of the "washington post" said it best, build back better is getting worse and worse as we go through this. just get it right, damnit. >> jake sherman, final word on this, and we'll definitely come back to it and be reading "punch bowl" news to get the latest, but what gets them over the finish line? there are invisible deadlines that would be great to meet for the american people. >> two thoughts. what gets them over the deadline is the president saying it is time to end the negotiations. here's what i'm for. joe manchin and kyrsten sinema, you better get on board. this is an artificial deadline. they don't need to get it done this week. it would be great if president biden could go to these global summits with a deal in hand, but it is not necessary. it's really not. i mean, they do have until the end of this year, politically speaking. they don't want to carry it into an election year most likely. these are artificial deadlines. deadlines do help focus the mind, but it's certainly not necessary if you want to get this done and want to get it done right. you don't have to get it done right now. >> jake sherman, thank you very much. we'll be reading "punch bowl" news. we want to move now to the 5 inches of rain and wind gusts and over 70-mile-per-hour winds possible for the northeast and new england throughout today. roads were flooded, and people in new jersey were rescued yesterday. the season's first nor'easter drenched the new york city region in some places. months' worth of rain in less than a day in some areas. in the boston area, the national weather service said peak impacts were expected to be felt overnight with coastal areas like cape cod forecast to experience the fiercest winds of all. let go right to meteorologist bill karins for more on this. bill, how bad could it get? >> this lived up to expectations. 300,000 people without power right now. most of those are in cape cod, up toward the boston area. they had high wind gust of 88 miles per hour. i mean, that's like a considerable category 1 equivalent wind gust. that's the damage we're going to expect to see once the sun comes up. a lot of tree damage, some shingles, minor roofing stuff like that. again, the numbers are building. 300,000 people without power. the storm itself passed almost right over the top of nantucket. this actually was the lowest pressure ever measured for nantucket in the month of october. this is a significant storm for this time of year. the current wind gusts out there, one thing you'll notice, it is really confined to coastal areas in the cape, rhode island. notice that even on long island, the wind are not that bad. islip at 18. new york city at 5. you have to be pretty close to the center of the storm to be in the highest winds. still gusting to 50 in boston. providence. newport, 62. some of the gauges are blank because we've lost power to those or they've malfunctioned in the high winds. they're gusting 60 miles an hour on the islands. the storm will move away today. the highest winds have already happened. the winds will slowly come down during the day today. the forecast, again, severe weather along the gulf coast. exiting the northeast. later this afternoon, watch out from houston to new orleans to mobile. a chance of some severe storms for you. tomorrow, we finally clear it out for one dry day in the northeast. the reason i say one dry day, because on friday, another rainmaker is coming up the coast. washington, d.c., it is going to be a rainy friday for you. the rain will move into philadelphia in the afternoon friday night toward new york city. saturday is going to be a rainy day in the northeast. here's the best news of all, mika. on halloween, we clear it out coast to coast for the most part. we're looking for a really nice trick-or-treating forecast for all the kids and the adults that'll be with them. >> that would be nice. bill karins, thank you so much. still ahead on "morning joe," in virginia's high-stakes race for governor, president biden puts the focus on former president trump. plus, how do you define the term "victim"? kyle rittenhouse shoved three men during a protest over police brutality last year. but a judge has ruled that those men can't be called victims in an upcoming trial. and what we're learning about the possibility of criminal charges related to that deadly shooting involving actor alec baldwin. we'll have all the latest. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. vo: it's always been true, that each generation has a moment to make sure it's leaving the world a better place for future generations. and right now is our moment. climate change has reached a crisis point. our very way of life is at risk. members of congress you have a chance, right now, to pass a plan that finally takes it on. this isn't just another vote, it's your moment to get it right for 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for movers at xfinity.com/moving. all right. here are some of the other stories making headlines this morning at half past the hour. the santa fe county district attorney says she is not ruling out criminal charges in last week's deadly shooting on the set of the film "rust." in an interview with the "new york times," the da says the investigation is focusing on ballistics in an effort to determine what kind of round was in the gun that killed cinematographer haylna hutchins, and also who put the ammunition in the gun. detectives recovered three revolvesers and several rounds of ammunition, both loose, contained in boxes, and a fanny pack, according to an inventory of the items released on monday. the inventory did not list the type of ammunition found. the santa fe da took issue with the descriptions of the firearm used in the incident as a prop gun. it was a legit gun, she said, without specifically naming what kind of firearm was used. it was an antique era appropriate gun. detectives from the santa fe sheriffs office are proceeding carefully with the investigation, talking to witnesses and the need to methodically collect ballistics and forensics. she will hold a conference with the sheriff today at noon. there is going to be a lot of looking back at how it was covered, all different sorts of headlines talking about prop guns, when no one really knows what was used to ultimately take the life of haylna hutchins. there's a lot of assumptions being made, and there needs to be confirmation and real information. moving on now, the judge in the trial of kyle rittenhouse, the teenager who shot and killed two protesters last year in kenosha, wisconsin, during a protest against police brutality has ruled prosecutors cannot refer to the people he killed as victims. but the defense is allowed to call them arsonists or looters or rioters. while laying the ground rules for the upcoming trial, judge bruce schroeder said, quote, the word "victim" is a loaded word. and i think alleged victim is a cousin to it. rittenhouse faces multiple felony charges of homicide and recklessly endangering the safety of others, among other charges. he has pleaded not guilty to all charges. the incident occurred after a white kenosha police officer shot and injured a black man named jacob blake as he was attempting to enter his car. jake, who had a warrant out for his arrest, survived but was paralyzed from the waist down. the shooting led to multiple nights of protests which turned destructive. rittenhouse said he went to the demonstrations to help protect businesses from looters when he was attacked, and that he acted in self-defense. the trial is scheduled to begin on monday. eddie glaude, last time i checked, someone who is shot dead is a victim. >> well, last time i checked, too, that held. it seems to me, mika, let's do the thought experiment. just imagine rittenhouse as a young black teenager. imagine the people who were shot and killed were white protesters. would we have an issue with describing those who were killed as victims? i don't think so. here's another example of the very ways in which the criminal justice system is at least perceived to be unfair, perceived to be bias in a certain sort of way. there is a presumption of innocence here that fits with our criminal justice process, but that's not applied universally. do the thought experiment. imagine a black teenage kid walking through a protest with a rifle, who kills two white folks. see what happens. that's all we have to do. >> yeah. all right. the questions are out there. now to this. a brazilian senate committee recommended president bolsonaro be criminally charged over his handling of the pandemic. the prosecutors will be allowed to try bolsonaro on several charges, including crimes against humanity. the final decision on whether to file most of the charges will be up to the prosecutor general who was appointed by the president and is widely seen as protecting him. but the report is expected to fuel criticism of bolsonaro, whose ratings have gone down ahead of his re-election bid next year. with more than 600,000 people dead, brazil has the world's second highest covid-related death toll. bolsonaro denied any wrongdoing, saying he was keeping the economy going. meanwhile, former president trump issued a statement endorsing bolsonaro yesterday. writing in part, the pair have become great friends and the brazilian leader will never let the people of his great country down. i'm just going to say, we have a story about dr. deborah birx coming up. willie, all i'm going to say. >> of course donald trump said that. good news in the united states, as a key fda advisory panel is recommending the agency grant emergency use authorization to pfizer's covid vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. the recommendation, if adopted by the full fda and cdc, would make some 28 million young children eligible for their shots. nbc news correspondent sam brock has details. >> hey, buddy. ready? >> reporter: a near unanimous all clear from the fda panel reviewing vaccine data for 5 to 11 year olds. >> voted yes. this concludes the vote. >> reporter: paving the way for an additional 28 million children who would be eligible for a covid shot, potentially in days, pending final fda and cdc approval. >> any way we can make it safer and keep them in school i think is worth it. >> reporter: the pfizer data review shows its child-sized dose, about a thirdadults, is 9 effective at preventing symptomatic infection. six in ten parents in a recent study said they'd wait and see or won't vaccinate their children at all. some parents aren't anti-vaccine but have concerns about mandates. >> i'm not opposed to vaccines. it's just so new. you know, we don't know what the long-term effects are yet. >> reporter: and potential side effects. >> definitely the myocarditis, that's an issue. >> reporter: myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart seen in a small percentage of adolescent boys and young men taking pfizer or moderna. experts noted there wasn't a single case of myocarditis in the 3,000 person trial in 5 to 11-year-olds. >> i feel comfortable recommending these vaccines for young children. i've recommended it for my own grandchildren. when my daughters call me and say to me, "what should we do?" i say, "the minute the vaccine is available, get your kids the vaccine." >> reporter: pressing the issue, the looming holidays and cold weather, pulling more people indoors. nationally, covid cases have plunged more than 60% since the recent peak in september. still, there are more than 70,000 infections a day. kids can pass along the virus to more vulnerable americans. >> the primary reason to do it is to protect them, but also getting them vaccinated will help bring infection numbers down across the community for everybody. it is important we get kids vaccinated. >> sam brock reporting there. joining us now, physician and fellow at the brookings institution, dr. patel. dr. patel, great to see you. so this approval from the fda advisory panel is the news that so many parents and so many schools in this country have been waiting for. from what you know from the data you've read through in the last day or so, how sure are you that this is safe for children? >> yeah. willie, it's great news because there were a various number of modeling scenarios the fda -- and also the cdc presented data, unusual during an fda meeting, showing the benefits outweigh the risk. for every 1,000 kids vaccinated, we prevent 50 coronavirus infections. it is pretty compelling, but, no doubt, a conversation between many parents and their pediatricians. >> so, obviously, there will be people in this country who won't give the shot no their children. there are about 70 million eligible adults and teenagers in this country who don't have it yet. those people likely won't give it to their children. but with the advent of this, if it gets fda approval for 5 to 11-year-olds, what are the impacts, as you look out in not just schools but homes and communities and states? what do you expect to see if a reasonable amount of children are vaccinated? >> look, i think we're going to start to see some of the restrictions placed on schools, you're hearing about quarantines that never end, willie. children are kept out of school though there is an option to return in person because of positive cases. we should start to be able to see a more normal school routine, which correlates highly to parents having a more normal work routine. i think the difference here is that parents need the confidence of having data available, publicly and transparently. i hope the cdc makes a special note to say we are going to make data available to the public about how this real world effectiveness, what's happening with the vaccine in terms of safety, what depose on in the next weeks to months, comes not six months later in a morbidity report, but comes on a weekly basis. we should be hearing sooner and often from the cdc about this. >> so this is the fda advisory panel giving its approval here. obviously, there are more steps along the way. the full fda, the cdc. how soon do you think we might see these shots going into the arms of children? >> well, i'm hoping at my own clinic, we're getting ready for the week after next. we need to do this and administer adult vaccines. it is possible by the end of next week, willie. the cdc advisory committee meets next tuesday, wednesday, goes to the director. pfizer is ready. they have these viles, different colors, different packaging, shipped and ready to go once they get the all clear from the fda and cdc. good news for the holidays. >> like with adults, there is the convincing of parents to give this to their children. see how that goes. thank you. fox news coast neil cavuto, immunocompromised and tested positive for covid, returned to his show and addressed the hate mail, believe it or not, he has received because he has been urging his viewers to get vaccinated. >> i had touched on something that is akin to the third rail of politics. this whole issue of mandates and forcing people to be vaccinated. i didn't necessarily want to go there. i did want more of you unvaccinated to get vaccinated so there is no threat of going there. can you update me on what the reaction has been? >> well, it's been kind of divided. our first email comes from john in new orleans, who says, heard you're back on the show this week. that's too bad. that's not very nice, but i figured we'd start off with a kicker. we got tj who emails, it's clear you've lost some weight with all of stuff. good for you. but i'm not happy with less of you. i want none of you. i want you gone. dead. caput. fini. get it? now, take your two-bit advice, deep six it, and you. that's harsh, neil. >> wow. >> i figured i'd relay that to you. >> "soprano's" prequel? >> at least neil can laugh about it. a man who is immunocompromised saying, the vaccine helped me. john king announced he has ms. to hear those guys and somehow twist that into hate mail, that they're out to get other people, it speaks to the rot. >> exactly. >> it is in so many places. consult mated on social media, some cable news channels, talk radio, in this country. >> absolutely. there seems to be an ongoing loyalty test. you have to prove your membership in the tribe over and over again. no matter your political position, you could easily be excommunicated. what we see here is cancel culture. the cancel culture that so many people kind of attribute to the left, we're seeing it clearly right here in this moment. >> those sound like the tweets i get for "way too early," asking why you're awake. jokes aside, it is nauseating for someone to wish for someone else's death because they don't share their political opinion. sure, some voices said, look, leader mcconnell said, get vaccinated. others have swallowed their words. former president trump, let's remember, he got his first shot behind closed doors. that set the tone here. he later, briefly, stepped out and encouraged some supporters to do so. then he appeared at a rally in alabama and was booed. since then, he stopped. well, everyone makes their own decision. i took it for me, so on. he stopped talking about it at all. this is no longer something he wants to. just like masks, it's the latest cultural flash point. seems like it is not going away. >> all the politicians, cable news hosts, radio hosts, they've all been vaccinated. >> yes, they have. >> probably three shots, actually. yet, the politicians are afraid of the base and the voters. cable news hosts afraid of their viewers. we're left with this discourse. >> this discourse and also the concern that our children are not going to get vaccinated, which could be the ultimate game-changer for this country. we're going to go through this all over again, now that there is a vaccine coming up for children. but to the point that everybody is making, in how all these stories come together, even the bolsonaro one, the trump administration was distracted by last year's election and ignored recommendations to fight the coronavirus pandemic. that's according to the white house covid-19 response coordinator under former president trump, dr. deborah birx. in a closed-door testimony that she gave to the house select subcommittee on the pandemic this month, birx told congressional investigators, more than 130,000 american lives could have been saved if the trump white house had taken swifter action against the virus. i believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, reduction in indoor dining, and getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30% less to 40% less range, birx said. when asked directly if trump did everything he could to try to mitigate the spread of the virus and save lives during the pandemic,responded, "no." according to excerpts shared by the panel. a spokesperson for trump responded to birx's criticism, saying the former president led an unprecedented effort to successfully combat covid-19 by delivering treatments and three vaccines in record time. jonathan lemire, willie geist, this is a man who talked about injecting bleach into our skin, who was pushing hydroxychloroquine, who didn't do anything, practically nothing to advance our fight against this coronavirus. you saw an administration and a covid team that was desperate for measures to be put in place and a president that was saying one thing out of one side of his mouth and another out of the other side of his mouth. confusing the american public every step of the way. yet, trying to take credit for somehow saving america from this pandemic. the one good thing that did happen out of that presidency is the vaccine was allowed to move forward, and there is a vaccine today because of work that was done, operation warp speed had some positive angles to it. but this is a president who, in one example, sums it all up. he literally held a news conference and asked dr. deborah birx if injecting bleach into your skin is a new thing that could work. and how, somehow, you can see through everything. i mean, what her testimony is what we watched happen in real time. if you see i'm getting a little intense here, it's because so much has happened during the trump presidency that we've become immune to it all. we've become so desensitized to hundreds of thousands of people dying when simple steps could have been taken from the top down, but he refused to be clear on anything. not even the vaccine. this president, this former president got vaccinated but didn't let the american public see or know about it. he barely, barely got to the finish line here. >> yeah, mika. obviously, i covered that presidency. i was in the white house more days than not. there was such misinformation delivered from the podium from the white house during the daily white house coronavirus hearings. he'd pedal false cures, yes, the hydroxychloroquine, and thinking the whole thing would be done by easter 2020. we are now approaching halloween 2021. he was someone who, every night on the campaign trail, gathered huge crowds. they weren't wearing masks, weren't socially distanced. near the end, they were outdoors but those were traced as being superspreader events. the supreme court pick led to an outbreak leading to his on illness. after the election, he abdicated the responsibilities of the presidency. he went behind closed doors, barely saw him. his only focus was trying, this ill-fated, absurd attempt to overturn election results. >> absurd. >> the winter 2020 into early 2021 were some of the deadliest months of the pandemic. there was no leadership from the white house on the matter. >> we talked about this almost two years. president trump likes to talk about the generals, being a wartime president. he had a chance in february and march of 2020 to stand up there, tell some hard truths to the american public about what we have to do to get through this. we can do it. we have to put in restrictions. we have to wear masks. maybe by the summer, we'll be on the other side of it. instead, what he offered is, it'll go away, like a miracle one day. it'll disappear. he said it again and again, trying to wish it away because it was in the way of him getting re-elected. >> 130,000 people might not have died. 130,000 people who died alone, whose i loved ones couldn't be there. a nana, uncle, brother, father, sister. people in the community, coach. 130,000 people died unnecessarily. so we can talk about trump. we can talk about the politics around it. we just need to understand the magnitude of the loss because of this. i think we need to be very, very clear about it. >> soak in that number right there. 743,224 total fatalities from covid in this country. that is the most in the world. mika, you can't wish that away. it will not magically disappear as the president suggested. >> no. coming up, a bad break in last night's big win for the atlanta braves. we'll turn to the world series. highlights from game one next on "morning joe." paul loves food. but his diabetes made food a mystery. everything felt like a "no". but then paul went from no to know. with freestyle libre 2, now he knows how food affects his glucose. and he knows when to make different choices. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free. visit freestylelibre.us this is wealth. now you know. ♪ ♪ this is worth. that takes wealth. but this is worth. and that - that's actually worth more than you think. don't open that. wealth is important, and we can help you build it. but it's what you do with it, that makes life worth living. principal. for all it's worth. 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[ laughter ]. >> that's the stuff of legend for charlie morton. >> pitched on a broken leg to help his team. pitched to the one batter to give the relief pitcher time to warm up. extraordinary performance. >> should be noted, willie, you have been sitting here on a broken leg, as well. we really appreciate your gutsy performance. new numbers crossing right now in virginia's race for governor. we'll show you where things stand as president biden campaigns for democrat terry mcauliffe with a heavy focus on donald trump. new numbers when "morning joe" comes right back. [suitcase closing] [gusts of wind] [ding] i was injured in a car crash. [gusts of wind] i had no idea how much my case was worth. i called the barnes firm. when a truck hit my son, i had so many questions about his case. i called the barnes firm. it was the best call i could've made. your case is often worth more than insuran call the barnes firm to find out i could've made. what your case could be worth. we will help get you the best result possible. ♪ the barnes firm, injury attorneys ♪ call one eight hundred,est resul eight million ♪ ♪♪ live shot of new york city. beautiful day in new york at the top of the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." >> must be nice to have the penthouse. >> it's not mine. don't have one. >> pick up atlanta braves baseball any time you want on tbs, super station, america's team. who won last night? >> stream peacock, okay? >> how about that? >> wednesday, october 27th. jonathan lemire, mike barnicle, eddie glaude, jr. still with us. joining the conversation, we have white house editor for "politico," sam stein. good to have you joining us, sam. so with less than a week to go in that pivotal race for the governor's mansion in virginia, a new poll out in the last hour finds a deadlock. the latest survey shows former democratic governor terry mcauliffe and glenn youngkin in a dead heat. 49% to 48%, well within the poll's margin of error. it's worth noting the third party candidate, 1%. another 1% are undecided. wow. that's as close as it gets. >> it really is. sam stein, this race could go either way, obviously. it is going to be a battle for turnout. democrats have to be wondering, in a state that, you know, joe biden won by ten points last year, why is this race so difficult? but it is. >> yeah. forgive me, my 2-year-old child just burst in here crying. i'm a little distracted. >> i thought i heard that. >> so cute. >> i thought it was you, sam. >> okay, it was me. yeah, not that good either. to your point, joe, look at the historical trends. if you're the party in power, usually you have a tough time in these elections. just lack of enthusiasm, the opposition tends to be more united. in this case, there are some particulars playing into this. one, joe biden's popularity rating is an indicator of trouble for mcauliffe. democrats are not engaged. whatever momentum, legislative momentum may have been there early on that had generated so much enthusiasm and excitement among the facets of the democratic party, that's gone. that's been sapped. really, what you're seeing is a lingering sort of la maze, actually, from people saying you should be out of the covid pandemic. all the polling data is where the democratic party is struggling. mcauliffe wants something passed, what it is the infrastructure package, perhaps the reconciliation bill. he wants to show signs of momentum. it is possible at this juncture to see -- well, not impossible, but very difficult to see how anything substantial gets done between now and next tuesday when the actual vote takes place. >> willie, it is so true what sam just said if you look at every poll. we're talking about, i've been talking about the importance of democrats passing legislation, the infrastructure bill. that would give terry mcauliffe and a lot of democrats a lift. that's a tactic. the strategy though, i mean, the grand strategy for the biden administration and democrats has got to be one thing. that is getting covid in the rear-view mirror. that's what is driving every poll. >> it is. and every poll we've seen has this race deadlocked. there are no outliers at this point anymore. they're all statistically tied or literally tied. you're right, covid education is another big thing. there was a "usa today" poll yesterday that showed this question that's been raised by glenn youngkin based on a quote from terry mcauliffe, about whether parents should have voices and impact in decisions made in schools. independents, by and large, say, yes, of course parents should. there's a lot at play, including donald trump. president biden was in virginia campaigning for mcauliffe in the rally at arlington. biden, who rarely mentions former president trump, repeatedly criticized the former president by arguing mcauliffe's republican challenger, youngkin, will only further trump's agenda. >> look, how well do you know terry's opponent? just remember this, i ran against donald trump. and terry is running against an acalite of donald trump. he started by saying the number one issue was a call for election integrity. he starts, he's calling for election integrity. now, why did he do that? because he wanted to hear donald trump, which is a price he'd pay for the nomination. he paid it. now, he doesn't want to talk about trump anymore. well, i do. talk about an oxymoron. donald trump and election integrity? terry's opponent has made all of his private pledges of loyalty to donald trump. but what's really interesting to me, he won't stand next to donald trump now that the campaign is on. think about it. he won't allow donald trump to campaign for him in this state. he's willing to pledge his loyalty to trump in private. why not in public? what's he trying to hide? is there a problem with trump being here? is he embarrassed? look how he is closing his campaign. he's gone from banning a woman's right to choose to banning books written by a pulitzer prize and nobel prize winning author, toni morrison. my wife, jill, went to interview her, got her book. let's be clear, this is a guy who doesn't know much about anything. >> wow. >> doesn't know much about a lot. you know, eddie, of course all over america they're trying to use critical race theory in places that have never taught critical race theory to scare white voters. the toni morrison thing is funny, i guess glenn doesn't know, white people have toni morrison quotes up in their house to inspire their children. i mean, that's how extreme it's gotten. i mean, just how clumsy this whole thing has gotten. but there is no doubt, even if it was a clumsy, awkward, ineffective plea to racists, it was how glenn youngkin decided to end his campaign nonetheless. the horrors, the horrors of toni morrison. >> indeed. i taught toni morrison's "beloved" every year for 20 years. i understand it as one of the classics of american literature. it is based on a true story. margaret garner, who escaped slavery in '86, her slave masters followed her into ohio. acting on the law, decided to take her back to slavery. she refused to allow her children to return, and she killed one of her children. that became the basis of the novel. what's fascinating, joe, this is an attempt to stoke white resentment and fear. the question around education is an echo, in some ways -- i know this might seem a stretch for some -- but an echo around the debates of school busing. remember the images in boston of someone with a flag attacking? there's a sense in which this story around education is about a kind of attack on neighborhoods, an attack on our way of life, an attempt to displace us. so here we have youngkin trying to appeal to fear. we'll see what happens. leading up to next year's midterms, nbc news is taking a closer look at seven counties in seven key battleground states. nbc news correspondents allison barber and dasha burns take us to counties where president donald trump is looming large over the 2022 elections. >> reporter: we're in georgia. >> this is new york style pizza. >> reporter: steve pledger brought a slice of the big city with his pizza shot here. >> i love to go to manhattan. >> reporter: the one thing he could do without? liberal politics. >> today's world, i'm a republican. >> reporter: the kind of voter republicans are counting on to take back congress. steve voted twice for president trump. a recent nbc news poll showing 77% of gop voters have a positive view of the former president. just 12% view him negatively. how strong is the trump train here? >> it's strong. it's strong. >> reporter: in 2016, then president trump won this deeply evangelical county with 78% of the vote. in 2020, it climbed to 80%. >> my faith, it influences the way that i vote. it really does. if a republican came out and said they were pro choice, he's off my list. he gone. >> reporter: the gop is red hot in areas like this, but to win they also have to keep new republicans in plaplaces where dasha is. >> reporter: a lot changed since barack obama sat on this stool in 2008. the county elected democrats since 1988. that changed in 2016 when trump won here by double digits. >> we useexcavator. >> reporter: neil's family has been working the soil for decades. he said democrats lost this blue collar county because they're focused on the wrong issues. >> diesel fuel prices are through the roof. you can't get truck tires. though i hate to raise my prices, i have to. >> reporter: if the signs are any indication, trump's support here hasn't waivered much. how much will he influence what happens? >> a big influence. >> reporter: delaware, ohio. the push to scrap obamacare and the protections for pre-existing conditions pushed this man away from the dpop. >> gop. >> would have been a tragedy for a lot of people. i'm going to monitor 2022 and see what the reaction is, how far they've distanced themselves from president trump. >> reporter: but with many republicans hoping for mr. trump to make a comeback, could the gop bounce back without him? dasha burns, nbc news, delaware county, ohio. >> if you look -- say hi to everybody. if you look at the voting, mike barnicle, you look at the voting patterns over the past 10, 12 years, go back to 2008. see the people who voted for barack obama zp -- the areas they voted for obama, and then shifted to trump. it is dramatic in rural areas but especially in those old factory towns that have been shuttered and sent out of this country. it is so pronounced that we're going to see a battle between former democrats who are now republicans in those type of towns and former republicans who are now democrats in the fastest growing parts of america in the suburbs. >> joe, you said something a few minutes ago that is so true, and it's universal. covid disrupted the entire structure of this country. the political structure, the economic structure, and the cultural structure. and you hear that refrain in the voices of some of the people we just heard in that piece, about who was going to vote for whom in 2022. politics is a mess now. people are talking about things that they wouldn't have talked about in reference to politics years ago. i mean, the culture is as much a part of politics today as, you know, who you like or who you don't like. when you think about it, you realize that the republicans have switched, really, 180 from where they were. they talk about toni morrison. they talk about culture. they talk about race. they talk about immigration. the people we just saw from pennsylvania and the other states we were talking about, they have on their mind something different that is never addressed. they want people to talk about child care, about child tax credits, about better schools. but the republicans don't talk about those things. but it doesn't matter because they have culture in their grips. culture is strangling this country in a sense. it's just -- the bottom line, joe, is -- you know this -- if you go around, one of the biggest issues confronting people today are thee simple things. the cost of gas, bread, milk, things like that, and the fact they look to washington and what do they see? chaos. nothing getting done. that's beyond party. that's incompetence. >> with so much of it also having to do, as you said, with culture. you know, jonathan lemire, the famous 1992 sign-up in clinton campaign headquarters, it's the economy, stupid. right now, a macro look at the polls would suggest it's covid, stupid. but you really cut down. you go in deep. you try to figure out what drives a lot of these voters to vote for donald trump. economically, they're disadvantaged by his policies. it's the culture, stupid. you keep hearing about abortion because in republican politics, not only has conservatism been reduced to one issue, but in evangelical christianity, it's been reduced, it seems when you're talking politics, to one issue. that's abortion, which is very interesting because, of course, that's something that has changed through the years. it certainly didn't come from the new testament, the red letters of the new testament, didn't come from jesus. if you look at the history of the evangelical church, they weren't stridently anti-abortion. but it has been used by the republican party as a political hammer. they've used it effectively. now, the people have not only reduced their politics down to one or two issues, they've reduced their religion down to one or two issues. it's very crude. it's a very crude reductionism of christianity. it's really blasphemous. that's politically what democrats and republicans are facing on the campaign trail. >> republicans increased focus on culture pre-dates donald trump, but he certainly has accelerated it with his attacks on political correctness. his culture of grievance here. that plays into, indeed, as you said, some of the symbols. some artifacts of a confederacy. in the name of personal freedoms and states rights, opposed to things that americans care about in terms of their pocketbook, their bottom line, as mike said. the household staples that they really need. but that is what is driving the party right now. it's not about economic issues. it is not about policy. it is about posturing so very often. i think, joe, we're seeing the democrats struggle with this right now, too. where they have right now in washington a great debate over this reonciliation package. paid family leave, child care, it's popular. that's not what they're messaging about. it's the virginia race's final days. biden made it all about trump. they're having trouble getting democrats to the poll not in support of the policies but coming out against the shadow of the former president, who will perhaps run again. that's the driving force here. though trump's name is not on the ballot, democrats are trying to put it there because that is their best chance. >> well, and youngkin's best chance, willie, make no mistake of it, was an unforced error by terry mcauliffe. the quote that parents shouldn't have a say in education of their children, a devastating quote. he's gone back before, cleaned it up, but they've got that quote. they've got that sound bite. they've been hammering it home. it has been very effective for the republicans. that's kept the race much closer than it would have been. >> yeah. in fact, it's been the centerpiece of youngkin's campaign. made ads off of it. parents aren't just mad about toni morrison books in schools, they're mad about schools not being open last year, mask mandates, and other things parents think need to be pushed away. the fact of the matter is, as we talk about this legislation, terry mcauliffe is not going to have it. the president is leaving for europe. they're not getting it done by election day, tuesday, so he has to run on his own merits. washington state's republican secretary of state kim wineman, who pushed back against trump's false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, has been tapped to serve as the biden administration's election of voter security. she will step down on november 19th after accepting the administration's offer to join the department of homeland security's cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency. she will serve as the government's liaison to the states and will be responsible for overseeing the administration's effort to protect future u.s. elections. sam stein, "politico" have some new polling on trust in the u.s. election system, to the point here. what'd you find? >> not good, willie. >> thanks for being with us, sam. we'll be right back. >> bring the kid in. >> yeah. might be better at analysis than me. we measured party lines. as you can imagine, it's split. 77% of democrats say they have trust in u.s. elections. 49% of independents. just 28% of republicans say they currently have trust in the u.s. elections. >> wow. >> if you dig in deeper, we looked at, retrospectively, 2020 election. was it free and fair? we asked that question. only 26% of republicans said that they believe the 2020 elections were free and fair. 68% said no. you ask just donald trump voters, 22% of donald trump voters thought the 2020 elections were free and fair. 72% said definitely not. a total of 60% of republicans said they thought the 2020 elections should be overturned. look, this is -- we know these numbers are bad, as i said, but when you look at them, the depth of distrust, of cynicism on the republican side, all which has been stoked repeatedly by donald trump, is profound. it really does raise, you know, legitimate concerns about whether our democratic system of governance can hold if there is simply no faith in it among one sector of the country. the other question it raises is will republican voters turn out if they do not trust that the electoral system is free and fair? so far, we're seeing a lot of enthusiasm on the republican side, but talk to operatives, they're concerned. as trump feeds this conspiratorial nonsense about the elections being rigged, his voters will say, my vote isn't going to matter anyway. why should i show up? >> that's obviously what happened in georgia in the two senate races. it ended up costing the republican party the united states senate. mike barnicle, these polls show us a couple of things. one, the impact of the big lie. it's called the big lie for a reason. donald trump's big lie has convinced three out of four republicans that american democracy is corrupt. think about that. just think about that for a second. donald trump's big lie has convinced three out of four republicans that american democracy -- >> wow. >> -- the freest and the most stable democracy in the history of this planet, who ran according to trump's own officials, the cleanest, most fair election in the history of this nation. well, donald trump has convinced three out of four republicans not to trust american democracy. the second part of it is, you know, we can't just put this on donald trump. three out of four republicans in this case who are just being stupid. they know the truth. they know where to get the truth. they're deciding that they're going to, instead, listen to and believe a failed game show host. that's where the republican party is. >> joe, i kind of disagree with one thing you just said, that we can't put all of this on donald trump. i think we can. i mean, i saw a poll that showed that 35% of americans, 35%,both republican and democrat, think the election of joseph f. biden should be recalled, he should be recalled, that it wasn't legitimate. 35% of americans. that's a lot of people. when you look around and you listen to what we've been listening to every day, you realize that the biggest story in this country, in the world, actually, is the peril posed to our democracy on a daily basis. and history is a constant stenographer. at some point in time going forward, i probably won't be around, history is going to take a peek, a real good look at what donald trump did to this country. the damage that this man has caused to our democracy plays out every hour of every day. we've both spoken here today. everyone at the table agrees that covid is driving everything in this country. it's disrupting everything in this country. can you imagine the difference it would have made in this country today if donald trump had been pictured in the oval office with his sleeve rolled up, getting the vaccine last december. in public, praising the idea of getting the vaccine. can you imagine the different content people would listen to on various stations? instead of ideology, they'd be talking about what is good for you, how to save your family, your neighbor, your country. instead, we live with this chaos. >> well, and imagine if donald trump, mika, hadn't been lying from the very beginning. the very beginning of the covid crisis, saying it was one person coming in from china. and that one person was going to be done quickly. praising president xi in january, saying what an extraordinary job president xi was doing and china was doing, that the united states of america owed president xi great thanks for being so transparent. or when he was going into michigan, even in february, saying it is only 13, 14 people. pretty soon, it'll be down to none. it is all going away. in march, telling senators to just relax. they have nothing to worry about. in march, talking about -- to african-american leaders, don't worry, it is going to go away. don't worry, it'll go away. it is going to be just like a miracle. talking about how it would be gone in spring when the weather got warmer. talking about how people could go out by easter. >> talking about bleach, hydroxychloroquine. >> constantly, constantly trying to downplay this. lied about it constantly. lied about it so much that a pandemic that has now killed and will kill twice as many people who died in world war ii in the united states, soldiers. he turned something that heinous into a political issue. january 22nd, we have it totally under control. here we are, january 24th, china has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. the united states greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. it will all work out well. in particular, on behalf of the american people. i want to thank president xi, says donald j trump. january 30th, he says, we have it very well under control. we have very little problems in this country. five. those people are recuperating successfully. we're working very closely with china. such good friends with china. and the other countries, and it'll have a very good ending for us. >> geez. >> that, i can assure you. he just wouldn't stop there. now the virus we're talking -- you know, a lot of people think it goes away in april with the heat. as the heat comes in, typically it'll go away in april. we're in great shape though. we only have 12 cases. 11 cases. many of them are in great shape now. mika -- >> oh, my god. >> -- well over 700,000 people dead. going towards 800,000 people. trump and his minions on television said it was nothing, it was no worse than the flu. 750,000 people dead from the coronavirus. the numbers continue to go up. yes, what a huge difference it would have made if he would have gotten the vaccine publicly, if he would have bragged about his vaccine and told everybody it was safe and they had to take it for the good of america. if they really wanted to make america great again, they needed to do it. he never could do that. he lied about covid. he lied -- he's lied about hydroxychloroquine. lied about everything in this pandemic that has caused 743,000 deaths today. >> if you read dr. deborah birx's testimony, she talks about at least 130,000 lives that could have been saved. there are other simple, clear messages. support for science. support for medicine. support in the cdc. support in dr. fauci and his team and the attempts that they were making to keep americans safe. and, yes, keep the economy going. it could have all happened but, instead, hundreds of thousands of people are dead. we're blowing by this every day. >> and the economy -- >> still dealing with this pandemic. and the delta variant, that is here because people did not get vaccinated, not because it just exists, it's here because people didn't get -- enough people didn't get vaccinated. if enough people don't get vaccinated, there will be more variants, monster variants. no, that won't be joe biden's fault. he's trying to get everybody vaccinated. it will be the fault of those who choose not to get vaccinated for whatever reason inspired them in the first place. and i'll leave it there. but donald trump and his legacy is a part of that. it all makes legislaive battles over spending bills seem quaint. but we have an update on where things stand on that. moderate senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema both met with joe biden at the white house last night as negotiations continue. let's bring in co-founder of "punchbowl news" and msnbc contributor anna palmer. what can you tell us? >> well, talking is still happening, but as much as the positive news that that is happening, we really don't have much movement here. the president is expected to go to europe. all reporting we have this morning suggests there is not going to be a deal on the framework. we don't even know the size of the package, how they're going to pay for it, and really what is even going to be a part of it. and so as much as, you know, when we're in the day to day mix of this, it seems like they're making headway on certain issues. when you rise up at the 30,000 level, there's still a lot that needs to be done before they come to any sort of deal. >> how close are they to a framework though, do you think? >> i mean, i think they're likely to blow past the deadline unless something dramatically shifts within the next 24 hours. the fact you have different tax schemes being introduced today. you had a 107-page plan released. it is hard to see not only the senate coming to a deal, but where the senate and house is, they're in two different places. you could see this continue to go on for days and weeks. >> okay. she froze a little bit. anna palmer of "punchbowl news," thank you so much. great to have you on. thank you for doing "way too early," as well. >> sam, you have a new worker in your office. i'm just curious how disruptive jonathan lemire has been. >> well, he hasn't really started yet. it's already quite disruptive. people are petrified. a lot of anxiety among the staff that i'm having to deal with. >> i can understand. >> wondering how passionate he is about the red sox and if that is going to be a problem. yeah, i mean, nothing too insurmountable, but it is a problem, yeah. >> i realized that sam stein is going to be my boss, and i've been writing my note of resignation here on set. >> give it a few weeks. >> i haven't started yet, which is what makes this difficult, but it is probably time for me to move on, sam. >> i will say that would come as a great relief. a great relief, willie, for a lot of people working at "politico." of course, we all remember the lemire incident in 1986. >> oh. >> when the mets were winning the world series. he had his peanut butter and banana sandwich in one hand and a gun in the other and did the old elvis thing. shot out the tv screens. >> yup. >> did it in 2003. i'm not going to tell people what he did in 2021 but, you know, it was -- it was like elvis out of vegas. i just don't know that "politico" want to invite that into their newsroom. >> well, he suppressed that well until he was hired. now that he signed on, the truth can come out -- so here is jonathan lemire on camera, right? professional, innocent looking guy. the minute he steps off camera, mike, an absolute disaster. >> nightmare. >> a tyrant. >> now that i'm not constrained by the traditions of the wire service, who knows what happens next, right? i mean, the stories here on set have been tough. eddie, you were gracious enough to come in today. you put up with my tantrum earlier. so i appreciate that. sam, i will do my very best not to cause a staff meeting, at least the first couple weeks. >> i appreciate that. thank you, jonathan. >> for the expense report, he trashes hotel rooms like zeppelin in '71. it's pad. >> oh, yeah. [ laughter ] >> the fish, the guns. >> no, no, no. >> seriously. joe! >> horrible. >> he's horrible. >> let's go to break. >> he is what we call in the red neck riviera a runaway beer truck. good luck with that, sam stein. >> also congratulations, jonathan. >> yes. still ahead on "morning joe," new york city is less than a week away from choosing its next mayor. the republican nominee in the race joins us in studio next. we'll be right back. ♪♪ your new pharmacy is here. to make sure you don't run out of meds here. and with amazon prime, get refills and free two-day shipping. who knew it could be this easy? your new pharmacy is amazon pharmacy. (sfx: video game vehicle noises, horns beeping,) (engines revving, cars hitting one another.) (sfx: continued vehicle calamity.) just think, he'll be driving for real soon. every new chevy equinox comes standard with chevy safety assist, including automatic emergency braking. find new peace of mind. find new roads. chevrolet. to be a thriver with metastatic breast cancer means asking for what we want. and need. and we need more time. so, we want kisqali. women are living longer than ever before with kisqali when taken with an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant in postmenopausal women with hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer. kisqali is a pill that's significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant alone. kisqali can cause lung problems, or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain, a change in your heartbeat, dizziness, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. avoid grapefruit during treatment. ask your doctor about living longer with kisqali. morning on the breakfast club said he met with gang leaders with bodies. don't just be a robot. people are going to lose their jobs, their income. >> do you stand by your comments about him being a clown and buffoon? >> i think new yorkers have seen the example of the clown-like actions. listen, we're not his circus, new york. >> interesting he calls me a clown. i guess i'm -- >> he mid money so he would not have to pay child support. >> oh, that is -- how dare you bring my family into this. >> less than a week to go before election day. last night's final debate in the race for new york city mayor. as you saw there, got personal. the latest polling shows brooklyn borough president eric adams with a sizable lead over his opponents, curtis sliwa, who joins us live in studio. good to see you. you're looking at the polls we're looking at, have you down by 30, 35 points. how do you change that in a few days? >> remember, i'm also an independent party candidate, not just the republican candidate. i have gone into neighborhoods where the only republican they've ever met is abraham lincoln on a $5 bill. that's where my strength is, the streets, the subways, having organized the guardian angels 42 years ago. it's expanded all over the world. 13 countries, 132 cities. it is almost a role reversal. the republican independent is in the subways and the streets, and eric adams is up in the suites, getting wined, dined, and pocket lined by the elite. >> we've seen this in polling, an issue is quality of life. it is crime. it is going out in the subways, schools as well, but certainly quality of life issues. eric adams has said, that's my specialty. i was a cop in new york city for 24 years. i'm going to come in and change that. what do you say to that. >> i've been doing what i've been doing voluntarily for 42 years. i was the victim of a mob hit. gadi senior and junior. shot five times with hallow point bullets. if he is elected mayor, eric adams said he'll carry a gun. what message does that send to young males, who are carrying and using guns? i've been shot five times. i said, you can't do that. if you're going to go into neighborhoods and tell people not to carry guns, it better be do as i say and as i do. horrible message. you'll be the mayor of the city of new york and you'll be strapped with a loaded 0.09 millimeter? it's like when you tell your son or daughter, don't be smoking, meanwhile, you have one in your mouth. don't be drinking, and you're knocking them back. the child says, wait, i'm not supposed to but you can? why would a mayor need to carry a gun? think about that. don't we have enough guns in america? don't we have enough guns in the city of new york? haven't they done enough damage? >> let me ask you this question. i hear you. i've been watching you since i was a little tyke in mississippi. why are you running as a republican? i don't get that. >> i was the chairman of the new york state reform party. i loved it. you get to deal with democrats, republicans, and independents. andrew cuomo decided he was going to go to war against all third parties, and he essentially knocked us off the ballot. not just the reform party, the green party, libertarians, independent party. it was a war against what they call the working families party. very liberal, progressive. all he did with his wrath is strengthen them and the conservative party, so now there are only two independent parties left. whereas before, there were multiple parties. i've always been an independent. i want more parties, more debate, more candidates. i don't want us to be restricted just by a two-party system. >> curtis, off air before we started this segment, you said, everybody hates me. do you believe that? if so, why do they hate you? >> political ideologues hate me because they're locked in their own prison. most people are very independent. they assess you based on character. but as you know, you have some democrats, very liberal, very progressive. so they put me a box. i tell them, wait a second, you realize i'm campaigning on the fact that you need to be compassionate. no politicians do it, it is out with the analytics. i'm out with the lost souls, who put them in the streets? elected officials, discharging them to mental care facilities. embrace them. the homeless, we disregard them as if they were trash. we don't even want to see them. we need to be compassionate. the first time anybody has run on a platform of animal welfare, there will be no kill shelters. we are never going to kill another dog or cat or pet again. and i live the life. i have 17 rescue cats. >> come on. >> whoa, whoa, whoa. >> in an apartment on the upper west side. >> hold on. >> i got a triple hernia. >> curtis! >> sorry, you spoke to me. i have three in this house. you removed one. >> too much. >> i understand the cats, curtis. okay? i'm all about it. and there is a fourth one i forgot to tell you about, joe. >> curtis, listen, we're going to get back to the issues that matter here. >> you got me at the cats. >> talk about -- because we have a lot of cats around here. >> so cute. >> talk about. >> meow. >> stop it, mika. you don't strike me as the cat type of guy. how did this start? >> this started with my wife, nancy. i met nancy. >> of course it did. >> yeah. multiple wives i've had. >> do you have any dog wives? >> nancy has been a savior for me because i had chronic disease after getting shot. she recognized i had a problem. she medically got me back on track. then i saw that she was managing cat colonies in brooklyn. these are cats, saying they prevent rats, mice. don't use pesticides. >> that's right. >> she'd walk down an alleyway, one whistle, there were 40 cats around her meowing. they have unique personalities. so slowly but surely, she'd bring in injured cats, care for them, and put them out as farrell cats. there was one in particular, hercules. he was beat and bruised. ready to return them to the streets after caring for them. i said, no, we have to keep hercules. he'll never survive. i'm a street fighter, i knew he wouldn't survive. after that, we got them from the shelter. there was a kill list. people don't realize, if they are not fostered out, 72 hours, they're destroyed, euthanized. we take them in, adopt them out. >> good for you. >> the more seriously injured, older cats, we keep because nobody wants them. >> good for you. john? >> so i'm going to have a hard time topping the cat discussion, but i wanted to move on to another matter. there is a debate, uniform workers in the police department, there are members objecting to the current mayor's requirement for covid vaccination. if you don't get the vaccine, they have to go on unpaid leave. where do you stand? should the workers be vaccinated, including police officers? >> oh, yeah. look, i marched with them the other day across the brooklyn bridge. cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers, health care workers. the good compromise, because i've been vaccinated. i want people to get vaccinated. if you didn't get vaccinated, some can't because of medical or religious reasons or you don't trust the government, they get tested once a week. that was working fine for the cops and firefighters. the mayor decided health care workers -- remember, they were our heros. went into the belly of the beast. no protective equipment, some died. they helped us out of the crisis and now we tell them, you're fired. you have no money coming in. you can't qualify for unemployment. what a draconian situation. why don't you sit down with the union heads, work it out. instead of just saying, as of friday, you're fired. so i stand with the civil servants because that's so up just. think of it, i went to vote with my wife on saturday. i didn't have to show a vaccine passport. i didn't have to show id. walk across the street to get a cheeseburger and fries, i had to show a vaccine passport and personal id. isn't that crazy? i mean, why in one place and not another place? then in new york city, i could go to jersey. i could go to connecticut. i could go to long island. i don't have to show any id to get a cheeseburger and fries. is the air any different? really, is the air different? i thought we inhale -- >> you think they shouldn't have to have a vaccine torestaurants? >> stay outdoors. you stay outdoors. if you want to compromise, let's set up a compromise. there are so many outdoor dining locations now. they're like huts. you could park a 747 in them, in some of the streets. so let's compromise and stop turning americans against americans. these were heros, essential workers, who died, now we're going to fire them. mr. mayor, sit down. figure out a compromise with the union leaders. oh, no, he's like michael corleone. only a few weeks left, he'll settle all scores on the way out. in the meantime, these are hard working people who risked their lives, died for us, and we're turning our backs on them? no. i stand with the civil servants. >> curtis, we have help here with our next question. >> oh. >> yeah. >> wow. >> little cat managed to make it onto -- >> curtis, this is little cat. who is your favorite of your 17 cats? >> hercules. >> hercules passed. >> oh. >> tragedy. >> my favorite cat is -- >> look at that cat. >> he had neurological disorders. when we rescued him -- >> how do you know? >> he was falling down. he was like when you drink too much, he was falling down. it's a neurological problem some cats have. my wife, nancy, nursed him back to health. he is my favorite of the 17 because he laid on my chest when i had chronic disease, eight-hour operation. 250 over 140 blood pressure. it naturally brings down your blood pressure, cats. >> they do. >> i'm telling you. >> okay. >> great personalities. >> joe. >> i'd rather deal with my cats than my children, my ex-wives, my relatives, my friends, my guardian angels. i'd rather deal with my cats. >> have fun on the phone call with your kids today. >> yeah. >> hey, curtis, let's finish up with an issue that has become really a huge issue over the past year and a half. it's been a huge issue, and it seems to me that whenever i look at some cities and how they've gotten, i always say, man, this reminds me of new york in the 1970s. a time and a place you're very familiar with. you know, it wasn't too many years ago that "the new york times" was trying to figure out how low the crime rates in one story they had to go back to the 1950s to try to guess the last time crime rates were as low as they are. now homicides have exploded, not just in new york but across america. how do we get those numbers back down? >> i'll tell you one way, because you're talking about law and order and justice. you have to combine the two. because there is a fine balance. and as you know, i'm an advocate of community policing. i lead the largest civilian patrol in the world and in these cities that have suffered from horrific gun violence and gang violence, chicago, washington, cleveland, we could go down the list. we've got to get more community patrols out there, more interaction with the community and i think as the guardian angels have proven over 42 years and many other organizations that don't get the attention and recognition they deserve, community policing is the avenue to do that. and i think once we encourage people to get out and get involved and we give them a bully pulpit and put them on a pedestal and praise them, i think americans will respond whether they happen to be liberal, progressive, conservatives or independent, and no guns. we have way too many guns out there. remember, i'm one who shot guns, but i'm not advocating guns. i don't think community patrol should have guns. i think there's a more civil way to do things that establishes you as a peacemaker. >> on the question of policing, the commission and officers you talk to will tell you there's a quick way to bring some of this down is to get rid of the cash bail question. they arrest somebody, they go to court, they're released, they arrest them the next day. >> in new york we're so pretentious. they had a no cash bail in the state that you're from, new jersey, two years before us. they've had very little problems because in the end they leave it up to the judge, are you a threat to yourself, to society. let the judge decide. why do you have this man and woman in robes if you're going to put handcuffs on them. but in new york we thought we could do it better and we didn't learn from the best. in this case, new jersey did it right and in new york it's been complete disaster. >> so give the judge more discretion? >> and by the way, most judges in new york state are very liberal. you don't have hanging judges in new york state. this is not texas, this is not georgia. what are we so afraid of? the judges have spent years studying as lawyers. they understand the nuances of the law and understand people who come before them, who would be troubled, who might need mental health care as opposed to incarceration. >> we have covered so much ground this morning. new jersey you just declared the number one state in the union, the cats. thank you so much. good luck in the race. >> thank you. coming up next, emmy award winning screen writer danny strong joins us with a look at his powerful new series. 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♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ when a truck hit my car, the insurance company wasn't fair. i didn't know what my case was worth. so i called the barnes firm. i was hit by a car and needed help. i called the barnes firm, that was the best call i could've made. i'm rich barnes. it's hard for people to know how much their accident case is worth. let our injury attorneys help you get the best result possible. ♪ the barnes firm injury attorneys ♪ ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ i had been living with pain for so long, but then almost overnight, i got my life back. >> as shown exhibit aa, i got my life back promotional video, purdue claimed it was essentially nonaddictive when it clearly was and the participants involved were deceived into participating, being told it was a psa for pain relieve instead of an ad for oxycontin. we request access to all marketing materials, research and testing data to determine if there are other deceptions as flagrant as the exhibit currently before the court. >> your honor, statements made by counsel in no way resemble the facts. my client is aware there have been addiction issues in this part of the world, but blaming purdue pharma for this is like blaming budweiser for the drunk driver. it is the fault of the drug abuser and not the manufacturer. the scope of the subpoena is overly broad and the information contained in their request is privileged. >> if there is no liability -- >> what these local lawyers don't seem to understand is that there is a national pain movement that is far bigger than my client and its drugs. renowned pain organizations have not only endorsed my client's medication, but the general use of increased opioid treatment. my client should be given a nobel prize, not a subpoena for materials. >> that's a scene from a new mini series streaming on hulu that examines how one pharmaceutical company triggered the worst drug epidemic. the executive producer danny strong is with us now, he's an emmy award winning and co-creator of other shows. it's so great to have you here with us. this is a personal story for me. we've been talking about it recently, but i had a good friend, a really dear friend who had some addiction problems, went into rehab, had pain, came out. and unfortunately ran into a doctor who ran a pill mill and he got this new medication called oxycontin, and it destroyed his life. that story, i didn't realize it at the time, but that story would be played tens of thousands of times and it happened because the company who sold the medication as being nonaddictive. >> if very concept of oxycontin and how purdue marketed it was a con from the very beginning, which that this drug, this opioid is less addictive than other opioids, and that means everything they did to promote this drug, all the studies they showed, the blood charts, all the materials do say this drug was less addictive, that was untrue, too, because the entire campaign, the entire concept of this drug was completely dishonest. so it's a staggering -- it's just a staggering crime that was committed on the american people and what happened to your friend, they didn't have to be involved with a pill mill to have spiralled down the path that your friend went down. people would just go to their doctors and were being prescribed oxycontin left and right for decades for ailments that they never should have been prescribed an opioid for. >> yeah, and, you know, it's so interesting, danny, just so people can understand just how addictive it was, my friend had been -- he was a great musician and he had been on the road. he had tried a lot of different drugs through the years. he got off of it, he got clean. and one day i remember he was sitting on the front steps of my house and he was just weeping and he said i've gotten through this and i got through that, and i thought through this and i beat rehab on that. and he said, but this, these pills, they're going to kill me. i remember him saying that and thinking to myself, my god, for all he's been through, a prescribed pill is going to kill him? but not only was this addictive, it was the most addictive thing that my friend had ever come across and he came across a hell of a lot on the road. >> yeah, i'm not surprised to hear this at all and i hear it over and over again. what it does is that it changes your brain chemistry. it damages your frontal lobe to the extent that you feel as if you don't have it, you feel an excruciating amount of pain that makes you think you're going to die, and that is what being dope sick. you will turn your back on everything in your life to not feel dope sick. you'll turn your back on your family, your friends, children, everything you have. people end up living under a bridge. and that's one of the many travesties and tragedies of this drug. so people who had no background in drug use, weren't even recreational drug users, they were taking this for an injury and it's extremely powerful, pure oxycodone, and then it does what it did to your friend. it literally changes their brain chemistry. like i said, that is one of the many tragedies of this drug and one of the things that's so enraging about how purdue pharma marketed it. and i actually don't have any addiction in my past, i don't have family members with it, it was reading the facts of this case and what they had done enraged me. i just could not believe the deception and the criminal behavior by a pharma company with a highly addictive narcotic. and that's actually what inspired me to do this story. >> i was going to ask that, danny. obviously you're very busy as a writer, an executive producer, as an actor. we've seen you on so many other things. what was it that moved you to select this project? was it just the anger at what you had read? >> yeah, it was a number of things. there was an explosive story that came out in 2017 in "the new yorker" and it sort of blew up the sackler family's involvement with the opioid crisis. and the fact that there had been this mass deception that i've been discussing and that one family had benefitted from it, and i remember at the time this was -- you know, like i said, 2017, 2018, oxycontin had become fairly exposed, prescribing had come down in the united states, but the article had mentioned that they were now using these tactics all over the world. that they had expanded their base of operations to all these countries where they hadn't been exposed yet. and i thought, i've got to do something, i've got to tell this story so that people in other countries know that purdue pharma is coming to addict people, that purdue pharma is coming to poison them, lie to them, and create another opioid crisis in different parts of the world. the greed of this is staggering and hard to comprehend, particularly because the sackler family was wealthy before oxycontin even existed. they had been involved in pharmaceuticals for many, many years, so there's so many layers to this story that are so shocking and fascinating. and then ultimately how they were able to get away with it for so long ties into the revolving door, ties into corporate tie-in to government, how the people in our government and certain agencies who were supposed to protect us from a company like purdue pharma get co-opted by purdue pharma, enabled purdue pharma. so to me, the story went beyond just a corrupt criminal company, but it went to the very nature of how we regulate industry to the darkest side of american capitalism. that's where it became truly a profound tale that i thought, wow, this explores so many issues, i've got to do this. >> danny, it's willie. it's good to see you. this series is a work of journalism, of course based on "the new york times" best seller, by beth macy, and you start to get to my next question. purdue couldn't do this alone. it had help from members of congress and as we talk about the doctors who continued to prescribe this, michael keaton, who is the star of the series, plays kind of a small-town doctor in appalachia who becomes suspicious of the salesperson. what is the role, you can start with congress, but also these doctors, did they know how dangerous this was but they were making money themselves hand over fist? who in addition to purdue itself, which bears the majority of the blame, but who else can we point to? >> first off, i want to give a shout out to beth macy and her incredible book, "dope sick". she's been a wonderful partner on this project and i think she's a national treasure. as far as responsibility goes, there's a lot of responsibility all across the u.s. government. i think -- i'll get to that in a second, as far as the doctors go, there certainly were corrupt doctors that opened pill mills and took advantage of the situation. however, i don't believe that's the majority of the doctors. i think the majority of the doctors who prescribed this medication believed what they were told, believed the studies they were given, believed the articles that they read, and reputable medical journals that were quoting studies. now, what has come out later is that those studies were false studies, independent pain organizations that were promoting the drug that also helped convince these doctors. it came out these pain organizations were not independent. they were, in fact, either fully or partially financed by purdue pharma. there's an entire con here. there's an entire shell game that existed in the promotion of oxycontin and many of these doctors, i think a great majority of them, thought that they were helping. as far as government agencies, the most damning piece of information when it comes to that is the fda. the fda granted oxycontin a unique label, a unique warning label that said this drug was -- essentially it said this drug was less addictive than other opioids, although there were no studies that showed that was the case. so why was this label approved, this extremely unique label, the first time a class two narcotic had ever been given a warning label like this? well, 18 months later, after the drug goes to market, the individual that approved that label, and his name is curtis wright, goes and works for purdue pharma for $400,000 a year. so the corruption that seems to be apparent, it's staggering and shocking and i think that is why this is one of the ultimate examples of the corruption of the revolving door and how dangerous the revolving door can be for the american public. >> danny strong, thank you, many times over. new episodes of "dope sick" are released wednesdays on hulu. find it, watch it. thank you. great to have you on. we've got a lot of other news to cover this hour. questions continue to mount following the shooting on the set of alec baldwin's latest movie "rust." the santa fe district attorney says she is not ruling anything out, including the possibility of criminal charges. nbc news national correspondent miguel almaguer has the latest. >> reporter: this haunting image posted by a crew member to social media shows the church where the fatal shooting took place. cinematographer halyna hutchins, standing in front of alec baldwin next to the camera. the santa fe district attorney saying criminal charges have not been ruled out and everything is on the table in an interview with "the new york times." nbc news reporting authorities have not yet characterized the case as a death investigation or criminal investigation. >> we need some help. our director and our camera woman has been shot. >> reporter: after baldwin was handed a gun he was told was safe to use, hutchins was shot in the test, souza injured in the shoulder. we now have behind-the-scenes video of hannah gutierrez reed handing multiple guns to baldwin. at one point the 63 yooeld pulls the revolving out, telling the crew he's ready to film. in a separate scene, another actor hands the film's 15-year-old star a long gun during rehearsal, which some experts say raises red flags. >> there are two people on the set that handle the guns. me, the armorer, and the actor. that's it. nobody else has control of those guns. nobody at any time. >> reporter: assistant director dave halls is also seen during rehearsals, according to a search warrant, halls grabbed one of three prop guns that was set up by the armorer off a cart, left outside of the structure due to covid-19 restrictions. legal experts say halls and gutierrez-reed could face criminal charges. what's unclear is if the fatal shot was a blank or a real bullet that should have never been on the set. >> if a real live bullet was in that gun, it is because someone has made a terrible mistake. >> reporter: this morning with calls to stop using real firearms as movie props from all sets moving forward, authorities are getting closer to laying out what went wrong. and now the question, should someone face charges over what happened on this set? >> that was nbc's miguel almaguer reporting. the santa fe district attorney and sheriff's office will hold a news conference later today. we will have complete coverage on what we learn. of course, we'll be carrying everything live on msnbc all day. our next guests have been following all the updates in the prosecution of those who attacked the capitol on january 6th and there are plenty of new developments. a south carolina man rejected a plea offer on the charge of stealing a capitol police officer's vest and helmet and obstructing congress. meanwhile, another suspect was arrested by the fbi in california, having previously been charged in orange county with connection with assaults at a stop the steal rally in december of last year. back in washington, the man accused of stealing dc police officer michael fanone's badge and radio during the capitol riot was released from jail yesterday after disavowing former president donald trump and calling january 6th a disgrace. nbc news 4 in washington reports the judge in the case expressed concern about the toxic environment in the dc jail and questioned if the january 6th defendants should be held together, in a segregated unit after learning the suspect requested solitary confinement to get away from the other imprisoned defendants whom his lawyer said had become almost cult-like. joining us now to discuss their coverage of the capitol riot prosecutions, nbc4 washington investigative reporter and an msnbc contributor, scott mcfarlane and brian riley. thank you for being with us. >> ryan, you've been following this very closely. you're actually putting together a book on those who attacked the nation's capitol on january the 6th. can you give us an overview of where we've been over the past month or two, where we are right now, and what type of justice these people, these rioters, have had to face? >> yeah, i think the headline from this is we're really just at the beginning of this. if you look at the total scope of people who were on camera committing criminal conduct that day, meaning they went into the capitol building and attacked police officers or members of the media outside of the capitol, the total scope of that is in the range of 2,500. right now we have about 650 charges, so we're basically about a quarter of the way there. and i think that's what people really have to recognize. this is going to be a very long process. this is going to be something that's politically inconvenient for republicans for the next two, three, four years. these cases are really going to drag out and the system is really frankly getting overwhelmed already just with the number of cases we have going through the pipeline. every day you can tune in to a new hearing of a new defendant, whether it's a status update or whether it's a decision about their detention. the docket is getting packed every day and i think in the long term it's going to be something that the court is probably going to have to dedicate more resources to. we already saw that on the prosecution side where they're bringing in prosecutors from around the country to help out with this huge scope of cases. >> scott, you've been following every twist and turn of these cases for months and months now. i wanted to ask you something we were just discussing that judge jackson talked about a toxic environment in the dc dal and they ought to be segregated. what does that mean exactly? is something happening to these people in jail? >> for generations people have had complaints, substantive complaints about the washington, d.c. jail. there are 45 january 6th defendants being held in that jail right now. a small fraction of the overall cases, but they're being held together, willie. the inmates call it the patriot wing. it's known more informally as the january 6th wing. there's concern about the medical care and concern about the segregation, that they're being separated, and it was impactful yesterday, that this distinctive high level case, the man accused of assaulting an officer, of taking the radio and badge from dc officer fanone, he expressed his concerns about the conditions in the dc jail. his lawyer says he volunteered to go into the hole, to go into solitary confinement to get away from the others. the judge cited many reasons in releasing him to his parents, home confinement, but really focused in on the jail condition issue, echoing the phrase that it's toxic. she has concerns and a growing number of judges have concerns about the situation in the jail. >> i'm going to refrain from commenting on the nickname patriot wing there, but give us a sense of an update as to what's outstanding in terms of the investigation? do authorities have a sense as to how many people they're still looking for? are there tips and leads of people that have been identified and not caught? this could go on for weeks and months, i assume? >> if not years. ryan nailed it. there are 650 cases so far, but likely hundreds more to come and there's this visceral emotion, so many people feel. they want quick justice. the federal justice system doesn't move quickly in the best of times and the dc federal courthouse, which is home to all of these cases, is getting bottlenecked by the january 6th cases. but i'll note we know the u.s. capitol police have turned over four hours of video from january 5th to the fbi. 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. january 5th. that's because they're still trying to find who left the pipe bombs. there are big questions like that outstanding, much less who is next to be charged for the insurrection. >> ryan, obviously this is a massive case with many defendants, perhaps many more to come. there have been rumblings that i've heard and i'm going to ask you if you've heard the same rumblings about the pace of progress from within the justice department on this case. >> yeah, you know, merrick garland sort of addressed that last week when he was testifying before congress and basically said, you know, for a federal prosecution this is actually moving pretty quickly. and i think that's probably fair. there is this sort of instant tv justice desire that we have where people watch an episode of "law and order" and everything is wrapped up nice and tight quickly. that's not the situation we have here. this goes across the country and you have to imagine the logistics that go into simply making an arrest. many are arrested in far-flung parts of the country where there's not a local fbi office close by. they have to team up with local law enforcement to execute those arrests and then, of course, just the work that goes into the prosecution and the procedure for making sure that you're identifying the right people. because you're literally dealing with a universe of hundreds of thousands of tips that came in and i think prioritizing and figuring out what cases you should focus on has been a struggle for the fbi. in this one case, in the case of d.j. rodriguez, we reported on him in february and a month later he was arrested. it was interesting to see what the feds did in that situation, basically the citizens did the work for them and used the situation to pressure danny rodriguez and saying basically that he could tell his story to the world because huff post and antifa and blm had told the story and he had to correct the record. in that situation you don't really need the confession because everything is right there on tape and that's the situation we're dealing with on a lot of these cases. we see everything happening, unfolding on video and you've really got to question how smart it would be to go to trial, especially in dc when there's just overwhelming evidence against you. so often these plea deals are going to be the best route for a lot of these defendants going forward if they recognize that. but a lot of these guys want to fight this out until the very end. >> scott, let me ask you about that january the 5th tape. in the weeks following the january 6th riots at the united states capitol, we had some members of congress and others expressing concern that there had been republican members that had given some of these insurrectionists tours, showed them around the capitol. i'm curious if you've heard anything, if there's been any reporting to suggest that those january the 5th tapes may have some of those tours that some democrats were curious about. >> that was my first question, joe, to multiple federal law enforcement officials when we learned the tapes had been handed over, is this about the pipe bombs or something else. and there was an unequivocal response from law enforcement, this is about the pipe bombs. and to be clear, ryan has led through thousands of court filings, i've read through thousands of court filings. there's been no reference to members of congress in these criminal records, not even a cryptic reference, cases from 1 through 650 so far. >> ryan, i'll ask you the same thing. have you heard anything on that front? there was loose talk about that from some democrats following 1/6. any information on any january 5th tours that may have taken place? >> we haven't. and i think really this court illustrates why the congressional investigation is so essential here, because the fbi is limited to investigating clear violations of the law when they see a potential, when there's a potential criminal act that took place and they can't have these wide span open probes into broad questions. they have to have criminal purpose. and i think in the case of members of congress where you really want to see members of congress and the administration, former administration held accountable, the fbi is running into sort of a wall here in terms of the restrictions by the first amendment and also just restrictions on the speech and debate clause which make it very difficult to investigate members of congress. i think those are the two controlling sort of situations that people have to remind themselves of when they talk about holding members of congress accountable and holding former president trump and his administration accountable, because there's severe first amendment restrictions that come into place here. when someone talks about let's fight, he also said let's do it peacefully, let's do it peacefully. so if you're a lawyer for the president that's the first thing you're going to go to. that's a very difficult case to make the president incited the riot because of those other words. and i think there's a desire to find some document that's going to say, hey, let's all break into the capitol together and see president trump writing some text message or an email in some capacity or testimony about people breaking into the capitol. but in reality what you had was a bunch of people who thought the election was stolen and the natural progression of that is that you break into the capitol, you actually thought the election was stolen, this was 17762.0, which was an inevitable consequence. there's a lot of moral responsibility to be put on trump but legal responsibility is going to be an uphill battle, i think, for the fbi. >> all right, ryan and scott, thank you guys both so much for your reporting. willie? >> big news this morning on the fight against covid. a key fda advisory panel is recommending the full agency grant emergency use authorization to pfizer's covid vaccine for children age 5-11. nbc news correspondent sam brock joins us from outside of childrens' hospital in new orleans. good morning. >> reporter: willie, good morning. this was nearly a unanimous decision but it did not come with debate from this panel, everything from rare side effects from myocarditis for the potential of school mandates. they decided the risk of not vaccinating kids was simply too great. now within arm's reach, a covid-19 vaccine for children across the country. an fda advisory panel recommending the approval of kid sized doses for children 5-11. >> at this moment based on the totality of the evidence, the benefits do outweigh the risk. >> reporter: pfizer data showing a more than 90% success rate of shielding kids from symptomatic infection. the announcement welcome news to some parents. >> if we can get as many of the kids vaccinated as adults, we can get a lot closer to getting back to normal life. >> reporter: final sign-off from the fda and cdc could come in a matter of days, which means young kids could start getting shots as early as next week. though many parents are taking a wait and see approach. >> i'm not approached to vaccines, it's just that it's so new and we don't know what the long-term effects are yesterday. >> reporter: myocarditis, heart inflammation generally found in younger men was one potential side effect under the microscope. but pfizer says there wasn't a single confirmed case in their study of around 3,000 kids. some committee members wrestled with the idea their recommendation could lead to school vaccine mandates. >> i'm just worried that if we say yes, that the states are going to mandate the administration of this vaccine to children in order to go to school, and i do not agree with that. >> reporter: right now the pfizer vaccine is authorized for kids 12 and older. about 50% of kids in that age group have had one shot. there are stark regional disparities. about 81% of kids older man 12 are vaccinated in vermont. in west virginia, the number is less than 35%. mississippi, tennessee and alabama have some of the lowest teen vaccination rates in the country. vaccinating kids isn't for their own safety but to protect the most vulnerable adults and the cdc updating guidance for those americans, immunocompromised adults were already authorized to get a third full mrna shot. this morning the cdc saying they can get a fourth. now as the holidays approach, despite hesitations, experts are hoping parents will get their children a shot. >> our hope is that most kids will have full protection from this vaccine by christmas. >> reporter: and states and health care systems have been able to preorder these doses. here in louisiana where we are, the state has preordered 150,000 doses. that's only 35% of the eligible children, in line with the vaccination rates here. >> sam brock in new orleans, thank you so much. mika? >> still ahead on "morning joe," democrats are considering a new billionaire tax on the wealthiest americans to pay for the party's pricey economic agenda. nbc's peter alexander joins us with the latest from the white house. and before we go to break, i want to take a moment to thank my friend, lauren leader, for having me as the master of ceremonies at the recent all in together benefit featuring senator tammy buckworth, congresswoman nancy mace and performer dee dee bridgewater. it was to provide opportunities for women of all walks of life to run for office and be a part of the process and we thank you. for more information, you can go to knowyourvalue.com. we'll be right back. so to accelerate growth, should all our it move to the cloud? well, it isn't right for everything. the cloud would give us more flexibility, but we lose control. should we stay, should we go? ♪ ♪ ♪ darling you got to let me know, ♪ ♪ should i stay or should i go? ♪ we have tons of data at the edge, but we have to act on it in real time. ♪ if i go there will be trouble ♪ and we need business insights across all our data silos, but how? 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>> reporter: it's a good question and the urgency is felt at the white house. it really is down to the wire for democrats. white house officials telling me they are keeping the door open for additional meetings with lawmakers and even a possible trip for the president to capitol hill before he heads overseas, literally 24 hours from now. for all the progress democrats have claimed, there are clearly two critical issues that remain unresolved. exactly what is in the final spending plan and how they're going to pay for it with democrats proposing the new set of taxes targeting corporations and billionaires. a ticking clock for president biden as he races to lockdown the most important deal of his presidency so far, ahead of a high profile foreign trip tomorrow. democrats still trying to look at the climate plan and social safety net, with a required minimum tax on corporations and the richest americans. breaking this morning, a new proposal to tax billionaires' assets. the plan could face constitutional hurdles. for weeks the president's proposals have been held up by crucial moderate democrats, like joe manchin and kyrsten sinema. >> the bottom line is we're trying to do something we can that helps people but not put the burden on everybody else. >> reporter: overnight president biden meeting with both senators at the white house. it's been a month-long slog for the president to get the plan through congress and he's had to drop some like paid community college and free tuition. >> the last thing we need is another massive, reckless tax and spending free. >> reporter: and there are global implications as well. not getting agreement on the climate proposals could weaken the president's argument at summits that other countries just join the u.s. in taking major steps to combat climate change. >> number one, we stand for working people and the middle class. >> reporter: failure to reach a deal could also be costly for the president and for democrats ahead of virginia's governor's race less than a week away. the president campaigning there last night, slamming the republican in the race, trying to highlight his past praise of former president trump. >> he won't stand next to donald trump now that the campaign is on. >> i know you've been covering this for days. a new poll out this morning shows this race is deadlocked, terry mcauliffe leads 47 to 48. and that's obviously within the margin of error. >> have you heard anything about the framework here working on, even if they get a framework before the president leaves it's going to be a week or two to hammer it out, get the legislative language, the details. i'm curious, though, is there any talk of the framework being enough for the house to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill? >> reporter: so that's really the pressure point here and that's what we've been trying to listen for from the progressives on capitol hill. they have said, we heard that they will vote on the infrastructure bill and vote three hours later on something else. it doesn't have to happen at the same time. but the bottom line is the white house recognizes it's a real challenge and the president recognizes it is increasingly unlikely that they'll have any votes before he departs. having spoken to officials here, they say he has phones on air force one as he travels and they can continue with the process from there, but certainly there is a real urgency they're feeling to try to get something done. when he walks into glasgow next week for the climate summit it makes his hand that much stronger and strengthens the u.s. position to try to bring foreign countries on board if you've already done something, not with the idea that you're promising to do something. jake sullivan, the national security adviser said they weren't concerned about that, saying these world leaders are sophisticated, they understand american politics and they realize these are complex negotiations. we'll see if that's enough. >> peter alexander at the white house, thank you so much. coming up next, another fascinating work by columbia university professor who joins us next with his new book "woke racism, new a new religion has betrayed black america". keep it right here on "morning joe." saw a racial reckoning for this country with huge protests held in cities big and small after the murder of george floyd at the hands of police, a murder that was caught on camera. so where does the movement for racial equality stand today? in his latest book titled "woke racism: how a new religion has betrayed black america", john mcwhorter talks about how antiracism has more fed into the new religion for liberals. the professor from columbia university joins us now. i'll let you first lay out the premise of the book. what is the argument about why it's hurting the country? >> well, it's actually pretty simple. we have an idea that in order to show that you're a good person, in order to show that you know that racism exists, what you're supposed to do is treat black people like children. and i know that nobody is thinking that consciously, but the problem is that we've gone from trying to make life better for black people who need help to what i really do think of as a religion, where the guiding tenet is to show that you know racism exists, to make gestures that show you know racism exists, but not to actually be completely concerned with helping black people in the real world who need help. what it means is that often you can show that you know racism exists while actually hurting black people by, to take one of many examples, to show that you know racism exists, means that you exempt black people from serious competition in terms of testing, in terms of evaluation, in terms of moral judgment, out of a sense that you understand that black people had a bad past and that, therefore, you have to change the rules. but what you end up doing is treating black people, black americans, as the first people in the 300,000 years of human history who are not responsible for their actions, who cannot be held to the standards that everybody else is held to, with the idea that that is advanced thought rather than tokenism. this is a real problem because i know a lot of people think they're doing good out there and a lot of us black people think we're doing good by assisting white people in portraying us this way and treating us this way. but i think if we pull the camera back and even just think about what civil right was, say, 50 years ago, we realize this is not sociopolitical progress. i think it needs to stop. >> the argument is that all of this is patronizing to black people in america. what's your view? >> i had a chance to read the book last night and i understand the lineage out of which he comes. i understand the argument. one could even see elements of it in ralph ellison and robert murray and the like. there's a sense that black people shouldn't be reduced and we're much more complicated, our lives are more complicated. but i want to focus on a couple features of the book and get your response. you opened the book with examples of woke-ism and cancel culture, people who have lost their jobs. i want to understand more concretely why you choose those examples of e egregious behavior. a principal in texas was suspended because he caught crt or turning points has a professor watch list or nikole hannah-jones was just turned down by a private school in middlesex or 100 reports of violence directed at election workers who disagree with stop the steal. in other words, the behavior you attribute to woke-ism is a behavior that could be found elsewhere in the culture. why are you focusing on that as opposed to what i've just described? >> because it hurts us, and so, yes, there are many terrible things going on, but i'm thinking about what hurts us. and you might want to think of this as a larger strain of idology in the country and it worries me when it's distorted what crt is, although there are major problems with the way crt is used in classrooms, not what kimberly crenshaw wrote 100 years ago. i'm talking about the way crt is used in today's classrooms. we don't need to pretend that legal theory is being taught, but when kids are being taught to think of themselves as opposing cadres of white and black, that is a problem and it's a problem not only for the white kids but for black kids who are taught that the most interesting thing about them is what white people think or don't think about them. that seems perfectly normal in our times. i don't get it and i think a lot of black people don't get it. whenever i see a white person or semi-white person fired because they said something that supposedly hurts our feelings when actually it doesn't and most of us are going about our business and the white people stand there with their cheeks sucked in thinking they've done the right thing by getting somebody fired for no reason, i'm embarrassed. i feel like we're being treated as little kids when there are people who need real help. and all of this virtue signaling is not what dr. king was thinking about. >> so, john, i want to step back and we listened to eddie's example of how it happens to people on the left, you're talking about how it happens to others. i'm curious what your thought is about just generally the spread of liberalism across america. we look at the left, college campuses that you're talking about and on corporate boards, the woke-ism. you also look on the right, "the new york times" having a terrifying article about many of my friends now under sway of victor orban and saying that america needs to follow hungary's democratic path where it's just a narrow view of what the world should be from the right. why this on both sides? eddie brought it up, you're bringing it up. why have we become so much more illiberal over the past decade? >> anything we discuss about what's going on on the right or you think these people aren't open to logic, you have to understand the same thing is going on on the left, the same closed mind to logic in allegiance to larger ideals that actually don't make much sense if you hold them up to the light. and it doesn't make it okay on the left because supposedly it's about black people. it's just as bad and it actually hurts black people. but, yes, it's spread everywhere. i'm not sure ten years ago was paradise. social media has a lot to do with it, the fact that it brings us together. there is nothing we've seen in a very long time that discourages long form attention to graceful argument than looking at pictures online and slogans online all day. so, yeah, this is a general scourge and i don't know if i can compare whether it's more important on january 6th than in terms of what's going on in some crt influenced classroom or someone getting fired or plaque people being taught to cherish the idea that, yes, we can't is our mantra that was supposed to show why we can't do things rather than saying we can. but all of it is a real problem and i would frame it as it doesn't make it okay when people do it in the name of helping black people. it's the same thing. >> so what did we learn here? what is the balance betweendial? what's the balance on history and blatant racism versus the risk of tokenism, condescension and, really, virt u signaling on many levels? >> it's a pretty easy balance. there are problems that need to be solved, and i don't want anybody to think because of my demeanor or my reputation that i'm saying, black people need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. i'm not saying that. we need major efforts. however, those efforts will need black people capable of giving themselves better lives. that doesn't mean showing why black people can't do things when everyone else in history has. the secret is the war on drugs, teach better and focus on teaching education. i didn't say police. we have to work around that. i think george floyd's murder was absolutely repulsive. you change reading teaching, and i know that sounds boring, but it's important. then we have to fund and educate with education. if we could do this, then black america would turn a major corner in 25 years and we would have a whole different conversation. but adversity, racism against racism, that doesn't help anything. it's got to go, and that's what woke racism is all about. >> professor, a quick question here. the first question may be a yes or no answer. do you believe the stream of racism in america and growing wider and deeper? >> i don't care. i don't mean that disrespectfully. we are in a country where there will always be racism. our job is not to eliminate all racism but thrive in spite of it. i don't mean violence, but we must always stray from racism. we're strong people and we like ourselves. i didn't mean that disrespectfully. >> i understand that. if i'm a member of congress and i'm a white guy, and i propose massive additions to aid for families with dependent children. that woke racism on my part? >> not necessarily, because welfare reform was a major help to the black community, especially to women. but to the extent that people aren't getting what they need, then we need to fix this. the studies on this are dueling. it's very difficult to know where welfare needs to go, but it needs to go to people who actually need help. i'm not against welfare. that's a whole different argument. stop helping people, we don't need your help. no, no, welfare is great. the way welfare was in the 1960s, i'm glad it was there. i think it went overboard. yes, fiddle with the dials and switches now to help people. that's not the issue. the issue is what you do in the larger picture. >> the book doesn't read like what you're talking about. there is a staents the end of chapter 1 where you say they're coming after your kids. you know how that sentence lands in this moment. there is a line at the conclusion of the book when some are talking about why are we focusing on this when we can focus on january 6 and the insurrectionists. now we know stop the steal and informing legislatures across the country to the try to disenfranchise voters of color. we've seen an uptick since 2008 in hate crimes. i don't understand what you're up to. i don't understand the political work of this book at this moment. you come out of a tradition, i understand, but i'm reading this book and it doesn't match your rhetoric at all. >> if you say you're reading, i get the feeling you haven't finished it, because i write in the book exactly the sorts of things that i think will help the black community -- >> no, i read it. >> then you wouldn't have asked that question. it's a constructive book. and i do think it's a debate think that i shouldn't have written that book -- >> you said it was a debate think because it lacked an institutional presence, because racists have an institutional footing and they can have an impact. you have no institutional footing for the present violence and i pointed to you the racism. so i don't understand in this moment when we say the fbi is the greatest threat to the country of domestic national terrorism. >> this woke racism isn't taking over institutions, such as the kinds both you and i work in? if you don't see that, i don't understand how you can say that i am less concerned with the fate of black people and what black people do and what is thought of black people than you are. this whole woke racism is taking over institutions that are of great value to both of us. i'm not saying problems aren't happening on the right, but to say why am i writing this and what is my agenda -- and maybe that's the implication -- other than what happened on january 6. i'm as concerned about this as much as i am coming out of the right. i'm trying to save us. >> so, john, i want to ask you a very general question that's been an issue for well over a generation. i'm a conservative born in the deep south. i went to two southern state schools, and i will say i loved my southern state schools, i loved my professors. i don't think i had one conservative professor at the university of alabama or the university of florida. academia at all four corners of america is dominated by people who are left of center, often far left of center. again, i get so exhausted by conservatives talking about what victims they are. it is way over center left. i wonder how it's been that way the past 50 years and what your thoughts are about that. >> it doesn't help that the whole conservative world has gone utter bat you-know-what crazy. that is frightening because it's not a good look. in terms of intelligent conservatism, that's a pro. a bias has always been there since roughly 100 years ago. what's been going on lately are people appointed as our most high-thinking beings telling us that often a radical left agenda is not a proposition but is truth. i find myself comparing, for example, republicans' attempts to disenfranchise black people out of a pragmatic way of holding down the democratic vote is repulsive. but it's also becoming quite clear that on the ground it's not as good as we had hoped. in the meantime, no one can say universities aren't changing on a profound level in terms of the sorts of things one can think or say, what one group can sign as a manifesto for transforming the entire institution. yes, it's a problem. and if you want to say why does it matter that things are changing in the universities and the arts and our conceptions of justice? many wouldn't ask those in other countries. many of those things are a fabric of the nation. what is going on in terms of trying to suppress the black vote is horrible. that's not truth, that's a proposition, and i disagree with it. >> all right. the new book is called "woeng -- "woke racism colon how a new religion has betrayed black america." thank you for being here. we appreciate it. eddie, it looks like mika and i need to come down to princeton. you've offered the invitation. we'd love to come down because this is a fascinating discussion we've had over woodrow wilson. of course, the discussion continues now and it's a really important discussion to have, a civil discussion like you and the professor just had. >> absolutely. we have a lot of work to do, joe, in kind of imagining our way forward. that's the way we are. we have to take some steps, so i look guard to seeing you down in princeton, give you some origin black. >> we look forward to that. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city. it's wednesday, october 27, and we've got the facts you need to know this morning, so let's get smarter. as we come on air, all eyes on capitol hill. lawmakers signaling they are close to getting a deal done on the spending bill as democrats release a new plan to pay for it. a massive move taking place in the fight against covid as well. an fda panel giving the official green light to the pfizer vaccine for children. the first step in getting shots in arms for 28 million across the country. plus, in new mexico, we'll hear from officials for the first time since that deadly movie set shooting amid a new report that criminal charges