well and then talking about it over and over and over again so people know we did it as opposed to saying, we're going to do everything, promising the world, and then not getting all of that done. people leave feeling like, my government isn't doing anything for me. >> that brings us to the open door the republican party is walking through. using the divisions to their party's advantage rather than legislating towards solutions. here's how senator bernie sanders put it this morning. >> republicans all laughing all the way to election day. they have not had to cast one bloody vote which shows us where they're at, and we have got to change that. >> joining me now, msnbc political contributor eugene daniels. he's a white house reporter for politico and co-author of "playbook." and the renee graham, associate editor for "the boston globe." renee, when you look at that polling, what does that tell you that the one thing, the one thing americans can agree on is that the country is headed in the wrong direction and that we're too divided. >> well, you know, interestingly, back in 2014, there was a piece for "the daily beast" looking at the history of that question. where is the country? are you happy with the direction of the country? overwhelmingly, decade after decade, americans have not been happy with the direction of their country. the one time that the numbers were very high that they were happy with the direction of their country was just after 9/11, and that dropped off to about -- it was about 72% after 9/11, and that dropped off to 40%. so there was always a level of dissatisfaction in this country, and that was without dealing with the pandemic that's reaching its second year. you know, i think it would be easier for people if we were at a different place with the pandemic. that this is still lingering, that there is still variants to be concerned about, that this continues to go on is taking a toll on people. i think at the same time, people have to be aware and look in the right directions for why this is happening. in a lot of ways, the same people who are sowing all this dissent around what's happening with the pandemic are the same people who are trying to dismantle democracy. so, i mean, senator sanders is correct. all of this chaos is playing really into the republicans' hands to show that they can somehow offer a better way, but we know better. >> eugene, president biden spoke to the challenges of reaching americans. take a listen. >> i have not been out in the community nearly enough. i've been here an awful lot. i find myself in a situation where i don't get a chance to look people in the eye because of both covid and things that are happening in washington, to be able to go out and do the things i've always been able to do pretty well, connect with people, let them take a measure of my sincerity, let them take a measure of who i am. >> eugene, to renee's point, biden is not the first president to be confronted with poll numbers like this. he's not the first president frustrated with the constraints of his office. how much of this is unique to the moment this president finds himself it? >> and he definitely won't be the last. this has been a phenomenon that will probably always continue. i think because of how the american people view the presidency, right? i was talking to a white house aide recently, and they were saying, you know, maybe we misunderstand how much power a president has. i think that's probably true. it doesn't help there are such huge promises made by the biden administration talking about that. the same thing with democrats writ large. what's really interesting about what the president has said there is that they have come to the conclusion that it has not really served their poll numbers or probably even their policy making having president biden basically being a 101st senator, leading on every one of these negotiations that have been happening in the senate on his key issues and key priorities. they're going to look at him now leaning back a little bit on those things, especially publicly, right? he's still going to continue to call them. he has 36 years in the senate. he has a respect, but i think they want to do as the president was saying is tell their story a little bit. they took this first year in their eyes to get a lot of that work done. they point to the arp for covid. they point to the infrastructure bill that remained bipartisan until it was signed by the president. so now what they want to do is tell that story. cedric richmond, senior adviser to the president, told me that this week, that they have to do a better job to representative slotkin's point earlier. so that's something you're going to see from them in this second year. and every president has dealt with this. however, with the pandemic and everyone's so tired and exhausted and frankly angry and pissed in their personal lives, it doesn't help when it looks like things aren't going the way people want them to in d.c. >> there is the sort of big-picture direction of the country, the division questions. they're also the takeaways here about voters' perceptions of how the economy is performing. what are you hearing from the white house on those numbers? >> i think what we've heard throughout is frustration because there is good economic data that shows that jobs are being created. unemployment numbers are low. but voters aren't quite feeling it. we're seeing in obviously the nbc poll and others that have come out in recent days where people are frustrated with the economy and with the cost of living. that has been a big issue and we'll continue to see people express concern about the rising cost at the grocery store, inflation. we're going to be hearing a lot about that, and it's a tricky message for the white house. it's been hard for them to sort of talk about the economy because on the one hand, they want to tout this economic progress that they say we've made in sort of pointing to these unemployment numbers. but then also they don't want to seem disconnected from the average voter, who clearly is still feeling frustrated. so i think as the president goes out on the road and travels and tries to sell his agenda, that's going to be sort of a tricky balance for him to walk, to make sure that he's not coming off as sort of ignorant of people's feelings. and something he said, you know, even at the press conference this week is he knows how to connect with voters. so he needs to be able to show that in this economic message. >> right. and, renee, the economy, like everything else, happening against the backdrop of the reality of this pandemic. you wrote that, quote, confusion is also a covid-19 variant. tell me more. >> yeah. i think what i was thinking about when i wrote that was just all these sort of confusing messages that were coming from the cdc. so it was like, well, do this but not that. you know, not getting behind that we have to wear different masks, not changing the definition of what it means to be fully vaccinated. i felt there was just to much back and forth. there are lots of people in this country who want to do the right thing, who want to practice the right mitigation protocols, but they need direction from the government. and if the message keeps changing day to day, that frustrates a lot of people. that also feeds the people who don't want to do the right thing, who are anti-vax and say why do we risen to a government that can't get its message right? i think it's been hard on a lot of americans that the cdc can't seem to get out of its own way. we're talking about the federal agency that leads the country. they've got to get it together. they've got to get it right. some of this stuff seems very easy, and i'm not saying they're not trying to do the best job they can. i feel like they've been way too befuddled. >> nbc found the gop has much liar levels of enthusiasm. 61% of republicans versus only 47% of democrats saying they're very interested in the midterms. i am a poll nerd. i know you're a poll nerd. you look at lots of polls. they're all the sort of caveats we say about these are the numbers you see. how much of that is true? how much of that is just the context of this could be any midterm, and how much of is this the context of this specific midterm? >> i think that you're 100% right. that is something that we see before every midterm, the people not in power are pissed the most, and they want the power back. but i also think, you know, something that democrats need to watch out for is that you have -- you had independents in some of those white suburban republicans who voted for president biden, who did it because president biden said that he was going to bring the country together, an impossible task, it seems, for any president at this point in history, especially when you have a former president out lying about the past election. so those people are pissed off, and you also have progressives in the democratic party who are not happy. then you have black voters, the base of the democratic party, also looking for a reason to come out and vote. so democrats have their hands very, very full. you talk to them behind closed doors, they're concerned. they feel like this can be a really decimating midterm for them, but they also say that there's some hope, a glimmer of hope. i don't know if it's true or not, but they feel like with president trump out there kind of messing around in the republican primaries, if he gets too many marjorie taylor greenes in some of those battleground districts in winning the primary and going into the general, democrats feel like they have a better chance. so they feel like if they could figure out the messaging, which they have yet to do, and then also allow the republican party to do what it's doing in excising people who simply say that january 6th was bad and that the election wasn't stolen, that they have a good chance. is that true? we'll have to see. but the polling doesn't look good for democrats at this point. >> tarini, i appreciate that renee at the top of this segment sort of threw cold water on that question about the future of the country inas much as people might look at those numbers and think they're alarming. i have to say those polarization numbers, part of what drew my attention, there's both deep concern that we've reached a point where government can no longer solve major issues. we know which party that benefits. at the same time, we're seeing more and more extreme candidates being elected to office even as voters seem to be concerned about polarization. help it make sense. >> yeah. i think this is a very complicated issue. and, yes, we've seen, you know, pessimism from voters over the last few election cycles. but as you point out, we are seeing more extreme candidates from both parties, you know, start campaigning and running in elections, and the problematic number that i'm finding in a lot of these polls is trust in institutions. so, you know, it doesn't really matter in some ways who voters decide to elect if they don't believe in those institutions. and we've seen a dramatic fall, you know, from institutions like even the media or congress. people don't trust who they're voting for, and i think that is one of the big problems ahead of the midterms. and a number that really is going to be hard to turn around with so much misinformation, you know, especially in an election year. >> i would argue that is a long tail of the trump presidency. we're going to talk about it later in the show. my panel is sticking with me. next, new details in the january 6th investigation. the committee talking to former attorney general bill barr. what we know about that conversation. plus anti-vax advocates march on washington to protest covid mandates and spread their misinformation as health officials say the omicron spread could hit its peak by next month. and would former president trump hang his own kids out to dry to save himself? 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(announcer) aerotrainer's ergodynamic design and four patented air chambers create maximum muscle activation for better results in less time. it allows for over 20 exercises. do the aerotrainer super crunch, push ups, aero squat. it inflates in 30 seconds. aerotrainer is tested to support over 500 pounds. lose weight, look great, and be healthy. go to aerotrainer.com. that's a-e-r-o trainer.com. today we're learning the january 6th committee has already spoken with former attorney general william barr. >> we've had conversations with the former attorney general already. we have talked to department of defense individuals. we have concern that our military was part of this big lie on promoting that the election was false. so if you are using the military to potentially seize voting machines even though it's a discussion, the public needs to know. >> congressman thompson there talking about the bombshell revelations uncovered in a trump white house draft executive order directing the u.s. military to seize voting machines in battleground states. last night i talked to msnbc terrorism analyst malcolm nance about the seriousness of that draft and the real threat posed by the former president. >> this was an executive order drafted within the white house, placed within the classified communications systems of the president, referencing top-secret other documents, which means that this was a very, very serious document. and what we should do is we should spread this all over and really show everyone that this was a coup d'etat, that the president planned to overturn the government with force. >> our planl is back with us. tarini, we got more details about barr's involvement from congresswoman zoe lofgren. this is what she had to say today on msnbc. take a listen. >> he has voluntarily agreed to have discussions and has had discussions with staff lawyers. obviously there are a lot of things i didn't agree with with the former attorney general, but he did make clear publicly that the claims of election fraud made by the former president were baseless. i think he used a different word, and left the administration, and he is, i'm sure, telling the honest truth of what he knows, and we appreciate it. >> tarini, talk us through the role barr might play in this investigation. >> i mean, he obviously had a very high-profile role in this administration, and we know he was one of those people trying to resist some of the former president's efforts to overturn the election. so the fact that he has been voluntarily talking to the committee is obviously a very big deal and adds to the hundreds of pages and documents that they have adds to all the several witnesses that they've already spoken to as they are sort of on this time crunch here, trying to figure out as much as they can about the president's efforts to overturn the election before the midterm elections. we know that republicans have said that they're going to disband the committee if they take control of the house, so there is a time crunch here. and so, you know, people like bill barr stepping forward to talk to the committee, offering up some details like the one that was just revealed, is very significant. >> yeah. i mean, eugene, tarini alluded to it there. you had the congresswoman alluding to it. you several members of trump's inner circle that have declined to participate with the january 6th committee at all, right? so when i listen to that interview with congresswoman lofgren, what is most interesting to me is that barr is willing to have informal talks with them. what does that tell you? >> yeah. it tells us that there is a group of people who worked for donald trump who are not going to do -- you know, take the mark meadows path, who aren't going to take the steve bannon path. they are going to sit down with this committee, have sat down with this committee, and tell them what they know. and i think what's really interesting, we spend a lot of time focusing on the folks who haven't. that has been a lot of coverage, and we should. it's huge if they don't want to talk. but the committee has -- they've talked to more than 300 people up and down the totem pole of the then-trump administration. but folks like william barr, folks like the chief of staff to vice president mike pence, those are significant because they are in the room that most people aren't. they're in the room when the president is talking about or possibly talking about overturning the election, when they're creating these blueprints or possibly in the room when they're creating these blueprints about how you would do something like this, how you would overturn an election. so that is what the committee wants to see and is going to continue to see. i mean they're telling a story not just about the actual day of january 6th but the months and months that led up to january 6th. i think that is probably even more key because the frame of mind that folks were in, in the trump administration at the time of january 6th is key to the investigation. >> renee, congressman bennie thompson said today because there are so many documents that the committee is reviewing, and as a former paralegal, i think of the people who are going to be going through those documents and how time consuming that is going to be. the committee is not going to hold public hearings until spring. how critical is it for voters to see these hearings before the midterm elections? >> i think it's hugely important. i think the hearings have to be public. you know, when i was a kid, like in single digits, i can remember my grandfather every single day watching the watergate hearings. he felt that he had a stake in what was going on. he wanted to know every single thing he could and what was happening. this is so beyond watergate that there's no way for the american people, whose democracy is on the line, should not be seeing every bit of this. and, you know, i understand what chairman thompson is saying, but i want to see everything. i want it out there in the air and in the open. i think it's the best way for the american people to understand exactly what happened. look, i think there are people in this country who are even having a kind of insurrection fatigue. they're tired of hearing about it. it's a year after what happened. but it is too important what happened that day, and as eugene mentioned, all the plotting that went into it, weeks and months in advance, for the american people not to see exactly what's going on and what happened. >> i mean, eugene, there may be people who have insurrection fatigue. i think there are also a lot of people who feel that accountability is more critical now than ever and that sense of urgency builds the closer and closer we get to the midterm elections. we've yet to see the house move to subpoena members of congress -- kevin mccarthy, jim jordan, scott perry have all refused to -- assuming the committee believes these members have such information germane to the events of january 6th, the real question is whether the house has the political will to impose available punitive sanctions for the willful refusal to comply with lawful subpoenas. eugene, do they have that political will? >> yeah. i mean we don't know right now, right? that is -- they have said over and over, though, that everything is on the table. you know, from talking to donald trump, trying to subpoena possibly donald trump, to maybe subpoenaing members of congress. and i think it's important to note how unprecedented all of this is as we always should, just the fact that we're having this conversation where they feel like that members of congress have information about the president trying to subvert the will of the american people enough to where they're thinking about and talking about subpoenaing those folks. and that's one thing. but they also know that this opens up almost every member of congress in the future to something like this happening, right? so that is -- those are the things they have to weigh in. how important it is to make sure once they create this precedent, whether or not that is something they're okay with. i think they would probably say, you know, we don't have anything to hide, but we heard jim jordan say that before, and now he's not working with the committee. but this committee is very serious about getting to the bottom of these things, and a lot of it happened in plain view. we heard a lot of folks talk about their own conversations with donald trump that day. kevin mccarthy, for example, telling people that he talked to donald trump. so they want to hear from those folks and whether or not they are -- they do it voluntarily. if they throw them a subpoena, that's going to be something that this country has never seen before. >> eugene, tarini, renee, thank you all so much. next, anti-vaccine protesters march in washington. a report from the ground and a conversation with dr. uche blackstock about where the u.s. stands with vaccines, mandates, and the omicron variant. and later, how gen z is channeling their fear and their passion to save america. the author of the book "fight" joins me. e book "fit"gh joins me (burke) you get a whole lot of something with farmers policy perks. 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that's not happening. and i will bring every single gun loaded and ready to -- i will call every -- >> amelia king, who you heard there, has since apologized for what she called, quote, a poor choice of words. for more, i want to bring msnbc medical contributor dr. uche blackstock, the founder and ceo of advancing health equity. dr. blackstock, what goes through your mind as you watch all of those people descend on washington, d.c. to express their dissatisfaction with vaccine mandates? >> alicia, thank you so much for having me. to be honest, it kind of feel likes the twilight zone because we know that vaccine mandates work. as you mentioned a little bit earlier, vaccine mandates have been around probably since the mid-19th century when we first had mandates for smallpox. they've been around in most schools since the 1970s. they were upheld by the supreme court in 1905, and we know that vaccine mandates are going to save lives, many lives. we see the data already, the differences between people who are unvaccinated and vaccinated in terms of hospitalization rates and death rates. and we know that being vaccinated is incredibly important to ending this pandemic. i just think it's important for your viewers to understand that these mandates are about keeping workplaces safe, keeping businesses safe, and, you know, no one has the right to infect somebody else. so that's why, you know, these public health measures are incredibly important. i will say that the legal challenges that have fallen, you know, over the last few months in terms of the federal mandate and the business mandate are really quite unfortunate because they're going to lead to the pandemic being prolonged. >> well, to that point, earlier dr. fauci expressed optimism about omicron cases peaking in the u.s. take a listen. >> but if the pattern follows the trend that we're seeing in other places, such as the northeast, i believe that you will start to see a turnaround throughout the entire country. we don't want to get overconfident, but they all look like they're going in the right direction right now. >> okay. so as someone who understands these numbers better than i do, talk us through what it is that you are looking for, what it is that someone like dr. fauci is looking for as he makes that assessment. and if we are, in fact, headed to a point where omicron -- the surge is going to peak, do you think that then leads to some of the restrictions being lifted? >> alicia, what i'll say is this. i'll say that, you know, we know that in the original hot spots where omicron peaked, those cases are coming down. we know, however, that death is a lagging indicator, so we're seeing significant number of deaths in those areas still. we're still seeing quite high hospitalization rates. we'll probably see that same peak and decline in other parts of the country later. but what i think is really important is to recognize that there still are a tremendous number of cases and hospitalizations and deaths. so i think that even talking about lifting restrictions, yeah, it's too premature. actually, my concern is what are we going to do with the next variant or the next surge? because we essentially are wide open as a country. we really don't have any mask mandates. most states do not have indoor mask mandates. most don't have capacity restrictions in businesses or physical distancing policies. and so what are we going to do the next time a variant like omicron comes around? how are we going to prepare because i would say this time we were caught behind, and we don't need to be caught behind. we need to make sure that, yes, everyone should have high-quality masks. everyone should be able to access rapid testing. but what are we going to do policy-wise in terms of keeping americans safe on a local, state, and federal level that we haven't been doing? and that's the reason why, you know, the u.s. is an outlier. we have such a tremendous number of deaths due to covid-19, and that's what we need to be thinking about right now. >> all right. dr. uche blackstock, as always, thank you for your time and for your expertise. next, florida republicans push a bill that would shield people from discomfort over teaching unflattering parts of u.s. history. a state senator joins me next to talk about it. and later, inside florida's dark money scandal. who is funding ghost candidates and why they're dangerous to our democracy. but first, a preview of what's to come tonight on msnbc. coming up tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the mehdi hasan show, could senator kyrsten sinema be facing an intense primary season backlash from our party. i'll talk with ruben gallego about the future of arizona and american politics. catch the mehdi hasan show tonight at 8:00 eastern here on msnbc. msnbc. for some,... ...this is where their keytruda story begins. keytruda—a breakthrough immunotherapy that may treat certain cancers. one of those cancers is advanced melanoma, which is a kind of skin cancer where keytruda may be used when your melanoma has spread or cannot be removed by surgery. keytruda helps your immune system fight cancer... ...but can also cause your immune system to attack healthy parts of your body. this can happen during or after treatment and may be severe and lead to death. see your doctor right away if you have cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, diarrhea, severe stomach pain or tenderness, severe nausea or vomiting, headache, light sensitivity, eye problems, irregular heartbeat, extreme tiredness, constipation, dizziness or fainting, changes in appetite, thirst, or urine, confusion or memory problems, muscle pain or weakness, fever, rash, itching, or flushing. these are not all the possible side effects. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions, including immune system problems, or if you've had an organ transplant, had or plan to have a stem cell transplant, or have had radiation to your chest area or a nervous system condition. today, keytruda is fda-approved to treat 16 types of advanced cancer, and is being studied in hundreds of clinical trials exploring ways to treat even more types of cancer. it's tru. keytruda from merck. see the different types of cancer keytruda is approved to treat at keytruda.com, and ask your doctor if keytruda can be part of your story. ♪♪ and ask your doctor if keytruda [ sneezing ] are your sneezes putting your friends in awkward positions? 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[ applause ] >> wow. desantis isn't acting alone. a study of race and race relations has been under attack by schools across the country. 25 states considered legislation and 9 enacted laws last year to limit how schools can discuss race as part of a campaign to block so-called critical race theory. joining me now, florida state senator shevrin jones. senator jones, tell me what is happening in your state. what is this about? >> first, i want to thank you so much for having me. i do know what it's about. i do know that i stopped calling it critical race theory, and i just call it the way it is. it is the governor who have been touting this across the country and across the state of florida and trying to stop the teaching of true american black history. he called it the individual freedom bill, but this title is simply a guise for people who are not familiar with the process. clearly they pick and choose which freedoms and for whom they support. this is not a bill about freedom. this is a bill to totally distort what true american history is. >> so for those who just may not understand it on its face, explain how limiting discussions on race, on discrimination, is, one, harmful, and, two, really limits one's ability to teach actual history. >> absolutely. i mean when i was in elementary school, middle school and even in high school, i was in an integrated school so there were quite a few hispanics. there were whites. there were indigenous. there were asians in my class, and we had discussions about race. we had discussions about black history. at no time did any of the students, at no time did any of the parents have any disagreement about being taught these discussions. as a matter of fact, we were even taught about jewish history. we appreciated those discussions because we know what history is. but we know what this is right now. governor desantis is following directly behind what donald trump was trying to do, and that was to totally delegitimize what's happening in true american history. more specifically, black history as we speak right now. >> here's what we're talking about governor desantis, and i played you that clip which was like a grab bag of words that are meant to motivate his base, right? wokism, delegitimizing, freedom. they're sort of all strung together with some verbs. it's not just him, though. it's also republicans in the state who are following in suit. >> and you're right because if you look at what's happening right now, it rallies up the base. it's rallied up the base, and because of that, governor desantis has fallen behind that. governor desantis has touted this on fox news. he has gone to conventions to talk about the same thing, and he has brought this same type of national politics to the state of florida, knowing good and well that critical race theory is not even taught inside of our schools. in fact, the freedoms that this bill claims to protect will already written into florida statutes through the florida civil rights acts of 1992 which protects individuals from discrimination based on race, based on color, based on religion, based on sex, national origin, age, and more. we know exactly what this is. governor desantis know what this is also. >> every time i see him behind a podium which says stop woke act, it feels like i'm watching some parody. here's my question to you, senator, which is how do democrats counterpunch this. you have republicans solving for a problem that doesn't exist. they are -- i can't tell if they're getting people riled up about it or if they are following in the line of people who are already riled up about this. how, then, do democrats say, this isn't good for our kids, this isn't good for our state. here's what we need to be doing instead? >> the truth is, i'll tell you what the democrats should be doing. we should tell the truth. the democrats should make sure that we are pushing for what true black history is because, again, critical race theory is their scapegoat because critical race theory is a 40-year concept that has been around for an extremely long time. and so we just need to make sure that we're telling the truth, telling the truth about segregation, telling the truth about red lining, telling the truth about the jim crow era and making sure that we are clear that, you know what? the republicans are using this as their read meat. and by no means -- and let be clear. by no means are we saying that parents should not be involved in their child's education. as a matter of fact, i appreciate the fact that parents are involved in their child's education. they should be involved in their child's education. but this issue about race, this issue about critical race theory did not become an issue until the republicans and donald trump made it one. >> state senator shevrin jones, thank you so much for your time. next, a short documentary chronicling life inside an immigration detention center during the pandemic. it is getting a ton of oscar buzz. you're not going to want to miss this one. plus, what is next for ivanka trump? 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