passed in 19 states and after months of pressure and pleading from activists on democrats to do something, to do anything to stop this wave of voters suppression and nullification laws, the united states senate has now taken up a last ditch effort to try to pass federal voting rights legislation. debate on a sweeping bill that combines the two key voting proposals, the jon lewis voting rights act and the freedom to vote act, began just a few hours ago. democrats are pressing ahead even though the bill is doomed to ultimately fail. given the plans by the gop to filibuster and the fact that senators joe manchin and sinema and perhaps others are unwilling to reform the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. senate democrats took to the floor to send the message that the fight for federal voting rights legislation is still a necessary effort. that will ultimately reveal who s on the side of democracy and who s not. win, lose, our draw, members of this chamber were electe
to a coup in a year later. our democracy remains at risk. today, that risk isn t from a group of men making their way up the capitol steps but from an coordinated nationwide attack. tomorrow, the u.s. will mark martin luther king junior day. every year, we celebrate the life, work, and legacy of the civil rights giant. but tonight, on the heels of yet another voting right failure, i want to play these words from king in 1963. i think the tragedy is that we have a congress with a senate that has a minority of missed guided senators that will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting. they want the majority senate for. and sooner they would want the majority of people to vote because they know they do not represent the majority of the american people. now that tragedy king spoke about almost six decades ago is still playing our country today almost down to a word. this weekend, kings family rallied in arizona, pushed for voting rights, home state of
a very good day to all of you from msnbc world headquarters in new york. welcome to alex witt reports. we re beginning with the breaking news, a tsunami advisory currently in effect for the entire pacific coast as well as alaska. it comes after an underwater volcano erupted early this morning off the coast of tonga in the pacific ocean. you can see here that nation s largest island was hit by some pretty big waves. just last hour, though, hawaii ended their tsunami advisory. no major damage or injuries being reported at this hour, only some minor flooding. let s go right to nbc s guad venegas. i m going to be honest and tell you i got an email from a friend from new port beach saying they were alarmed about it and wanted to know what the latest was. reporter: right, so, a lot of people saw the alerts. they ve been seeing posts on social media talking about the tsunami. a lot of the images that we ve seen that we were just showing come from tonga. this is where they did
house panel have privately agonized over how aggressive to be in pursuing sitting members of congress, weighing their desire for information about lawmakers direct interactions with former president trump against a potential legal difficulty and political consequences of doing so. now they are wrestling with whether to subpoena mccarthy, the man who is line to be speaking if republicans retake the house this november, setting in motion a process that could potentially lead to a democratic-controlled house holing him in contempt of congress with the midterm elections looming. investigators have rarely encountered such a situation. it is a situation with hefty stakes for their institution and their investigation as well given mccarthy s many conversations and meetings with the expresident, and given that questions are mount being what was said during those interactions. just days after the insurrection, kevin mccarthy told a local california radio host in an interview he proba
democrats to pass voting rights. and what looks like seriously encouraging data on the omicron surge when all in starts right now. good evening from new york. the committee investigating the january 6th insurrection is asking that the top republican in the house, kevin mccarthy come and give them testimony before them. this is the man poised to become speaker of the house should republicans take back control in the midterm elections which is certainly a strong possibility. before that happens, they want to hear about what mccarthy knows about the insurrection. in a letter to mccarthy released this afternoon, the committee writes they request his voluntary cooperation on a range of critical topics including conversations with donald trump before, during, after the violent january 6th attack. in ways kevin mccarthy is at the center of the plot. working behind the scenes to carry out wishes. at first, we should note, mccarthy reacted the way that the overwhel amming majority