thing that must never break. unity is what makes us who we are. america at its best. to me, that s the central lesson of september 11th. this 9/11 anniversary is being marked weeks after the end of the u.s. military presence in afghanistan, and the airlift that evacuated some 125,000 people, including thousands of americans. those evacuations continue. today, the second flight departed. and now we re battling an even deadlier adversary. the covid outbreak is affecting every corner of our country. president biden talking up his new vaccine rules that will impact some 100 million workers. either get vaccinated or be tested weekly for covid. that has sparked a furious backlash from several republican governors who are threatening lawsuits. this morning, biden was asked about his new rules. what is your message to republicans who are calling these rules an overreach? have at it. look, i m so disappointed that particularly some of the republican governors have been so cavali
capitol, by leaving the state, so they re beyond the reach of texas law enforcement, these democrats are preventing a quorum in the state legislature back home, which means that in very practical terms they re preventing texas republicans from passing draconian new voting restrictions. at least for now. they could have gone anywhere outside of texas. they chose to come to washington, d.c. specifically to ask for federal help, to ask for new federal protections that could set a floor on voting rights that no state can fall below. that of course is the idea behind the for the people act. the for the people act is busy not passing the united states senate right now. basically because of one conservative democratic senator named joe manchin. the texas democrats have met with him directly. they have met with other senators as well. they ve met with white house officials up to and include the vice president kamala harris. these texas democrats are away from their families, away fro
pride that americans should have in the long history of civil disobedience that this country has seen, that south africa saw, the country of my ancestry, india, saw under mahatma gandhi. this does work. joyce beatty was here last night after her arrest yesterday. la to sha brown will join us. she was with her at the senate office building yesterday, and it s been a fascinating week with the texas democrats and with just the very, very high level of attention now that voting rights has in washington this week. as it should be, sir. have a great show and we ll see you soon. thank you, ali. viewer note. what was happening at the beginning of this tv show is that i was trying to deal with my allergy eyes and that kleenex that quickly disappeared from your screen. tonight we have a strange twist in the texas democrats go to washington story. one of the people the texas democrats went to washington to speak to has now gone to texas. one of the most important meetings that t
about the risk. there s a clear message that is coming through. this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. we are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk. this delta variant fueling the rise in new infections which are now up by 70% over the past seven days. hospital admissions have increased by 36%. deaths are up by 26%. here we are again. while all states are seeing upticks in new cases, the cdc says just four states, california, texas, missouri, and florida now account for more than 40% of all cases this past week. 1 in 5 new cases in our country is occurring in the state of florida alone. this is not where the biden administration expected to be after an intensive mass vaccine campaign. right now fewer than 50% of the total u.s. population is fully vaccinated and the numbers of people getting shots continues to fall. white house is now focused on fighting misinformation about th
we have fought too long and too hard. 21st century jim crow assault is real. more than a dozen states have already passed gop-backed bills that make it harder to vote. we have grit, we have resolve, and we are determined to find a solution. they have fled the state specifically to come to washington because washington is the one place this disaster in texas, and this disaster in every other state where republicans are rolling back voting rights can be fixed. texas democrats will use everything in our power to fight back. your vote matters. your vote is your power. good evening, and welcome to this msnbc special presentation, the texas democrats. i m joined by my colleague jonathan capehart in washington. hi, lawrence. so, as you know, tonight is a little different than we had planned. and, as you know, more than 50 texas democrats effectively shut down a special session of the texas legislature in order to stop passage of a republican voter suppressi