first, right? where you see things start to bubble up. there are companies that are saying get vaccinated or don't come back. what do you think of that? >> well, i think companies have a perfect right to say that. not only do they want to protect the community that they're in and they have an obligation to customers but they have a definite obligation to their employees. so i think all companies should consider that and go toward that. again, we're not going to beat this pandemic until we all agree that the common good of public health requires suss to do certain things. whether that means get vaccinated -- and if you don't want to get vaccinated wear a mask and follow certain protocols. but until we get people off the i and more on the we we're going to be in the midst of this fight all the time. >> matthew dowd, always a pleasure. thank you, sir. >> thanks, don. the senate voting tonight to advance president biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill.

127 rep 17 republicans supporting the $1 trillion plan. plus the pandemic of the unvaccinated is surging with covid cases and hospitalizations rising in hot spots all around the country. corporate america is responding with multiple companies. as i just said, they're mandating that employees get their shots. one of the largest real estate developers in new york city telling employees they'll be fired if they're not vaccinated by labor day. joining me now democratic senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. good to see you, senator. >> good to see you. >> thank you so much. let's talk about the advancing of the infrastructure bill. you voted to advance it, the bill tonight. the final is 67-32. it's not easy to get 67 votes for anything these days. we're going to put it up on the screen about what this bill will do. but you don't think this bill goes far enough. why is that, senator? >> so look, this is only a sliver of the infrastructure that we need. it's a part something folks wanted to make sure that was bipartisan. that's fine. long negotiations over that. but we still need a lot more.

we need child care. people want to go to work. you need roads and bridges. parents also need childcare. we need home and community-based care. we need to make sure that we're fighting back against the climate crisis that is bearing down upon us. we want to do an infrastructure package, it's got to have that in it. it's time to expand medicare. all these pieces are going to be wrapped together. and they're really one big package. >> we are sitting -- we are distanced. you walked in with this. i've been wearing my mask as well. i want to talk to you about covid. are you frustrated that it appears that americans are sliepding backwards despite having life-saving vaccine available? >> of course i'm frustrated. you know, we line up -- look, what we would have done a year ago to say that there was vaccine that could protect people that had nearly 100% effectiveness to keep people from being hospitalized or dying, goodness. and we developed, we work hard,

we get this vaccine developed, we get it out there and for a while people are clamoring for it. and now we're caught in this period where there are people who are not just vaccine hesitant but all the way to vaccine resistant. this isn't about politics. this is about our health. this is about keeping our children safe. this is about keeping people who have immune compromised safe, people who are undergoing cancer. >> taking up room in hospitals around the country. >> it's not a time to get sick. >> medical bills. expensive medical bills. >> exactly right. all of that when it is preventable. i think the line that hit me the hardest was from a doc last week who said that virtually every hospitalization from covid now and virtually every death is a preventable hospitalization, a

preventable death. that means we need to do better and we need to do better for all of us. >> what did you think of the gripping testimony from the officers yesterday? >> it was a very sober reminder of how close we came to losing our democracy. >> what about the shifting of the blame and some republicans saying i didn't have time to watch it, i didn't even have time to it attend, didn't have time to watch it, i was busy, meetings? >> look, this is just one more version of what the republicans spent four years perfecting. every time donald trump said something outrageous, every time he did something that was just amazingly racist or ignorant the answer was oh, i didn't hear that, didn't see that. all the lines have been perfected. and now they are used in order to turn away from evidence of an armed insurrection that resulted in death, that put other lives at risk, and that put our entire

democracy at risk. these people have no shame. >> speaking about democracy, you have called for the end of the filibuster. this is what the president told me. >> if it's a relic of jim crow, it's been used to fight against civil rights legislation historically, why protect it? >> there's no reason to protect it other than you're going to throw the entire congress into chaos and nothing will get done. nothing at all will get done. and there's a lot at stake. the most important one is the right to vote. >> so how do you convince the president and other moderate democrats in your conference who aren't willing to kill or carve out, you know, the filibuster in order to protect voting rights? >> look, voting is the beating heart of our democracy. we lose access to the ballot box, we lose everything that democracy is built on. we cannot privilege a rule of the senate that our founding fathers specifically rejected.

do remember that the founders debated the question of when to require a supermajority. and they finally decided, well, if you're going to impeach a president you probably ought to have a supermajority. if you're going to pass a treaty that overrules domestic law you've got to have a supermajority. but they decided, you get a simple majority in the house, you get a simple majority in the senate, you gept a president who's willing to sign off, that's good enough to make something law. right now the filibuster has given mitch mcconnell a veto over virtually anything we want to do. that cannot be put ahead of the urgency of protecting access to the vote, of getting rid of gerrymandering and of beating back the influence of dark money. we have our toes on the line. we've got a bill that we just about got every democrat signed off on. what we've got to do is finish off that bill and then say as a party but also say as patriots

this is how we protect our democracy. we have got to set the filibuster aside and go forward on voting rights. >> there's something else. you along with senator chuck schumer represented by ayana pressley, you're calling on the president to cancel student loan debt. >> you bet. >> listen to this, though, from the house speaker nancy pelosi. >> people think that the president of the united states has the power for debt forgiveness. he does not. he can postpone. he can delay. but he does not have that power. that has to be an act of congress. suppose your family was not -- your child just decided at this time they want to not go to college but you're paying taxes to forgive somebody else's obligations, you may not be happy about that. >> what do you say to that? >> the president does have the power to cancel student loan debt. and you know how i know that? because president obama did it, president trump did it, and president biden has already done

it. president obama did it for several billion people -- million people. president trump did it when he said for all 43 million people with outstanding student loan debt i forgive your interest and you can suspend payments. that's cancel your interest. not delay it. cancel it. and president biden has done both of those things. so presidents have the power. they have used the power. i just want to see him use that power to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt. and i'll tell you why. it's because of the people who need that debt canceled. 40% of the folks who are carrying student loan debt don't have a college diploma. they tried but life caught up with them. they had babies or someone in the family got sick. they were working three jobs. and now they're earning what a high school grad earns but they are paying on college loans. it is an economic justice issue. it is also a racial justice issue.

african-americans borrow more money to go to school, more money while they're in school, and have a harder time paying it it off when they get out of school. canceling $50,000 of student loan debt would help close the black/white wealth gap for people with student loan debt by 25 points. and for latinos by 27 points. this is the single act that the president could take to help close that wealth gap, to help close that economic inequality act, and to help our economy, to get people back into starting their own businesses, buying homes, being productive members and part of our economy. >> senator elizabeth warren, it's good to see you in person. thank you so much. >> it's good to see -- >> let's hope this continues. >> you bet. and let's cancel that student loan debt. >> thank you very much. and after weeks of wrangling president biden got the republican support he wanted for his infrastructure plan, but some members of his own party

have concerns. let's discuss now. cnn white house correspondent mr. john harwood is here. john, good to see you. it looks like -- >> welcome to d.c. >> thank you very much. it's good to be here. so it looks like congress is inching closer and closer to an actual infrastructure deal. there's still a lot that needs to be done but do you think the president's bipartisan approach is working at least with this? >> looks like it is. i think it is a single issue kind of working. there's a reason that he picked infrastructure as his top priority for a bipartisan push. roads, bridges, the energy grid, broadband, all those things are popular. they're difficult for a political party to roadblock opposition to, the republican party and some members of the opposition party want credit for some of those things. you've got 17 republicans to vote tonight. that's a positive step forward. a long way to go. but it was a major advance for the president. >> well, i'm glad you said that.

17 republicans, long way to go. even the minority leader mitch mcconnell signed on to that. but it seems precarious. there are so many things that could go wrong. >> a lot of things that could go wrong including it could pass the senate. the house could want to change it. you could have republicans rejecting any changes coming from the house and seeing those as a ticket to pushing through the much costlier bill, the $3.5 trillion bill that democrats want to pass with their votes alone. but there's also a lot that could go right. this was a linchpin for getting unity in the democratic caucus because there are some democrats, krirs ten sin sinema, joe manchin, who said we need to see progress with republicans. if it works the way biden envisions he's not only going to get this plan, he's going to get a very large bill. the second part, the families plan. that will make life-changing investments for millions and

millions of people. child tax credits zblsh $3.5 tri trillion. >> the $3.5 trillion package. may not pass in total, may get trimmed down. kyrsten sinema made noises in that direction today. but they're going to make a difference for a lot of poor and work-class people. health care subsidies, rental assistance, educational advances, preschool, free community college, child tax credits. a lot of things the democrats have wanted for many, many years and been frustrated on. >> it's good to see you in person. >> good to be here. >> i know it's been covid over satellite. >> fantastic. >> thank you very much. i appreciate it. covid cases are up in hot spots all around the country and the people who won't follow the rules are ruining it for the rest of us. will covid be with us indefinitely is the question. >> the pandemic we have now is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. so please, please, please, please if you're not vaccinated

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today the nation's top health official saying it again and again, the delta variant is running rampant because of the unvaccinated. >> people not getting vaccinated not only is a bad thing for them, it could actually interfere in a negative way with the rest of the country by generating variants that would elude the vaccines. >> this is a situation that is created by more and more transmission of the delta virus among people who are unvaccinated. >> and the cdc says in just days we'll have new data that shows why concerns about breakthrough cases among the vaccinated are growing. let's discuss now with john barry. he is the author of "the great influenza." and we're so happy to have him on. thank you, john, for appearing. so the u.s. is averaging more than 61,000 new cases a day compared to 11,000 just a month

ago. delta is more than three times more transmissible. and you write in a new opinion piece for the "washington post" about how previous pandemics have seen much deadlier variants in the years after the first waves. how worried are you about a variant evolving that can completely bypass existing vaccines? >> i am worried. i think all the five pandemics going back to 1889 that we know anything about in detail, you know, the virus enters the human population, it's a new virus, and it adapts to humans. initially it becomes better at transmissability, which has happened. and in past pandemics the viruses have tended to become more dangerous as well. which the data's not crystal clear yet about these variants but they look like they're at least somewhat more dangerous.

but we're not done yet. i mean, there's almost certainly going to be more variants. and what their nature is, whether they get worse or whether delta is the worst case, we don't know. i do think that we've already seen tendencies of the various variants to at least marginally escape the ability of the vaccines and for natural immunity, you know, they demonstrated at least some ability to escape. i think over a period of time it's very reasonable to expect them to improve on that ability to escape. that does not mean that we cannot keep pace with them with adjusting vaccines. >> and how would we deal then with the nightmare -- that nightmare scenario? i mean, there's plenty of resistance to basic masking

around the country let alone going to lockdowns. so how do we deal with that? >> well, i think reality hits you in the face sometimes. i think, you know, the vaccine uptake, it has increased as people recognize the reality that 97%, whatever the prs i.c.e. number is in any particular area, of the people in hospitals and who are dying are not vaccinated. i think that is starting to take hold. that's number one. i think people with vaccine resistance, i think we'll make some inroads there. the other is the scientific community i think will be able to keep pace. the influenza vaccine, even when it drops below 50% effectiveness in preventing illness is still

well over 80% effective in preventing somebody getting admitted to an intensive care unit. so it's still pretty good. we've got right now the covid vaccines are much higher than that. so they have a long way to go and we can adjust the vaccines in the future. >> there is increasing discussion, john, over when covid might transition from a pandemic to an epidemic disease -- to -- excuse me, to an endemic disease, one that may be less common but remains circulating indefinitely. so tell me more about the difference and what that would means for us. >> as people's immune systems and as vaccines are able to respond better to the virus, you adjust. the 1889 pandemic, which was long thought to have been influenza, there's speculation now that that was actually a

coronavirus. and than virus that they think now may have caused the 1889 pandemic which was fairly nasty, that now causes the common cold. you know, the virus adjusts, it becomes at home in the human body, and our immune systems adjust and we end up with an endemic disease that can cause serious illness and death but it wouldn't be like what we're facing now. >> john barry, thank you, sir. >> thank you. new york democratic mayoral nominee eric adams hearing from leaders of his own party asking how to approach policing. i'm going to ask him what advice he's giving them. that's next. than lysol spray. it's a simple fact: it even kills the covid-19 virus. science supports these simple facts. there's only one true lysol. lysol. what it takes to protect.

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this week four officers giving hours of powerful emotional testimony about the violence they endured during the january 6th insurrection. i spoke with officer harry dunn tonight about how he's holding up and what he's facing now. >> i'm so fortunate that i was not physically assaulted. i didn't get my ass whooped. and i am so thankful. but you know who did? so many of my co-workers. so many of the mpd guys. if i came here with my arm in a sling or a bandage around my head, would that give me a little more credibility? sorry i can't put a band-aid on my emotions, on my brain, my psychological -- my mindset. i can't put a band-aid on it. all i've got is my words. >> joining me now to discuss is brooklyn borough president and the democratic nominee for mayor of new york city, eric adams.

thank you for joining us, mr. borough president. i appreciate it. so you're a former police captain. what was your reaction to hearing the officers' testimony yesterday and what officer dunn said tonight? >> it's very powerful. and there are so many different aspects of what happened there. and you have to ask yourself, don, where are all the pro-police individuals on the conservative arm of politics in the city? where are they? how come they're not outraged at what happened to these officers? and i met some of the officers when i was in washington today and talked to them and heard about how frightening it was. they didn't discharge their weapons. they were really in a dangerous situation. and many of them, the officers of color, they had racial slurs hurled at them and it was just really despicable and we need all those who state they're pro police, they should be speaking up right now at what happened to those officers. >> you have made public safety

quite honestly the cornerstone of your campaign if not your career because you're a former police officer. and now leaders of the democratic party including the president and speaker of the house have reached out to you for how to approach policing issues. what are you advising them? >> well, it is a unique moment. and sometimes the intersectionality of our lives bring us together. not only was i a victim of police abuse and then went into the police department to fight for reform, so we don't have to surrender the justice we deserve for the public safety we need. and what we are learning based on these conversations is that it's the foundation of our country. i say over did over, don, that the prerequisite to prosperity is public safety. our economic recovery, how we're going to follow the future of our children, and i am really pleased at what the democratic party's doing and what the

president is doing. he's finally saying america, we must take a holistic approach to stopping the feeders of crime and deal with some of the imminent threats we have now. we have to go after those illegal flow of guns in our city and we do it by having a federal, state and city, tri-state relationship of information sharing and zero in on those illegal gun dealers. >> mm-hmm. "the new york post," i have to ask you about these comments. "the new york post" reported comments you made at a fund-raiser where you say you're running against a movement. okay? and that's a quote. against democratic socialists of america. are you trying to steer your party in a certain direction away from democrats like alexandria ocasio-cortez? >> well, alexandria ocasio-cortez is not running for mayor, and the "post" made it appear as though my comments were toward her. no, i'm still campaigning. i have to win an election in

november. my comments are for those candidates who are in the race. we have different beliefs on what america needs to turn around. i don't support disbanding police departments. it's part of our public safety ecosystem. i don't support many of their concepts. and so i'm talking about the concept of the socialists that trying to take us away from our way of life. and it's not the individual. now, we all want the same thing. i'm proud of the life of many of those individuals that want better schools, better health care, affordable housing, rebuild our economy, ending inequalities. we just have different ways of doing that. and it's my job as the mayoral candidate it point out how different i am from those who are running against me. >> it's a pleasure to have you on, eric adams. and again, i hope that you come back so that we can continue these discussions. thank you so much. okay? >> thank you. take care. >> thank you. simone biles speaking out

tonight, tweeting "the outpouring love and support i've received has made me realize i am more than my accomplishments in gymnastics, which i never truly believed before." gold medalist dominique dawes gives us her take right after this. not touching is still touching protection. adding lysol laundry sanitizer kills 99.9% of bacteria. detergent alone, can't. lysol. what it takes to protect. -hey. -hi. whoa, nice car. thanks, yeah. i actually got a great deal on it too, although my interest rate is awful. have you checked your credit? i got like a free score from some app or something like that. but lenders don't even use that score. creditrepair.com has a free credit snapshot that can show you exactly what's happening with your credit score. and killing my interest rates. well, great seats though. -thank you. -like really. just knowing your score won't improve it. instead, work to actually fix your credit with creditrepair.com. my hygienist cleans

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u.s. gymnastics superstar simone biles withdrawing from another event at the olympics. biles will no longer compete in tomorrow's individual all-around gymnastics competition at the tokyo games. she stepped away from the team competition yesterday, citing mental health concerns as she attempts to protect her body and mind. she may still compete in next

week's individual event finals. here to discuss, dominique dawes. she won olympic gold in gymnastics as part of the magnificent seven at the 1996 summer olympics. i remember that well. good evening to you. thank you so much for joining us. good to see you. >> thank you for having me. i appreciate it. >> dominique, listen, no doubt that you can relate to the intense pressure that simone biles was facing or is facing. she was billed as the g.o.a.t. this year. give me your reaction to her withdrawing from the olympic games. >> it's unreal the amount of pressure i'm sure this young lady was facing. leading up to the '96 olympic games i had an emotional breakdown. i was crying. i knelt down, i prayed with my teammate amanda borden, who was amazing, and i got back up and felt a little sense of relief but the pressure was still there. there were nearly 50,000 people in the georgia dome and billions of people watching. just think for simone biles's olympics the whole world is

watching. there's not an audience there to help with the adrenaline rush. there's no family. there's no friends in the stands. so it's a lot for this young 24-year-old to take on. and let's not forget how outspoken she has been about the culture of the sport of gymnastics and how much it needs to change. she's made it it very clear that she's the only survivor of the larry nassar scandal on the floor, and that's a lot of weight for a young woman to take on. >> and even, you know -- it's even beyond that. yeah, it's beyond that because what she has to do if she messes up, it can cause really serious injury. it's easy for people to understand a physical injury. but she has a mental block happening. it's called the twisties. right? have you experienced that? can you tell us what that is like? and what she's been going through with that? >> i experienced the twisties -- i never knew it had a name until now. but in the '90s. we called it balking. you would go for a particular

move. usually it's a pirouette or a twist. and you would lose a little bit of spatial awareness, get lost in the air, and then you obviously are going to land because gravity's going to pull you down. it is very scary. and i went through it quite a bit throughout my career. and many times leading up to a competition even in the warm-up or touch you can lose that sense of awareness. it sounds like that's what happened at the team finals. she did a 1 1/2 vault instead of a 2 1/2 vault, lost her awareness, and it really probably freaked her out and she decided to listen to her inner voice, which i'm so thrilled she can hear her inner voice, and she did what was best for simone and that was to back out of the competition and protect herself mentally as well as from any physical injuries. >> listen, i mentioned that you were a part of the magnificent seven in 1996 in the olympics. kerri strug was on your team. and i just want people to look at these pictures. i mean, kerri won gold after breaking her ankle while attempting to vault. she got back up, taped her ankle up, and won a second attempt

before collapsing in pain. now, some people are comparing her and biles right now. but these are two very different situations. am i wrong? >> i don't think they're as different as you are thinking they are. earlier i had brought up the correlation between the two. and that was viewed, that iconic moment, 25 years ago, when we won a gold medal, the 1996 olympic games and kerri was so courageous to go for a second vault. she was risking her physical health and even her emotional health to tell you the truth. anyone in her shoes would have been scared, would have been anxious. and it affects someone for the rest of their lives. so simone was thinking about her mental health and her physical health and she made the decision that she didn't feel right, she didn't want to take the risk. and so she made the best decision for simone. back in the '90s we couldn't hear our inner voice. the sport was very much filled with a great deal of control, fear, intimidation, and silence. and so kerri did what she felt

like she had to do and had only one choice to do. simone, it was a different situation. she really thought this is too much of a risk to take, i don't want to harm myself mentally and i also don't want to harm myself physically. she also said she didn't want to jeopardize team usa's chances of getting on the podium because she thought she would make multiple mistakes. so i find that she's so courageous and it's a very humbling move that she did make. >> and she's getting a lot of criticism. look, she's 24. she's a black woman. she's got the world on her shoulders. she's not the only one right now facing this. naomi osaka i'm talking about, she's being heavily criticized after losing in the third round after being expected to take home gold. shows talked about her battle with anxiety and depression. and you know what the spotlight is like. you were the first african-american gymnast to win an olympic gold medal. can you give us some insight into that? >> well, think about the criticism and who the individuals are that are criticizing these great amazing

athletes, the g.o.a.t. in the sport of gymnastics, or naomi osaka, who has done amazing things on the court. or even michael phelps, who's spoken out about mental health issues. these individuals that are criticizing them more than likely can't do a tenth of what these young woman and this young man has done with their lives. i really hope these athletes if there is that criticism out there, i'm not privy to it, that they let it go in one ear and out the other. it's not worth their time. you really don't want to judge someone until you've walked a day in their shoes and no one's walked a day in their shoes other than simone. >> dominique dawes it's so good to see you. you look great. you haven't aged. and you still have that million-watt smile that we remember from the 1996 olympics. thank you so much. >> thank you, don. i appreciate it. so the right is attacking simone biles. one conservative activist who's probably never tried flipping in the air multiple times calls her a, quote, selfish sociopath. and the same crowd is going after the police officers who

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right-wing pundits are attacking simone biles for withdrawing from gymnastic competitions at the tokyo olympics to focus on her mental well-being. listen to this. this is a disgusting comment from conservative activist charlie kirk. >> we are raising a generation of weak people like simone

biles. if she had all these mental health problems, don't show up. she's an incredible athlete. of course she's an incredible athlete. i'm not saying -- i just said she's probably the greatest gymnast of all time. she's also very selfish. she's immature. and she is a shame to the country. she's totally a sociopath. of course she's a sociopath. >> who's charlie kirk anyways? let's see whoever charlie kirk is try to twist and twirl eight feet up in the air like simone biles. this seems to be the theme on the right. labeling people who accomplish things that they never could as weak. so here's how fox propaganda network hosts who never served in law enforcement or the military went after officers who testified yesterday about their experiences defending our capitol on january 6th. watch this. >> the award for blatant use of partisan politics when facts fail, the angle award goes to capitol police officer harry

dunn. for best performance in an action role the winner is michael fanone. >> watch fanone cite the psychological trauma he endured as an excuse for ditching our bill of rights. >> i've been left with the psychological trauma and the emotional anxiety of having survived such a horrific event. >> joining me, national correspondent for the "washington post" philip bump and cnn political analyst natasha alford. hello to both of you. good to see you. natasha, the audacity, really. that's all i need to say. the audacity of these people sitting on their butts bashing olympic athletes and hero police officers while they constantly spout off about patriotism and backing the blue. what the -- what's happening here? >> i know, don. i said the same thing. the thought that went through my mind was they could never. right? it's so easy for them to, you know, sit behind their twitter feeds or sit on their laptop and

to talk about champions. but i'm really interested in this attack, this obsession that right-wing media has with black athletes in particular. black public figures whog s spe up for themselves or defy the status quo. i'm thinking of meghan markle with her mental health concerns. i'm thinking of lebron james when he talked about social justice issues. and i think that this actually goes back even further. think of tommy smith and john carlos, you know, with the black power fist at the olympics. so it's something about black individuals in particular, i think when they speak up for themselves that the right-wing pundits they hate it. there's an audacity that they feel that these black figures have that they shouldn't be so confident. you notice that they try to take down their talents. and it speaks to their insecurity. and it also speaks to their fear of what these figures, the power that they have to actually shift

the culture. >> yeah. well, it plays well among the party of the insurrectionists. right? so i think that's -- there's your answer right there. it's what the audience and their party wants. philip, you have a new piece that's titled "to many on the right perceived toughness outweighs patriotism." and you write in part, you said, "the through line to all of this is the idea that american heroes are necessarily stoic and suffering, demonstrating the sort of rigid masculinity that the insecure demand of their children. olympians and other athletes are supposed to shut up and let us enjoy their accomplishments and fame. members of law enforcement and military are supposed to keep the bad guys in line and be tough while doing it. the only emotions they're allowed to show are anger or triumph." why is this perceived toughness so appealing to the right? is it just because it's performtive? >> it certainly is the case that a lot of it is performative.

but i think you have to remember, the undercurrent of the entire trump era has been this performative toughness, has been this sort of matcchismo th donald trump at least portrayed verbally. he always talked about beating up protesters and taking a hard line with immigrants and so on and so forth. this is very much a part of trumpism, this idea that everybody is tough and all these tough guys are tough and they're hanging out with donald trump who's so tough. this is what it was about. so we see absolutely it's the case that if simone biles were a white man who's playing in the nfl the reaction would have been different. and absolutely it's the case the police officers who are white are treated differently than the police officers who are not. but it is nonetheless also the case that because these individuals are demonstrating something other than this john wayne-esque sort of toughness they are then therefore necessarily cast as part of the opposition by this right wing that sees toughness as the

paramount virtue people can demonstrate. >> they realize -- probably the most important thing you said was john wayne-esque toughness. john wayne was an actor. wasn't a real cowboy. didn't live on a ranch. well, maybe he had a ranch. but he was an actor. natasha, listen. of course there's no recognition that when you're twisting and turning eight feet in the air like simone biles one wrong move and you could be crippled. is this about targeting her because she's a prominent black athlete? because that seems like it's straight out of the as i said, it plays well in the insurrectionist party. and in their playbook. >> oh, yeah. i mean, they would love the idea of simone biles not being as black and excellent as she is. but they can't take away her excellence. and so they seize this moment in which she's actually being a leader, where she's setting an example for the culture of what it means to take care of yourself. they're trying to seize this moment and turn it into weakness. but i have to tell you, don, for

black women in particular so many of us, not only do we have her back but we felt seen in this moment. whether we're talking about politics or sports, you know, we're often praised for sucking it up and putting democracy on our back and being leaders. and so many black women are saying that we have to take care of ourselves too, even if that means stepping back. it was zora neale thurston the great writer who said if you're silent about your pain they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it. and simone biles refused to be silent. she spoke up about her pain. and she freed a lot of people in the process. >> yeah. listen, philip, people -- like the people i mentioned, charlie kirk and others, they know this kind of messaging sells. otherwise, they just wouldn't do it. >> yeah, no, that's true. i think that there are a lot of these people too who very much feel as if they need to demonstrate how tough they are, that there is actually some insecurity to this. i think charlie kirk feels as though he needs to present

himself as being a very tough person. he did this ad where he's like selling pain relievers to old people. right? he's trying to present himself as something that is part of this sense of machismo and so sxon so forth. charlie kirk, at the end of the day the united states won a different color medal than it would have otherwise had simone biles performed. charlie kirk i am very confident cares very little about the olympics beyond for this particular two weeks or the two weeks that's going to be coming up in four years. all of this is about using a moment once again to try and score points in this neverending cultural fight which is so important to people like charlie kirk and other people on the right and the people who suffer as a result of it are people like simone biles and those police officers on capitol hill. >> yeah. you can talk shit about your fellow americans but, you know -- whatever. i'm not going to go there. thank you both. have a good night. and thank you for watching our coverage continues.

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