n side effects are headache, nausea, diarrhea, trouble sleeping, tiredness, and anxiety. so much goes into who i am. hiv medicine is one part of it. ask your doctor about dovato-i did. ♪♪ ♪ ♪ this sunday, terror and dread in afghanistan. the u.s. evacuation in peril as the death toll from that isis attack reaches nearly 200, including 13 american service members. >> we will not forgive, we will not forget. we will hunt you down and make you pay. >> the u.s. hits isis with a drone attack in eastern afghanistan. >> two high-profile isis targets were killed and one was wounded. >> president biden says another terror attack is highly likely. >> we have other active threats

against the airfield. >> and the president is sticking to his tuesday withdrawal deadline. this morning, my interviews with secretary of state antony blinken and president trump's second national security adviser, h.r. mcmaster. plus, surging covid cases. >> the amount of death and tieing that we're seeing is -- in my whole nursing career, i've never seen anything like that. >> more than 100,000 americans hospitalized. >> the patients we're getting are younger, and they're turning sicker much faster. >> as millions of americans refuse to be avoided this whole wave if more people in our country had gone and just gotten two shots. >> my guests this morning, dr. anthony fauci. joining me from washington post columnist eugene robinson, matthew continue nettie of the american enterprise institute

and nbc pentagon correspondent, courtney kube. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the pre todd. good sunday morning. we are tracking this very dangerous hurricane ida which is heading towards the louisiana coast. forecasters say the storm has rapidly intensified and turned quickly into a monster-size category 4 hurricane. we'll begin with the suicide bombing attack in kabul that took the lives of some 170 afghans plus 13 american service members. it's the very nightmare scenario the biden administration feared. americans are being warned to stay away from the airport and president biden added yesterday that another attack is highly likely in the next 24 to 36 hours. on friday, the u.s. made its first reprisal strike on isis-k

with the military saying it killed two high-profile targets. evacuation flights are continuing just two days short of the august 31st deadline, even under the threat of another terror attack. as the u.s. winds down its presence in afghanistan, in questions remain. how will be the u.s. be able to counter terrorist threats in afghanistan with u.s. forces out of the country along with critical intelligence capabilities no longer available. what comes of the quarter million american afghans who will be stuck in afghanistan? how big of a political toll will this chaos and carnage in kabul take on mr. biden's presidency long term? most of us, was the war with it? >> joined by nbc news chief correspondent richard engel. richard, this is how it ends, 20 years. what's the fallout? >> reporter: well, i think the fallout is huge, and i think we're going to be feeling this

for many years to come. the same way that the iraq war created a hole in the middle east and then all the countries around it shifted and it caused tremendous instability and ultimately we saw the rise of isis. now to a degree the united states and other nations have managed to plug that hole, but it took a long time. now the collapse of afghanistan, taken over by the taliban, is creating a hole in central asia. and it's going to impact -- it's going to suck in the countries all around it. it's going to suck in pakistan. it's going to suck in iran. with iraq, it tore up the middle east that was established after the first world war. it tore up the old maps. here, i would be looking at the doran line, the line between afghanistan and pakistan. this used to be called the great game for central asia. with this pullout, we've just started the great game. >> what is america's role going to be in afghanistan? is it going to be similar to how

we handle syria, where we go in, find a terror target, try to deal with that and sort of play whack-a-mole? it looks like we lost richard engel there. no worries. in doha, thank you. i spoke with secretary of state antony blinken and asked what the united states' immediate future in afghanistan is going to look like. >> let me start with a simple question. what does america's presence look like in kabul on september 1st? >> chuck, i'll tell you in a sec. let me start with this because] it's important. every american is grieving the loss of our men and women in uniform in that heinous terrorist attack against our forces who were evacuating innocent men, women and children from kabul. i have to tell you we at the

state department feel it especially powerfully because so many of those lost were marines. you know this and i think a lot of americans know this, too, if you go into any american embassy in the world, the first person you'll see is a marine standing guard, standing sent ri. our diplomats can't do what they do without marines. that was true in kabul in evacuating so far 110,000 people and it's true in every mission around the world. so we're feeling this especially hard, like a punch to the gut. i just wanted to share that with people, because it's something that i'm feeling across this building and across my community here at the state department. >> i want to get more into the retaliation that's coming as well. given what you just said, can we have a diplomatic presence on september 1st and can you have our diplomatic presence protected by marines on september 1st in kabul? >> well, two things, chuck. first, in terms of having an

on-the-ground diplomatic presence on september 1st, that's not likely to happen. but what is going to happen is our commitment to continue to help people leave afghanistan who want to leave and who are not out by september 1st, that endures. there's no deadline on that effort, and we have ways, we have mechanisms to help facilitate the ongoing departure of people from afghanistan if they choose to leave. >> what are those ways and mechanisms? is it more negotiating with the taliban? >> look, i'm not going to get into the detail, but let me say this: first, you may have seen that just yesterday a very senior tl ban official went on television and radio across the country and preetdly assured people in afghanistan that they would have the freedom to travel after august 31st. he even specifically said those who work for the americans and those who want to leave for whatever reason, will have that freedom. of course, we don't take the taliban at their word. be take them by their deed. that's what we're going to be

looking to. we have more than 100 countries, 114 countries who signed onto a statement we initiated making clear the international community expects the taliban to make good on a commitment to let people continue to leave the country after august 31st. that freedom of travel is essential to the international community's expectations of the taliban going forward. working with other countries very closely, we'll make sure we put in place the means to do that. an airport that functions, other ways of leaving the country, all of that is what we're working on in the days ahead. >> there's a report that the turks have agreed to essentially be in charge of security of that airport after august 31st. is that your understanding? >> chuck, there are a number of countries in the region that we're working very closely with that are focused on how to make sure the airport can stay open or reopen after we leave to ensure that flights can come in, flights can go out. there's the necessary security. we've done a lot of technical work on exactly what would be required to keep the airport

going. we've shared that with the countries and we'll have a plan for the way forward. >> we know the list of americans who may want to get out is in the hundreds. >> that's right. >> do you have a good number of afghan allies that would like to get out, get these special immigration visas, do you have a good handle on what that number is? >> chuck, we already know this: first, roughly, over 110,000 people overall have been evacuated. the significant majority of those people are afghans. of those afghans who have been evacuated, there are thousands upon thousands of special immigrant visa holders, people who worked side-by-side, directly for our diplomats and troops over the years. these numbers are very, very fluid. we're working very hard to do a full accounting, to get a full tabulation oochs. we'll be able to break down who was able to leave by these different categories. part of the challenge with the special immigration visa program participants is that, in this --

in these 14 days, many of them have not had complete or full documentation. all that has to be verified. we'll have a full accounting in the days ahead. >> i want to ask about this idea that some of these lists of people you're trying to get out of the country you've had to give to the taliban. i know you guys have some -- you think some of this has been a bit overreported or exaggerated. but given the haqqani network's ties to the taliban, how can you be sure any list you share of afghans who helped americans won't be used for horrendous reasons by the haqqani network or others? >> chuck, it's simply not the case. the idea that we've done anything to put at further risk those that were trying to help leave the country is simply wrong. and the idea that we shared lists of americans or others with the taliban is simply wrong. >> what was shared? >> so in specific irn stances, when you're trying to get a bus or a group of people through and

you need to show a manifest to do that -- particularly in cases where people don't have the necessary credentials on them or documents on them, then you'll share names of the lists of people on the bus so they can be assured those are the people we're looking to bring in. by definition, that's exactly what's happened. we've gotten 5,500 american citizens out of afghanistan. to the extent in an individual case with a particular group or a bus, to verify that the people on the bus or in that group were people who were supposed to come out, american citizens -- especially, again, if they lack the right document with them, that's what we would do. but the idea that we purt anyone in any further jeopardy is simply wrong. >> what has been promised to the taliban for this cooperation? is it money? is it money we have frozen right now that they perhaps might be able to u promised to the taliban. to the c around the

world have made clear that there are very significant expectations of the taliban going forward if they're going to have any kind of relationship with the rest of the world, starting with freedom of travel. but then going on to making sure that they're sustaining the basic rights of their people including women and girls, making sure they're making good on commitments they've repeatedly made on counterterrorism and having some inclusivity of governance. >> i want to ask about the strike on isis-k. how much harder is it going to be to strike more members of this terrorist group after august 31st? >> let me say this, chuck. we have the capacity around the world, including in afghanistan to take -- to find and to take strikes against terrorists who

want to do us harm. as you know, in country after country including places like yemen, like somalia, large parts of syria, libya, places where we don't have boots on the ground on any kind of on going basis, we have the capacity to go after people who are trying to do us harm. we'll retain that capacity in afghanistan. >> what is the mission against isis-k? what is the defined mission? is it everybody involved and that's who we're hunting down, or are you going to try to get rid of this terrorist network in perpetuity? >> if we see anyone who poses a threat to our citizens in the first instance here and especially if it turns into any kind of outwardly directed threat which so far is not the case, isis-k is focused on afghanistan itself, we'll take action. we are, first of all, going to be extremely vigilant about any emergence or reemergence of a threat that's directed from

afghanistan toward the united states, toshd our allies and partners and make sure we have the capacity to deal with it. >> i'm going to close -- you talked about how personal this has been, the tragic terrorist attack. it's not been easy for the parents. and you may have to speak to some of these parents face-to-face, steve nah cook i, father of marine lance kofrm kareem. he said they sent my son over there as a paper pusher, had the taliban outside providing security. security. biden turned his back on him. that's it. obviously he's grieving and very upset. what are you going to say to these parents that believe it's the american government in some way that let their son down? >> chuck, there are no words that i can say, that anyone can say, to assuage the grief that a parent is feeling at the loss of their child, nothing. if i were in his shoes, probably

i'd feel exactly the same way. all i can do is take responsibility for my own actions and do everything possible to continue to bring people out of afghanistan who want to leave between now and the 31st and every single day thereafter. that's my responsibility. but as a parent myself, i feel deeply what he expressed. and all i can say is i'm deeply, deeply sorry. >> mr. secretary, i know these aren't easy times. thank you for coming on and sharing the administration's perspective with us. >> thanks, chuck. good to be with you. joining me is retired general h.r. mcmaster, president trump's second national security adviser. general mcmaster, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> thanks, chuck. good to be with you. good morning. >> good morning. look, we're coming to the end of our presence in afghanistan.

when you look back at 20 years, you've worn a few hats when it comes to dealing with either helping to create policy in afghanistan or enact it. what's been your biggest mistake or biggest miscalculation over 20 years? >> well, i think we all share responsibility for -- it's not a 20-year war, it's a one-year war fought 20 times over, and what the basis for the problems that we've encountered in afghanistan is certainly the enemies we've been fighting there. as you can see today, enemies have a say in the future course of events, and there are consequences when you surrender to a terrorist organization, but it hasn't been a 20-year war, a one dwsh year war fought 20 years over, ineffective strategies on flawed assumptions, fluid assumptions about what was necessary to achieve a sustainable outcome there. this war ended in self-defeat

chuck. we had a sustainable effort in place several years ago that, if we sustained it, we could have prevented what's happening now. instead, what we did, chuck, we surrendered to a jihadist organization and assumed there would be no consequences for that. we're seeing the consequences today. >> was the core mistake taking our eye off afghanistan and invading iraq? did that distract the pentagon? did that distract our diplomats? did that distract us from the mission, especially considering the reasons we went into iraq turned out not to be true? >> chuck, there were a series of mistakes. the first was assuming it might be easy to depose the taliban and something good happens. so the short-term approach we took to what was a long-term problem actually lengthened the war and made it more costly. when we did reenforce the effort in 2009 president obama announced a reinforced security effort and announced the

withdrawal of troops on a timeline at the same time and said to the taliban, we want to negotiate an agreement with you, and here is our schedule for departure. how does that work in war, chuck? war is a contest of wills. then i think what we had during the trump administration was initially the first time we had a sound, sustainable, reasoned approach to afghanistan in august 2017, and the president abandoned it and doubled down on the same flaws of the obama administration. how does it make sense to tell them we're leaving and say we want to negotiate a settlement? what that resulted in is concession after concession to the taliban, and we got nothing for it. as soon as you set a date, we're out by may 1st, under the trump administration, and the numbers of troops we're going to have that, what can you do, except essentially effect a surrender and hear this language today that we're pretending we can partner with the taliban for security around the kabul airport or partner with them

with the security against al qaeda. i would like to see our government stop pretending. a really good way to honor our service men and women who gave their lives on a modern day frontier between barberism, is to confront reality that this endless war, this forever war has not ended because we left. >> is there any way, though -- it sounds like you believe the taliban could have been defeated, and it sounds like a lot of other people don't believe that was the case. >> i do believe it. i think it happened. the taliban was unable to accomplish their objectives through the use of force, with a relatively small level of troops there. pick a number, 8,500, 10,000, but what was important about that number, and a very low cost in connection with casualties and the financial cost associated with it, is preventing what you're seeing happening now which is the

establishment of a terrorist state in central and south asia, a terrorist state that is already going to be and already is a magnet for jihadist terrorists who pose a threat to all civilized peoples. i think what's also important to recognize about our sustained effort there is who was doing the fighting against the taliban and other jihadist terrorist organizations like isis-k and al qaeda? it was the afghans. our forces there were not directly involved in the fight any longer. they were enabling the afghans to bear the brunt of the fight. chuck, you know what we do? we delivered psychological blow after psychological blow to the afghan government and security forces on our way out. >> let me ask you this: i want to put up something that the inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction, john some co-told voice of america last month oos. he said this about the american government in general. we exaggerated, over exam rated. all of our officials did to go to congress. we turned the corner so much we

did 360 degrees. we're like a top. i just heard you now before i brought taking the fight. i want to take you at your word. but we look and we see what happened and i think a lot of the american public says, really? you understand the skepticism? >> well, i dond stand the skepticism. you have to look at the reality, chuck. i agree. afghanistan was not denmark, chuck. it didn't need to be denmark. of course there was corruption in the government. the security forces -- there was corruption in the security forces as well. hollowing out these institutions while they were trying to build them. they were on a path to strengthening over time. what's most lamentable about the policy under the trump administration and what the biden administration doubled down on and failed to reverse is reactually strengthened the taliban and weakened the afghan government and security forces on our way out. if we were going to leave, chuck, why not just get the hell

out? why didn't we do that? it was impossible i think for the after gone government to withstand the blows of not being included in the negotiations and then forcing the afghan government to release 5,000 of some of the most heinous people on earth who immediately went back to terrorizing the afghan people, and then to set the timeline, say we're not going to support you, withdrawal the vast majority of our support for them. >> general mcmaster, one of the former national security advisers of president trump. you wrote a book about vietnam. i have a feeling we'll have books about afghanistan being written for decades as we unpack what went wrong here. general mcmaster, thank you for your time and your perspective. >> thank you, chuck. when we come back, the military, diplomatic and political fallout from this terrible week in afghanistan. the panel is next. as we go to break, we want to take a ploemt to honor the 13 very young american service members who lost their lives in

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current, new or business. up to $800 for the 5g phone you want. because everyone deserves better. put my phone in the washer... and the dryer. robinson. courtney, we're less than 48 hours away at this point. we're hoping that we can get out without another major incident. at this point is the withdrawal now mostly military? >> yes, it is. the numbers are changing and we have to be really careful relying on the numbers of how many flights are coming and going and how full they are. right now many of the military flights leaving are u.s. service members and equipment.

there is a lot of big equipment there. while they said they will prioritize lives, but the reality is they are taking some of that equipment out as they go. the pentagon will be increasingly hesitant to talk about troop numbers on the ground because of the very real and scary threat right now. it accelerated over the weekend. we heard president biden talk about it on saturday. the military that i'm speaking with are very worried about this threat. they're particularly concerned about the idea of a vehicle packed with explosives driving to the airport or in a worse case scenario driving on the airport. another thing they're worried about is indications there might be a rocket. maybe modified rpgs and they're very worried that isis will try to shoot down an airliner. >> i want to play this facebook video from a marine corps

officer for thursday. take a listen. >> i want to say this very strongly. i have been fighting for 17 years. i am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders i demand accountability. >> he was relieved of his duty, and that is to be expected, but he is not alone. i think if it is 20 years or the last 20 days. >> i think that is right. there is a lot of looking back at history and judging history in the last 20 years, as general mcmaster said several wars were fought in that time and all of that will continue in the last 48 hours. keep the focus on the evacuations, the focus on what we are immediately leaving behind is absolutely necessary.

the u.s. is handing over control to the same forces they have been fighting for 20 years. people on the ground are terrified, the evacuation was chaotic. tens of thousands of people feel left behind and they don't have a pass out. and government, the leap of faith that the u.s. government feels they're making by trusting the taliban to make good on their word, the people on the ground are not making that same leap of faith. they have seen nothing from the taliban that leads them to believe that the government will be any different on the ground. there is schools being closed, vengeance killings, there is money held up. the u.s. can say you don't have access to your central bank reserve. the taliban need to govern and not just hold territory this time, but those are carrots, there are not a lot of sticks if

they don't lead up to those consequences. >> the white house, the pentagon, where does the actability fall? >> it is on every one of those institutions and joe biden as a president. when you're the president and it happens on your watch, you're ultimately accountable. i think we have to have some perspective here in is a 20 year war. this is what the withdrawal looks like. this is what it looks like, it's messy and awful. the people that we have to deal with who are taking over, other people that we were fighting, and we don't like it at all. and it is not a pretty thing to look at. it's a tragic thing for a lot of afghans. for a lot of people, for the 13 service members that lost their lives and their families, but it doesn't, you know, it is not

pretty. this was not pretty no matter what happened. >> we didn't say we lost the war. this is what it says we look like. and he decided to leave in a way that he left. he left in the middle of fighting season. the first thing he may have done is wait until the winter when the taliban go home. the second thing he did is he changed the trump agreement. he moved the agreement to september 11th, so he already changed the agreement. he could have said we're going to wait until we get all of the sivs out, until all of our afghan partners are out. there are things he could have done differently. biden wants to fight the larger debate. was it worth it? should we have left. i think the public is looking at his execution of the evacuation and they're judging him

partially. >> but if you say okay, we'll wait until the winter and by the way now we start taking out 50, 60, 70,000 sivs, and we start flying them out of bagram or kabul, that triggers the same kind of collapsed process that we saw. >> it is there instead of the 600 in the airport it might have gone -- >> but we have 3500 troops there. >> you're right that he inherited this deal from the trump administration. it was a bad deal. he changed the dates. i don't think you could have seen the u.s. sending in more troops to have a different kind of evacuation experience, but there was absolutely groups, refugee settlement groups and they could have said we need to start now for it not to be chaotic. >> is there fallout there is

this on us? the past two weeks have been a pentagon that i have never seen before. the attack had an impact on the leadership like i have never seen before. the service members are killed, and yes this is such a punch to the government and it had such a dramatic impact on moral unlike anything that i have seen in nearly 20 years there. and i think like that marine lieutenant colonel, he had 17 years. >> it wasn't someone on a whim on twitter. and he is putting his retirement at risk. he is three years to retirement. i'm hearing a lot of finger pointing at places outside of the pentagon right now. >> congress will be the next place where the finger poining will be under oath. coming up, new information

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welcome back. it is not news that we are experiencing a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and that our political divide plays a pretty big role in who is being infected. now we have a stark illustration of this issue. this is a list we put together of 30 counties with the highest infection rates in the country, starting with the highest. exception voted for president trump, and mo see this fourth wave of covid has a distinctly southern flavor, at least for now. nationally the seven-day average of new cases is now nearly 154,000. that is the highest since late january. joining me is dr. anthony fauci, the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases.

dr. fauci, welcome back to plets. >> thank you, chuck. thank you for having me. >> i want to start with the question of the third shot, booster shot, however you want to reference it. on friday, in the fog of afghanistan, if you will, there was some confusion about five months versus eight months. here is what the president said and then jen psaki right after. >> the question raised, should it be shorter than eight months, should it be five months? that's being discussed. i spoke with dr. fauci this morning about that. >> let me be very clear. the president would rely on any guidance by the cdc and the fda and health and medical experts. that guidance continues to be eight months. that has not changed. >> the president was meeting with the prime minister of israel. we know there's a lot of research coming out of israel about this third shot and they have already tornd around their morbidity rate with the third shot, they believe. what is happening here between five months and eight months?

>> well, we're still planning on eight months. that was the calculation we made. this rollout will start on the week of september 20th. but as we've said all along, chuck, in the original statement, that's the plan that we have, but we are open to data as they come in. this will have to go through the fda process and then the advisory committee on immigration practices that advises the cdc. right now we're sticking with eight, but we're totally open to any variation in that based on the data.from? it seemed like all the clinical data, the trial data was based on six months, not eight. and the only way i got to eight was, well, the w.h.o. asked for a two-month moratorium because they're worried about the global vaccine supply. where did we get eight months? >> certainly it was nothing to do with the w.h.o.'s moratorium on boosters. that wasn't even in the

consideration. as the data accumulated with our own cohorts, chuck, from the cdc, as we were looking at it, it was only in mid to late july that it became very, very clear that we were starting to see a diminution of waning of protection against infection and the slightest hint, if any, of waning of protection for hospitalization and death. so it was at that point that we decided we're going to plan to go at the feasible time in september -- the week of september 20th to start rolling it out. that's how we got with the eight. we're sticking with that for now. we or not changing it, but we're very open to new data as it comes in. we'll be very flexible about it. >> dr. peter hotez said one of the things we didn't do well, we, the collective we of messaging, of vaccines, this was probably always going to be a three-dose vaccines. that many of our vaccines are

three-dose vaccines, but this one is a little different because the second dose we decided to do so quickly. do you concur with that opinion? >> i think that peter hotez is right on the money. we were dealing, chuck, with a total emergency situation. if we had the grace to be able to do this in a very slow, measured manner, the phase two study would have given various intervals of dosing. it is entirely conceivable that when all is said and done, the standard regimen will be a three-dose shot for the mrna and a two-dose shot for the j&j. if you go back when we were doing this, we were fighting against time. we were having to save lives and we needed to do it very quickly. i don't think there was finger rant or wrong in the way we started it with two doses, but

at least now we're being very flexible that we'll need the third dose. in fact, i'm certain we'll need the third dose. >> i want to talk about where we are in this fourth wave, school has been essentially open in some of the country for almost as long as a month. cases among children have doubled basically since the start of august to 20 days in over a 19-day period. we saw cases in children double. with basically the rest of the country starting school essentially this coming week, where do you see this wave going? and are we headed for basically more increases in cases as school and this virus circulates? >> that's possible, chuck, but i believe we can avoid it. you can avoid it by protecting the children. we want to get them back the classroom. we've been through that for a while, the deleterious effects

of keeping kids physically out of the class regarding psychological, mental and social development. but we want to do itselfly. there is a safe way to do that. you surround the children with people who are eligible to be vaccinated and who get vaccinated. teachers, school personnel. the students from 12 and older who are eligible to be vaccinated right now, get them vaccinated, and then abide by the cdc recommendations of having masks in the school and ññr dñç5

we have within our power. the wherewithal to really suppress this outbreak at least in the united states. we want to do it globally and we're playing an important role in that. the regard to the united states, we still have about 80 million people who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not vaccinated. you showed that in the chart in the beginning of this segment when you showed the infection and the vaccination rates in certain parts of the country. if we really got the

overwhelming majority of those 80 million people vaccinated, you would see a dramatic turn-around in the dynamics of the outbreak. so it really is up to us. we have the power to do it. we just need to do it. >> what you're saying is right now we're a victim of our own polarization? >> i believe so, chuck. i've been saying that, and you and i have discussed this on your show multiple times. to me it just is astounding. we're dealing with a public health crisis and there's still divisiveness about things like mandating and masks and things like that. let's crush this outbreak and put the divisiveness and differences aside. >> it seems like it shouldn't be that hard to rally people to this message, but it's been very difficult. dr. anthony fauci, thank you for coming on and sharing your expertise and perspective with us. >> thank you, chuck. >> when we come ack, is struggling to manage your type 2 diabetes knocking you out of your zone? lowering your a1c with once-weekly ozempic®

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storm that is coming what can you tell us >> all right, sorry, i guess we lost communications -- communications, chuck. right now we are looking at imminent landfall of this storm. winds of 150 miles per hour are right now forecast, but we expect landfall in the next couple of hours and they will be at 155 miles per hour. storm surges upwards of 10 to 16 feet, and 20 inches of rain or more with this system. the eyewall, 15 miles wide with 150-mile-per-hour winds. it's basically a 15-mile wide f-3 tornado. that's what is coming in to this area system comes in, people have hunkered down and are doing their best, but i am telling you, chuck, the

difference between a category 1 storm and a cat 4 as far as wind destruction, over 30 times more powerful we are waiting for this to make landfall and when it does it will make its way inland through the mississippi river valley, and into the mid -atlantic and northeast later this week. >> get out of that unsafe weather, al roker. thank you, al. and to think this is all happening on the anniversary of katrina. when we come back, the political battle over masks and vaccine mandates (vo) while you may not be a pediatric surgeon volunteering your topiary talents at a children's hospital — your life is just as unique. your raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your passions, and the way you give back.

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welcome back, and underneath all the afghanistan news we've had a lot of covid fallout and florida is ground zero for these battles here, andthis is a cas where ron desantis, who has been the face of florida's response for obvious reasons and then some, is the tide turning tkp against him? school districts and even republican strongholds have rebelled against the mask mandates, and his recent poll

numbers are slipping, and fellow republicans in florida are not necessarily coming to his defense, and rubio and scott both might wanident, and rubio surge is going to turn back a hospital surge, and scott says i believe the private sector has the right to make their own decisions. what do you think of them backing away from desantis >> all three, scott, rubio and desantis are rumored to want to run for president. one lesson i draw is how quickly the politics of coronavirus can change, right? desantis, remember at the outbreak of the pandemic, was in a similar bad political situation. he then recovered, right, and he seemed to be able to do no wrong and now it changed again the number i am looking at is independents, and that's worry

some for a governor that has to run for re-election. and independents are turning against president biden on this issue, and you have to ask, how do you address this political problem? >> that's the thing, you have to get rid of covid the public is upset and frustrated and will take it out on everybody >> yeah, the delta variant is a reality and is a game changer, and it can change the game for desantis and for biden and everybody because it's so easily transmissible, and here we are everybody going back to school, and people wanting desperately, thinking we were going to go into the fall and have a normal fall and we are not. this is not normal it's not going to be normal for a while. >> i had somebody tell me that at some point if you are not telling the blunt truth you are going to get penalized for this in the long run. >> you can't politicize something that people are seeing

show up in their schools and neighborhoods. we have had the public health conversation in a political cage match rather than addressingi te pandemic as a whole, and delta variant is different, twice as likely to be hospitalized and people are seeing this show up when your kids are sick and parents are in the hospital, politics go out the window the longer it goes on the longer the pandemic rolls on, and it's no longer about freedom of speech, my right to wear a mask or not wear a mask, but how do i get my life back to normal >> the mandates could help things along in the military >> yeah, we are going to get the details specifically of how it will rollout, this mandatory vaccine. many members of the military are vaccinated, 70% or so and the

national guard is not the same and there will be an option for religious exemption, if somebody wants to do that if a service member says they don't want to get the vaccine, they will talk to their command and medical professionals, but at the end of the day they will have to get the vaccine as they are told to and we will see in the coming months, we will see cases of people that do not want to get it. >> there are other vaccines they have to have, right? >> 17 of them. >> this is not new are to the military >> is there a new way to communicate this to them >> probably not. when i look at some of the behavior for the republican governors, and if companies and employers start mandating vaccines, i think republicans should say get your jab. >> the republican governor wantino back there are many div.

>> that's for sure >> and the only way to address it is get the information that is persuasive right now peufplt this is our first major impact of our broken information system that's all we have for today thank you for watching if you are in the path of hurricane ida, please take all the steps to make sure you and your family are safe and hunker down we'll be back next sunday on "meet the press.

♪ ♪ we came to be winners ♪ >> oh, wow >> gee taking matters into his own hands. >> uh-oh we'll be here all day. ♪ we came to be champions ♪ turn off the lights. ♪ we came for the gold ♪ >> the party's over. the united states came to tokyo with one thought in mind, get the gold one game coming up for a gold medal ♪ w