towards their own stated position on the aca, which is you're an absolute i monster to suggest that we have the position that we have. what kind of crazy person would have that. we do. thank you both gentleman for making time tonight. a appreciate it. that is "all in" for this evening. "rach "rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> thanks chris. the great city of oklahoma city notified the state of oklahoma that it has no more icu beds available as a crush of covid patients overwhelms hospital capacity in oklahoma capital city. jackson, mississippi reports that six major mississippi hospitals are also down to zero capacity, zero beds in their intensive care units, again, because of a crush of covid patients in mississippi.

in north dakota, we spoke with the health director in busineis, north dakota, last night. the state once again reports there's a grand total of one icu bed left in the whole busineism region. that is the number of cases hit aca record high for the sixth straight day in a row. in bismarck, the state capital, where there's one icu bed left for the whole city, they've got 52 cases in the bismarck public schools. that's just a smattering of local headlines right now. but local headlines look like that all around the country right now as dozens of states are hitting record numbers, new record numbers for covid cases and for some cases hospital zass. meanwhile a white house official has just admitted to reporters on background, meaning the person won't use his name, that person has admitted to reporters that the trump policy for the country right now and

coronavirusgh is what's known colloquially as herd immunity, letting thes virus run its coue through the american population without doingth much of anythin to try to stop it under some vague idea that somehow you will simultaneously protect old people and otherwise vulnerable people while you maximize the number of americans who are infected. this is -- i think the technical term is a whack job flat earth totally out there concept in public health. but the white house now admits this is national policy for the united states of america on covid. in an interview in the "washington post" about the white house admitting this is what they're trying to do to the country, nih director francis collins said this, quote, what i worry aboutte this is it's bein presented as if it's a major alternative view that's held by large number of experts in the scientific community.

that is not true. oni this is a fringe component of epidemiology. this is not main stream science. it is dangerous. it fits into the political views of certain part of our confused plit establishment. he said, quote, i'm sure it will be an idea someone can wrap themselves in as a justification for skipping wearing masks and social distancing and just doing whatever they damn well prove. nih director francis collins. that appears to be exactly what it is. but apparently the trump administration is willing to admit to reporters that this is what the trump administration pursuing as national policy. this is what they want for the country. you can see it in action. you don't have to take their word for it and you should. they're demonstrating this principle at the president's events, at his no-masks, everybody packed together events like the one he did in sanford,

florida. he has been holding another one of these very similar events. look at this. tonight in pennsylvania. there's another one scheduled that'll be just like this tomorrow in iowa. the president has started bragging at these no social distancing, no masks events that he's sure he's immune now from getting covid since he has had it. that's h basically what they ar promoting now for the country, that everybody should get it. that'll make you as powerful and immune as thes president. you should getmu it. it'll make you immune. this is what the white house is now i leading with as their coronavirusth message. well, we now have this new report in a peer reviewed medical journal that having covid once doesn't actually necessarily make you immune. covid-19 reinfection documented in nevada adds to question on virus immunity. they're medically documenting people who got it once,

recovered, and then got it again worse. maybe getting infected with covid doesn't necessarily render you immune. also today, a new published report of a woman not only getting covid a second time afterco surviving it the first time. but their second time she got i itsh killed her. now that the u.s. government is admitting though that this will all be immune flat earth fringe theory is what they are pursuing for the hecountry, the world health organization is trying to raise the alarm as well. the w.h.o.as director yesterday convening a press conference to basically hammer it home, saying, quote, never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responded to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic. letting covid-19 circulate unchecked means allowing unnecessary infections, suffering and death. but that's the plan apparently and the white house is now admitting it. good luck. 215,000 of us dead already in this country.

but, i mean, here's the headlines tonight as i think the country is starting to wake up to how serious this is and exactly what this means. here's the headline in the "new york times" tonight, "white house embraces herd immunity declaration." and "the washington post," "proposal to hasten herd immunity to the coronavirus grabs white house attention but appalls top scientists." those headlines running right along side the breaking news tonight, more than 20 states have set records for new covid infections in recent days. and antibody treatment trial paused for safety concerns. and second covid-19 vaccine trial paused over unexplained illness. you take all this stuff together, and here's the big picture, right? we are 21 days out. we are three weeks from election day. more than 10 million americans have already voted. we're in the middle of the election basically. our country is rocketing fast into a third big wave of covid.

dozens of states hitting records, hospitals filling up already in multiple states. there is no vaccine. there is no cure despite the president pretending that there is a cure and maybe it's him. there ise troubling new eviden that getting infected doesn't necessarily make you immune. but the mostou powerful countryn earth is nevertheless now admitting that we are pursuing a radical experimental fringe strategyex of trying goto get o whole population infected anyway because maybe we'll be immune if we do that. could be. regardless,be they think just everybody purposely getting infected will be easier than wearing masks and the other things you need toot do to stop people from spreading this thing. besides, nothing matters, who knows, let's just see what happens. i don't mean to be weird aid and abet about it, but i have been trying to warn that they have been falling in love with this quack theory on herd immunity. i've been trying to warn about

this for the last few weeks because you could see this happens since they've been sidelining the real doctors. they started bringing in these flat earth guys, these epidemiological quacks, guys that don't have any authority in the subject matter at all who came in and said, ah, let's let everyonesa get it. i'm sure numerically it'll be fine. you could see thisumt' coming. and now they're finally admitting that's what they're doing. this is a bigg th deal. what the white house is now admitting they are doing as national policy is a recipe for hundreds of thousands more americans dead, if not millions of americans dead. a and that's even if this theory works, which it won't. but the plan is infect as many of us as possible. and i'm not sure the political world has caught up to this revelation that this is what trump's doing now. it's interesting. the election is turning to a significant degree, i think, on the president botching the response topr covid. you can see that, i think, most clearly in the new dnc ad that's

out today that you might have seen. it's htgood. i think the democratic party is telling aic story about covid tt is both sort of true and cogent, which means it's resonating. but even still, even with their current messaging on covid, which is ssgood, i think they'r going to haveis to ramp this up few notches at some point to account for the fact that the trump administrationun really i now falling over and overtly embracing thisg fringe herd immunity plan to infect as many americans as possible, a plan that a may very well killal mans ofy us. i think the democrats are probably going to have to take this up a few levels to account for this new omission from the white house.r this is the core message of the campaign, the dnc ad out on covid that's just out today. >> he was warned but ignored the evidence, holding rallies indoors,s turning a white hous into a superspreader and contracting the virus himself. >> now tested positive. >> now he claims he's learned

about covid. >> i get it. >> but he hasn't learned a thing, putting us and those sworn to protect him at risk. >> don't be amino acid afraid of it. >> 215,000 dead, no plan, and another wave is coming. had enough?pl >> i'mmi joe biden and i approv this message. >> had enough? that's the current dnc ad on covid. i think even the starkness of that is probably going to have to bepr ramped up given what th white house is now admitting about wanting a maximum number of americans to get infected because they're embracing this herd immunity thing. in that ad, the white house has super spreader footage they showed, that's from the announcement of the new nominee to the supreme court amy coney barrett. in this last minute shove to try to get her m on to the supreme court today, i think it was a rough day for the nominee. republicans think they will confirm her no matter what

happens in her confirmation. i think that's why they're not expending too much energy on how this is going. but, you know, this is going to have knock on effects regardless of whether or not she makes it on to theer court. the election is underway. 10 million americans have voted. millions more americans are preparing to caste their ballo right away while these hearings are going on. what's been happening at these hearings can't be good for the nominee. it can't be good for the republicans in the senate who are pushing her through it. it can't be good for the president who has explicitly said she needs to be on the court and fast so is she'll vote for him when he expects the court to intervene in the election to make sure he wins. i think republicans don't much think itic matters what happensn the confirmation process for amy coney barrett. but this is not the look they want to beis selling the countr right now while we're all in the middle ofwe voting. >> last week a contractor from outside of my state of minnesota started recruiting poll watchers

with special forces experience, mm-hm, to protect polling location in my state. similar efforts are going on around the country, solicited by president trump's false claims of massive voter fraud. as a result of his claims, people are trying to get poll watchers, special forces people, to gotc to the polls. judge barrett, under federal law, is itet illegal to intimide voters at the polls? >> senator klobuchar, i can't characterize k the facts in a hypothetical situation and i can't apply the law to a hypothetical set of facts. i can only decide cases as they come to me litigated by parties on a full record after fully engaging precedent, talking to colleagues, writing an opinion. i can't answer questions like that. i'm sorry. >> i'll make it easier. 184c outlaws anyone who threatens or attempts to

threaten or coerce any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other personwi to vote. this is a law that has been on the books for decades. >> on july 30th, 2020, president trump made claims of voter fraud and suggested he wanted to delay the upcoming election. does the constitution give the president of the united states the authority to unilaterally delay a general election under any circumstances? does federal law? >> well, senator, if that question ever came before me, i would need to hear arguments from the litigants and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion-writing process. >> no, not nec -- no, you wouldn't nec -- i know those are the motions you go through in your job. but that was a simple question. under the constitution and federal law there is no er provision for the president of

the united states to unilaterally delay an election. that is not a thing in america regardless of what your clerks think. but judge amy coney barrett said the president wants to unilaterally delay ans electio? i would like to hear more about that. i would like to entertain that idea.at judge barrett also apparently not cognizant of the fact that voter intimidation is a federal crime, full stop. the question was not do you think things that are going on in the country right now are voter intimidation. the question was, is voter intimidation a crime under federal law. she appeared to have no idea that the answer was plainly yes. judge barrett, it's 21 days until the election with donald trump on the ballot. judge barrett also refused to say today if we should commit to a peaceful transition of power. she said she wouldn't weigh in on that. also refusing to say if roe v wade is a superprecedent, a

superprecedent that should be deferred by the court. she wouldn't say. judge barrett also had a very hard time explaining why she has avoided disclosing to the senate some of the publications from her years of activism trying to get abortion declared illegal in this country. >> the st. joseph's county right to life sponsored the letter that you signed? >> i think the st. joseph county right to life organization was the one who presented the statement that i signed at the back of the church. i want to give you an opportunity to clarify. you didn't disclose that letter when you werecl nominated to th 7th circuit in 2017, did you? >> i did not, senator blumenthal. >> the questioner asked for letters. have you disclosed it now? have you d provided that officially? >> so, senator, as i said, i've supplemented my questionnaire with other material that came to

light thatat i do think was responsive. >> let me ask you about another letter, 2013 letter. you signed on to this letter regarding r regarding roe v. wade. it was sponsored by the university faculty for life at notre dame. you remember that organization, correct? >> i do. and the letter described roe v. wade as, behind me, infamous. and it stated that the signatories, quote, renew our call for the unborn to be protected in law, correct? >> yes. >> but you didn't disclose that letter -- >> again, senator, i produced 1,800 pages of material. >> you disclosed it, in fact, just about three days ago, i believe, right? >>ev because that's when it was brought to my attention. >> the organization that led the effort believes that in vitro

fertilization, ivf, is equivalent to manslaughter and should be prosecuted. do you agree with them that ivf is tantamount to manslaughter? >> senator, the statement that i signed, as you said, simply said we -- i signed it on the way out of church. it was consistent with the views of my church. i've never expressed a view on it. and for the reasons that i've already stated, i can't take policyst positions or express m personal views before the committee. >> amy coney barrett today did not want to talk about her years of anti-abortion activism and her advocacy and membership in organizations that are not only against abortion. they're also against the popular forms of birth control and they want toir outlaw ivf. it's one thing for judge barrett to have publicly been an

activist on those causes, to sbrn part of membership organizations through which she was a public advocate on policy issues on that matter. it's another thing for her to have tried to hide that material from the committee. but all of those things were laid out today t in her hearing. on ivf though, what senator leahy is talking about there is in vitro fertilization. she was a member of an organization. she was signed on to a document produced by an organization that does believe in vitro fertilization isvi manslaughter and should be prosecuted as such.os it's a fertility treatment. they want you to go to jail for having a fertility treatment. those kind of associations for judge barrett led today to this unprecedented anti-endorsement from fertility doctors who actually tend to be a fairly conservative bunch. the journal "fertility and sterility" for the first time ever put out a statement today

on a supreme court nominee, saying that judge barrett holds, quote, fringe anti-science views and that, quote, the seating of amy coney barrett to the supreme threatens those who seek to builden a family through in vitro fertilization. should barrett be seated on the court, that would severely hamper fertility treatments, we fear that reproductive health care would be set back many decades, endangering the families for which we care. in the 70 years of "fertility and sterility" we have never felt the need to opine on the seating of a supreme court justice for any party. for the reproductive health of all americans though, we do so today. when the fertility doctors are mad at you -- when the fertility doctors are making public statements saying, oh, my god, don't let this judge on the set,

given the american families, that's attention getting. she wouldn't say anything substantive about any of these matters. democrats are using this time in thisus confirmation process to t you know what we're about to get from this last-minute nominee rushed through by thest republicans in the last few day before this election that they think they are going to lose. this isn't a just an abstract political fight. big political fights almost never abstract. and this isn't even an abstract fight specifically for the senators who are going to be voting on this g nomination. one democratic senator who says he will vote no on the barrett nomination isar senator gary peters of michigan. senator peters is a low-key sort of low-profile middle of the road senator from michigan. he's in his first term, running for a second term. his opponent is a man named john james. he's trying forna a second timeo

win a senate seat in michigan. john james is associated with two political movements on the right. number one is unwaivering almost worshipfuler support for donald trump. and numberrt two, the anti-abortion movement which has supported him hammer and tongs. james not only wants roe versus wade overturned, he also says women who have been forcibly impregnated by the rapist should be forced by the government to bear the rapist's child. that's what he describes as a 100% pro-life. senator peters of michigan has just gone public with his family's personal story about abortion, explaining that with this nomination of amy coney barrett to the supreme court ano what that's going to mean for women's rights in this country, now isme the time for people to speak up on thispe issue,

particularly people in i power, particularly if they have personal experience with this. this is an absolutely unprecedented thing that michigan senator gary peters has just done. nost sitting senator has ever de anything publicly like this before. and the story itself isub remarkable. it will move you. we've got that story and senator gary peters here live next. ry ar gary peters here live next i just assumed all bladder leak pads felt the same. but nothing makes me feel like new always discreet boutique. outside, it's soft like underwear. inside, it turns liquid to gel. for incredible protection, that feels like nothing but my underwear. new always discreet boutique. balanced nutrition for strength and energy. whoo-hoo! great tasting ensure with 9 grams of protein,

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senator gary peters of michigan, democrat up for re-election this year has just become the first sitting u.s. senator in history to go public with his own family's story about abortion, saying that he felt compelled to do so given the threat posed to women's rights to the nomination of amy coney barrett to the u.s. supreme court. senator peters told the story to his family experience for "elle"

magazine. here's what it said. his then wife pregnant with a second child. heidi was four months along when her water broke, leaving the fetus without amniotic fluid, a condition it could not survive. the doctor told the peters to go home and wait for a miscarriage to happen naturally. but it didn't happen. they went back to the hospital the next day. the doctor detected a faint heart beat. he recommended an abortion because the fetus still had no chance of survival. but it wasn't an option due to a hospital policy banning the procedure. so the couple sent the couple home again. the mental anguish someone goes through is intense trying to have a miscarriage for a child that was wanted. heidi's health deteriorated. when she returned to the hospital again, the doctor told her the situation was dire. she could lose her uterus in a

matter of hours if she wasn't able to have an abortion. if she came septic from the uterine infection, she could die. the doctor appealed to the hospital's board to an exception to the policy. he was denied. peters says, quote, i vividly remember he left a message on the answering machine saying they refused to give me permission. i reck mepd you immediately find another physician who can do this procedure quickly. the peters were able to get into another hospital right away because they were friends with its chief administrator. heidi was rushed into an emergency abortion that saved her uterus and possibly her life. the whole experience was painful and traumatic, heidi shared in a statement. if it weren't for urgent and critical medical care, i could have lost my life. reflecting on the experience now, senator gary peters says it enacted an incredible -- excuse me, it exacted an incredible emotional toll. so, why go public with it?

he says, quote, it's important for folks to understand that these things happen to folks every day. i've always considered myself pro-choice. i believe women should be able to make these decisions themselves. but when you live it in real life, you realize the significant impact it can have on a family. it's important for folks who are willing to tell these stories to tell them, especially now, peters says. the new supreme court nominee could make a decision that could have major ramifications for reproductive health for women for decades to come. this is a pivotal moment for reproductive freedom. no sitting senator has ever gone public with a personal family story like this. joining us now is senator gary peters from the great state of michigan. i know it's a busy time in the senate and the middle of your re-election campaign. thanks for taking the time with us tonight. >> good to be with you, rachel. >> i know that being a public servant and public figure

necessarily go hand in hand. but i have to imagine it still must have been a hard decision for you and your family to tell the world about this experience, to just put this out to the world. >> well, it is tough. it's not easy. and electronegativen though it y years ago, when you relive the experience, it still brings great pain. and the mental anguish that heidi went through, that i went through lives on. and i think it's just so important that folks understand that people can be put in these situations that are so difficult and people go through these today and on a regular basis. often these voices are not heard in the abortion debate and you'll hear other stories. but these are the stories that folks go through every day. these are babies that are wanted. this is something that a family looks forward to. then a pregnancy goes bad and medical treatment isn't provided because someone is making a decision not based on medicine,

not best medical practice, but politics. and that's simply unacceptable. and right now when we're in the midst of a debate for a new supreme court justice that may overrule roe v. wade, this is going to become an important issue. it's important for these stories to go told. i know the anguish you go through losing a child. i experienced it with my wife. it's the whole family. it's husbands. it's other loved ones. these are decisions that need to be made by a woman. they are incredibly difficult, hard, hard decisions. they need to be made with the advice of a physician and the medical advice and folks that the woman may want to bring into that decision. but to have it second guessed by a hospital board who is bound by some sort of politics or whatever it may be, you know, as you mentioned, i will never

forget that recording. to get that news, that horrible news, on a recording machine and understand that we needed to find someone right away. now, we were fortunate. we knew someone who could get her into -- heidi into the -- actually the department head for obgyn who could look at her and said immediately we have to do this action. this is very, very serious. there are a lot of families that may not have -- and don't -- have that option. it puts folks in serious medical harm. we've got to understand these are the stories that people go through. and the anguish you experience, it just doesn't go away for a long, long time. and people don't want to tell these stories. they're painful stories. they're stories that they live with and feel alone and feel that they're suffering in ways that they can't share. that's not right. we have to understand that these are medical procedures that are

necessary for a woman's health and many times her life. >> senator, i know you have said that part of the reason that you needed to speak out now is because of what's going to likely happen on the supreme court if judge barrett is confirmed. she's signed on to an anti-abortion advertisement that called roe versus wade decision which prevents states from outlawing abortion, she called it barbaric. that was a statement from a group that said fertility treatment, people should go to jail for fertility treatment. they tried to pin her down on those views and also on not disclosing those things to the committee. given your personal experience, given what i know has been a very intense response to your disclosing this personal story from your family, how essential do you think this should be to her evaluation as a nominee for the court. obviously her impact on the court is going to be wide and a

lot of different issues. how central should this set of issues be? >> i think it has to be central. and this puts a real face on what is involved when you are approving a supreme court nominee. this is someone who's going to sit on the bench and will likely be on the bench for, perhaps, decades to come. and the decisions that are made have substantial consequences in people's lives. and what i went through i know others go through every day. the outpouring of emails that i have received from folks around the country and women who have experienced the similar types of situation feel that they're not heard, they're not seen. and to think that you're going to put someone on the supreme court that's going to make this nightmare for many people very real i think has to be part of any decision made as to who we put on that bench.

and the decisions that they're going to make have major ramifications for people's lives for a long period of time. folks need to tell these stories. people need to know what happens every day for folks all across this country. >> senator gary peters of great state of michigan in his first term, currently running for a second term. sir, i know this is -- as you said, this is a hard thing to decide to do. but it's a public service of a really unique kind. thanks for helping us understand tonight. thanks for being here. >> thank you rachel. thank you very much. >> all right. much more ahead tonight. stay with us. much more ahead tonight. stay with us want to brain better?

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explicitly spelled out in the constitution and federal law. nevertheless, these moments came and went today and it was a little weird. >> does the constitution give the president of the united states the authority to unilaterally delay a general election under any circumstances? does federal law? >> well, senator, if that question ever came before me, i would need to hear arguments from the litigants and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion-writing process. so, if i give off-the-cuff answers, i would be a legal pundit. >> is it illegal to intimidate voters at the polls? >> senator klobuchar, i can't characterize the facts in a hypothetical situation, and i can't apply the law to a hypothetical set of facts like that. >> okay, i'll make it easier. 18usc 594 outlaws anyone who

intimidates, threatens, coerces or attempts to intimidate, threaten or coerce any person interfering with the right of such other person to vote. >> i'll make it easier for you, joining us now is dahlia. he also hosts the excellent "slate "podcast. it's really nice to see you. thanks for joining us. >> thanks rachel. >> refusing to answer senators' questions is standard practice. some of what struck me was strange. shouldn't judge barrett have just said, yeah, of course there's a federal law against voter intimidation. were some of these things that happened today just mistakes by judge barrett? >> you know, it's funny, rachel. i wrote in my notebook as she was refusing to engage on these questions, i wrote down the words "the banality of neutrality." you know, there's something

about the president is now on the record saying the election's going to be stolen, that every mail-in ballot is fraudulent, that he is relying on his justice department and the court to help him. the whole impetus is to pollute confidence in federal law. i think there's something interesting. cory booker has said this over and over again. this isn't normal. the right answer is, is the president trying to steal the election? no, he can't. that would be the right answer. and i think there's some sort of thinking here where she feels as though she's untethering herself from his untetheredness. but what she's, in fact, doing is helping -- that's just chilling in a moment where you feel as though you would really like somebody to say

unequivocally, no, the president doesn't get to delay the election. and by the way, you don't get to send thugs out to do poll voter intimidation. so, i don't know if it was a mistake, but i know that for a lot of people who really need to hear there's an answer to this question, the idea that there are good people on both sides of those questions was not super, super helpful today. >> yeah, and i also feel like it would have been -- i'm not sure that it would have earned a white house explosion for judge barrett to say, oh, yeah, voter intimidation is illegal under federal law, unless she didn't know that. but everybody knows that. the peaceful transfer of pow e she says it's a nice thing about our country that we have that, but she didn't say we're going to have that and there is going to be a peaceful transfer of power. there was a moment she refused to engage on the question of whether or not the president can

pardon himself and all of these things that no longer seem like hypothetical questions. they no longer seem like law school exercises. i guess the same version of the first question, should we have expected even those give me things to now be essentially fuzzed up by her and not seen as something that all of us as americans agree on. >> yeah, i mean, i guess i'm going to give you the same essential answer, which is in a perfect world, these are yes/no binary questions and it would, i think, assuage a lot of fear to have a person who is kind of vaulting towards the seat in which she will decide these questions simply say as a matter of law of course no, of course no. and i don't understand the cost of saying of course no. but i do think this kind of

weird moral relativism, legal relativism, everything's a coin toss, it does serve the president's ultimate purpose. it does serve the purpose of muddying the waters, fomenting doubt, really raising questions about how confident you can be about not just your vote but the courts and the justice department. and i don't understand the cost of simply saying i'm going to be the place where the doubt stops. she's made that choice, and i -- it's a mystery to me. but that's the choice she's made. >> tomorrow should be interesting to see if she sticks with it. i think that -- i think that -- i can imagine the sort of training that might have gone into these prep sessions to get her ready to do something like this. i think the way it's landing is all cost and fwhoen fno benefit even politically.

hosted the amicus podcast. thanks for your wisdom. >> thanks rachel. >> all right. coming up next tonight. one of the largest cities in the country set a remarkable record on its first day of early voting. this is a crazy story. we've got a guest who's right in the mild of it join us. next stay with us. it join us next stay with us. priceline works with top hotels, to save you up to 60%. these are all great. and when you get a big deal... ♪ ...you feel like a big deal. ♪

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today was day one of early voting in the great state of texas, and just like georgia's first day yesterday, polling places across the state of texas had big long lines starting early this morning. in dallas, for example, this was a long line down the block at the library polling site. the san antonio spurs basketball site sent this video of the line outside their home arena, the at&t center, which is being used as an early voting site in the great state of san antonio. voters lined up this morning in downtown tyler, texas. in odessa, texas, they lined up

at the hardware store to vote. in the capital of texas, austin, check this out. a time-lapse. one poll worker estimating nearly a three-hour wait from the end of the line to the voting poll there. there are a ton of registered voters in and around austin. this year just about every single person who is eligible to vote in travis county where austin is has registered to vote. travis county announced today that of the over 850,000 eligible voters in that county 97% of them are now registered to vote. 97% registration of eligible voters. so that's austin, texas. then there's texas' largest city, houston. harris county is home to houston, and they had absolutely massive turnout today for their first day of early voting. four years ago in 2016, harris county had 40 early votes sites. this year it's got over 100, including ten drive-through

voting sites where you can vote from your car. harris county's also doubled its number of paid election workers. they've got 11,000 paid election workers. and it was a good thing they had all those sites and poll workers today because on the first day of early voting in 2016, just under 68,000 people voted on the first day of voting. today, four years later, at least 128,000 people voted on the first day of early voting. almost double, right? it not only beats, it almost doubles the first day of early voting in 2016. it also beats harris county's record for the first day of early voting ever. the harris county clerk, who was the official overseeing this record early vote turnout a young man, just 34 years old. he is the youngest clerk in the county's history. he has only held the job since this summer and it seems like a sure thing he's about to have the busiest three weeks of his

short life. joining us is chris hollins. thank you for making time for us tonight. you are going to have a really wicked busy three-week run, but today it seems like it was already a little nuts. >> good evening, rachel. thank you for having me. and, yes, voters want to be heard and they turned out in massive numbers today in houston and harris county. we're excited the harris county clerk's office we've given them opportunities to vote. tripled the number of early voting centers and making sure they can vote safely and conveniently and with the peace of mind that their votes are going to be counted. >> i like to see the turnout, huge numbers of people successfully casting their ballots, especially on day one. we are seeing a lot of lines, not just in harris county, but around the state of texas. do you worry about people feeling still that the integrity of their vote is going to be challenged, that they -- it's going to be too much work to ask them to get the vote in, that they're going to be waiting in lines that are too long or too

unpredictable? how are you -- how are you trying to factor in all those concerns in terms of voter motivation? >> yeah, well, we see a lot of misinformation out there and we just try to provide as much information and education to the voters as possible. on our website you can type in your address and find all of the voting centers that are near you along with their approximate wait times. so you can go and vote at a place that is most convenient for you and your family. as you mentioned a moment ago, we're offering drive-through voting for the first time in the history of texas. so we're giving voters more access have ch than they've ever had and today we were pleased to see the results. >> am i correct that the texas republican party is now suing to try to stop the drive-through voting? >> among many other things, yes. they've come down on the side of voter suppression quite a bit this season, and we're disappointed by that. but despite all of these efforts from our governor, our attorney general, even the texas supreme court, we're making sure that this election is the safest and most accessible in the history of texas, bar none.

>> mr. hollins, i hope you don't mind me saying, but you are 34 years old. you are the youngest clerk in the history of harris county, as far as i can tell. you seem like you are doing a very good job at your work, at least thus far, although i know these next few weeks is going to be difficult. can i ask you how you ended up becoming the clerk of harris county, why you wanted this job, and if this is what you expected getting into it? >> well, i was appointed after the resignation of my predecessor for health reasons during the time of covid-19, but i'm serving through this election, doing our best to protect the right to vote for all of the residents of harris county, and i have a huge team, hundreds of committed public servants working with us, and now thousands and thousands of election workers who are volunteered and we're thankful for them. >> chris hollins, harris county, texas clerk in harris county, texas. harris county had its first day of in-person early voting today. by all accounts, a considerable

success and a huge undertaking. good luck. you're one of the biggest counties in the country. you have got a huge amount of pressure in terms of the fight between state and local officials and the country has its eyes upon you in terms of texas. good luck to you, sir. keep us apprised. >> thanks so much. have a good one. >> all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. chipotle sauce. [doorbell chimes] thank you. [puck scores] oooow yeah!! i wasn't ready! you want cheese to go with that whine?? car vending machines and buying a car 100% online.vented now we've created a brand new way for you to sell your car. whether it's a year old or a few years old, we want to buy your car. so go to carvana and enter your license plate, answer a few questions, and our techno-wizardry calculates your car's value and gives you a real offer in seconds. when you're ready, we'll come to you, pay you on the spot, and pick up your car. that's it.

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senator kamala harris is back in d.c. this week for the confirmation hearings for judge

amy coney barrett. senator harris had her turn with the nominee tonight, pressing her on the affordable care act and reproductive rights, among other things. but tomorrow right after day three of the supreme court hearing, senator harris will be here, live right here at 9:00 p.m. eastern. this is going to be my first chance to interview senator harris since she became the vice presidential nominee of the democratic party. tonight is 21 days from the election. tomorrow is 20 days from the election. i'm almost running out of time to be nervous here, but not quite. do please tune in. senator kamala harris live here tomorrow, 9:00 p.m. eastern. that's going to do it for us tonight. i ill will see you again then. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. and we are all locked on you tomorrow night at 9:00. can't wait to hear what vice presidential candidate harris has to say, and i have to say, it's been fascinating watching the hearing because she