now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. thank you, my friend. much appreciated. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. over the course of eight years that he was president, president barack obama had two of his nominees confirmed to be justices of the united states of his nominees confirmed to be justices of the united states supreme court. justice sonia sotomayor, who was sworn in, in august 2009, and justice elena kagan, who was sworn in, in august 2010. neither justice sotomayor nor justice kagan was sworn in at the white house, though. they were both sworn in at the court, at the supreme court, as a gesture of respect for the independence of the judiciary, for the fact that a justice of the supreme court should never be primarily known for his or her association with the president who gave them their appointment. again, both elena kagan and sonia sotomayor sworn in at the court, not the white house. the trump administration does

not have those same sensitivities. in president trump's less than four years in office, mitch mcconnell has arranged for president trump to have two supreme court nominees confirmed before tonight and a third confirmed tonight. the vacancy created by the death of justice scalia happened during president obama's time in office, but senator mcconnell wouldn't allow president obama to fill that seat. instead, he held it open until trump was there. that was the first opening. then they brokered the second opening, the retirement of justice kennedy, to make another vacancy for trump to fill. and in both of those instances, justice gorsuch and justice kavanaugh, they were both sworn in at the white house, at lavish white house ceremonies overseen from inches away by the president himself, the president making sure he was in every shot, including the money shot of the hand on the bible and the other hand in the air. both gorsuch and kavanaugh sworn

in at the white house at big, lavish events marked by the presence of the president and lots of chest thumping from the all-republican crowds invited to gloat over it. well, this president has also had a third supreme court nomination engineered for him by senator mitch mcconnell after the death of justice ruth bader ginsburg, even though it was very shortly before the election, and mcconnell, supposedly, had a standard that there shouldn't be votes on new supreme court justices in election years. he nevertheless rushed to get amy coney barrett in as a third trump nominee. and tonight, as amy coney barrett was rushed through the process in lightning-fast, record time, nominated, forced through the confirmation process like a hot knife through butter, voted on tonight. the vote was 52-48. only one republican senator siding with the democrats against her. it was all republican votes in favor of her. and now, tonight, following this vote, amy coney barrett will be

sworn in, naturally, at the white house, presumably with donald trump hovering approximately one centimeter away, because who are we kidding, this is not exactly meant to be a great signal of the independence and apolitical nature of the judiciary. the new justice will be sworn in eight days before the presidential election, will have her first day on the job at the court tomorrow. she'll have her ceremonial swearing-in tonight at the white house. then they'll do an official swearing-in tomorrow with chief justice john roberts. but that means she'll be assuming her new seat on the court one week before the election that the guy who appointed her is expected to lose. by the time the election rolls around, a week from tomorrow, we expect that trump's brand-new justice will get to rule on election procedures in multiple states where republicans are insisting that fewer votes be counted. at least two states have their election procedures cued up and teed up for the court

immediately upon barrett getting there. within her first month on the court, she'll be ruling on whether to get rid of the affordable care act, which would throw tens of millions of americans off their health care. she has been outspoken in saying that she believes that previous rulings to uphold the constitutionality of the affordable care act were wrong. that's basically the equivalent of a new justice saying she will rule to strike down the affordable care act. again, that will put millions of americans out of luck in terms of health insurance they currently have that they will lose because of that expected ruling. also, within her first month at the court, barrett will be ruling on an important gay rights case. one of the things that didn't quite come up in her confirmation process is that she was on the board of a school that won't let kids go there if their mom or dad is gay. also, a school that won't hire gay teachers. how do you think she's going to rule on the gay rights case? couldn't ask her about that in the confirmation process because

she didn't disclose it to the senate. and then once it was disclosed in public reporting, there wasn't time to go back to it because they were rushing her through so fast so she'd be there in time for the election. i will tell you, judge barrett will also, by the end of this week, be participating in a supreme court decision about whether they're going to take up a mississippi case that is designed specifically to be the case that will overturn roe versus wade and make abortion illegal in this country. they will be making a decision on that on friday. also, within days, judge barrett will likely be participating in the decision as to whether or not state prosecutors get access to president trump's tax returns and financial records. barrett has refused to say if she will recuse from any of those things, but if tonight's live shots from the white house -- if this -- if tonight's amy coney barrett trump festival at the white house is any indication of how things are going to go, it's not like there's a lot of suspense as to whether or not she will

recuse -- whether she sees any distance between herself and the president who appointed her through a process absolutely engineered by senate republicans and by mitch mcconnell, in particular, to give this president three supreme court justices in less than four years. vice president mike pence said as recently as this weekend that he was going to be in the senate tonight. look at the president walking out with judge barrett tonight. ah, judicial independence. vice president mike pence said he was going to be in the senate in person for the vote on barrett's nomination. this is remarkable. live shot of the president walking out with judge barrett there. the vice president was going to be in the senate for the vote tonight, but ultimately changed his mind after five of vice president pence's closest aides, including his chief of staff and body man all tested positive for coronavirus in recent days. democratic senators begged vice president pence to please not show up in the senate chamber

and put them all at risk. the white house is admitting that vice president pence has been a close contact of his staffers, who have tested positive. one of the positive cases, after all, is his bodmay man, the staffer that is charged to be physically close to the vice president and carrying stuff for him and handing stuff to him. that's one of the guys who's positive. one of the other guys who's positive is the guy on the right side of this photo. do we have that picture? doing the no-mask group man hug thing with pence backstage at the vice presidential debate. there we go. the guy on the right there. that's one of the other people who's an aide to vice president pence who has just tested positive. pence's chief of staff, incidentally, who also has tested positive, he's on the left there. the white house admitting that vice president pence is a close contact of multiple people who have now tested positive, but he is not quarantining. they're insisting that the vice president is going to keep travel, keep up his meeting schedule, keep up everything he's doing because they say he's

essential, by which they do not mean that mike pence is secretly an icu nurse or a grocery worker or emergency plumber. he's just this guy, breathing in the face of all of the secret service agents and military aides and staff and junior staffers who have to attend to him personally and have to stay out there, despite the fact that all of the people he works with just tested positive and none of them have been wearing masks all week long. that said, vice president pence did not come to the senate chamber tonight for the vote on judge barrett, which is nice, given that the average age of the united states senator right now is just to the north of methusala. asked about the vice president's plans to keep spreading this thing around as quickly as possible, rather than quarantining, the white house chief of staff mark meadows told jake tapper at cnn this weekend that the white house did try to keep the outbreak in pence's office a secret. they tried to get away with not telling anybody about it, but word leaked out. meadows defended sending pence out to a rally in florida on

saturday and to another thing in north carolina on sunday and to another rally thing in minnesota today, even though the vice president has just had close contact with all these people who have tested positive, including his closest staffers. yeah, why bother trying to stop the vice president himself from spreading this thing as far and wide as possible? white house chief of staff mark meadows explained that while the white house does want there to be a vaccine or treatment that ultimately helps people survive covid, that's pretty much all they're interested in doing. he's not interested, the white house is not interested, and he says the u.s. government is not interested in preventing people from getting it in the first place. mark meadows saying this weekend, remarkably, "we are not going to control the pandemic." "it's a contagious virus!" there it is. if you have been wondering why america's pandemic management has produced this brilliant response that we're all trying to live through now, now at

least the white house is admitting it for the first time ever this weekend, we hit 80,000-plus new cases in a single day. there are 40,000-plus americans in the hospital with covid right now. our case numbers still shooting for the moon. lana wen, former baltimore health commissioner, bottom-lined it today in the "washington post," in terms of the implications of what the white house is now admitting. she said, "there it is. that's trump's plan, to accept our fate and surrender to the virus. cross our fingers and place all of our hopes on vaccines and therapies. in the meantime, live our lives as we did before, ignore the rising death count and let the virus rip through our communities." "this approach," she says, "explains so many of the trump administration's otherwise contradictory actions. why bother investing the resources to safely reopen schools if the goal isn't to prevent students and teachers from getting the coronavirus? why increase testing capacity if we're not going to use the

information to help stop the spread? so all that it will do to do more testing is make the administration look bad. why conduct contact tracing, even for cases arising from the white house itself, if we're not actually trying to contain the virus?" the united states is about to enter a phase of exponential spread. infection rates will skyrocket. hospitals will once again be overwhelmed. death rates will climb. we have a narrow window to stop this tidal wave, but we have just learned that our government has decided it is unwilling to use that time. it's like learning a foreign enemy is planning an invasion that will kill hundreds of thousands of americans and our elected leaders know how to stop it, but they've simply decided not to. history will look back on this moment in disbelief and horror. and i know i have been a broken record on this since the early part of this summer, but they really are -- if you have been watching what they are doing and not listening to what they are saying, it has been clear -- they really haven't been working

on trying to keep americans from getting infected. i mean, for months, they have not been working on that. and the virus has, therefore, obliged by infecting millions of us. i mean, 226,000 americans dead. let's see how high they can push this thing. i mean, it took us january, february, march, and april, until the end of april, for the united states to hit 1 million infections in this country. last week we got nearly 500,000 new infections just in one week. and the white house says, yeah, we're not even trying to stop this. it's contagious, it turns out. we're hoping that people who get it might not die, but that's basically as much as we're willing to do. hope you don't die! good luck getting health care! how's the hospitals where you're living? that's the plan. that devastating admission from the white house actually made front-page news all over the country today. here's today's front page of the

"orlando sentinel" in florida -- "we're not going to control the pandemic." then you see the subhead there -- "trump chief of staff defends trump working amid infected staffers." here's the front page of the "sun journal" in new bern, north carolina. "aide says covid can't be controlled." next to a picture of trump white house chief of staff mark meadows. all the way across the country, here's the front page of "the seattle times" today -- "pence staff ill, white house won't control the pandemic," and then there's the subhead there, "trump says we're rounding the turn as cases surge with one week to election day." you can see their bigger headline on the front there is a front-page profile of pulmonologist dr. vin gupta, who you may recognize. he's been on the air with us a lot, helping us understand this pandemic and helping us on debate nights, fact-checking some of the president's lies about covid. here's the "washington post" front page today -- "white house is again afflicted," then in all

caps, "five in pence's orbit have virus." then you see the subhead there -- "meadows, white house chief of staff, says not going to control the pandemic." it's the same feeling on the front page of "the boston globe" today -- "new outbreak royals campaign, pence's office hit, we're not going to control the virus, meadows says." and it's not just the big papers, and it's not just national news. here's the "winona daily news" in winona, missouri -- "what's driving the world spike?" rnd in wisconsin his family brought him to the closest emergency room in the hospital in bismarck, north dakota, but there was no bed to put him in. they tried moving him while he was suddenly and violently ill, to the other hospital in bismarck, but that hospital didn't have a bed for him either. it very nearly killed this kid. headline in "the grand forks herald" today on the front page is this quote from his mom, "he could've easily died in my home, teen's ordeal shows true cost of

north dakota's strained hospitals." down in el paso today, same story in the making. "covid-19 patients flood el paso hospitals." in el paso, texas, this weekend, the county judge, the top elected official in el paso county, announced that all el paso area hospitals are filled to 100% capacity. all hospitals, all intensive care units. they're now opening an emergency field hospital at the el paso convention center. 50 beds can extend to 100. they're bringing in dozens of emergency federal medical workers to staff extra beds in el paso. they're opening up the el paso children's hospital to adult patients. this afternoon, the local army medical center -- that's a defense department facility -- the local army medical center is now accepting covid-19 patients from hospitals in the area, too. so, civilians being treated at the military hospital. they're instituting a curfew now in el paso, 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. only essential travel and travel for work allowed during those hours. they are trying to stop people

from moving around too much. they are trying to slow down the spread. they are trying to buy the hospitals some time. you know, in terms of that crisis staffing being flown into el paso, utah's hospitals may need crisis staffing, too. the state hospital association in utah is now warning that they are heading toward rationing care in utah hospitals, warning that that means very stark, very dire decisions. they may have to start triaging older covid patients out of the icu to make room for younger ones who are more likely to live. they may have to essentially start giving up on older patients who need too much care because there aren't enough beds and enough staff to care for them. i mean, even as utah's hospitals have filled up and the state has considered activating field hospitals to open up more beds, turns out, the beds really aren't the issue. the staffing shortages are so acute, it's not clear if beds alone with going to be any help. it's not technically an icu bed, unless it is staffed by trained

icu doctors and icu nurses, and there just aren't enough of those anymore in utah. and you know, i've been talking about some red states here. it's not just red states. massachusetts is bracing for what this graph is going to mean over the next few weeks. this is the results of regular wastewater treatment -- excuse me, wastewater testing at a water treatment plant that serves the greater boston area. when you test wastewater, it doesn't tell you exactly which individuals are infected. it just tells you, for the whole population, roughly how much of the population in that area is positive, whether they know it or not, whether they've actually been personally tested or not. the wastewater plants collect wastewater from their whole catchment area. they test all of the wastewater together, and they can see how much the virus is rising in that population. look at how that graph is turning around. again, that is the greater boston area. that is very, very worrying.

so, case numbers spiking now and hospitals filling up now means that hospitals in lots of places are likely to be in a real crisis over the next several weeks. we know that the white house doesn't want to hear about it. the president tonight at a rally once again saying, "covid, covid, covid, covid, it's all i ever hear about." we know the white house doesn't want to hear about it. we know from the admission from the white house chief of staff that they don't actually plan to do anything about it, right? it's fine. just hold still. let the vice president sneeze in your face. but in eight days, this election, which is well under way, will finally be coming to an end. more than 62 million americans have already cast their ballots. we're looking at like 150, 160 million people who are going to vote total in this election, right, based on what happened in 2016? over 60 million people have already cast their ballots and millions more americans are doing so every day. moments before amy coney barrett

got that confirmation vote in the senate tonight, the existing conservative majority on the court ruled that wisconsin has to throw out any ballots that are postmarked by election day but arrive after that day. yeah, can't imagine why that would happen after what the trump administration has done to the postal service. the court ruling tonight that wisconsin throws out ballots that haven't arrived by election day, even if they were postmarked well before. i mean, for context, you should know that there were tens of thousands of ballots, like 80,000 ballots like that, that were counted in the primary in wisconsin earlier this year, but not for the general election, not with trump on the ballot. conservatives on the supreme court are now changing the rules, so no matter when you postmarked your ballot and put it in the mail in wisconsin, they won't count it, if they get it after election day. and rulings like that from conservative justices and efforts like that by republicans around the country, that's in

part why our fellow americans are lining up like you cannot believe to cast their votes in person. the lines are hours long everywhere. it is ridiculous that this is what we have to go through to vote, with or without a pandemic, right? it is ridiculous. it makes us look like a 19th-century banana republic. but it is also inspiring seeing americans willing to put themselves through it to do it, and it is what we have to do to get our votes counted now. and in that context, let it be known, as an act of great patriotism and civic virtue that there are those among us who are absolutely, positively dedicated to making sure that the millions of americans who are turning out to stand in line to get their ballots cast, there are patriots among us who are doing their damnedest to make sure that when we are lining up to vote, it might actually be kind of fun this year.

there is not just bad news right now. there is a lot of bad news right now, but it is not just bad news. there is also the joy to the polls movement, for one. we've got nor on that coming up. stay with us. big night. ♪ with us big night. ♪ i'm meredith vieira. what's complicated and confusing that many people over 65 deal with each year? medicare. that was too easy. the time for making changes to your medicare plan is now. some things are different. you'll find new options this year. and i think it's always wise to see what else is out there. here's a great resource for you. myhealthpolicy.com. this is medicare advantage made easy, your way. for some of us, it means the internet. if that's your go-to, your first step might be exploring on your own. (announcer) go online, compare options like plans with prescription drug coverage or zero premium. if you're like me, you like to ask questions

and get firsthand answers. with myhealthpolicy, you have choices. (announcer) you can talk to a licensed insurance agent on the phone. or maybe you prefer a face-to-face personal connection. myhealthpolicy offers that too. (announcer) you can meet with a local licensed insurance agent in your community. whatever way works for you. compare, sign up, switch plans. with myhealthpolicy, it's easy. see for yourself. (bright music) ♪ ♪

my hands are everything to me. but i was diagnosed with dupuytren's contracture. and it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. thought surgery was my only option.

turns out i was wrong. so when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. learn more at factsonhand.com today. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. i feel like we're forglet me check.ing. xfinity home gives you peace of mind from anywhere with professionally monitored home security built around you. no, i think we're good. good. so when you're away, you don't have to worry. the tent. we forgot... the tent. except about that. xfinity home. simple. easy. awesome. hey look, i found the tent! get xfinity home with no term contract required. click or call today. in new york, early voting started just this weekend. people waited in line for two, three, four hours, just to cast a vote.

it is capital "s" stupid that we have allowed the voting process to get so screwed up in this country that it takes that much time and dedicated and sacrifice to cast a ballot. but it is capital "s" stupendous that we as citizens are also innovating some solutions to that mess as we speak. this was the scene outside one polling place in brooklyn, new york, this weekend. members of brooklyn united marching band and drum line bringing much-needed entertainment to voters waiting in those long, long lines. here was another drum line in pennsylvania. this was outside roxboro high school in philadelphia. people are doing this kind of stuff all over, and turning up in all sorts of different ways. in nevada, this was a huge group of latino voters parading on horseback to the polls. look at that, carrying -- this was a latino voters for biden group, mostly. you see a lot of them wearing -- they had the biden blankets and

stuff on their horses there, followed by a truck parade of people flying biden flags. in florida, pop singer ariana grande sent hundreds of pizzas to florida voters during the first day of early voting. and again, back in philly this weekend, we got one other amazing scene that got a bunch of national attention. voters showed us that while the six-feet distance is needed for social distancing because of covid, six feet is also, apparently, scientifically speaking, it's the exact amount of space you need to properly perform the cha-cha slide. ♪ ♪ cha-cha to the left, turn to the right and move to the left ♪ ♪ ♪ you cha-cha with your right, you cha-cha with your left ♪

♪ you turn to the right and move to the left ♪ ♪ >> if you are wondering why we had to blur the guy who's the really good dancer, the guy in front, we had to blur his shirt, it's because his shirt features a short and to the point expletive, followed by the word "2020." you can guess. and 2020 has been an abominably bad year, but it is made a little bit less abominably bad by this kind of sort of amazing joy and cheer being spread at the polling places. to that end, i should tell you that the last video we showed you from philly was not a spontaneous one-off dance party that happened to just break out at that polling site. it was part of a project from a group called election defenders who describe themselves as a non-partisan coalition to make sure voters are staying safe and healthy outside polling places across the country and also

bringing them some joy. that polling place in philly this weekend was actually the kickoff site for a campaign they are calling "joy to the polls," where they bring live music to voters who are stuck in line waiting to cast their ballots. the organizers say they are planning similar events at polling places all across the country on election day. joining us now is milini stamp with election defender, a campaign direct your and also with the working families party. ms. stamp, it's a pleasure to have you here today. thank you for joining us to talk about this. >> thanks for having me, rachel. >> i feel like the joy that you created at the polls was sort of, not mimicked, but it also sort of manifests in vivid joy among people just covering it and learning about the fact that you're doing it. it sort of feels like the first good-news story about our terrible voting system and about this incredibly fraught election

that i think anybody's heard in a really long time. >> yeah. i mean, we shouldn't have to do this. voter suppression has run rampant in our communities for such a long time. people are waiting four hours, three hours on line. and there are lots of reports that there are going to be militias or white supremacists at polling places stationed. and so, we at election defenders, which has been put together by the movement for black lives, the working families party, mijente, and a ton of other grassroots organizations, we're just figuring out, how can we ensure that voters feel safe? so we've been training thousands of folks in de-escalation and making sure that we're talking to local artists to put roving music concerts outside of polling places. but the bottom line is that we shouldn't have to do this, but we're going to, you know, play the cards that we've been dealt and make sure that we can bring a little bit of joy in what has

been a not-so-good year. >> yeah. well, you know, i'm struck by the idea, by the concept, too, which is sort of beautiful, that music itself, particularly dance music, is itself de-escalating. it's one thing to talk about, if you've got hostile people or armed people or people trying to intimidate others from getting out there, how you can, as you say, do trainings to help people de-escalate those situations, imagining the worst. the idea that you could bring something positive, basically to create an environment that is hostile to intimidation, that is hostile to escalatory tactics or to things that would make people feel scared in that environment, it just turns the whole thing on its head. it's going on offense in a way that is -- it feels both proactive and also protective. >> music sets a different tone. it is a different form of communication. dance has been a different form of communication for our communities for a really long time. so, making sure that folks are just having a little bit of joy,

and if you see a big flatbed truck, as you saw ours on saturday here in philadelphia, just rolling through with flowers and tinsel, it sets just a different tone, and it shows you that we won't let anybody turn us around, like the song, and that we're going to bring something, at least a little bit, for 20 minutes, which is how long our performances were, to people who are waiting in long lines. and that was just me right there dancing and making sure we're having a good time. >> and tell me a little bit about where -- how many places you think you're going to be able to do this. is this going to be mostly keyed to election day itself, or should people hope and expect to see this happening in places with long lines over the course of this next week as people get their last early voting opportunities in? >> well, the last 24 hours has been amazing. people have been coming up to us, saying "can we put on joy to the polls?" we have a toolkit for folks to be able to do that, and we've been talking to artists in

california. we've been planning concerts in pennsylvania for quite some time, and saturday was our launch. and we're going to continue to do so on election day. we're also going to be in wisconsin, michigan, and other places across the country. i'm hoping to see this in all 50 states and d.c. -- >> joy to the polls. >> as well as hopefully, puerto rico. but i'm just really excited that people are coming and are just asking for us to bring concerts to their communities. and if you can't get a roving concert with a flat bed truck, we are creating spotify playlists, so you go on spotify and do #joytothepolls. and people can create their own playlist. so, hopefully, rachel, if you're in, you should create a playlist for election day so that we have folks like david cross, amber tamblyn, sophia bush, who have been creating playlists for election day for us so people can just pump it on their speakers. >> so, if you can't get a flat bed truck and a live performance, you can at least

get a sound bar to bluetooth to your phone to make your fellow line waiters have some joy to the polls. nelini stamp, campaign director for election defenders, this is brilliant stuff! thank you so much for helping us understand over the course of this week, as this develops and you learn more about what people should expect and you want to tell us more about how this is evolving, please come back. we'd love to have you back. >> thank you so much, rachel. really appreciate it. >> all right. we've got much more ahead here tonight. do stay with us. ♪ beautiful. but support the leg!

when i started cobra kai, the lack of control over my business made me a little intense. but now i practice a different philosophy. quickbooks helps me get paid, manage cash flow, and run payroll. and now i'm back on top... with koala kai. hey! more mercy. save over 30 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. the easy way to a happier business. straining, and bloating, again and again. no way. more exercise. more water. and more fiber is the only way to manage it. is it? maybe you think... it's occasional constipation. maybe it's not. it could be a chronic medical condition called ibs-c, and time to say yesss! to linzess. linzess works differently than laxatives. it helps relieve belly pain and lets you have

more frequent and complete bowel movements. do not give linzess to children less than six and it should not be given to children six to less than 18, it may harm them. do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach area pain, and swelling. change your thinking to ibs-c. if your constipation and belly pain keeps coming back, tell your doctor and say yesss! to linzess. when it was president obama in the white house four years ago, they were singing a very, very, very unrecognizably different tune. >> the american people are about to weigh in on who's going to be the president, and that's the person, whoever that may be, who ought to be making this appointment. >> our side, meaning the

republicans' side, believes very strongly that the people deserve to be heard. >> there is a long tradition that you don't do this in an election year. we ought to make the 2016 election a referendum on the supreme court. >> it's about the principle, the principle being that it's up to the american people in this next election, no matter who they choose. >> why would we squelch the voice of the people? why would we deny the voters a chance to weigh in on the makeup of the supreme court? >> it's the will of the american people and their voices that need to be heard. >> i think the president should allow the next president to appoint the justice to the supreme court. >> if there's a republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say lindsey graham said let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination, and you could use my words against me and you'd be absolutely right. >> you'd be absolutely right. how comforted are you by being

absolutely right and by forcing them to be such, such violent hypocrites? i mean, to have hypocrisy that egregious riding your soul for the rest of your life, it's hard to know how you ever stand up straight again. and back in 2016, it was the will of the american people must be heard, and you don't do this in an election year, and it's about the principle! we have principles about these! four years later, this time, just eight days shy of the presidential election, while over 62 million americans have already voted in that election, those principles have been pureed before being shredded, before being laughed off the proverbial stage. the senate tonight confirming amy coney barrett, 52-48, to grant her a lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court, even though they supposedly really, truly believe that a supreme court nomination shouldn't be put through any time in an entire year before a presidential election.

>> i want to be very clear with my republican colleagues, you may win this vote, and amy coney barrett may become the next associate justice of the supreme court, but you will never, never get your credibility back. this republican majority confirmed a lifetime appointment on the eve of an election. a justice who will alter the lives and freedoms of the american people while they stood in line to vote. >> and while that is undoubtedly true, as senator schumer said this evening, judge barrett is at the white house for her unofficial swearing in as the court's ninth justice, cementing a 6-3 conservative majority on the court for the foreseeable future. democrats fought as hard as possible to stop this and republicans revealed themselves to be almost unimaginably hypocritical for forcing this to happen after they blocked president obama from putting someone on the court four years

ago. but tonight it's happened. what do democrats do now? joining us now is a member of the senate judiciary committee, delaware senator chris coons. senator coons, it's a pleasure to have you here tonight. thank you for joining us. >> thanks, rachel. it's been a tough night, and i'm grateful for a chance to be on. >> so, i know that democrats did everything they felt they could, including as many delaying tactics as they could extend to this process, up to and including working through this weekend, going into closed session, doing everything possible. but you said tonight on the senate floor, "i fear we as a nation have not fully reckoned with the impact that a 6-3 conservative court will have on so many aspects of our lives." now that the process part of this is over and the hypocrisy part of this is over and this is done, what are your biggest concerns about the court as it will now be constituted with a justice barrett on its right flank? >> well, rachel, first, justice barrett within a couple of weeks is going to have a chance to weigh in on the things that

president trump said he most wanted from her -- overturning the affordable care act. that case is being heard just two weeks from tomorrow. protecting his taxes and shielding him from accountability. that case will be heard this month. and, quite possibly, handing him the election by refusing to count our votes in appeals to the supreme court that you were just discussing a few moments ago. so, very quickly, right up front, we'll see a couple of ways in which justice barrett, if she does sit and hear these things, may well change the arc of our history. but as i pointed out in my questioning of then judge barrett on the judiciary committee, there's over 120 cases over recent years, over recent decades, where justice ginsburg was in the majority and justice scalia in the minority of a 5-4 decision. and rachel, they covered an incredible range of things, from labor rights to lgbtq rights,

from environmental protection to native american rights to criminal defense issues to the ways in which consumers are protected. judge barrett, now justice barrett, convinced me from her writings and my questioning of her that she has a view of the law that's to the right of justice scalia. i thought it was powerfully and chillingly symbolic that she asked justice thomas to symbolically swear her in tonight on the steps of the white house, treating the white house as a sound stage for the latest episode of the trump reality tv show "re-election theater," because it's justice thomas, the farthest right justice, who's repeatedly said, we should look back and reconsider all sorts of cases, something like, for example, oberdefel, something which millions of americans have moved forward in reliance upon, to cases decades ago like griswald versus connecticut, that i asked her about and she wouldn't

answer, that is the foundation of privacy law. rachel, i'm really worried about just how much this will mean in ways we are just now beginning to confront. >> and this point in the process, senator coons, i should say is a difficult night for you and your colleagues in the senate, who did try to do everything possible to stop this from happening. what do you say tonight to democrats, and i think liberals and centrists across the country who are enraged by what has happened here? president obama being denied the opportunity to appoint a nominee to the court, even when he picked somebody quite moderate, specifically as a way to try to appeal to republicans and their sense of fair play? mitch mcconnell essentially engineering three vacancies on this court for president trump to fill and the kinds of radical transformation that's ahead. you said tonight that republicans are walking over a

dangerous precipice. what do you say to americans who want some kind of retribution or want to try to even this out somehow, given what the republicans have done? >> first, rachel, more than anything else, get up and go out and vote, because before we have a chance to talk about anything else, joe biden and kamala harris have to win this presidential/vice presidential election by a clear and big margin. if it is razor-thin, some of the ways in which they're going to game it out may allow the republicans through this new conservative majority to still steal this election. so, before anything else, go out and vote. and if you're in a state where, frankly, it's not going to determine the presidential election or the new senate majority, call your friends, call your classmates, email or text, do the thing you've been meaning to do but haven't quite gotten around to. reach out to that friend you think might stay home from the

polls or try and help persuade that family member who you think in your gut might just consider voting for trump again. do that first. and then second, we've got to have a wide-open conversation about how do we rebalance our courts? yes, the two supreme court cases that have been stolen, or these processes that are wildly hypocritical, have been used to jam through partisan no, ma'am meez. we've got to look at our federal courts as a whole, rachel, because we've seen hundreds of conservative judges put on circuit courts and district courts all over this country in the last four years, in many cases, too young, too unqualified, and too far right to be allowed to sit peaceably without our re-examining the process, the results, and the consequences. >> delaware u.s. senator chris coons. sir, i know this is just a remarkable time for a lot of different reasons, but thank you for taking time to help us explain this all tonight. thank you so much, sir. >> thank you, rachel.

all right, i'll tell you, one of the things that the democratic leader, chuck schumer, said on the floor of the senate tonight was, "the next time the american people give democrats a majority in this chamber," meaning in the senate, "you," meaning you republicans," will have forfeited the right to tell us how to run that majority." what senator coons is talking about there, in terms of rebalancing the courts, is what democrats are talking about. and they've tried to demonize this issue in the presidential race, calling it court-packing and all of these different things. but over the past eight years, mitch mcconnell in particular, and the republicans in the senate in general, have embarked on a radical transformation of the judiciary, and they did it through cut-throat tactics and radical, radical hypocrisy. if democrats just decide they're going to live with those consequences and not fight fire with fire, they're essentially disarming themselves in politics and letting mcconnell's way run things for republicans and not for the other side.

i think that when you let -- when you force the pendulum that far to one side, it comes back. and anybody who's not expecting that, once there's a democratic senate majority and a democrat in the white house, is kidding themselves. it's coming. more news ahead. stay with us. more news ahead. stay with us

this is a rare thing. this is the kind of thing we thought would happen a lot more in this administration, but it almost never has. this is a letter dated today to president trump's director of personnel. it says, "mr. mcentee, this is to inform you that effective immediately, i hereby tender my resignation as member and chair of the federal salary council. i do so with great regret." "hover, after seeing executive order 13957 issued by the president on october 21st, i have concluded that as a matter of conscience, i can no longer serve him or his administration." as a matter of conscience. this letter is from a man named

ronald sanders, dr. ronald sanders, who, until today, was president trump's hand-picked chair of something called the federal salary council. now, ronald sanders is not a household name. you may not be familiar with the workings of the federal salary council. you are not alone. but dr. sanders says he can't abide what this new trump executive order would do to federal workers. and he explains why. he says, "the executive order is nothing more than a smoke screen for what is clearly an attempt to require the political loyalty of those who advise the president, or failing that, to enable their removal with little, if any, due process. i simply cannot be part of an administration that seeks to do so, to replace apolitical expertise with political obeisance. career federal employees are legally and duty-bound to be non-partisan. they take an oath to preserve and protect our constitution and the rule of law, not to be loyal to a particular president or administration. accordingly, please accept my resignation. i thank the president for the

opportunity to serve these almost three years, but i cannot in good conscience continue to do so. sincerely, dr. ronald sanders." you know, for all of the high-level resignations from the trump administration over this term -- and ooh, boy, have there been a lot of them -- this, today, from dr. ronald sanders at the federal salary council, this is one of the only pure examples we have got of a trump appointee resigning from the government, a, for a principled reason, and b, while saying exactly what that principled reason is at the time, why he is stepping down in protest of a terrible action by the president. that is so bad, it necessitates the resignation of people who cannot in good conscience stomach it. i mean, there are plenty of ex-trump officials who quietly shrunk away and later let us know how bad they felt about what they saw on the inside. some of them wrote whole books about how much they secretly disagreed with donald trump. but if you actually want to sound the alarm in a very useful

way, if you want to maximize the civic impact of what you are doing, if you want to sound the alarm that the president, even a president you might like, a president who has appointed you to a job you love, if a president has just done something very bad that is something worth quitting over, not only do you quit, but you say why. you say why it is that you're quitting. and you do it and you let people know. this is the way that you do it. bravo, dr. ronald sanders, a very, very rare trump administration profile in courage. bravo. le in courage. bravo. two hospitalizations every minute. understanding how to talk to your doctor about treatment options is key. today, we are redefining how we do things. we find new ways of speaking, so you're never out of touch. it's seeing someone's face that comforts us, no matter where. when those around us know us, they can show us just how much they care.

the first steps of checking in, the smallest moments can end up being everything. there's resources that can inform us, and that spark can make a difference. when we use it to improve things, then that change can last within us. when we understand what's possible, we won't settle for less. the best thing we can be is striving to be at our best. managing heart failure starts now with understanding. call today or go online to understandheartfailure.com for a free heart failure handbook.

call today or go online to understandheartfailure.com but you can work out anything wowith comcast business.w. get fast, reliable, and secure internet on the nation's largest gig speed network. flexible tools - like wi-fi you control. voice solutions that connect you from anywhere. and expert advice here, here, or even here. be fast. be flexible. bounce forward with comcast business. get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just $64.90 a month. plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a $300 prepaid card. call or go online today.

he got mad and walked out of the interview! he thought the questions were too tough. too tough? miami, listen, if he can't answer a tough question like, what would you like to do in your second term, then it's our job to make sure he doesn't get a second term. >> president obama on the campaign trail for biden this weekend. that was in miami. president obama will be back in florida again tomorrow, in orlando. tomorrow, biden himself will head to georgia, a state democrats haven't won in a presidential election since 1996. kamala harris is going to be heading to texas on friday. no democratic vp candidate has campaigned in texas since the 1980s. but things are weird. buckle up. eight days left. that's going to do it for us

tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early with kasie hunt" is up next. the oath that i have solemnly taken tonight means at its core that i will do my job without any fear or favor and that i will do so independently of both the political branches and of my own preferences. >> judge amy coney barrett and president trump celebrate her supreme court confirmation at a white house ceremony that looks a lot like the event for her nomination that sparked a covid outbreak. the question is, will there be consequences for choosing