means to so many people. i understand that would i do and what this department does reflects, not only who we are, but who we want to be as a country. we are going to achieve so much under the evening. racial maddow starts right now. >> thank you, my friend. much appreciated. >> september 11, 2001. the day of the al qaeda attacks. it was a tuesday. what new yorkers remember about that day was that it was a local election day. that beautiful fall day when the planes hit the buildings and the buildings came down and lower

manhattan turned into hell. but afterwards, even before the next tuesday rolled around, inside of a week of the 9/11 attacks happening, something else on a different scale started to happen all over the country. at first, we did not know if it was a second attack. to the offices of nbc news, abc news, cbs news, somebody mailed anthrax, potent an flax mailed to the news organizations and the offices of two different united states senators. it was real anthrax and it was

potent. five people were killed by it. it did start right after the 9/11 attacks when the country was reeling. we didn't know if it was a second attack. almost hard to explain that different dynamic and dimension of it. if you lived through it, you know it was a real fear. one of the things the u.s. government did that thought that they could be a next target in what appeared to be an ongoing biowar anthrax attack. they began to stockpile an ant

boughtic called cipro that you can take to fight an infection caused by something like anthrax. it is made by the bayer corporation. in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks that wept on a little while, demand for bayer's antibiotic skyrocketed. the government wanted to have 12 million tablets on hand. >> bayer said, sure,s that going to take us a year and a half. is that okay? >> no. that's not okay. we are being attacked by

somebody mysteriously mailing anthrax to all kinds of different people now. bayer said tough, this is our drug, we own the patent on it. that's how long it will take us to make 12 million doses. then something interesting happened. some other companies came forward and said, hey, if we were allowed to make it, we could make that drug really quickly. they came forward and said we could make generic versions and fill the entire order in 12 weeks. bayer was saying 12 months. these companies were saying just say the word, we are happy to do it. the democrats in washington said quickly, we should do that. fine, let's let other companies

jump in and make more. is the patent more important than that. chuck schumer led the charge saying the government had the right to break patent in order to let other companies make cipro so if the anthrax attack continued millions could be treated. republicans in congress concedes that even though they were not inclined, these were not normal circumstances. in this case, if they came forward, they said let's do it too and break the patent. the george w. bush administration threatened to but didn't break the patent. they used the threat that they

might, the bipartisan threat that they might and they could make bayer go back to the drawings board reconsider what they could do to meet u.s. demands with that drug. with that real threat, bayer thought over it again and said actually, it might not take 20 months but that they would ramp up cipro but drop the price of nearly 50%. bayer kept its patent back in 2001 and the u.s. government got its drug supplies. bayer at the time knew they almost didn't keep their pat ernest, they knew they almost took over this patent. that was 20 years ago. today, a version of that story is playing out again on a much larger scale. this time it is not a mysterious

bioweapon arriving in the mail. this time, it is a global pandemic killing millions in every country on earth. until there is a cure, what we need to stief off 10s of millions of deaths is vaccines, which we have. which we have, the vast majority of the world does not. the current system we've got to get vaccines out to everyone in the world so far isn't working. it is at least not working quickly enough. take one example india, that huge nation of over 1.3 billion people. they've only got 2% of their population vaccinated. you can see what is happening there in terms of mass infection. mass death, completely overwhelmed system. people dying in the streets. infection out of control.

2% vaccinated. in contrast, we've got more than 40% of our adults fully vaccinated. over 80% of our seniors. that's good for us. even though our numbers aren't higher yet but 2% in india? that is a problem that is a catastrophe. they've already said the new variant has been found in several of the united states. some countries aren't expected to get vaccines at all until 2024, which means not only a huge ongoing death toll which

ultimately may render vaccines that may send us back. they've made amazing work. the vaccines proved in the united states are miracles and have the potential to save the world, if the world can get them. right now the world is not on tack to get them in anywhere near the time frame that they need to get them in order to get the variants that will render moot. the companies that have developed these vaccines to fund the development and their

testing and to ramp up their funding to the tunes of billions. but now, faced on most countries on earth and anywhere near the numbers, the biden administration has made this incredible announcement that they support breaking the patents in a limited way. they support giving up the recipe for vaccines so other companies in other countries around the world can make their own generic versions. like those companies that came forward and said, we know bayer has the patent, we can make cipro. the biden administration is saying, yeah, let them do it.

this was undoubtedly a hard call they led the global resistance. they've said they are adamantly opposed. pharmaceutical companies are more against this. the whole idea that they can invent things and have control overall that drug and what it generates it helps and matters at the end of the day, this is something president biden promised he with could if elected president. ady barkan is a lawyer, a

speaker, a day, also has als. he uses computer assistant technology. he did a hard-charging interview with then presidential candidate mr. biden, in that interview, he got this skplisive promise. >> the world health organization is leading an unprecedented global effort in the search for covid treatments and vaccines but trump has refused to join that effort cutting america off from the rest of the world, if the u.s. discovers a vaccine first, will you commit to sharing that technology with other countries and will you ensure there are no patents that stand in the way of producing those vaccines? >> absolutely, positively. this is the only humane thing in the world to do.

this guy's whole idea of america on its own has been america alone. we are out there by ourselves. what is he doing? it lacks in a human dignity what we are doing. the answer is yes. yes, yes, yes. it is not only a good thing to do. it is in our interest to do it as well. overwhelmingly. >> thank you for that commitment. >> the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes. absolutely positively. it's overwhelmingly in our interest to do it. that was his promise as a candidate. today, as president, the biden administration made good on that promise. the representative announcing the decision in precise and definitive terms. sort of never thought i'd see something like this from the u.s. government. this is a global health crisis

and the extraordinary circumstances of the covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. the administration believes strongly in protecting intd electricity you'll efforts but needing to make that happen. the administrations aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible. as our vaccine supply for the american people is secure, the administration will continue to ramp its efforts working with the private sector and all possible partners to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines. that last bit is key. the raw materials. it is a huge thing for the u.s. to say we support suspending the

patents it is a huge thing to make sure the raw materials, the ingredients, the specialized equipment. the personnel all get out to the world as well. not only do people have permission to make their own vaccines but they actually can. without hugely wrapping up the materials, we can only increase the supply by so much we will lead the administration to do this and give them the ability to do it safely. this is a huge deal, a huge decision for the biden administration.

it is a 180-degree u turn. an advance saying we'll lead the world on that issue. we'll take responsibility for getting this done globally. saying we'll not only lead global negotiations and lead the world to make sure there it is glebal response so this thing doesn't haunt humanity and us for the rest of our time on the planet. >> the only way out from covid-19 is for the whole world to get ahead of it. the only country on earth capable of leading the whole world to get ahead of it is us. that is what the biden administration is banking on being able to do. they are banking on us american people believing in that again. >> so this is a really big deal that could potentially save tens of millions of lives and could

make the difference on if we ever end this pandemic. this is it. a huge deal. we'll have one of the world's foremost experts on it. i'm very much looking forward to that conversation. in terms of what else is going on the news today. a federal judge ruled the national moratorium on evictions, ruling the u.s. government does not have a right to suspend the ban. that probably means the exiting eviction ban will stay in place. that's potentially a big deal. this is a trump appointed judge trying to throw out the freeze on evictions. the justice department under biden that will appeal to keep

the eviction freeze in place. we are also watching the justice department today for any sign that they'll appeal the justice court ruling we lead the show with last night. the trump attorney general bill barr was, quote, disingenuous and that he and other trump administration partners basically lied to the court and lied to the public about then attorney general barr's decision to bring federal charges against president trump after the mueller report laid out 10 instances of criminal action. releasing a document the trump department has been trying to keep secret for years. the judge says she's seen that document although the justice department tried to stop her from seeing it.

she's seen it, reviewed. the trump justice department lied about what's in that document and now wants it released to the public. the biden justice department now has to decide if they'll appeal that ruling or comply with it and release that document. the release tha of that document and drama about why they liared about it and tried to keep that document secret for years will put a hot spotlight back on the question of why trump in fact wasn't charged with obstruction of justice despite all of the evidence laid out in mueller's investigation. before you look it up, i'll tell you, no, the statute of limitations isn't up. it is generally a five-year statute of limitations.

that was in 2018, 2019. there is still time for the justice department to decide if that question of whether or not he should be charged is still open. >> after facebook today issued its weird, pseudo league-ish decision about why president trump was kicked off facebook. he put out public statements reiterating his fantasies that he's secretly still president saying he's still president now saying the last election shouldn't count because of the mysterious fraud no one can quite describe. he puts out that statement, it's

like, oh, yeah, now i remember why you were kicked off social media. you told all your followers you were still secretly president and that led to them violently attacking the capitol to try to stop the certification results. thank you for the reminder. you just reupped your ban today. former president trump's statement on his election fantasies today appear to be focused on arizona. where republicans are continuing with this kookoo for cocoa puffs audit run by a qanon member.

admitting that after weeks, they are through much less than 10% of the ballots. that led much of the arizona press corp to do the math and apparently, they are going to try to drag on this audit well into the summer. around the time everyone was arriving at that conclusion that this will go on weeks and weeks and weeks, the venue announced publicly that actually they are not welcome to stay. they've got other things booked for that space and so they are not going to be allowed to stay past the middle of may. they are doing it at a pace that will require them to do so through the summer. that's a complication. the local abc station and

so-called official observers are required to sign nondisclosure agreements. that prohibits you from challenging something you've seen or experienced. they are observers but not allowed to tell anyone what they have observed. also seems like a little bit of a complication. one of the guys running the audit explained on camera what they are doing and why they are taking so long is because they are taking a very, very careful look at the ballots. they are looking for bamboo. because it is possible that maybe china came over and made joe biden president by something, something asia bamboo ballots something.

>> the other day at the press conference, you were talking about bamboo. >> there's accusations that 40% ballots were thrown into arizona and stuffed into the box. okay. it came from the southeast part of the world. asia. okay. what they are doing is to find out if there's bamboo in the paper. that camera right there, they take a picture of the ballot. >> they came over from the southeast part of the world and they put it in the box. there you go. trump is president. they are looking for bamboo in the ballots because trump is secretly president because china or maybe just asia made bamboo ballots and flew them to arizona and they can find them with a

camera and they have to use a camera on all of the ballots. republican party is on the verge of kicking out some of their house leadership because of insufficient loyalty to donald trump. donald trump is now the animating focus of the republican party right now because of the absolute outrage he's not being allowed back on to social media to keep promoting the fact that he seek wetly won the election. what are they doing in arizona? they are looking for the bamboo. asia, plains. look at the camera. i mean, one of these parties is not like the other but this is how we are preceding boldly into the future right now. lots to get to tonight. stay with us. with us

do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. call coventry direct to learn more. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. our friends sold their policy to help pay for their medical bills and that got me thinking. maybe selling our policy could help with our retirement. i'm skeptical, so i did some research and called coventry direct. they explained life insurance is a valuable asset that can be sold. we learned that we can sell all of our policy or keep part of it with no future payments, who knew? we

sold our policy. now we can relax and enjoy our retirement as we had planned. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance.

today, the biden administration announced it would back proposal to let other countries manufacture generic version of covid-19 vaccines that offer the world's best home of beating back the pandemic and saving tens of millions of lives. to people who follow this kind of thing in the public health world, this is a huge deal. you've probably heard of the group doctors without boarders, sometimes known as msf. they said, quote, this is huge. the united states of america is putting lives over profits. they go on to lisa number of other countries and groups that have yet to impose this canada, uk, brazil asking when will they

follow the example set by the united states and get on the right side of history. >> other big groups are calling on the biden administration now to stand their ground and make sure that this gets followed through and to be ready as industry tries to push back and delay or reverse this decision. the u.s. aid group health gap said this is a necessary first step but negotiations cannot drag on. already 2.2 million people have died of covid-19 since this was first posed in october. the biden administration must not cave to the big pharma. other big influential partners of health that delivers health care in the poorest areas on the

earth. partners in health applauding it and saying stick to it and let's get it done. we support the waiver of the ip protections. we call on the united states to follow through this agreement and make sure we don't delay negotiations on the waiver. people who follow this stuff and have made a life out of trying to work on global public health issues see this as a huge deal and the amount of urgency to follow through tells you how big a deal they think this is. >> joining us now, the chief medical officer for partners of health, thank you for joining us, it's a real pleasure to have you here. >> you are welcome, thank you for having me on. i'm not an expert on this

stuff. i used to work in a previous life on things. this has been a long time. let me ask you about this. >> i know you have a background in aids activism. i'm wearing my pin today to remind us, these are lessons we've all learned together across the globe fighting for the globe to share the fruits of science. that is really a basic human right. some of the people who argued against doing this and have said the bottleneck here isn't necessarily the patent. not necessarily the receipt the

capacity is hard to develop. you need the experience the, the equipment and know how to do it and to get you started how much of that can the united states do or lead on in order to make manifest. >> that is a great question. 100 countries to support the

trips this is the vaccine, the mrna labs that have been working with the mrna for decades. so sharing the know how is part. and third is the funding. even in the george w. bush administration, the u.s. was a leader by putting in the funding of this happening already committed to this global work we have the patents, a gateway to a

cascade of things that have to happen. many of us were very stunned today and thrilled to see the message from the ambassador saying the biden administration was over. with he know that is only step having very transparent text-based negotiations that won't overrepresent the needs of the big pharmaceutical companies and ceos and really well-worked pandemic. >> the officer for partners and health, thank you for your time. i think a lot of people in this space were thrilled.

thank you for helping us understand. >> you are welcome. thank you for having us on. >> much more ahead tonight, stay with us.

so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business.

see if you can spot the difference between these two stories. 2021, a woman in tarrant county, texas, this woman went to vote and her name wasn't found. a few months later, she was arrested. she thought because she served her time in prison, she was then eligible to vote. she didn't know under texas law,

you are not eligible to vote unless you have completed any probation or supervised release. even though it was a technical. her ballot wasn't counted. she was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. story number one. story number two, guy in delaware county, pennsylvania. bartman filled out a voter application for his mother who had been deader for a number of years and then completed an absentee ballot with a vote for donald trump. he signed and sent back a dead person but he signed swearing she was still alive. all of that to cast a fraudulent

vote. he pled guilty in court. just sentenced, he got five years probation. can you spot the difference? crystal mason tries to vote because she doesn't know she is not tech lickly eligible. vote doesn't count, five years in prison. to this man, making a vote for a dead person, swearing it was right and he gets five years probation. i know there is a difference. can't quite put my finger on it. meanwhile, two other people in pennsylvania facing voter fraud charges. one guy registered her dead mom to vote and another guy came

back 45 minutes later wearing sunglasses to vote in his son's name. somehow a brilliant poll worker to see past his sunglasses disguise. voter fraud is really rare. after the november election when republicans were having trouble finding any actual examples. dna patrick offered a $100 million reward for months now, his counter part has been needling dna patrick about this. when are you going to cough up that $1 million bucks. i got three trump supporters, dan. one was a guy casting a ballot

for trump. i got a second one of those too. despite the apparent inability, not even for a million bucks. republicans in texas are pushing ahead with some idea that fantasy about voter fraud is the draconian idea of voter frauds. the leaders of texas's biggest county took a forceful step to rally the community against what texas republicans are trying to do to texas voting. one of those leaders joins us live here next. stay with us. here next stay with us [sfx: bikes passing] [sfx: fire truck siren]

onstar, we see them. okay. mother and child in vehicle. mother is unable to exit the vehicle. injuries are unknown. thank you, onstar. ♪ my son, is he okay? your son's fine. thank you. there was something in the road... it's okay. you're safe now.

in 2020, harris county,

texas broke all-time voter turnout. more people voted early this year than all of 2016. they set that record in large part because the county made a huge push to give access. they did a bunch of innovative stuff like offering 24-hour polling, drive-thru voting, 8% of those in the county used the drive-thru option. those things paid off big time. now republicans who control the texas state legislate your will make sure that doesn't happen again. aiming at big counties stopping at things put in place.

yesterday, 175 business leaders from the houston area sent a letter saying why they oppose those bills. as you can see from the houston chronicle headline. one key group was missing, greater houston partnership, which is the chamber of commerce. >> there is a group sticking out like a soar thumb for failing to speak up at a time of enormous consequence. right now, voting rights are falling like dominos in state as cross the country from georgia to arizona to right here in texas and yet, the largest chamber of commerce in the houston area is silent. >> that is the top elected official in harris county, texas singling out the largest chamber

of commerce on their silence even when so many other texas business leaders are standing up saying they will not abide it. joining us now, the chief executive of harris county, the most pop luis county of texas. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> really taking aim at voters rights. >> look, it is very important for all of us to stand up against this but the business community is uniquely possessioned to make a difference. this is not a transient, quote/unquote political partisan issue. are you willing to stand up and fight for american democracy? i think of martin luj -- luther

king jr. writing from birmingham jail. with he need to stand up and make clear voting rights, democracy, something we thought we had already won and been done with. the business community can stand up and prevent this from becoming a wedge issue. >> one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you. they wouldn't even let their members take a vote internally. i wanted to ask you why you raised that point and what you think that means? >> yes. it is almost hard to believe. i've heard from respected

business leaders of major businesses in the houston area. leaders of this chamber of commerce that they've requested that the leadership meet and that they hold a vote to decide whether or not the chamber itself will come out in opposition to these voting bills. the response was, no vote will be held. they'll have a meeting tomorrow. a discussion meeting but they are not going to be allowed to vote on possibly taking a stand. so it is voter suppression on top of voter suppression. it does make you wonder if you have to sup press the vote less you come out against this here, what are you doing here? these single out harris county. republicans as well as democrats used in record numbers. they are attacking my

constituents, my community, the community this chamber and businesses are meant to represent. that's why it is so ironic and we need to get everybody to continue taking a stand. >> harris county judge, executive of the county there, thank you for your time. we are watching this closely as well as other states around the country. in texas, it seems like things are getting quite intense. thank you for helping us to understand, judge. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. stay with us ♪ when i was young ♪ no-no-no-no-no please please no. ♪ i never needed anyone. ♪ front desk. yes, hello... i'm so... please hold. ♪ those days are done. ♪

i got you. ♪ all by yourself. ♪ go with us and find millions of flexible options. all in our app. expedia. it matters who you travel with.

like you, 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.

a little breaking news we covered at the top of the show, the u.s. justice department has just sent this letter to the republican controlled arizona state senate essentially warning them that their so-called audit of the 2020 election. this recount they are doing which is being conducted by a company with no elections experience run by a qanon member, a warning that they may be working against the law. the people doing this audit say they may go door to door asking about votes and that would

constitute voter intimidation. if the u.s. justice department is getting involved in this banana's recount, that could be a very big deal. watch this space. "way too early" with kasie hunt is up next. congresswoman liz cheney on the verge of being replaced in-house leadership, refuses to go quietly. if her fate is all but sealed in the short term, the question is, what are her long-term plans. plus. >> the top priority should be to deny president biden a second term. >> the question today, has anything changed? >> and facebook up holds its ban of former president trump. the question, why is an