call 1-800-miracle today and experience the miracle-ear advantage for yourself. hi there, everyone. 4:00 in the east. in a dark fantasy land not so far away president biden who down here on planet earth is riding high with a 62% approval rating including support of the agenda items from large swaths of americans isn't really the president at all. in that alternate reality the arizona audit which "the washington post" today reports is fraught with security lapses, software snafus and contraband inside the fourth counting is a stepingstone to reinstate the former president. startling reporting reports the

delusions of the ex-president is more arizona style audits of 2020 ballots, the kind of event and conspiracy theory that homeland security experts have warned that lies at the heart of the domestic extremist threat here in the united states and the efforts will get a boost in the form of more phony audits after arizona. "the wall street journal" today warning of a similar effort taking shape in pennsylvania. they report that on wednesday three republicans state lawmakers from pennsylvania toured the audit site at the veterans memorial coliseum in phoenix and met with lawmakers to discuss election issues. to be clear, the ex-president's fantasy of being reinstated in the wake of the so-called audits is a threat. from the dhs security bulletin ideologically motivated violent extremists fueled by perceived

grievances continue to share information online and with the intent to incite violence. quote former president trump is focused on the false claim that the november election was stolen from him and is increasingly consumed with the notion that ballot reviews pushed by the supporters around the country could prove that he won. this is akin to hunting for a bathroom scale show him at 0 200 pounds. any scaleal donald trump at 200 pounds is broken or rig idea the gop cosigning the big lie is the gravest threat to the democracy as it destroys people's faith in the elections, inspires violent extremism and is fueling the wildfire of voter suppression laws pushed in 48 states. a four-alarm fire blazing is where we start with the favorite

reporters and friends. tim miller is back from the bull work. yamiche alsindor is here. and frank figluizzi is here. frank, we have always talked about these stories and the ex-president as a security threat. i have followed this reporting if i haven't always amplified it here on the show and i detect what started as bemusement and ego stoking of monitoring the maricopa county add out and now seems to be directing the phony recounts. in that move, what do the extremists hear?

>> right. the fact that he is obsessed with these audits i call fraudits is a clue. he does foresee the likely outcome because he is engaged in directing or/and guiding and those around him guiding these fraudits and the outcome. he is not crossing the fingers and hoping. with each report of a potentially new fraudits in another state the threat and risk picture growing larger so here in arizona we can probably game this out to three possible scenarios of outcomes. all don't end well. first a possible outcome highly unlikely they announce that they found smag significant and nothing here. move along.

unlikely. but even for that scenario, there will be a fringe element that says, particularly led by trump likely, that says deep state, thairp in on it. this is rigged. there is something here and we have the potential for violence. scenario two, moderate finding. there were some votes miscounted, some were folded. we don't know what happened. there's minor questions. again, trump claims victory. potential violence here in arizona or elsewhere. third scenario keeping with the general circus theme, martians came in and planted bamboo fibers. lasers counted only third republican vote and now mass hysteria and trump holding a rally outside the white house. free beer for everyone not vaccinated. does not end well.

doj has to step in here. i understand it's fraught with peril but there's federal laws of securing ballots and voting machines that's not happening here in arizona. >> i want the thoughts on the intersection of reporting that we started to pay attention to what was happening in arizona because it seemed to have the potential and copycat sort of crimes against democracy. that is now "the wall street journal" is reporting. pennsylvania another state where donald trump fought like crazy against the will of the voters there. i wonder what your sense is of how much folks are paying attention to this now national picture of a slow moving insurrection, the effort and

unrelenting effort and some ways more brazen to overturn the results of the last election. >> folks are paying attention and civil rights activists who fault for so long and fought for so long to make access to voting something that was equal across the united states and are continuing to fight that and here i think what sticks with me about this is that when you look deeply at what former president trump is doing in some ways he is replaying the same tactic over and over again. when he didn't like president obama he said he was illegitimate, not born in this country. now he doesn't like president biden. he's going off and saying again he is not the legitimately elected president and some ways you see the twirling of conspiracy theories, some ways this use of conspiracy theorys to scare and poison the minds of people who believe some of this stuff and what you see is also lawmakers looking at this and seeing a political benefit to

all of this so former president trump knows obviously that he is not going back into the white house in august but saying this because republicans are hoping that people will get mad enough to go to the voting ballots and mad enough to give them back the house and kevin mccarthy wants to be the speaker and the unintended consequence is that there could be real violence and january 6 taught us as a country just how dangerous it is to lie to people over and over again about the sacredness of american democracy. our elections are something that we hold so dear and something that we go around the world talking about this i think is some ways when you talk to historians this is as you said a slow moving insurrection and democracy doesn't end well with half of the country not liking and wanting to deal with truth but saying if my party lost then that means that someone has to pay and someone cheated and how

you end up with republics without functioning democracies and immigrants coming to our country from haiti and venezuela and so many places coming here saying america's democracy functions. that might not be the case according to experts if we continue down this road. >> frank, i want to follow up with you. the president putting a time period on this seems to also be ominous in terms of creating an expectation by date certain something that will happen. that's the fabric of what became so combustible january 6. i wonder what you make of that date and the plans of law enforcement. >> yeah. don't be surprised if we see an advisory come out from dhs and/or dhs joint with fbi telling the law enforcement to increase security posture in and around this supposed august date. certainly within places that audits occur and the washington,

d.c. and almost a given. as we talk about dates and timing here the president and the organization are under federal -- excuse me, state investigation. what better way to kind of cry witch hunt than to present yourself as an illegitimately removed president and call this a political witch hunt? they're after me because i'm the president. i was illegitimately removed from office and voted out under fraudulent circumstances. gets the sympathy on his side and paints the prosecution as political. the last act of a desperate defendant to do this but this is the environment we're in. >> tim, i want to read you something that jonathan tate writes in "new york magazine." the party elites of republicans

may roll the eyes in private but the agenda is to placate the insurrection. they don't talk about it not because it's too weak but too strong. in the red states republicans are laying the groundwork to make the next insurrection easier. trump and the die-hards are rehabilitating the last one. i think it's important to sort of be clear eyed how the insurrection is going. i think on that side it's going pretty well. the folks ensnared in the justice system and no accountability for the inciter, no effort to sort of puts the dots together and understand the campaign funded the tailgate for the insurrection to come to

pass. pence's brother with a mob that chanted "hang mike pence" and now that lie fueled 22 laws passed already. already on the book just the rules have already changed for the midterms. do you think -- i know the never won't break but do you think that privately mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy are happy to have this be their legacy? >> boy, i think it's in their heads. i would agree something you said. that is the strength of the insurrection, the pro-insurrection message was in the party and i think that it is an evidence if -- i don't know which side you put the argument mitch mcconnell on. all of the actions on the pro hf insurrection side. but to the extent there is a group of republicans roll their eyes in private as was mentioned

they've been silenced but the maga wing of the party. the pro-insurrection of the party and not because it's so ridiculous that they don't need to talk about it but because the voters are taking it so seriously if they roll their eyes in public there will be retribution and scared about that politically and i think some scared in the most literal sense so look. to your question on whether that side is winning i think if you go back to mid-november of 2016 or 2020, excuse me, and there were just a few of us on the show and the bullwork and not taking the lies that seriously of donald trump and if you told people november 15th fast forward seven months and the capitol will be stormed, donald trump will be maintaining that he is going to be put back in

power and the republican elected officials in washington are all going along with it, refusing to investigate and support him to run again and people wouchb said you're crazy. you have trump derangement syndrome. many of us saw that coming and the danger and so i think that despite the fact that the insurrection didn't work in the sense that trump didn't stay in power politically speaking the strategy of the big lie has worked for donald trump. >> that's been a pattern, though, right? if in 2015 you look a position that donald trump was an embarrassment to the republican party and the country you might have found yourself sort of laughed out of republican circles that may have thought you were being hysterical about it but ended up with donald trump as the party nominee.

annihilated the rest of the field, 16 other republican candidates handily. >> you're triggering me. >> no. this is not -- this is important, especially for people that don't consume right wing media. i think that trumpism is more dangerous and more virulent now and i wonder, tim, how you think that manifests itself in the near and long term. >> even in the quote/unquote national report, there's a report that trump is saying that he is going to be reinstated into office. far be it for me to quibble with yamiche but they think that he believes that he is going back in and i don't know if that matters whether or not he believes it or a strategy. we're not inside the one flew over the cuckoo nest's board down there at mar-a-lago but

maybe he really believes this. regardless in conservative media they all believe it. in the news max crowd, bright bart, the people believing this believe he might get happening in that very article saying, you know, you recollect believe that donald trump is delusional with the election and still not lose your support for him and doesn't take away the fact he did these blah blah blah great things so even in the most reasonable conservative outlets they don't say this is disqualifying why the fact to upened the democracy and the constitutional order. tens of millions of people that believe this and there is a lot of danger there and absolutely it remains very, very serious and urgent.

>> there's characters around the president. i think he always listened to people like the pillow guy and now listening to christina bob and there's a figure who's sort of ties through the stories, pennsylvania state senator doug mastriano. he was one of the most trumpists to overturn the will of the voters there. we'll talk to josh shapiro but he is in arizona now getting ideas about the audit there trying to import them to pennsylvania. do you have any reports how robust this national effort is? >> the national effort to try to get him back into office? >> well, to continue to question the results of 2020. we see all the republican leaders make the pilgrimages down to mar-a-lago but donald

trump clearly has people like mr. mastriano traveling the country to create this chaos, this scene in maricopa that we have been covering trying to start something like that in pennsylvania. i know that trump never runs coordinated operations but it is clear some people still function as foot soldiers. >> thanks for clarifying. i think we are in this moment talking about him being reinstated or just trying to change democracy as we know it. right? >> all of the above! >> right. that -- yeah. i think there's a very much robust plan to spread the idea that republicans are really the only ones who know how to run elections and that for elections to be done fairly one democrats need to lose but two there needs

to be changes of rules so democrats have a harder time getting elected. i talked to a long time civil rights activist saying something that stuck with me and it is this. it is not voter oppression but voter nullification. we have to talk about it in those terms because what he is saying and what is true is seeing is not just making it harder to vote but an effort among people that support trump to try to find out if these people can vote, if these democrats or some critics would say if the black and latino people that disproportionately vote for democrats and how to not just make it harder to vote but take away the votes, nullify the access to democracy then that's how we continue to hold on to power and get more power. that feels like a robust initiative if that's the way to describe something like that. i also think that when you look at the republican party what you

see is lawmakers, state lawmakers and national lawmakers who are absolutely towing the line of this big lie of this idea that the 2020 election was rigged when it wasn't. and i think if you look at the states and i'm talking to state republicans and continue to do this thing saying president biden is the president now but refuse to say that he was legitimately elected and if you that in all 50 states and of course republicans based on my reporting you see that in almost every state there's a real feeling that then the voters will follow suit or demand that of the lawmakers so this feels like a very much national effort to try to convince people that president trump, former president trump never lost but to convince people that democracy needs to change so that republicans can win. >> frank, inside whatever room they're in trying to sort of play whack-a-mole to combat and

protect the homeland from extremists, they're doing that because they told us this year, what does an event like the ex-president suggesting on date certain to be reinstated and then having the milestones and the deputies. what do you worry about when that seems to metastasize outside of your home state of arizona and how do you sort of honor people's freedoms of association and speech and whatnot but also keep in the back of mind what happened with the insurrection and the chatter of war, the ideological underpinning of the people to come and attack the capitol? how do you protect against a threat like that? >> yeah. i worry about the fact that resources are stretched to the max right now at fbi, dhs. they are working overtime seven days a week. we see the fruits of that labor toward 500 arrests and

indictments and now asking them to get back in this because you got another date potentially coming. what i get concerned about is we don't clarity around what the investigation rules of the road are. you mentioned very important overriding concerns of liberties, free speech, free of assembly. the ability and the resources to look in the weeds on social media and find that out. it is not in place yet. let's add that a foreign adversary is juicing this up saying that the january 6 rioters are persecuted. that's battled and in a hurry. >> no. that's a great point and mccarthy has russians standing with him. tim miller, yamiche, thank you for starting us off.

i'm grateful for the reporting. frank is sticking around. more on the gop war on democracy. pennsylvania's attorney general joins us on those pedaling the big lie there. plus the news that a second january 6 rioter reached a plea deal with the justice department for the role in the insurrection. we'll look at the strategy attorney general garland is deploying at doj as they proceed with largest investigation in the history. and the united states want once a covid hot spot the world over is now in a position to help with the vaccination pushes in other countries. all those stories and more when we continue after a quick break. . e is changing with it. with e-commerce that runs at the speed of now. next day and two-day shipping nationwide, and returns right from the doorstep. it's a whole new world out there. let's not keep it waiting.

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there's signs today that the arizona audit may have been the canary in the coal mine for efforts to relitigate the results of the 2020 election. in light of news of the top of the hour that pennsylvania republicans are hoping to replicate the phony arizona audit there. a call for review in pennsylvania came from lawmakers who vizzed the arizona site wednesday. one was seen in the u.s. capitol january 6. joining us is pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro. we have called on you auburn as pennsylvania is ground zero for the efforts on the ex-president's part to invalidate the election. do you feel that this moment is as ominous as any since election day? >> i think it's a scary and i

think it's a dangerous moment not just in pennsylvania but across the country. right now the country needs some real truth telling. moral clarity. we need leaders willing to stand up and say and do the right thing. i think the lawmakers that you have been talking about here on the show today going to arizona on a hunt for donald trump conspireing to overturn the 2020 election is not only dangerous but distracts us from the very real irses here in pennsylvania and united states. they try to find votes for donald trump that simply do not exist. and what they're doing is dangerous. >> i have been on winning and losing presidential campaigns and the work of a losing campaign is usually to find out why people didn't vote for you and this is not that. this is to go back and try to change the loss, to try to

change the score board rolling the numbers but you had fewer points and i wonder if you feel like people are taking the attacks against fair and free elections. we didn't have a peaceful transfer of power. we don't have elections that one of the two major parties in this country have faith in. 22 voter suppression laws that are the law of the land already. close to 400 proposed and we have got in washington a debate about whether or not to maintain a tradition not a law or a rule in the filibuster as sort of a hurdle to even taking up protecting voting rights in america. do you think the actions out in the country are being met, is the moment being met in washington? >> this is part of a pattern by donald trump and his enablers. it started long before a single vote cast in 2020 trying to make it harder for people to vote. they did that 19 times in

pennsylvania. before the election. we won every single one of the battles in court and then 22 after casting the vote they tried to make it harder to make the votes count and then we know what happened between declaring joe biden as the win irand january. it led to the violent insurrection that a pennsylvania lawmaker participated in at the capitol. this is now the next chapter in that. continuing to perpetuate the big lie and then pushing forward legislation and the sham audits in various states to try to make it harder for voices to count. let me make something very clear. if they try to bring this nonsense, the sham audit to pennsylvania their to go through me and trying to take me on coming to voter enfranchisement they have lost and i have won and protected the people of

pennsylvania and i'll continue to do that. but make no mistake. this is not a one off but part of a practice and a pattern put forth by donald trump and those in service to trump as opposed to service to the democracy or in this case to the people of pennsylvania. those are his enablers and they need to be held accountable. >> if the lawmakers who went to arizona went on the state's dime, is there -- do you have questions about that? should the state be paying for republican lawmakers to travel to arizona and audit the cyber ninja fourth audit of the vote there? >> certainly it's on them to tell the public who paid for it but i think the bigger point here is they ignore the simple truth of what happened here in pennsylvania and that is that we have had audits which can be a

good thing. in theory every single one of the counties in pennsylvania there was an audit post election. in addition the law requires that a sampling of 2,000 ballots in each county reviewed to make sure there's nothing that went wrong. we had actual audits and a certification by republicans and democrats and certified by the secretary of state and governor. the issues were addressed. they were reviewed. proper audits took place. what they are doing in arizona is not about an audit but service to donald trump instead of to the democracy. >> and as you're saying, in arizona three audits took place there and then the republican governor certified the results of that election in that state. none of these seem to be about counting things.

and i guess you said that they'll have to go through you. would you ban or bar another sort of phony audit in pennsylvania? >> i don't know legally what the mechanism would be for doing this in pennsylvania but let's say they wanted to use the authority as lawmakers and some committees in the legislation which you shall have subpoena power, subpoena certain things. i would expect that if they try to go forward on that and understand subpoenas can't be used for phishing expeditions. if they were to try to go forward on it i imagine this issue would be litigated. i represent the commonwealth and would stand up for the voters and the certified election. >> pennsylvania's attorney general josh shapiro, i have a feeling we will be calling on you often. thank you very much for spending time with us today. nice to talk to you.

up next, could we see guilty pleas among the nearly 500 prosecutions resulting from the january 6 insurrection? how the biden administration is proceeding with that, next. oceet the corporate special interests poisoning campaigns with dark money, frantic to preserve big-money politics as usual. because the for the people act is on the verge of becoming law. reining in corporate lobbyists, finally banning dark money, and protecting our freedom to vote. billionaires and special interests, your day is nearly done. because it's time for the people to win. keeping your oyster business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately

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time for new reading glasses? go to readers.com! choose from hundreds of styles and colors, for under $20. and now, enter this exclusive tv coupon code at checkout to save up to 40%. that's readers.com a second guilty plea in the criminal investigation into january 6 is revealing the increased weight carried by the biden administration to prevent history from repeating itself after republicans blocked that commission to investigate the capitol insurrection.

38-year-old paul hodgkins of tampa photographed carrying a large flag inside the senate chamber in the riot awaiting the sentencing after pleading guilty yesterday to a single felony charge of storming the capitol to obstruct the certification. among the nearly 500 prosecutions resulting from the insurrection the sentencing could determine whether dozens if not hundreds of other defendants decide to enter guilty pleas. joining the course white house court reporter for politico eugene daniels and frank is back with us. eugene, it is clear that this justice department is on this topic happy to let their charges and their indictments and court filings speak. do the talking in how aggressive they are being. >> absolutely. the doj doesn't want to be seen as putting the thumb on the scale and the president doesn't want to be seen as putting the thumb on the scale.

any time we ask jen psaki or anybody working over there about the thoughts about the invests, they point us to this is on the doj and a president that doesn't want to interfere with any of these investigations because the biden administration believes that there needs to be a wall between the two especially after the kind of last four years of president trump attacking the attorney general at times, telling -- making it clear via tweets what he wants them to investigate and trying to stay out of this and that is something that you talk to folks at the doj don't want politics in the work they do so allowing the work to speak for itself. if you ask them what will you do about it? they said look at the court filings. we are finding people and to bring them to justice when they can. >> frank, let me read a little

bit of reporting of this investigation that is hard to get anybody to talk about. so we -- i know you know you help understand these charges. in admitting to the stiffest felony count charges by prosecutors against individuals in the capitol riot hodgkins facing a prison sentence of 15 to 21 months. it will be watched by other defendants. according to several defense lawyers. what should -- what is your sort of sense, what can you extrapolate from what you understand about where they are in this investigations and this case in particular? >> yeah. i think there's two takeaways here at least. first we are seeing a guilty plea a felony with the strength of the evidence. never before in the history of america have so many people charged because of things they

did live on streaming or posted about before, during and after they did the crime. strength of evidence. no way to say that's not me inside the capitol. number two, here's the reality at play here on guilty pleas. i know everybody including me wants maximum sentences for the individuals. however this is a test case with somebody pleading to a felony count because the system is loaded right now. the criminal -- federal criminal justice system at the max with these people and so you actually want to send a message to future defendants who are thinking about pleading, if you make it easy on us we make it easy on you. don't go to trial. get the lower end of the sentencing range and we want to see that happen. why? because we want investigators and prosecutors to move to higher levels going after people that planned and coordinated an

and not just showed up. let's hope he gets the lower end of the sentence encouraging others to plead and get them through the system. >> to frank's point, there is this really uncomfortable spectacle of an officer and family of late officer sicknick having the same reaction looking at the republicans that it's just stunning that even in the face of these horrific assaults on law enforcement the republicans aren't interested in a bipartisan investigation, commission. i'll read something that the officer said last night on cnn. talking about the sort of escalation in post-insurrection coup language from people like mike flynn and says it's -- i have it. let me play it. >> this is the exact type of rhetoric which we are ultimately resulted in the attempted

insurrection at the u.s. capitol on january 6. >> so, eugene, my question is, mitch mcconnell, the vast majority of republican senators fine not to hold donald trump accountable for inciting the insurrection. they whipped votes against the bipartisan commission but the stories aren't going away why barbara comstock said it shouldn't matter but the law enforcement folks were republicans and walking them around they got nowhere. i wonder if you think as anecdotes in the charging documents, it is graphic but this is what one of the inrecollectionists did. some point in the interaction with the police sergeant she obtained a flag pole and held in the hands and pressed against the sergeant's chest as alleged she started to push the sergeant

causing him to fall into the first sets of doors leading to the house floor and the sgtd struck the back of the head on the base of the marble lafayette statue. head injuries. mutilation. fickers lost. heart attacks. are they really shire, the republicanser of making a bet to kill a bipartisan commission? >> i think they do. republicans made a political calculation. not january 6 specifically but they think if they appease donald trump who, if you remember, when he said something about the commission, right before he spoke out and said ixnay on making the commission bipartisan, it seemed like we were getting there and in the senate that mcconnell to stay hands off and made the calculation they need the trump voters, people who watch this and say it was antifa, watch

this and said it was -- it wasn't real. and that it doesn't matter. this whitewashing happened almost immediately after and ron johnson saying he wasn't scared and didn't have guns and that started kind of in the right wing areas and it's made the way to the mainstream of the republican party and after you have that work done to kind of whitewash what this looked like, how dangerous it was and scary for the people that worked there it is simple to make the calculation it doesn't matter and simple to say to people we're ready to move on and couched with liz cheney being ousted but the problem it continues to be spoken about because there's not a january 6 commission bipartisan at this point because there's a lot of information we may never know that a bipartisan independent

investigation could have told us so i think we'll continue to ask questions. have democrats continuing to ask questions and republicans like liz cheney continue to ask questions about what happened here because there's not a commission and whether they made the right decision we'll see in the 2022 midterms and if they take the house they might feel okay about that. >> frank, with your sort of counter intelligence hat on what questions won't be answered in a charging document or a prosecutorial context? >> hmm. we are back to why we need a public reckoning and for the american people to see this play out in the fortunately of a commission because there are parts that we'll never see and maybe we should not. those coop rating, the information giving may be the

foreign funding aspect of this investigation. i believe there is. that largely may be classified. we won't see any foreign moneys and evidence of nation states perhaps getting behind the funding of this thing. so i understand that. look. i got to tell you with regard to the fanone comments, we are up to a quarter of the people charged in january 6 being charged for assaulting police officers and remember that next time we hear anybody around the trump orbit say they're pro-law enforcement. >> no. it is a great point. we should fact them every single time. thank you for spending time with us and making sense of these tea leaves. a sign the u.s. is feeling pretty good about the state of oush fight against the pandemic here at home, the biden administration today laying out the plans for fulfilling the promise to share 80 million vaccine doses around the world by the end of the month.

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announcement that the united states will distribute 25 million covid vaccine doses to nations struggling to beat back the pandemic. the 25 million will be shared immediately, aiming to reach president biden's goal of 80 million doses by the end of the month. 75% of these first vaccines will be shared through covax, the world health organization's distribution program. the remaining will be sent directly to harder hit nations and regional partners like india and mexico. the president saying in the statement, quote, we are sharing these doses not to secure favors or extract concessions. we are sharing these vaccines to save lives and to lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic. let's bring into our coverage dr. kavita patel, former obama white house health policy director, and "washington post" white house bureau chief and msnbc political analyst ashley parker. ashley, the significance here seems to be sort of a version of just how far we've come, that we're now in this position of having all the vaccine supply we

need to vaccinate americans and being able to really push it out to countries that are struggling. >> well, that's exactly right. i remember asking administration officials early on what was their plan to share or not share vaccines abroad, and one of the things they said was that in all of his sort of early conversations with foreign leaders, the one thing that president biden stressed was that he wanted to help. that is traditionally, as he said, in his statement, america's role in the world, but that until he got the domestic situation under control, that the issues at home, getting his own population vaccinated, had to be his top priority and he hoped these other nations could understand. and that doesn't mean that we were not doing things here or there, but that was just the clear priority. so, the fact that we are now giving vaccines to covax, directly to individual nations, is a sign of two things. it is how far we've actually

come and the new challenge we're facing, which is that as we try to vaccinate that remaining bit of our population, they are a more reluctant group. they are not the people early on who were desperate for vaccinations, refreshing the cvs website like i was, trying to figure out when i could sign up. it's a new group and a new set of challenges. >> you know, it also, though, i think, dr. patel, what ashley's pointing at is sort of these -- the luxury that we have, right? we are now as policymakers and you as a public health person, and this is ashley's covering sort of the psychology of the vaccine reluctant. i think we've given up on the anti-vaxxers but the vaccine hesitant, the folks that may help us stamp out transmission, that is a uniquely american problem. just talk about sort of the two faces of vaccine access in the world. >> yeah, nicole, it's absolutely true, and even in the sign of how much faith we have in our own supply, the administration

also released the ability for three manufacturers who are not yet authorized in the united states to go ahead and make direct contracts versus honoring kind of the operation warp speed agreements early on, and where's the rest of the world? i mean, at this point, we only have about 0.4% of nations like africa's countries in africa, india, pakistan, nepal, some regions a little higher, but we are desperately estimating that it would be until 2023 if we keep up at this pace. so, simply put, what happened today was not significant just for the numbers of doses but for kind of a signal that, as jeff saenz put it, this pandemic is in retreat and i can't believe hearing those words along with our global equity first step, i hope, of many, this is incredible progress, not to underscore that we're not out of the woods. the cdc director highlighted that we're going to see an increase report on increased icu

hospitalizations in adolescents, reminding us the unvaccinated still remain vulnerable and we should care because if we don't have global equity and we don't fix kind of the undervaccinated in our own communities, then there are reservoirs for this virus to go around and around and possibly come back to haunt us in the next year or two. >> i know, it's why we keep calling on you, dr. patel, and you, ashley parker. thank you both for joining us on this news today. it's great to see both of you. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a very short break. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started. ort . don't go anywhere. we're just getting started

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should the government be seizing reporters' phone records and emails, and would you prevent your justice department from doing that? >> only yours. but beyond yours -- but no. absolutely, positively, it's wrong. it's simply, simply wrong. >> so you won't let your justice department do that? >> i won't let that happen.

>> absolutely, positively wrong. hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in the east, an unambiguous president biden there on the practice undertaken by past presidents of seizing through subpoenas or search warrants the communication records of journalists. it's one his administration will take no part in. president biden drawing a red line, and it's all the more significant today as we learn of yet another instance in which the trump justice department secretly obtained phone records of reporters in an attempt to discover their sources. "the new york times" reports this. biden's justice department informed the "times" that law enforcement officials had seized phone records from january 14th to april 30th, 2017, for four "times" reporters. matt, adam, eric, and michael. the justice department did not say which article was being investigated, but the line-up of reporters and the timing suggested that the leak investigation related to classified information reported in an april 22, 2017, article

that the four reporters wrote about how jim comey, then the fbi director, handled politically charged investigations during the 2016 presidential election. if that is true, it shows just how deep donald trump's vendetta against the former fbi director, jim comey, went. comey, who refused to grant trump loyalty, and refused to drop an investigation into former national security advisor mike flynn at trump's request, was fired by the ex-president in may of 2017. the "times" reports this. after his dismissal, mr. comey engineered through his friend, a columbia university law professor, the disclosure to the "times" of accounts of several of his conversations with the president, related to the russia investigation. this latest "times" reporting marks the third time in just recent weeks that we have learned of trump's justice department seizing journalists' records and the second time that a key flash point in the russia investigation may have been at the center. from the "washington post,"

reporting last month, detailing how words of three of their reporters were taken. toward the end of the time period mentioned in the letters, those reporters wrote a story about classified u.s. intelligence intercepts indicating that in 2016, senator jeff sessions had discussed the trump campaign with sergei kislyak. he was russia's ambassador to the u.s.. a practice that surged under the former guy who called the press the enemy of the people that is now being halted by the current president, joe biden, is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. betsy woodruff swan is here, national correspondent at politico. also joining us, pete strzok and author of "compromised." and michael sheer is here. it's great to have you, mike. tell me more about what you know about how much data -- was it just phone records, was it emails? what was seized by -- i presume it's the barr justice

department. >> right. so, our understanding is that phone records were seized that generally shows the sort of who was called and obviously doesn't contain the actual contents of the audible call. there apparently was also at least an intent to also get the sort of same kind of to and from information about the email records from my colleagues, though it appears from the justice department that actually didn't occur. the thing that's so striking about this, nicole, and so, you know, puts such fear into the -- into those of us who care about journalism and accountability, is the idea that this happened not right around the time that the justice department would have been offended, potentially, by the article that ran but rather years later. this was the trump justice department coming back in 2020 and 2019, looking back years, as you described it, in a kind of

long standing campaign against jim comey and against the effort to try to -- and for the the effort to try to dig out the sources for those articles, and i think that's what's pretty striking and if you care about journalism and you care about people being willing to talk to journalists freely without fear of this kind of witch hunt, then it's not something that you want to see happen. >> michael shear, can you tell us more about what the trump administration might have been looking for in the reporting that sort of fell under the bylines of these four journalists and that fell into the dates? i mean, we know that comey was a dark obsession of donald trump's, but you're right, this was four years later. were they still -- i mean, we know from some of your colleagues' reporting, he was obsessed with trying to prosecute hillary clinton and jim comey. was he still trying to do that in 2020? >> i mean, it certainly appears that. i mean, look, we don't know, as

you said in your report, there's no explanation that the justice department gives in the letters that they sent to our colleagues informing them of this attempt to get at their phone records but i think what you can draw from it is that there were -- there was a classified document that was mentioned in the article that my four colleagues wrote at the time, back in early 2017, that had to do with the russia investigation and jim comey's concerns about russia meddling in the 2016 campaign, and that appears to be what the justice department was trying to get at. they wanted to know, was it jim comey who leaked this to my colleagues? and you know, it appears that several years after the potential, you know, after the story ran, they were still obsessed with that question. >> and the obsession was severe.

i want to play for all of you, because i was reminded of this when i started reading up today on this. what punishment donald trump thought was suitable for jim comey. watch. >> sir, the constitution says treason is punishable by death. you've accused your adversaries of treason. who specifically are you accusing of treason? >> investigator number of people. >> who, sir? >> and i think what you look, they have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person. >> who are you speaking about? >> you look at comey. if you look at mccain, probably people higher than that. >> so, pete strzok, you were on the receiving end of some attacks from the president. it was always -- and i guess this is clear. it was always projection. i mean, he is the one who is under potential criminal prosecution for his conduct. what was sort of the theory of the case on the inside about his

maniacal obsession with criminalizing national security investigations? >> well, the trouble with what trump did was it took an environment where you might have legitimate violations of the law and it put it into this hyperpoliticized environment where it was clear that trump was going after people he perceived to be his opponents and i was on the receiving end of his accusations of treason and his idea that i should be put to death and it doesn't get old, the sort of outrage upon hearing that. but here's the issue, nicole. separate and distinct of what trump said and may have wanted, there were legitimate leaks of classified information to the media by people who weren't authorized to do it, so at the end of the day, there are legitimate investigative concerns here, and the problem is what we saw time and time again by trump and the barr justice department and the politicization was that people no longer were able to discern, is this a legitimate investigation or is this an investigation that's being pushed by attorney general barr, by the white house and others, and that muddying is just one of the many ways that was -- the

justice department was so undermined by the last administration. >> what can you sort of from your perch deduce from the timing, that these pieces were written -- the classified document that michael shear mentioned was in a story published in 2017. the records were seized in 2020. what -- from your sort of insider knowledge, what would explain the gap in years? >> sure. well, i don't want to confirm or deny any of the specific articles which are -- events which may or may not have been behind the subpoenaing or the request for the records, but typically, in media leak investigations, and i supervised all of the fbi's media leak investigations at the end of my career, the process to go and get records of reporters typically comes at the very end of an investigation, after you've exhausted all other investigative avenues, and that makes them very time intensive, very labor intensive, and very

long, and so, yes, i know we may look at it and say, gosh, these records were sought several years after the events allegedly in question, again, whether or not those particular articles were, in fact, the ones of concern, but that doesn't surprise me. ordinarily, we would not see or make any -- the fbi would not make any requests for these records until they had done everything else possible, not because they wanted to do it but because the regulations of the justice department required that that occur. >> so, betsy, that brings us to, i think, an important inflection point about the stuff that was coming out of donald trump's mouth. i think it's safe to wonder if he wasn't assured by three different -- i think he had at least three different attorneys general, that they were on this, that this article that was published in "the new york times" that we're talking about today came out in 2017. it seems at least plausible that attorney general sessions and then the guy after him, i forget his name, whitaker and maybe

even rod rosenstein and ultimately bill barr, that they were on this and some of what was this public bluster, this accusing jim comey of treason and andy mccabe of treason, was part of what he believed and had instructed his government to do. >> regardless of whether or not they spoke privately, what we know for sure is that in the very first year of the trump administration, then attorney general jeff sessions had a major press conference where he said that he was, in fact, dramatically ratcheting up the d.o.j.'s investigations into leaks and he announced that the number of open leak probes had tripled. that was explicitly the leader of the justice department, the most powerful law enforcement official in the united states, telling everyone, including, perhaps, his most important audience of one, then president donald trump, that he was on it, that he was doing what the president wanted him to do.

i covered that press conference, and it was very unusual, watching the attorney general appear to respond almost in realtime to tweets from the president. watching the attorney general appear to almost explicitly say, i've got you, boss, i have this handled, we're trying to hunt down these leakers. and what i can tell you is that these type of leak investigations, these types of investigative tactics that the justice department has used do genuinely hinder the ability of the public to know what the u.s. government is doing. i've had conversations with sources where i have asked questions, not asking, can you give me classified material, but have asked questions about topics that the public should know about and i've heard sources say, i can't tell you about that because i don't want to go to jail. these concerns are something that people take very seriously. that they worry about. and it gets in the way of the ability for journalists to do their jobs. now, these types of investigations aren't going to keep reporters from reporting,

but lord knows how many people in government who have access to information that the public should know about won't come forward with that information or will be very nervous about sharing it with reporters because of the types of investigations that the trump administration pushed forward. so, now, the big question is, are those off the cuff remarks that biden made, which, of course, are remarks now from the president of the united states, how quickly and in what way do those remarks translate into new policy and new rules at the justice department? and that's something that i know every reporter who covers d.o.j., myself included, is going to be following very closely, because it's so important to the ability of americans to know what the most powerful government in the world is doing. >> so, betsy, in that vein, let me read you something that was written about merrick garland's, some of the tea leaves about his views on this. garland's judicial record contains a decision in which he took a strong stand in favor of news gathering protections.

15 years ago at the wen ho lee privacy case when a former scientist won the right to subpoena information from journalists, garland dissented, arguing the law should protect the press. garland's appointment as attorney general provides a real opportunity to push for even stronger protections under the guidelines at the justice department. and you're right, i mean, we don't know -- policy gets announced, you don't know until you know, but are investigative journalists like yourself reading those kind of tea leaves and feeling like it could be a different climate than the last four years? or are there sort of -- is it murkier than that? >> what we know will change from a climate perspective is that the president won't be tweeting at attorney general merrick garland, telling him to investigate reporters. so, that itself is certainly nice. what we don't know is how

exactly the attorney general specifically could change internal d.o.j. guidelines. what you referred there, that law fare article, certainly includes, from my perspective as a reporter, heartening information about the attorney general's view when it comes to press protections. the other thing to remember about garland at the same time is that he's very much an institutionalist and has a high degree of confidence in the career lawyers at the justice department. and those career lawyers have an important job and many of them are viewed almost in some cases with a sense of reverence. historically, those career lawyers have not always been on the side of freedom of the press. under the obama administration, there was a dramatic increase in the number of leak investigations that resulted in reporters' sources in some cases being a significant risk. so, the question is, where exactly garland comes down on this is something that he's going to have to address explicitly. we know where the president stands. we know perhaps where some of his impulses are and we'll be keeping an eye just to see

exactly how explicit he makes his views on this topic because it's so important for the way democracy works. >> yeah, and i mean, michael shear, donald trump's obsession with the media and really specifically with the "new york times" and some specific reporters at the "new york times" was something that your paper seemed -- i mean, your publisher, i believe, went to the oval office to meet with him and talk to him about the rhetoric about the press, saying you call the media enemies of the people, that's heard around the world. were people surprised yesterday to learn that four washington reporters had their records seized? when you saw "the post" journalists and barbara starr, what was the reaction inside the paper to this news yesterday from the biden justice department? >> yeah, so, certainly not surprised by any stretch. i mean, first of all, we'd seen it with the other news organizations, but second of all, i mean, look, we all lived the four years of, you know, as betsy said, you know, the constant attacks, the tweeting,

you know, the name-calling, et cetera. we knew exactly where donald trump stood, and frankly, knew where his justice department stood. i mean, i think, you know, the really interesting question going forward is, joe biden is caught between two principles, both of which are an attempt to distance himself from trump, right? on the one hand, the principle is, he wants to distance himself from the enemy of the people. he wants to portray himself as a friend of journalism, as a friend of accountability as opposed to the way donald trump acted, but he also has said repeatedly, joe biden has said that he doesn't want to interfere with the justice department. he wants to take a hands-off, let the justice department investigate where they, you know, where they think they need to investigate, and so the white house has been extremely careful not to say, yes, joe biden is meddling in the actual regulations that control these kinds of inquiries at the justice department, particularly they've sort of said, look, he made his views known and the

justice department has clearly heard that the way the rest of us have. so i do think it will be very interesting to see, you know, does this just completely end? are leak investigations a thing of the past? more likely, are they simply going to be done maybe in a little bit more careful way and not the kind of over-the-top way that the justice department did. >> over-the-top was certainly their brand. michael shear, great to have you here. thank you for joining us today. betsy woodruff swan, always wonderful to see you. thank you both. pete is sticking around a little longer because when we return, there is new legal trouble for matt gaetz. remember him? already at the center of a sex trafficking investigation, federal prosecutors have opened a new probe into the florida republican. we'll tell you about it next. plus, pressure is building on one joe manchin, the most visible democrat in the united states senate, standing in the way of a sweeping measure to protect voting rights under assault nationwide by

republicans. and in the sign of how deep institutional racism runs in this country, a promise by the national football league to end a practice called "race normal" in which black players are assumed to have a lower level of cognitive function. we'll explain. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. tein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! ( sighs wearily ) here, i'll take that! ( excited yell ) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one-gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health! ( abbot sonic )

what happens when we welcome change? and nutrients to support immune health! we can make emergency medicine possible at 40,000 feet. instead of burning our past for power, we can harness the energy of the tiny electron. we can create new ways to connect. rethinking how we communicate to be more inclusive than ever. with app, cloud and anywhere workspace solutions, vmware helps companies navigate change. faster. vmware. welcome change. hearing is important to living life to the fullest. that's why inside every miracle-ear store, you'll find better laughs at family barbecues. you'll find a better life is in store at miracle-ear, when you experience the exclusive miracle-ear advantage. including innovative technology,

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from the ground up, helping to make san francisco the greenest big city in america but we couldn't do it without you. thank you, san francisco. gracias, san francisco. -thank you. -[ speaks native language ] let's keep making a differene together. new signs today of deepening legal trouble for florida republican and trump ally, matt gaetz. a source telling nbc news that prosecutors are examining whether gaetz obstructed justice during a phone call with a witness in the sex crimes investigation into the congressman. from that nbc news reporting, the witness in question is one

of the women allegedly connected to gaetz and his friend, joel greenberg. the former seminole county tax collector who pleaded guilty last month to several crimes, including sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. the news was first reported by politico. in a statement, a spokesperson for gaetz denies allegations of obstruction, saying, quote, congressman gaetz pursues justice, he doesn't obstruct it, end quote. gaetz has also repeatedly denied allegations of sex trafficking and being sexually involved with a minor. joining our conversation is former republican congressman david jolly, national chairman of the serve america movement. pete strzok is here as well. pete, what would constitute obstruction of an investigation into matt gaetz by matt gaetz? >> well, there are a variety of things that he might have done that would look like -- objection, fundamentally, at the end of the day, is doing something that is getting in the way of a judicial proceeding, whether it's an investigation or things like testimony to the grand jury. so for example, in the event

that there is this conversation between matt gaetz's former girlfriend and the witness, where he was patched in and they were discussing what to say to investigators or what to say to a grand jury and to kind of say, no, no, no, it didn't happen that way. remember, it happened this way. or if they ask you about this, just say it was for this reason. the money was for a reimbursement, not for something else. so, something as simple as coordinating, the phrase, getting your story straight, this is the sort of thing that goes on, which constitutes obstruction. it's a commonly used crime that can be charged by prosecutors and it really strikes to the heart of the justice system. obstructing justice is at the core of, you know, kind of maintaining the integrity of what constitutes criminal behavior in our country. robert mueller spent an entire volume looking at the obstructive behavior engaged in by president trump, so this is a very, very serious alleged set of activities, and the fact that d.o.j. seems to be pursuing it very rigorously, unfortunately, doesn't surprise me, but it speaks to the very serious

nature of their investigation. >> and there is, david jolly, a walls closing in-like feel to the public-facing information in this probe. you have the reporting in "the new york times" and other places that matt gaetz's wingman has been talking to the federal investigators since december. he talked for so long, proved himself useful enough, that they did a deal with him just in the last month. that's a lot of time, a lot of talking, a lot of time to corroborate whatever it was he was telling them. i want to just read the description in politico of what this action is. pete described it well, but politico reports that, quote, at some point during the conversation, the ex-girlfriend of matt gaetz patched gaetz into the call, sources said. while it's unknown exactly what was said, the discussion on that call is central to whether prosecutors can charge gaetz with obstructing justice. the witness later spoke with prosecutors, the sources said.

what sort of nonobstructive way could the subject or target of an investigation be patched into a call by another witness? >> yeah, nicole, that's a great question, because i think all indicators would suggest that matt gaetz was not patched into that call to encourage the ex-girlfriend to truthfully cooperate with investigators. very likely, as peter said, it was about coordinating whatever their story and defense is. nicole, matt gaetz would be wise to start spending less time with marjorie taylor greene and more time with his attorney. because as you mentioned, the walls are closing in. joel greenberg, the deal he struck with federal prosecutors, had to go before a federal judge for approval. that judge just very recently formally approved that plea deal and part of that plea deal is that joel greenberg will provide additional information regarding others involved in the alleged crimes. importantly, in terms of those walls continuing to close in, joel greenberg's sentencing is now scheduled for mid-august and materials have to be presented

to the judge about ten days before that. prosecutors will make the case as to why joel greenberg deserves a more lenient sentence. i think 12 years is the minimum, but actually, trafficking in a child sex act is a lifetime, could be a lifetime conviction. so, joel greenberg, who is behind bars today, has every incentive to continue to cooperate and provide information on matt gaetz. matt gaetz should not be touring the country with marjorie taylor greene. he should be sitting in a law office with somebody who's advising him to shut up and cooperate with federal prosecutors. >> pete, what do we -- can we take anything about the maturity of the investigation or the timeline they're working with, with that sentencing date being put on the calendar? i think some of the reporting suggested that greenberg may have offered corroborating evidence to sort of back up his own claims to protect himself, to achieve that plea deal

himself, but what would be happening now inside that investigation? >> sure. so, i think you're looking at the very end stages of the investigation. you've got now a variety of people who all, according to the reporting, have some incentive to provide testimony and information about potential criminal activity by matt gaetz. and so at this point, when you see prosecutors sitting down and negotiating with witnesses, when you see people trying to get a plea deal, when you see people entering guilty pleas, it's important that when, before, somebody goes before the judge for sentencing, they want to be able to demonstrate the value of their cooperation so that they can get a more lenient sentence. so, before that august time frame, it's absolutely greenberg wants and his attorneys want to be able to have the prosecutors show the judge all the different ways that he helped and that needs to be materially substantive before that sentencing occurs and the fact that not only greenberg, but there's indication some of these

other witnesses are seeking plea deals, lead me to believe we're at the very last stages before we come to some decision by the prosecutors about whether to charge matt gaetz, probably sometime in the july or august time frame. >> it looks like this is that time of choosing for everyone in the web of this probe. >> it is. >> and i wonder, you know, i believe these sex trafficking a minor is a mandatory minimum of ten years. we joke about this ridiculous tour with marjorie taylor greene, but i mean, at a serious level, what could matt gaetz do at this point? >> yeah, to your point, we cannot forget that there's a child victim in this case, that one of the charges against joel greenberg is causing a minor to engage in a commercial sex act. in addition to counterfeiting driver's licenses and other crimes. but what joel greenberg has confessed to and what he has apparently implicated matt gaetz on is a very serious crime that should be the elimination of

matt gaetz's role in politics, and i think what matt gaetz is probably experiencing alongside the rest of us in florida, nicole, is the prosecutors will determine charges and make decisions within the four corners of the law, of the statute. but politically speaking, people are now talking in the state of florida, right? mark caputo from politico is very well sourced and mark continues to come out with additional information related to some of matt's colleagues, former legislators, lobbyists, who clearly are talking to the press as well. if they're talking to the press, we can only assume that the feds also have that information. this is a very harrowing time for matt gaetz. if he is guilty of the crime, it should be a very harrowing time for him. >> david jolly, pete strzok, thank you both for spending time with us. when we return, the national football league vows to end race-normal. it's a practice that for years has made it more difficult for

black former players to claim settlement money after traumatic brain injuries because it falsely assumed black players have lower cognitive function. that remarkable story is next. have lower cognitive function. that remarkable story is next. ♪ hey hey hey. ♪ goodbye. ♪ na na na na... ♪ hey hey hey. ♪ goodbye. ♪ na na na na ♪ na na na na... the world's first six-function multipro tailgate. available on the gmc sierra. ♪ ♪i've got the brains you've got the looks♪ ♪let's make lots of money♪ ♪you've got the brawn♪ ♪i've got the brains♪ ♪let's make lots of♪ ♪uh uh uh♪ ♪oohhh there's a lot of opportunities♪ with allstate, drivers who switched saved over $700.

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a little preparation will make you and your family safer in an emergency. a week's worth of food and water, radio, flashlight, batteries and first aid kit are a good start to learn more, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com the nfl today is part of its billion dollar settlement of a class action lawsuit over concussions is promising to end a practice called race-normal, whereby cognitive test scores of black players assume a lower level of function. from the "washington post" report on this, the use of race norms in the nfl's concussion

settlement payouts first came to light last august when two former players accused the league in the lawsuit of discriminating against hundreds and potentially thousands of former black players. in their suit, former players davenport and henry alleged that race-normal prevented them from getting settlement payouts. in davenport's case, he claimed a doctor initially diagnosed him with dementia but the nfl appealed and demanded his test scores get curved using race norm data which resulted in the reversal of a diagnosis. joining us now is kevin, panelist from "around the horn," visiting professor at the university of maryland and sports commentary columnist for the "washington post." was this really first brought to light in august? >> yeah. sadly, through this lawsuit. and you know, what's so ironic about it, right, is that this is the same time when the national

football league and roger goodell are trying to embrace the black lives matter movement and talk about how much they care about black athletes. yet on the backside, they were engaged in this lawsuit and trying to appeal it and standing up for such a horrible, racist analysis that it just -- it just boggles the mind. you know, when you think about sports, and we have told people wrongly that sport has been in the vanguard of social change in this country and that, you know, we love to point to the idea of jackie robinson, and in doing so, we whitewash the true history of sport and race in this country. which is, segregation and discrimination.

and then, when you see this complaint, this lawsuit and how the nfl stood to appeal it, you realize just how -- what a racist policy this is, right, to deny health benefits to the people who make your game the great game that it is, to people who lay their lives out to play this sport and have turned so many people in the sport other than themselves into millionaires many times over and have turned the sport into the largest sport on the planet earth, you know, a $20 billion corporation. it's really -- it's really disgusting, and i should also point out that the other thing i learned from reading about this and much of this i learned from a professor at cuny up in new york who studied this, is that this is really pernicious.

we are focusing on this race-norming today as something that affects football players but this is something in the medical profession that affects people of color, black people in particular, when it comes to getting medical treatment at the same level as their white peers. so this is a really -- this is on the eugenics level, nicole. this is crazy. >> so, look, this story crossed our radars, it's not traditionally the kind of story we would cover but if you're going to have a conversation about systemic racism in america, this story seems to, as you just articulated, intersect between mistreatment of black athletes specifically and strategically and racism in medicine, and i just want to -- because i read a lot about this today too. i want to read a little bit more about how this worked. in its use of race-norming, the

league compares a given player's cognitive test scores with the supposed norm for his demographic group. under the methodology, black players are assumed to possess a lower level of cognitive function than the average white player. now, attorneys got involved and said that the standard means that in order to qualify for compensation, the average black player had to demonstrate greater levels of cognitive decline than a white counterpart. how is that not just, you know, straight-up rigging it against -- i mean, if they're saying that a black athlete starts at a lower level, obviously, any damage from a concussion would be harder to detect in the kind of tests used to give out money. was this about money, or was this about that nasty intersection of racism and money? >> you know, i think it's about both. on the one hand, it's about money because it comes from this concussion lawsuit, and the nfl is trying to pay out as little as possible when it comes to this concussion lawsuit and as far as the settlements that they're making. but in another sense, it harkens

back to a very ugly yesterday, a time when assumptions were made about the intellectual and cognitive abilities of the progeny of enslaved africans in this country. you think back to the turn of the 19th century and how jack johnson, who was the first black man allowed to fight for the heavyweight championship, was portrayed in media in this country and abroad and how he was -- how he was described as being someone or something less than human. and this is a new construct, right? because this -- this fight in this lawsuit and this race-norming idea may not have been around 20 years ago. this is something new when it comes to the concussion lawsuits and the concussion settlements,

so it is both, and it is extremely troubling, and there is -- this is something that the nfl, an apology, which it really has not made yet, is not nearly enough. this is something -- you talk about reparations. this is something that's going to require reparations in order for the nfl to clean it up. >> and they have one of the worst records in terms of diversity in head coaches. i believe, what, 29 of the 32 head coaches are white men. i want to play something i saw on real sports with bryant gumble, an interview with coach mike tomlin. >> it is a global collective failure, from my perspective. >> mike tomlin has won more games than any black head coach in nfl history. >> you have been in the room at the owners' meetings when this is discussed. i know you hear the right things. but as african-americans, all of us are used to hearing stuff and

knowing [ bleep ] when we hear it. >> you know, i don't know if it is at the time, but i know that the results are. you know? >> so, i guess, kevin, my question is, how does that conversation change in light of what was a overtly and strategically racist policy around concussions? >> it highlights it in the brightest yellow highlighter that you can find. because now, if you want to talk about why hiring has not been equitable, why black men who play this game have not gotten an equal opportunity, you can look at this. and this explains it. this suggests that there are people who run this league, not suggests, but it underscores that there are people who run this league who do not value black men in the same way that they do white men. same way that they do the people that they see in the mirror every morning.

and that is really, really problematic. and what's even more concerning about this is that this is something that people have suggested goes on in corporate america anyway. this is -- this is something we have to fight in this country anyway, and here it is, laid bare for you in this particular instance. >> kevin, we appreciate you. i appreciate you helping me through some of my sports learning curve, but this story was crystal clear. thank you for spending time with us today to talk about it. when we return, the pressure is building on west virginia senator joe manchin. he's feeling the heat from his party over the need to fight back against republican assaults on voting rights coast to coast. that story's next. voting right. that story's next.

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and the reverend al sharpton will meet with one of them, west virginia senator joe manchin. david jolly is back with us. david, mark elias, democratic election and campaign lawyer, sort of a one-man tip of the spear against the republican war on voting rights, said yesterday that the filibuster isn't even a law. it isn't a rule. it's a tradition, and it should not become a suicide pact for our democracy. what do you think? >> yeah, i think democrats have a tough decision to make. it is not a rule, it is not a law, but it is a long-held senate tradition that we saw begin to erode about 10 or 15 years ago when harry reed said we're going to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominees but not for the supreme court and then republicans came in and said, well, we're going to eliminate it for the supreme court. what has not been eliminated is the filibuster for legislation, and that's what mark is saying, that this nonrule, but this tradition of the senate, is standing in the way of very

significant legislation, and why democrats have a tough decision to make, nicole, is they should assume today that no major biden democratic initiative will pass during his term without eliminating the filibuster, no voting rights, no climate legislation, no immigration legislation, no gun legislation, nothing. they should go on that assumption and then they have to make a decision. during these two years, where we control everything, do we limit the filibuster to deliver on our promises, or do we accept the senate tradition and recognize that we're going to be providing voters with half a loaf in two years? >> i mean, traditions feel like an ill match for a moment when republicans, i mean, the lieutenant governor in georgia has acknowledged that the voter suppression law there is predicated on a lie, and it seems like a tradition like the filibuster wasn't made for this moment where republicans are legislating based on a lie that they know is a lie.

i mean, do you think that -- i mean, because i understand, and we went back and looked at joe manchin, he opposed both instances where the filibuster was abandoned and the nuclear option replaced it, but it would seem that something called nuclear might be what's needed to eradicate policymaking rooted in a big lie. >> yeah, nicole, democrats have a very strong argument in this moment coming off four years of trumpism, but now, as trumpism has kind of metastasized in the states, this anti-democratic, illiberal movement within the republican party, democrats have to say, now is the time, we have to protect fundamental voting rights and healthcare, we have to deal with immigration, the gun violence epidemic, and we should not let a procedure of the senate stand in the way. the intriguing thing is if they eliminate the filibuster, nicole, there may be major legislation where democrats pick up susan collins from maine but not joe manchin from west virginia, or they have a vote where they pick up murkowski but

not sinema. the interesting thing is they could end up with bipartisan major legislation by using a partisan block to eliminate the filibuster. >> that's really interesting. and you look at where the public is. i mean, if they decide to pursue gun gun safety laws, you have 85%, 90% of americans that support it. they could do some very popular things that would help them in the subsequent elections. if you had to sort of wager a bet, what do you think happens to the filibuster around voting rights? >> so i don't think democrats are worried about shattering precedent. i think they're worried about, be careful what you wish for because once this is eliminated, it's gone. and republicans will return favor no question. look, republicans will eventually eliminate it anyway. democrats have a hard decision to face. where we are now, i don't think the filibuster gets eliminated. i really don't. but i think if they stay on this and make the case to the

american people, maybe the american people will start to say why does the senate procedure prohibit 56 votes from actually ruling the day on the january 6th commission or from gun violence protection or common sense health care resolutions. democrats could make this case right now. this is the moment. if it doesn't happen now, i'm not sure it doesn't have a chance to happen in the future. >> the only thing i would add, david, is that republicans wouldn't think twice. it would be gone already. >> that's right. that's right. no, you're exactly right. >> thank you for spending some time -- right? right? >> you're exactly right. no, look, republicans know how to fight this type of legislation. democrats are abiding by the traditions. this might be a moment where they would be wise to say let's get something done for the american people. >> thank you, my friend, for spending some time with us on that. when we return, we will remember lives well-lived. well-lived you'll find better bedtime stories. you'll find a better life is in store at miracle-ear,

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thank you so much for grat. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> hi, nicole. welcome to "the beat." we have a big show for you tonight. the big probe intensifying. donald trump obsessed over what it all means and his problems with reality that affect democracy in america. later tonight, we will hear from nine-time grammy award winner sheryl crow, including her take on politics and a lot more. also, what is going on with donald trump jr.? he's so rich, why is he doing what you see on the screen? we'll get to that later. but we begin with a clear escalation in the federal sex crime probe