with vladimir putin and asked him if he's a killer. good morning to you. it's saturday, june 12th. i'm ali velshi live from the studios at 30 rockefeller plaza in new york city. one of the few times i've been able to say that over the past 15 months. joe biden is half a world away in england on his first foreign trip in office. today is day two of the g7, the morning agenda includes multiple meetings focusing on matters of global importance. tomorrow's highlight features an audience with queen elizabeth, then biden travels to brussels for a nato summit. the trip concludes in geneva where biden meets with russian president vladimir putin. right now the president is set to take part in a foreign policy session. the first lady is meeting with members of a volunteer group who helps military vets, first responders and their families.

joining us is nbc news chief white house correspondent, peter alexander. what's happening so far and what's on the agenda? >> as you noted, those meetings are under way behind closed doors. within the next hour or two we'll see the president visiting with the french prime minister, emmanuel macron. these summits can take on the tone, the character of the american president. the past four years had summits that were much more standoffish. yesterday a dramatically different scene as we saw macron and biden literally arm in arm, sharing that embrace, which wasn't just symbolic, it was in many ways descriptive of this effort to bring together, to embrace america's european allies after the last four years to erase the america-first policies. all of it comes ahead of the crucial summit set to take place

with vladimir putin next week in switzerland. this morning a white house official telling us that unlike what took place in helsinki a few years ago between former president trump and vladimir putin, there's not going to be any individual one-on-one gatherings. there will be a working session, then a smaller session, and ultimately a solo press conference for president biden. the two men won't stand side by side. as for the president himself, what's been striking is to see how some of these world leaders have been embracing the message of the united states. that build back better message resonating. boris johnson using that language in his remarks. we heard from prince charles last night as he was greeting the g7 leaders and spouses during a reception, referring to the issue of climate and saying on that topic they needed to build back better towards a greener and more prosperous future. ultimately as it relates not just towards russia but also to a rising china, the white house today announcing what they're calling the b3w, the build back

better world initiative which is a counter to the belt and road initiative by china. an effort to help developing roads and their infrastructure projects going forward. >> you and i talked about this for years. just give us your sense as you cover this about the difference in tone between this and the first g7 meeting that president trump went to. there is a sense that are they treating joe biden like the injured child who was back in the game or are they inviting america into a leadership role in the g7? >> i think as a function of the language they're echoing of the president, they view the united states and president biden as a leader here but there are some real concerns. among them, whether as you look at joe biden's place in history here, in america and in the world, if the last four years was the anomaly, the blip, or if this is the anomaly going

forward, which is to say will donald trump be back? will someone like donald trump return to center stage leading the united states after president biden's term in office? i think that is among the real concerns, the durability of president biden here. i think the difference is dramatic, i use that word by design. there is not the same drama that you witnessed in these past gatherings around the world. how many times did you leave a g7 were there were these standoffs and these tweets frankly -- i'm thinking back to 2018, the g7 there -- where the president left canada, he started attacking justin trudeau, the prime minister of that country as he departed. i think on that occasion he was headed off to singapore to see kim jong-un. so in that way it's hard to communicate. for the leaders here, it's something they like and desire, but the question is is it durable? >> that's the question we'll continue to answer over the next couple of hours. we'll check in with you again.

while president biden works to rehab america's image and role in the world, the attack on democracy at home continues. the insurrection did not end when the government took back the capitol building on january 6th. it's ongoing in big and small ways across the country. using trump's big lie as a basis, republicans far and wide are taking notes on the arizona model, learning how to create their own cyberninja shams so that they, too, can try to overturn the results of an election they don't like. the multiple legitimate recounts and audits of the election found no evidence of widespread voter fraud at all. the real fraud here is the inexperienced partisan ninja grifters who have broken the chain of custody and compromised the ballots. the former president is obsessed with this latest sham meant to overturn the results of the election he lost believing it's his vehicle back to the white house after his authoritarian

ways did not work. however those strong-arm tactics are having other dangerous and sinister consequences. a new reuters report reveals a multitude of new information on death threats, bomb threats, other threats of violence are being made by pro-trump thugs against election workers and polling sites across the country due to the former president's fantasies and lies. one threat emailed on january 2nd to officials in a dozen countries threatened to bomb polling sites. no one at these places will be spared unless and until trump is guaranteed to be potus again. in georgia, the family of george raffensperger began receiving death threats almost immediately after the election. the threats have not stopped. raffensperger, a republican, was infamously the subject of

trump's authoritarian style of attacks and anti-democratic demands to commit voter fraud and find 11,780 votes so that he could win the state. raffensperger's wife shared several texts she received in april of this year, which you can see on screen. three of them here. you and your family will be killed slowly. please pray. we plan for the death of you and your family. and there's another one that says keep opposing the audit of fulton county's 2020 election ballots and someone in your family is going to have a very unfortunate incident. last november, reuters reported people who identified themselves as being members of the oath keepers were found outside the raffenspergers home. luckily they weren't home at the time. they went into hiding that very day because intruders broke into the home of their widowed daughter-in-law. the georgia secretary of state had to go into hiding in america in 2020. the oath keepers along with

other domestic extremist groups like the proud boys were instrumental in the january 6th attack on the united states capitol. members of those two groups have been charged with conspiracy and now there are new conspiracy charges. six more individuals including a former police chief, all with ties to extremist groups have been charged with conspiracy according to newly revealed court documents. all of this comes as details continue to spill out about a brand-new trumpian scandal, one that gives the appearance of a justice department being weaponized against political enemies. the department of justice announced the agency's inspector general will investigate the trump era seizure of communication records from journalists and from several democratic lawmakers. the move follows the bombshell report in the "new york times" revealing in 2017 and 2018 the former president's department of justice, which stopped acting as america's department of justice under the leadership of jeff sessions, successfully

subpoenaed apple from data from the accounts of two democratic house members of the intelligence committee. then ranking member adam schiff and representative eric swalwell. in addition to their aides and family members, one of whom was a minor. that was all part of trump's obsession with leakers and the administration's manic mission to find the sources behind reports in america's free press about context between trump associates and russia. the trump department of justice successfully ordered a gag order or issued a gag order on apple which expired this year. yet nbc news learned from a house official that the only notification of the subpoenas came via an email from apple which resembled spam. nothing more from apple and apparently nothing at all from the biden justice department, even though at least four members in leadership rol who were at the department of justice when all this happened in 2017 are still with the

department. meaning that the biden administration should be well aware of this anti-democratic situation and when it could and should be made public. even if it wasn't for the free press, it appears we wouldn't know about it at all. in recent weeks the department of justice disclosed other trump era subpoenas from records from reporters at the "washington post" and the "new york times." the times reports that the former administration's investigations into trump's leakers were renewed with a new zest and urgency under william barr, once he became the attorney general. following the news of the doj's inspector general's investigation and the "new york times" reporting that another unnamed internet service provider was also subpoenaed for records of someone associated with the house intel committee, microsoft released a statement revealing that it, too, was subpoenaed for data and it, too, was issued a gag order. senate majority leader chuck

schumer and dick durbin are threatening to subpoena sessions and barr to testify before congress about the investigations under their watch. barr yesterday told politico he didn't recall getting briefed on the moves. nbc news was told by a former senior justice official that when se sessions was attorney general, he never approved subpoenas for the house intelligence committee in a leak investigation. joining me now is peter welch of vermont, he's a chief deputy whip. thank you for joining us. this news is shocking, though a number of members of the intelligence committee with whom i've spoken say not all that surprising that the trump administration would have targeted some of his harshest critics in congress. >> that's exactly right. your introduction about the

assault on democracy occurred under former president trump is the con tex within which this happened. he's taken it a step further by weaponizing the justice department under attorney general barr and sessions. then going after an independent branch of government, you're attacking the basic proposition of separate but equal branches of government where there's a counter weight to the power in the executive. this is another indication of president trump being single-minded and his insistence it's his way or the highway. and his attorney general saw president trump as not above the law, he saw president trump as the law. and what he wanted, that was the bidding that barr would do. so a serious threat to the guardrails of democracy about a separate and independent legislative branch. >> i want to go back two years to may 1, 2019, when kamala harris was a sitting senator in

the united states senate, and she was at the testimony where bill barr was the witness. she specifically asked him about opening investigations at the behest of the president. let me play some of that exchange for you. >> did the president or anyone at the white house ever ask or suggest that you open an investigation of anyone? >> um, i wouldn't -- >> yes or no. >> can you repeat that question? >> i will. has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? yes or no please, sir. >> the president or anybody else. >> seems you would remember something like that and be able to tell us. >> but i'm trying to grapple with the word suggest. there have been discussions of matters out there that they have not asked me to open an

investigation. >> perhaps they suggested? >> i don't know. i wouldn't say suggest. >> hinted? >> i don't know. >> inferred? you don't know. okay. >> reminds us of kamala harris as a prosecutor. i don't know if you call that equivocating or what the case is. it's inconceivable that the attorney general of the united states cannot recall whether or not he had a conversation with the president about investigating lawmakers or journalists. it's not possible. i have a terrible memory, i would never forget something like that. >> well, you wouldn't. but also keep in mind, who did president trump have a vendetta against day in and day out? adam schiff. that's who he was trying to undermine, who he attacked publicly constantly and who was the subject of thissubpoena? adam schiff and maybe members of

his family. we don't know. no, there's no way attorney general barr forgot that. what barr did among other things is he hired a bunch of people from outside of the washington, d.c. justice department to come in and essentially be a cell within the justice department whose job it was to enforce the whims, the political whims of president trump, independent of the law, in violation in many cases of constitutional rights. so i think what you saw there was attorney general barr doing everything he can to deny and lie. >> here's the thing. this happened in 2017. we're talking about eric swalwell and adam schiff and who knows who else, possibly you. this was before democrats controlled the house. this was before democrats controlled the senate. that didn't happen until 2021. when democrats were not the

threat, they did not have the power to begin investigations into the president, this is not an embattled president in december of 2021 who claims to have won an election that he lost. this was the before president. this was donald trump before there was any serious threat to donald trump behaving this way. >> that's right. but you know trump is an anti-democratic president. he believed he was above the law. we saw his behavior get more and more extreme with that call to the georgia secretary of state to find him 11,000 votes. but also even back then he thought it was within his right to weaponize the department of justice and use the awesome power of prosecution against the legislators in an independent branch of government. it's an extraordinary breach of our democratic principles. barr is not archibald cox. you remember when that -- that attorney general was asked to do

things that violated the rights of u.s. citizens, he resigned. barr did it gleefully and then lied to senator harris. >> representative, before i let you go, you know i'm canadian, right? i'm just a few blocks north of where you are in vermont. i haven't seen my parents in a long time. you, like me, would like that border opened at some point, you would like joe biden to do something about that. >> i really would. it's been so heartbreaking for all of us. our daughter just got home from up, she has -- we have not seen her in over 15 months. i have friends here in vermont whose partners are on the other side of the border. it's just hard and sad and we have especially in vermont, the highest vaccination rate and the lowest infection rate. medically, i think it's time. >> congressman peter welch of vermont, thank you.

all right. we turn to breaking news overnight. a shooting at the popular sixth street entertainment district in austin, texas leaving 13 people injured. two are in critical condition. the shooter has not been apprehended yet. police have a description. law enforcement officials are reviewing all videos available, investigating all motives including terrorism and gangs. if you ever spent any time in austin, you know that area well. in savannah, georgia, another shooting left a 30-year-old man dead and eight people injured. three of the wounded victims are in critical condition. savannah police detectives have arrested a 22-year-old man. police believe words were exchanged before the suspect opened fire and that the shooting was not a random act. we'll bring you updates on these stories as we get them. we have fresh reaction on the fallout from the new reporting into the trump-era doj's anti-democratic ways. at the top of the next hour with roger krishnamoorthi and on the

senate side of things, with senator debbie stabenow, amid a historic drought encompassing much of the united states, washington state governor jay inslee joins the show to discuss what president biden and the g7 need to do to fight climate change. next, much more on biden's first foreign trip. can he undo some of the damage done by former president trump on the world's stage? that's next on "velshi." when it comes to 5g coverage, t-mobile is the best thing on the menu. t-mobile. america's largest, fastest, most reliable 5g network. struggling to manage my type 2 diabetes was knocking me out of my zone, but lowering my a1c with once-weekly ozempic® helped me get back in it. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic® ♪ my zone? lowering my a1c and losing some weight. now, back to the show. ozempic® is proven to lower a1c. most people who took ozempic®

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it is day two of the g7 summit in the united kingdom. it's president biden's first foreign trip as president. he's promoting the theme that america is back. as part of another busy day, the president is expected to call on allies to take a tougher stance towards china as the global economy looks to move forward in a post-pandemic world. with the vladimir putin summit scheduled later in the trip,

today the president will hold a bilateral meeting with french president emmanuel macron. joining me now is max boot with the council on foreign relations, also a columnist for the "washington post" and author of "the corrosion of conservatism." also joining us is gillian tett. welcome to both of you. what a treat to have you here on our first show back. a momentous occasion. >> we should be cracking open the champagne, not the coffee. >> exactly right. we'll work on that for the next break. you tweeted a fascinating and important backdrop to today's g7. >> i'm trained as an anthropologist, i know rituals and symbols matter. we ought to be thinking about these these days. yes, you might say this is a bunch of ceremonial posturing on

that beach in cornwall, but it's symbolizing the fact that there's an attempt to reset the g7, not just in terms of american leadership but around a different set of values from what we saw 10, 15 years ago. they called this the cornwall success. it's against a backlash against globalization and democracy. president biden made it clear he's trying to fight for democracy in the face over an uncertain china and this backlash and buzzwords like inclusion and resilience are the theme of the day, which was not the case 10, 15, 20 years ago. all those memos, all those rituals, all that posturing on the beach kind of matters. >> what an interesting idea, max. globalization, 15, 20 years nobody was challenging that concept. it was economic, generally

speaking bipartisan. we thought the world is better for the fact that we buy things just in time from the cheapest places, and what it has done is created a more prosperous world, created more gdp and wealth, but it has not equalized that wealth. the world is a richer place than 15 years ago and a much more unequal place than 15 years ago. does this group think about tackling that? >> of course, this is part of the agenda and dealing with the double edged sword of globalism, there's a huge upside and also a down side which we have seen. we've seen a fracturing of the free trade consensus that used to be dominant in the west. we just got rid of a president ourselves who was the most protectionist and isolationist that we've seen since the 1920s. i think what's happening here, the leaders of the world's largest economies, led by

president biden, r. trying to reassemble more of a globalist coalition in a responsible way. biden always stresses keeping in mind the middle class, the workers left behind by this change, but trying to do it responsibly and dealing with the looming threat of china so it's not china dominating this globalizing world but more of these liberal democratic countries that are represented at the g7 summit. that's kind of the big picture. i think they are making real progress. it's not just symbolism. there's also substance. for example, agreeing to a 15% global corporate minimum tax rate. i think that's raised some talk. agreeing to send vaccine to the poorer countries, half of that provided by the united states. they're not going to solve all of our problems and transform the world in this handful of meetings, but i think they're making progress. president biden is sending a message that the united states

is no longer trying to break up the global order, we are once again trying to lead, which we were not doing under president trump. >> i'd say it's not just leading in terms of power, but leading with values and a vision. it's important to stress that the rise of china has not just presented an economic and political threat, it's also presented an example of an economy that is seen as a threat to western values in a way that the russian challenge is not seen. and if you think about what you started off the top of the hour with, the discussion on all these topics of democracy, this is fueling the challenges on democracy, and that is concentrating minds and causing president biden to stand up and say if we believe as a group of the g7 countries in liberal democratic values, we have got to get our act together on this beach. >> so you make a good point of

distinguishing between the russian challenge and the chinese challenge. the russians are meddling around in different parts of the word. they just agreed to sell iran weapons. they're still in crimea. the chinese challenge is entirely different. while they are militarizing, this belt and road project, the idea they're doing things that the west or colonial powers used to do, building highways, getting countries into debt with them but sort of expanding their influence economically all over the world as well as militarily. that is a major consequence that the g7 needs to deal with. >> it's much more complicated than dealing with the russian threat, because in both cases you have a country that's strong militarily but not an economic powerhouse. we do not do a lot of trade with russia as we did not with the soviet union. china is didn't. china is one of the largest

economies in the world, if not the largest. it's much more complicated because all that economic power buys them influence, buys them a seat at the table. for example, the europeans, you know, at the end of the trump administration concluded a trade accord with china which is now in limbo. but it's certainly something they feel compelled to deal with. we trade with china ourselves. it's not clear what will happen with the tariffs that trump placed on chinese goods. we're not completely separating the u.s. economy from the chinese economy. we can't do that because they're so closely tied together, the supply lines are closely tied together. so you have to have this much more complicated relationship where you do trade with china, you deal with them on issues like global warming where you positively have to get chinese buy-in to do anything about the issue. but then you also have to confront them on their human rights abuses against the uighurs and hong kong, so it's

much more complicated. the cold war was kind of like playing checkers. this is like completely another level of complexity. all these western leaders are kind of trying to figure out how to get that balance right. >> what a remarkable conversation that i hope to continue with you over the course of the hour. thanks to both of you for being here on this special day. max boot and gillian tett will stay with us. in the next hour, a world exclusive interview with the russian president. first a small bar in the greenwich village neighborhood of manhattan remains a symbol of lgbtq. that's next. at's nt.ex was one n pets in animal shelters in need of a home. he found it in a boy with special needs, who also needed him. as part of our love promise, subaru and our retailers host

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pay is no mind. it was a phrase that became popular in the '60s and '70s among members of the lgbtq community. when facing hate many adopted the mindset pay it no mind. in 1969 the abuse against the gay community in america could no longer be ignored. at the time it was illegal to engage in gay behavior in public like holding hands, kissing or dancing with a person of the same sex. so gay, lesbian and transgender bars flocked to clubs and bars where they could express themselves openly. the stonewall inn was the hub for the gay and trans men and women. over time bars like that became the target of violent police raids. police would storm into the stonewall inn, hall patrons and staff out into the street and arrest them. but on a june night in 1969, on

manhattan's christopher street, gay and trans new yorkers had had enough of the harassment. they fought back and the stonewall uprising began. marsha p. johnson is thought by some to be the person who threw the first shot glass. 1969 was a tough time to be gay and especially trans in america. but masha p. johnson was unapologetically herself. bold and fearless she draped herself in outfits, painted her face with colorful makeup and told wild tales of modeling for andy warhol, tales her brother would laugh off as just that, tales. but her tales were almost always true. marsha p. johnson was a trail blazer but her life was anything but rainbows and butterflies. she spent much of it living on the street. that wasn't uncommon then, nor is it today for gay and trans kids to be kicked out of their

homes without money. back then, marsha and silvia created s.t.a.r. martha p. johnson amassed a cache of nicknames. the saint of christopher street, the rosa parks of the lgbtq movement. one day someone asked her what the p. in her name stood for. her answer? pay it no mind. even today that is easier said than done if you are gay. despite massive progress, gay people, trans people, trans women and trans women of color have it hard. today marks five years since the deadly shooting at the pulse nightclub in orlando, florida. this fight is far from over. the only difference for now is many of us we have come to realize our fight is their fight. none of us are equal until all of us are equal.

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the 2020 election results. results that have been confirmed, recounted, and audited many times by legitimate organizations. they also have been recounted, audited and compromised by organizations like the cyberninjas in maricopa county, arizona. that so-called audit by a private company is a blatant and shameless example of a fraudulent audit. that hasn't steered other states away from such anti-democratic ideas. it inspired republicans to trek to the site of the arizona audit, like a pilgrimage and take notes so that their states can follow its lead. the twice impeached insurrection former president who planted the big lie set the stage for an all-out assault on democracy. on the other side of this break i'll talk about how america can break that trend. the lexus is. all in on the sport sedan. lease the 2021 is 300 for

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break, republicans from states around the country are making pilgrimages to arizona toicopa . it took them a few weeks to decide, wow, that's still going on and nobody shut it down? something must be going on and maybe we ought to go look at it if we think about doing something in our state. that's the sound of democracy dying. joining me now is anne applebaum, a staff writer at "the atlantic," the author of the book "twilight of democracy." i realized this stuff happens around us all the time. a lot of people think this arizona audit, a little dumb. it won't come up with anything, don't worry about it except for the last five years, whenever i thought we shouldn't worry about something, it has ended up eroding the basic fundamentals

of democracy in this country. >> i think you're right to take it seriously. in the last few weeks i've actually asked around, i talked to a number of democracy scholars, i talked to historians, i asked people if there's a precedent for what's going on in the united states right now. in other words, has there ever been an advanced industrial democracy where a losing politician then seeks to discredit the entire electoral process and begins to pull his party along with him? i could not find anyone who could think of a story or think of a precedent or think of any time this happened before. of course that's part of the problem. because this is new and because it is not something we've seen before in america or anywhere else, people don't recognize it for what it is. >> yes. >> i think the metaphor of the frog being boiled in the pot is appropriate. you don't feel anything. the water is getting warmer. by the time you do notice and you want to jump out, it's too

late. >> and we are the frog in this one. an article you co-authored in "the atlantic" you wrote if one half of the country can't hear the other, then americans can no longer have shared institutions, apolitical courts, a professional civil service, bipartisan foreign policy. he can want compromise. we can't make collective decisions. we can even agree on what we're deciding. no wonder millions of americans refuse to accept the results of the most recent presidential election. you have laid out the problem, what is the cure in your opinion? >> there are a number of cures. one of the cures is civic activism that people should become aware of what's going on. they should begin to speak about it and join the groups that are seeking to fight the assault on our electoral system. there's a long-term cure that i wrote about in that article which is reform of the internet and social media to make it more compatible with democracy, to

come up with alternative forms of public interest, social media, other forms of public space where people can talk and argue and not be -- not have their arguments propelled by algorithms that faither emotion favor emotion, anger. there is a cure with elite officials in the republican party. right now there's a very tiny number of them. there's one or two. there's a few who have openly said what is going on. we need more people from that side of the political spectrum, whether members of congress, leaders of state legislatures, delegations, but also leaders in the business community and the religious community to begin to speak up about this. once we lose the consensus, once we no longer accept our elections, once we no longer believe the results, it's going to be hard to have a legitimate

leadership at all. >> anne, thank you. so much more to talk about. i invite you to come back. i want to go through every paragraph of everything you've written. you have put your finger on the pulse of what is going on in this nation. anne applebaum is a staff writer at "the atlantic" and a pulitzer prize winning historian and author of "twilight of democracy." it's a useful read in this world in which we are. up next, a medical break through that would change the world. an alzheimer's treatment, the first of its kind in nearly 20 years has been approved by the fda, but there's a couple of catches. i'll fill you in after the break. you in after the break. diabetes made food a mystery. everything felt like a “no.” but then paul went from no to know. with freestyle libre 14 day, now he knows how food affects his glucose. and he knows when to make different choices. take the mystery out of your glucose levels - and lower your a1c. now you know.

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for your chance to win! this month is alzheimer's awareness month. it is one of the most devastating and deadly diseases with no cure. there's a potential for a break threw but it does not come without controversy. according to the alzheimer's association one in three seniors die from alzheimer's or dementia, making it one of the top ten leading causes of death. it will triple by the year 2060 according to cdc, and in many cases it is thought the disease starts manipulating brain cells 20 years before the first symptoms even appear, which is far too early to be able to do much about it. for the first time in 18 years the fda has approved annals

heimers treatment. the biogen drug is called aduhelm and it is said to slow down the progression of the disease's symptoms. several of the members of the panel of advisers disagree with the fda's decision to approve the drug, saying there's not enough evidence that prove the drug works. three members of the fda advisory panel resigned as a result of the approval. 11 advisers studied the clinical trial data and not a single member considered the drug ready for approval, not to mention its cost will be steep if it is not covered. biogen could charge $56,000 for an annual course of treatment. nevertheless, others did testify in favor of the drug including the founder and chairman of us against alzheimer's. in an fda panel discussion he argued, quote, if we wait for the perfect drug or perfect data, we will descend further into the grip of this awful disease. people staring into the abyss of alzheimer's deserve no less.

he joins me now. george, good to see you, my friend. i thought of you immediately when this news came out. you have argued that this -- basically, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good, but others have argued this drug may not even be good. explain to me your perspective on it. >> well, patients that have no ambiguity about this. we have been waiting for another drug in alzheimer's for 18 years. this is the first disease-modifying drug, something that actually modifies underlying course of the disease. and there was evidence that it is going to positively affect clinical benefit, but the fda basically says, modifies the underlying course of the disease, let's do another trial to confirm our reasonable belief that, in fact, it has a clinical benefit. so they -- biogen will be required to do another study to confirm the clinical benefit

from this drug, and we, of course, patients care as much as anyone about the clinical benefit of this drug, and so we will be watching that and, indeed, perhaps taking our own steps to monitor the effectiveness of this drug. >> let's be clear about what this drug is purported to do. part of the problem with always heim erps is it ultimately will kill you, but the stuff it does to you in between, the symptoms are devastating, financially, emotionally, on every level. when you say it modifies the course of the disease, the literature on this suggests that it modifies the symptoms of the disease but not the end result in which death occurs. >> well, it slows down the course of the disease. the clinical trials on this drug were done on people with mild cognitive impairment, which is the first, very first sign of symptoms. so taking the drug then and slowing down the course of the disease at that point can extend the functional ability of people to live a normal life for another year or two years.

we don't know exactly how long the benefit will last. that is something that we can assess as we go through the subsequent study that biogen is required to do. no, it will not -- in the end it will not stop the disease, it will not stop the progression, it won't cure it, but it is the first drug in class -- not the last drug in class. it is the first mover. patients have been waiting for the first mover. this drug is the first mover. it will not be the last. this is the first chapter of getting at this disease and preventing it. it is certainly not the last chapter. >> there are fewer than a handful of cancers left with less than a five-year survival rate. we have battled most cancers. obviously cancer of the brain is one of those still difficult because we don't understand the brain as much as we understand everything from the neck down. what is the timeline in your opinion for the ability to find alzheimer's, determine that a patient has it, establish good markers and ultimately make this

a survivable illness until we have a cure? >> we have two or three steps we have to take here. first is to get a blood-based biomarker, a blood-based means of diagnosing this disease. there's one product on the market now, there will be more in the next year or two, so that will significantly increase the accessibility of diagnostics and that will increase -- excuse me, lower the cost of diagnostics. that's the first thing. second, then we need to find the drug that actually will be efficacious, a benefit, before symptoms appear and slow down the disease or stop it before symptoms. in my judgment, that's about five, six years away. there are now in early clinical trials vaccines for alzheimer's one would take 10 or 15 years before you would get symptoms that might actually prevent the disease. that's probably in the 5 to 10-year range.

>> george, i knew you would be the guy to get here to talk about this. i appreciate it. i appreciate ought of the work that you and your colleagues do in the fight against alzheimer's. i appreciate this conversation this morning. george vraidenberg is founder and co-chairman of us against alleges heimers. "velshi" is just getting started but let's take a quick look. second closest to the screen is jill biden in cornwall county, england. she is meeting with a group of volunteers, first responders, having some lunch as we can see at a picnic table while her husband, the president of the united states, is meeting with world leaders at the g7. we will continue to follow the g7 trip by the president and the first lady and the meeting of world leaders. we have revelations coming up that the department of justice seized data from congressional democrats. i will speak to congressman krishnamoorthi about that next. and senator debbie stabenow joins me to talk biden's agenda

here and abroad as he meets with g7 leaders. we have an early look at the nbc news exclusive. our own keir simmons sat down with russian president vladimir putin. among other things he asked putin this question. >> when president biden was asked whether he believes you are a killer, he said, "i do." mr. president, are you a killer? all right. putin's answer to that question is ahead. another hour of "velshi" starts right now. ♪ ♪ good morning. it is saturday, june 12th. i'm ali velshi live from rockefeller plaza in new york city. not something i have been able to say much over the last year and a half. president joe biden taking america back into the global arena in england this morning on his first foreign trip in office. today is day two of the g7. the president has been in a foreign policy summit this morning. this hour we are awaiting

president biden's bilateral meeting with the french president, 'em manual macron. right now first lady jill biden in cornwall meeting with members of a volunteer group that helps uk military vets, first responders and their family. she is the second one from the right there. biden's agenda tomorrow includes an audience with queen elizabeth before heading to brussels for a nato summit. the trip concludes in geneva where biden will meet with russia's vladimir putin. america's russian sympathizing former president routinely pushed for russia to be admitted to the g7. you remember it used to be called the g8, and routinely attacked nato while making the united states' relationship with the alliance about monetary payments, insinuating to the global alliance america's army was a mercenary force for hire. while biden takes his first stab at rehiring america's image and role in the world, the attack on democracy here at home contin