>> i know the source of your twitter trouble today. >> thank you. eugene scott, adrian elrod, thank you all. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi, there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's wednesday, june 23rd and the battle is not over yet. vice president kamala harris and senate democrats vowing to continue the fierce fight for voting rights in this country after republicans blocked the legislation late tuesday, following a 50/50 party line vote, which is far short of the 60 votes needed to move forward, at least temporarily shutting down one of president biden's top domestic priorities to override the wave of restrictive voting laws that has been

sweeping across the country. >> if senators 60 years ago held that the federal government should never intervene to protect voting rights, this body would have never passed the voting rights act. the republican leader uses the language and the logic of the southern senators in the '60s who defended states' rights, and it is an indefensible position. >> there is no effort in any state in america to suppress votes based upon suppression of minority participation. what this is really about is an effort of the federal government to take over the way we conduct elections in this country. >> i've got the best team of experts here to help make sense of all of this. jeff bennett at the white house and victoria soto. democrats say this thing isn't

over, but it sure seems like it is. what can they do next? >> options here, plan a for progressive supporters of this bill was to unify the senate democrats behind it, and get that 50/50 vote and then hope that enough democrats support nuking the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold to push it through. that has not happened. there are several holdouts who are not budging, including kyrsten sinema, a co-sponsor of the bill. plan b was to win ten votes in the senate. that isn't happening. you heard mitch mcconnell, the senate republican leader, say that the federal government simply does not need to weigh in on this at all. they're happy to let the states handle it. they don't believe there are restrictive voting laws in places like georgia and texas, they're fine with them. what can democrats do at this point if they have 50 votes, if there's a filibuster in place

and ten republicans are not willing to do a major voting rights bill, they don't have good options. they need a bigger majority. that isn't happening any time soon. there is some glimmer of hope on the issue of the john lewis voting rights act. lisa murkowski is supporting it and senator roy blunt of missouri, he said he is open to an updated formula by which states have to pre-clear voting laws and changes with the federal government. but that's two right now. getting to ten continues to be a huge slog for democrats. it's not clear they have much of a path at this moment. >> victoria, yesterday was this big symbolic show for democrats, but they actually need to win this battle. how do they beat mitch mcconnell? you can say he's the worst ever, but he's really good at this. >> you know, picking up on what he said, i think we need to focus on the john lewis act. right now there are two republicans who are leaning

toward supporting the act. the focus needs to be on chuck schumer working to get those remaining eight. we know the difference between the for the people act and the john lewis act is really one, the first one being more proactive, the republicans pushed back at that one from the get-go. the john lewis act is more reactive. it reason states what we had accepted as a nation for over 50 years in the voting rights act. i know it may seem like a far stretch, but i think getting those extra eight republicans to back the john lewis act is really that glimmer of hope for democrats and for the nation. >> let's go an even farther stretch. let's take ourselves out of partisanship. republicans claim this whole thing is a partisan power grab. voting rights shouldn't be about politics, they should be about democracy. what is actually in the meat of this thing? what is at stake? >> stephanie, the issue is whether congress does something to set national guidelines for

how all 50 states need to conduct their elections. there are core provisions of this bill that would, for instance, make election day a federal holiday in all 50 states. it would require at least 15 days of early voting in every state. it would allow universal access to mail-in votes. some of the stuff was in place during the pandemic and democrats argue that it's necessary to protect valid access down the line. republicans have a very different view of this. they believe that states should run their elections, they believe that these restrictive voting laws in places like florida and georgia are okay, that they're not designed to suppress votes. and i actually asked senator roy blunt about this yesterday. voter i.d., they're big supporters of that. i asked him would he support a national i.d. law. he said no. he said he wants states to run that. that gives you a sense of the

overlap between the two parties. how do they get ten republicans to support a federal elections bill when most of them don't believe the federal government should be involved at all? that's the biggest challenge for democrats. >> victoria, none of this sounds super partisan, but does that even matter if the majority of people out there don't actually know what's in it? >> right. and, you know, looking at how far we've come, i'm at the lbj school. lbj was the father of the voting rights act in 1965. it really is surprising that we have had forward movement over the last several decades, and in the last couple of years we've been moving back. so i think in messaging to the american people, you don't want to get into the weeds. that's political strategy 101. but i think in outlining the big picture here, the fortifying of democracy, especially in light of what we saw in january, and letting folks know that this is about protecting democracy and

reminding folks as well that the fact that we have seen very little to no evidence of voter fraud is very important to keep hammering home. republican governors in florida, texas, those who have been pushing for voting restrictions, have themselves said that the 2020 election was one of the safest ever. so i think letting the people know that voter fraud is not an issue and that we need to protect our democracy and hammer that home day and night. >> geoff, vice president kamala harris certainly knows how to rock a podium. she did it again last night. watch this. >> this is about the american people's right to vote, unfettered. it is about their access to the right to vote in a meaningful way. the bottom line is that the president and i are very clear, we support s-1, the john lewis voting rights act and the fight is not over. >> okay, geoff, boom, there you have it. killer sound bite.

but does the president actually have anything up his sleeve, does he have the power to do something here? >> to give it to you straight, no. the senate math is what it is. this filibuster is what it is. what we're seeing in real time are the limits of the power of presidential persuasion. the fact that president biden didn't invest more of his political capital on this specific issues shows that he knew it was doomed to fail, at least in the short term. and that's one of the reasons why you have all of this progressive anger and frustration growing, given the ways in which this white house talks about this threat, versus the ways that they are devoting time and resources to it. case in point, yesterday after the vote failed, the administration put out a statement, a policy statement where they said democracy is in peril here in america, the right to vote, a sacred right in this country, is under assault with an intensity and an aggressiveness we have not seen

in a long time. yet at the same time there are democrats who say that president biden didn't throw everything at this in a way that he could have. he didn't tour the country trying to drum up support in the same way that he did for infrastructure. the white house, meantime, has tried to recalibrate expectations and saying that the democratic caucus and senate was united on this, that that was an important first step. the president also put out a statement last night where he said that the fight is far from over. he's devoted his life, he says, to this issue of equal access to the ballot box, so he says the fight is not yet done. >> we'll be watching and you will be covering it. geoff bennett, victoria soto, developing now in washington, also, president biden set to take on violence, gun violence, head on. in hours he will unveil a five-step strategy to respond to the nation's surge in gun violence over the last year. joining us with the details, my colleague monica alba and

retired nypd detective mark claxton. you got a look at the president's proposal. what's in it? >> reporter: after meeting with key stakeholders this afternoon, the president and his attorney general are going to address the nation as we have seen this uptick, not just in gun violence, but of course in crime, something the white house is very concerned about, according to my sources, especially as we head into the summer months. and they're going to tie this directly with secondary consequences, they say, from the covid-19 pandemic. so they're also going to use a tool that was meant to respond to that, the american rescue plan, to try to let states know that more than $350 billion is available to them at their disposal if they want to hire more police officers or pay for overtime, an issue we've seen in our own reporting with the future of the forest theme this week. but something else the president is going to address specifically is this issue of gun violence. he's going to try to tout what

he was able to do through executive actions a couple of months ago after that spate of mass shootings, but he's going to urge congress to try to do more. the real overarching thing here that is complicated for the president, he was one of the authors of the 1994 crime bill, elements of which have been extremely controversial. this signals that the white house, while they're talking about all the things they want to get done, they're trying to get ahead of this issue they're very worried about, and they're trying to help communities and really local and state-level officials make decisions for themselves on what might be best in terms of opportunities for young people, teens, and also some community-based intervention programs, steph. >> prevention. mark, take us to new york. crime is up in new york city 22% over the last year. shootings alone, up 73%. we learned from new york democrat voters it was their

number one issue when they voted in the primary yesterday. will president biden's plan have any real impact on getting those numbers down? >> i think the plan will be significant as it is proposed, it really invests in nontraditional items that relate to violence, such as investment in these community-based intervention teams, these crisis management teams with violence interrupters. it's important that you take a comprehensive look at some of the factors that lead to violence or allow violence to increase as we have experienced nationwide and they have experienced specifically in new york. >> mark, put the numbers in perspective. are they up so much simply because we were shut down last year? they were record low in 2019. i don't want to hear about one single act of violence or a gun issue, but help us understand

these numbers. >> i think the numbers in new york are consistent with what we're seeing around the nation in larger cities, and there are multiple factors involved here. some of them may be covid related, but not solely covid related in the release of individuals and people feeling free to move about, et cetera. a lot of it involves economic issues, issues of mental health, structural issues, employment issues. so there are many different factors that go are determinant when you're talking about violence in any communities. i think what has exacerbated it and forced us to focus our attention to the increase in violence, the rapid increase in violence, is because of the lifting of covid restrictions across the nation as well. >> mark and monica, thank you so much. coming up, thousands of migrants seeking asylum who are stuck at the u.s.-mexican border

will now have the chance to come into the united states. we're going to big into the biden administration's new policy. later, everybody is talking about it. britney spears has been quietly fighting against her father for more than a decade. today britney spears will be speaking about this publicly for the very first time. that story ahead. ♪ when technology is easier to use... ♪ barriers don't stand a chance. ♪ that's why we'll stop at nothing to deliver our technology as-a-service. ♪

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another day, another round of infrastructure talks. white house officials will meet with congressional leaders about the bipartisan infrastructure bill again today, after another meeting yesterday that led to zero breakthroughs. also on the agenda, a separate meeting with democratic leadership over you know what, infrastructure. let's bring in garrett haake. we're days away from the senate having the schedule we all dream of, leaving dc until mid-july, and there's no deal yet. what's going on? >> reporter: well, chuck schumer told reporters yesterday he still things they're on this parallel two-track system here where a bipartisan infrastructure deal and a democrat-only priorities mega bill could get votes in the month of july. a democratic senator close to these discussions told me yesterday this is like if you've ever bought a house and days before closing you're told to write another check for this thing or make sure you fill out

this one last form. there's a lot of things coming up as they get close. but the reality is and remains, paying for this deal with something that will appease both republicans and democrats remains extraordinarily challenging. >> but, garrett, when we're buying a house we scramble and write all those checks because we need a place to live. this is what biden literally came to washington to do. it's what he does best. it would be a gigantic win for him to get something done. where does he stand on convincing democrats? >> reporter: well, i think it's a two-pronged challenge for president biden, who ran on being the guy who would come to washington and do deals with republicans. republicans will say the white house needs to show up at these meetings with some ideas to pay for this that don't involve raising taxes, because the white house has thus far, according to republicans, only crossed off ideas that republicans have come up with ways to pay for it. on the democratic side the

president is ultimately going to have to whip votes. he's going to have to convince democrats that they can trust the two-pronged strategy. progressives are wary that a bipartisan deal is the only thing that gets done and moderates are worried it will fall apart, and instead they're going to have to vote on a bill with tax increases they don't love. >> why not call their bluff? why not say to republicans, we're here to play, we're in? then he would get a bipartisan deal done. >> reporter: stephanie, i think that is a good question for the white house and we may see that happen this week. remember, there's been a lot of talk about the senators involved in this going to the white house to meet with president biden for an in-person meeting on this. i think that's when -- to use the infrastructure pun we're all probably sick of now, the rubber hits the road on this. can he close the deal or can they not? >> time to bring a little vegas to dc, some world championship poker, call their bluff.

i want to move on, because also this morning some previously-rejected asylum seekers are going to get a new chance at entering the united states. dhs will now allow anyone who was waiting under the trump administration, who were remaining in mexico, to now come into the country to have their cases heard. here's the key detail. this applies even if you were already rejected by the trump administration. let's bring in julia ainsley to walk us through this. for those who were rejected, what's different about their situation now that would give it reason to be heard? >> reporter: well, it's different now because those people who came under the trump administration, and, again, this does not apply to people who recently arrived under this administration, but if you came under the trump administration and you were told that you had to wait in mexico until your court date came up in the united states, many of those people might have been ordered in absentia because they didn't show up.

a lot of times that was because border patrol failed to send them a notice. now they estimate about 34,000 immigrants could now be able to come in and have their cases heard, even if they previously had those canceled for not showing up. >> understood. julia, thank you so much. we're going to stay on this, but coming up next, in the city of los angeles, homicides are up more than 20%, while the number of shooting victims is up 50%. a similar surge we have seen across the country. next, we'll talk to the city's police chief about what needs to be done to keep police on the job and people across the city safe. try one a day 50+ multivitamin gummies. with vitamins c, d & zinc for immunity support. plus 8 b-vitamins for brain support. one a day and done. i booked our hotel on kayak. it's flexible if we need to cancel. cancel. i haven't left the house in a year. nothing will stop me from vacation.

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right now cities are on edge as gun violence spikes across the nation. we just told you about president biden's plan to address this surge later today. the justice department is now taking action, launching a new program to crack down on gun trafficking. it could help cities like los angeles, where the number of shooting victims has spiked 50% compared to this time last year. joining me now for his first msnbc interview lapd chief michael moore. thank you so much for being here. of course the numbers are up. things were completely shut down last year. but you said that the city of los angeles has lost a decade of progress in beating back crime. why is that?

>> well, i think that the systems of our society have all been broken down, all been greatly impacted by this pandemic. we know what works in los angeles. we led the country in crime reduction over this past decade and shown that police matter and community engagement is the leading aspect of crime prevention, and that crime reduction also is tied to effective policing, identifying those that are involved in the violence, bringing them before the justice system and holding them accountable. all of that in this last year has been terribly and devastatingly impacted. we've seen every part of society broken down, disengaged, isolated, and what we see are results not only in los angeles but across the country. what we need to do moving forward is remember what works, the strategies that have proven effective. just a year and a half ago, this city hailed a tenth year in crime reduction, 300 homicides

over the course of the year and record lows, going back to the '60s, to find the level of crime and violence we've experienced. we've seen it work, we know it can work. we've got to roll our sleeves up and get everyone involved and get back to having our interventionists in the streets and us communicating, seeing each other. and the community not giving up, recognizing the police are here, we're here to help and support you, we're here in a manner that's going to bring safety to our communities and let's all work together in that engagement. >> absolutely, sir. last year the lapd lost nearly 600 cops, but your budget actually ticked up 3%. where is that money going? >> in policing today, they look at the dollars that are being spent rather than the physical staffing. the staffing numbers in this department were cut by 600 line

personnel, 250 additional civilians, and yet the cost of policing went up. that's directly tied to labor agreements and to the cost of what it means to have a professional police officer, just as the rest of america has a 2% or 3% cost of living raise or advancement in their salaries, the police are no different. so we saw a 3% increase, a physical head count go down by hundreds. now, i'm thankful this the city council under the leadership of mayor garcetti has made the investment to allow us to start hiring again. we're going to hire 740 line personnel this next year, classes in our academy start within the next month. that's going to help us stem the tide of attrition, but it's important that we continue to focus on the morale of our people. the devastating impact is about 100 of them left early because of what we believe is the state of policing where they feel

ridiculed, unappreciated and demoralized and a number of them chose to leave the field entirely, not just go to another agency or another part of the country, but to leave the profession. we can't afford that. policing is too important for public safety. we need men and women who serve here and their heart is their largest, most important aspect of them and that needs to be encouraged. we know across the country we need to support policing. but the rhetoric and some of the harsh and mean words and remarks and statements of the anti-police and defund movement has really taken a devastating impact on the morale of our people. moving forward, we want to ensure that our people understand that we need to hold them accountable, we're going to hold them to the high standards of this profession, but we're going to recognize and honor them for dedicated service. we need a course going forward that is built on positiveness.

this department has led american policing in its reforms and we believe that, whether it's the george floyd bill or other reforms, that when you look at it and where lapd is at, we've adopted many of those provisions long ago. what you see as criticism of policing is many times isolated and in unique circumstances and not uniform to the entire profession. >> good policing is going to keep our cities safe. i know activists wanted your officers to stop responding to minor traffic incidents and mental health calls. you're doing that. is it working? >> well, it's just in the early stages. we're diverting hundreds of calls to mental health providers, but we need to increase that volume. we need to get mental health workers, psychologists, out in the field, doing outreach and

engagement. the dirty secret in this country is that our mental health resources are desperately out of touch with what is really needed. what we need is not just outreach and engagement 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but we need safe places for people experiencing mental illness to receive treatment and get their life in order in a productive way. and right now that is a 911 call, so then when something unfortunate happens because of a lack of training or because of just a terrible situation that has devolved out of control, we look to the police and hold them accountable. so here in los angeles we are establishing resources, outreach, engagement, patrols that help intercede and don't require a cop and that's going to allow us, i believe, to stay focused on matters that police are best suited for and to identify these alternative services that allow the type of public safety that we want.

we recognize that seven out of ten want and need policing, eight out of ten support community policing. the same numbers are asking for alternatives and policing stands alongside, shoulder to shoulder, asking for those resources as well. >> put the right people in the right jobs. it's not that those calls aren't being responded to. they're now being responded to by the right people, mental health experts. thank you so much for joining me today. i really appreciate it. >> absolutely. thank you. and this morning, new yorkers are still waiting to see which democrat will come out on top in the fight to be the next mayor, and it could be weeks until we have that answer. joining me now to discuss, "new york times" reporter, shain goldmacher. this is all about ranked choice voting. we're all clicking, clicking, saying, who won? where do things stand right now and what happens next? >> as of this morning, eric

adams, a former police captain and the borough president in brooklyn is leading the race. he has more than 30% of the vote. but the final result is still up in the air because there is no runoff. instead, the second choices of the rest of the candidates will be tallied and eventually added to his tally and potentially maya wiley or kathryn garcia to determine the final winner. eric adams starts with a big lead, but it is not a certain lead. as those votes are tallied, if the overwhelming second choice is not eric adams, someone could overtake him. but he certainly begins after election night the heavy favorite. and last night the tone from him was very much of someone who won compared to the other candidates who said we're going to keep counting the votes and fight another day. >> a lot of people will be holding their breath until all the votes are counted. thank you so much. when we come back, home prices surging across the u.s. what is behind the spike and

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about rybelsus® today. right now markets just opened after the nasdaq closed at a record high yesterday. but our economy is still dealing with big ripple effects from the pandemic. fed chair jerome powell told congress it is unlikely we're going to see a long-term inflation issue, but that comes as home prices are soaring to another record high in may, the highest jump in 22 years. if you're a renter, president biden is thinking about extending the federal freeze on evictions as well. all of this comes as industries from restaurants and airlines,

are struggling to bring workers back. we have zillow senior managing economist, chris lynn, and patrick whalen, a member of the group that owns five restaurants. jay powell isn't worried about inflation, home prices are up, rentals are up and people are stretching to buy more stuff. the markets are feeling it. is it safe to say we are clearly in recovery? >> i mean, we are clearing in recovery. the question is whether or not it stays that way. and by the way, you mentioned the nasdaq's record closing high yesterday. it just hit another record interday high shortly after the opening bell moments ago. so the markets appear to be siding with fed chair jay powell. one of the key measures that comes in for a lot of folks out there watching this is interest rates. now, generally speaking, those interest rates are higher than they were a year ago and in many cases significantly higher. now, some of that was to do with the economic recovery like you pointed out from the pandemic.

also those expectations for growth of the economy down the line. some of it has to do with sharp increases in prices for goods and services because of the pandemic. a lot of experts are looking at things like commodity prices. cotton, lumber, those are significantly higher. a lot has to do with surging demand, but a lot of it is supply chain issues, bottlenecked because of reduced production capacity or shipping delays because of the pandemic. those are all factors the fed and its leaders believe will be worked out in the medium to longer term and then brought back into some kind of equilibrium. that's why they're using the word transitory to describe the higher prices. but a big point of discussion right now in all financial circles, is about what the moderation of prices mean. does it mean a reset back to where we were pre-pandemic, or does it mean just a cool-off from the higher levels we've seen, and all of that has to

play into what the fed is going to do about rates in the coming weeks and months. >> house prices are insanely high, but sales are down. is that because things have gotten so expensive at this point, people say it just doesn't make sense, i can't afford it? >> sales are down relative to the last few months' worth of data. if we look back further into the decade leading into covid-19. sales are at a very high level and prices are quite strong. we expect sustained demand going forward from demographic factors, low interest rates, and quite frankly, what we call a great reshuffling where households are untethered from office locations for perhaps the first time and re-evaluating their housing needs in light of covid-19. we expect demand to be strong for the foreseeable future. >> chris, we don't have enough supply. the supply of homes for sale is at record lows. the fact that the freeze on foreclosures is going to expire,

so those homes could become available, the rental freeze is going to expire, so those landlords can get tenants out, and with lumber prices down, you could see building spike again. could there be increased supply in the next few months that could impact where things trade? >> we're starting to see an increase in inventory in our data, where from april to may there were more homes coming onto the market. as the vaccine has continued to be distributed, sellers are having more confidence to return to the market and that's undoubtedly good news for inventory. builders are building, new construction is up, and there's multiple sources of new inventory that will relieve some of this pressure on upward price growth. >> chris, do we need more protections, though? we're hearing about more and more buyers who are skipping things like home inspections, which are essential for people to buy a good, safe house. do we need to have protections put in place to this kind of

reckless behavior doesn't continue? >> i think these buyer choices are individual household level choices. sure, buyers want to be competitive in their market and they want to get the house they need, but it's also their choice and their priority for what their housing needs actually are. the most important thing for buyers is that they identify a home that meets their needs and their budget, and i think that's the priority. >> yeah, well, if you have no idea what the costs are inside their house, say if the water doesn't work, the furnace doesn't work, it suddenly gets a lot more expensive. dom, if we are firmly in recovery and there's an ample amount of available jobs, why is the biden administration considering continuing this rental freeze? >> i mean, it's probably about the dislocations in the market right now. there are certain people out there that would be adversely affected if they were to be kicked out of their home, if they were to lose the roof over their head. the perspective now from the

biden administration is you want to at least protect those people. by the way, those people who are working right now, who are able to pay their rent and can do so, are likely not feeling the kinds of impact that other people who are less fortunate are. this is really about trying to figure out how to balance all of these things, and by the way, it's going to be a difficult situation if you have this dynamic continue to play out. because you mentioned those housing prices before. there's also a very, very big debate and discussion right now on wall street and main street, stephanie, about why there is such price inflation for home prices, and, by the way, many people on wall street are watching wall street itself entering that market, buying up construction, buying up single-family homes. there are a lot of deals out there that are causing controversial aspects about the housing price discussion right now. much of that is going to play into the narrative the biden administration is going to look at in trying to protect the

people who are most vulnerable to getting kicked out of their homes. >> when suddenly you've got private equity firms buying up real estate in mass, that doesn't seem like the way you want to see a country working. we've been hearing so much about worker shortages and specifically in restaurants. when you raised wages to 15 bucks an hour, your restaurants were flooded with applications. is that the solution, raise wages? >> it's part of the solution, sure, providing an environment where your staff can make a liveable page, is the least that employers should do and the more you are able to pay them, the higher the productivity that you're going to get out of your employees becomes, and thus your product is better. >> so are you still facing a worker shortage now that you're at $15 an hour, you're good to

go? >> we're at $15 an hour and we offer a feature called tip the kitchen, which is an initiative we started that is a shared program between our guests and between the ownership, where a guest can leave a gratuity for the kitchen and the restaurant matches it. in the last two months, today is the two-month marker, the kitchens have earned an additional $198,000 in earnings, that's between four kitchens in charlotte and charleston. >> wow. is this going to be a temporary new thing or are you going to keep it for good? people going to restaurants right now don't mind giving good tips, they're happy to pay higher prices because we're so happy to be in restaurants again. is this new tip the kitchen something you plan to keep for good? >> we're going to keep it for good, and i would encourage all restaurants owners to consider it, because it's the alternative

to raising prices. we have not raised prices one penny coming back from covid, and yet our team is able to earn an average of $60 per team member per shift more, and we were able to do that by asking our guests to partner with us to help subsidize parts of the operation and make it better for their experience. >> i like that. well, for any of your diners who have ever worked in a restaurant, they know that people working in a restaurant kitchen deserve more money. thank you so much. we have to leave it there because we've got breaking news in washington. news on the investigation into the january 6th insurrection. pete williams joins us with more. what's going on? >> another member of the group known as the oath keepers will plead guilty today in federal court for his role in the january 6th riot. this is a man named graden young of florida, and recently filed information on the court's website indicates that he'll

plead guilty this afternoon. he's one of those people accused of being in what the government called a military-style stack formation, people lined up close to each other, holding each other's backs, breaching the police line and ultimately entering the u.s. capitol. you'll recall a couple months ago, the first of these oath keeper members, john schaefer, pleaded guilty. this is the second guilty plea. at roughly the same time in federal court, a woman from indiana, a grandmother who said she came to the capitol with her hairdresser friend, will also plead guilty to lesser charges and be sentenced to probably less than -- and many of the others, they'll be sentenced to probation, we expect. that's what both sides are asking the judge to do, no jail time. so we're seeing guilty pleas in one of the more serious charges and in what are likely to be hundreds of these lesser charges later today.

>> oath keepers, as a reminder, violent extremist group. pete williams, thank you so much. now we've got to turn to the coronavirus pandemic. it is not over. the white house says they are going to fall short of their july 4th goal of having vaccina. the cdc says 150 million people are now fully vaccinated, about 45% of our entire population and more than half of the population has gotten at least one dose. dr. anthony fauci says the contagious delta variant is the greatest threat to stamping out this virus. >> right now 20% of our isolates so you expect a doubling time in several weeks to a month or so it will be quite dominant. that's the sobering news. >> let's bring in dasha burns in colorado where hospitals are close to full capacity.

is this about people choosing not to get vaccinated and by choosing not to get vaccinated, you're basically choosing to get sick. >> reporter: stephanie, vaccination really at the heart of things here. colorado has the second most delta variant cases in the u.s. the majority of them concentrated in mesa county, the first county to see the delta variant in the state and it is a county that lags significantly behind the rest of the state when it comes to vaccination. about 40% vaccinated compared to 50% statewide and look, this is a beautiful county. you can see the mountains behind me, a more rural area, freshman congresswoman lauren bobert's district in a region that prides itself on personal choice and lack of government intervention and in this case though what that translates to is hospitals at this county at about 96%

capacity and feels like deja vu standing outside of a hospital talking about icu capacity and lack of beds. harkens back to november and hospitals are seeing rates comparable. i asked the chief nurse at the hospital what that's like to still be seeing these rates at this point in the fandemic. take a listen to what he had to say. >> i figured we would be dealing with this for some point, for some period of time maybe not to this extreme. like everybody else we'd like to see the results of the vaccine and people taking the vaccine and driving down some of these admissions. >> reporter: the county is really doing all it can to encourage vaccinations, doing mobile vaccinations, going to have a vaccination clinic set up at a country music festival that weekend but staff at the hospitals really worry and are concerned about how this is dragging on and doing all that they can to encourage their community members to get the

vaccine. stephanie? >> you want to get better, get vaccinated. dasha, thank you. britney spears is breaking her silence today, the first time the pop star will speak to the court directly about her conservatorship which allows her dad to have complete control over her life and finances. as the n times reports britney pushed for years for this to end. one court investigator in 2016 britney feels "the conservatorship has become an oppressive and controlling tool against her." in a few hours a judge is likely to rule on several major issues including her request to have her dad permanently removed as her conservator. i bring in erin mclaughlin outside the l.a. courthouse. what are we expecting to hear from britney today? >> reporter: stephanie, britney spears and her conserborship are

the subject of endless speculation. today we'll hear from the pop star herself addressing the situation in court for the first time and legal experts say it promises to be high drama. take a listen. >> will i ever take the stage again? i have no idea. i'm having fun, trance in addition my life. >> reporter: this among, britney spears expected to push for that transition in court, speaking out for the first time against her father and his control of her life. for 13 years jamie spears has been at the helm of a court ordered conservatorship for his daughter and her $16 million fortune. britney claims the relationship is toxic. her lawyer telling the court the pop star refuses to perform as long as her dad serves as constor server. court documents leaked to the "new york times" but not reviewed by nbc news the superstar says it has become an oppressive and controlling tool against her and restricted

everything from whom she dated to the color of her kitchen cabinets. last year her attorney told the judge she was afraid of her father. the records provide a glimpse into a part of the court case. britney is expected to openly air other grievances and could face cross-examines from her dad's lawyers. how difficult will it be for her to persuade the deport >> i don't think it will be difficult. there's been a breakdown for over two years in this relationship. >> reporter: the court ordered the conservatorship in 208 after the star was placed into two involuntary psychiatric holds follow a public breakdown. the singer can't make any decisions about her career, finances and personal life without the conservatorship. the documentary reignited a movement to free her.

reps for britney and jamie spears declined our request for comment but earl whier this year his attorney told us jamie spears has diligently and professionally carried out his dutys as one of britney's conservators and his love for his daughter and dedication to protecting her is clearly apparent to the court. some experts believe trying to push her father out she's laying the groundwork to end all outside control of her life. >> britney, who can still work a few years ago was making millions and millions of dollars in las vegas. it is extremely unusual for a conservatorship of this length to involve someone like britney spears. >> reporter: legal experts say a judge could rule on the status of her dad within the conservatorship within days. stephanie? >> she's 39 years old and she cannot control the color of her kitchen cabinets? i'm anxious to see what that judge has to say. erin thank you for joining us.

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deja vu on infrastructure all over again. white house officials meeting with democratic leaders today just hours after a meeting with republicans that didn't go so great. the prospects on the floor with alex padilla too talk about it live as the president rolls out a new plan to fight