siblings and neighbors. pick a place to meet your family if you are not together and can't go home. remind your parents to pack an emergency supply kit. making a plan might feel like homework, but it will help you and your family stay safe during an emergency. a very good day to all the

of you from msnbc world headquarters here in new york. welcome, rch, to alex witt reports. here's what is happening at 11 a.m. pacifictime, 2:00 p.m. eastern. we kick off with the story we have been bringing you live here on msnbc. one small step for man, and a giant leap for a billionaire taking on space as the next frontier. richard branson making history, successfully launching himself into space on his virgin galactic unity spaceplane. >> release, release, release, release. clean release. ignition. >> and branson's trip to the edge of space, edging out fellow billionaire jeff bezos in the race to commercialize space travel. he spoke about what it was like moments after landing. >> ridiculous. -- it is a complete experience of a lifetime. and now i'm looking down at a

beautiful space port. congratulations to everybody. >> clearly that was while he was still in space a remarkable feat in itself. the historic launch this morning was the first fully crewed test flight to the edge of space. i want to go to las cruces, new mexico, where do we go from here? what is the future of private space flight as you know it. richard branson is hoping people will continue to sign up. right now tickets are priced at about 250,000. this was an excellently executed publicity it stunt. we saw the big aircraft, eve, named after his mother who passed in january from coronavirus lift that smaller plane, the one you are seeing on the screen now to 50,000 feet. they then burned an engine for

one minute which took them to 53 1/2 miles above sea level. then they turned the plane around. basically without electronics, it was a dead stick, they came in and landed afterwards. afterwards, we heard from richard branson who was more richard branson. anyone who thinks his head was still in the clouds, this is a man who lives with his head in the clouds. we saw that. he talked about the mementos he took with him, including a picture from 1989 when branson flew a balloon over london pretending it was a ufo. this is who he is, he wanted people to see inside that life and wanted family to see the technology. one of the things that they talked about in the press conference, they talked about any issues that were had. there was a 90-minute delay because of the winds. thereof talk from the tech operator who wishes the signal

was better from inside the plane that went to the edge of space. but what they wanted to do was showcase this to the world. they did it. i spoke to someone who works with richard branson inside vkt. you made a joke about billionaires and rich folks coming in, going to space and coming back in time for dinner. i asked is richard branson aware of the euro finals. we heard he is going to watch it and put it on the screen. you saw a bunch of giddy brits up there. i think it goes to show you the mood happening in this company as they think they have turned a corner on commercial space travel. >> they have opened it up, it is pricey. let's hope he, and elon musk and

jeff bezos will do the work to get the prices down for the rest of us. let's go from new mexico to the white house, where president biden will be gearing up for a week focused on voting rights. the president will be in philadelphia on tuesday to give a major speech as battles over election laws grow state by state. more in a moment. first, with the withdrawal from afghanistan about 90% complete now, growing concerns about the taliban filling the void left by the u.s. military. new reaction this morning from a iraq war veteran and congressman, adam kin zinger. >> it is a crushing defeat. you know, the ability always had a saying. they said america has the watches but we have the time. i'm proud of the american people for sticking by this mission for 20 years. we actually needed to do it longer. we still have troops in kosovo. unfortunately it worked. the taliban has outlasted the will of the united states. on capitol hill, new concerns from democrats and even some republicans on exactly who

kevin mccarthy will choose to fill those five empty seats on the select committee investigating the january 6th insurrection. i spoke with the chairman of that committee, congressman bennie thompson a bit earlier today. here's what he told me. >> well, the good part about this committee is the speaker determines its ultimate membership. if minuterity leader mccarthy comes with individuals who demonstrated that they are living in a false world around january 6th, it's not in anyone's interests for those individuals to serve. >> a live look at cpac in dallas, texas, where donald trumpl take the stage later on this afternoon. we go now beyond the headlines of nbc's josh letterman. he's with the president in wilmington ton, delaware, and amanda golden. good to see you. josh, with president biden heading to philadelphia tuesday, what exactly does he hope to

accomplish there? >> well, the president has a tough task ahead in that speech. he has the calm the waters of growing impishs from civil rights and voting rights activists who say he is not yet doing enough to make sure that voter rights are protected ahead of next i don't remember's election. that is exactly what the president heard on thursday when he and vice president kamala harris met with civil rights activists including the reverends al sharpton at the white house. the president so far has been focused on what executive actions he can take on this matter, including the justice department, where attorney general merrick garland has assigned new attorneys to pursue voting rights cases. they are now suing the state of georgia over their new law. but voting rights activists saying that is not nearly enough, coming out of that meeting last week saying this is an existential crisis saying they are out of time with their backs against the wall and they want to president to do everything he can to elevate the

need for federal legislation to the forefront the way he has with infrastructure and everything else. the reality is, and the voting rights activists noted if you think that that legislation, the john lewis voting rights act are ho-1 are going to get through congress without something to do with the fill buster, you are in outer space. that's something that stacey plaskett said this morning on msnbc. listen. >> without getting rid of the filibuster, we are not going to get to the number of senators in a we need unless something cataclysmic happens a mind shift in ten members of the senate who zeed to come over and do the right thing. we see that has not happened in the last several years. so we will need the president along with regular americans to get rid of the filibuster for us to be able to do this. because we have our democracy on the line right now.

>> so far, president biden has not adopted a position on wanting to get rid of the filibuster. he has spoken about possibly changing or reforming the filibuster, but unclear how far that's really going to go. that is what voting rights activists want to hear from president biden on tuesday, mid afternoon when he gives that speech that will be focused on the need to protect the sacred constitutional right to vote. >> there have been those suggesting a carveout of anything regarding the constitution. thanks, josh, now to capitol hill with amanda golden. is there any indication precisely who mccarthy to choose to fill the remaining seats for the january 6th committee? >> as we wait for appointments from mccarthy he has a choice,

whether or not he should appoint those serious with credentials and other committee experiences that could best relate to investigating the events leading up to and threw january th or some of the most partisan members of his conference. so far, the way mccarthy has been approaching the january 6 select committee has been to make it into the a political partisan exercise on behalf of democrats. there has only been a handful of republican members of this congress that have spoken out publicly saying they want to be a part of it. one congressmember rodney davis. jim jordan or elise stefanik could be appointed. regardless, whoever it is, they all need pelosi's final stamp of approval in order to move forward with the committee. we heard from congressman adam kin zinger on meet the press

talking about how he feels mccarthy should proceed in these appointments. >> i think he is going to find people not controversial, except for jim jordan and they are going to act like scholars and all this, but their job is going to be to scuttle this. if i was kevin mcconsider thee, i would be very fare fearful of the january 6th committee. >> the chair of the committee, bennie thompson has said that the first hearing around this panel is going to take place july 21st or july 22nd just over a week and a half away. they are going to proceed whether or not mccarthy has made the appointments by that time. they have a quorum, they are ready to go. this going to start with questioning the rank and member files on the police force and the capitol staff that were all here on january 6th. >> right now we have new concerns, everyone, that donald trump supporters and followers

of the qanon fringe group are actually rebranding. they are doing things like running for local offices, school boards, and the like. and what they say is that it is to save children -- i'm quoting what they say -- to save chirp from critical race theory and other made-up conspiracies. well, we have nbc's ben collins who wrote this exclusive story for nbc news. i want to interview you ben now on all you wrote here. i am curious first of all how widespread all of this is. how can a qanon follower even rebrand? is that possible? i hear q, i hear it is not anone. can you clarify? >> qanon supporters are well aware that their branding is toxic. that if you say you are a qanon supporter, you go to a school board meeting and talk about the cabal, if you say you are a qanon supporter you are going

the alienate a lot of people. they decided to ditch that brandsing and evolve their branding. they think they can maybe win some seats. for example, general flynn, who is like a de facto leader of this movement, there is a quote from him who says get involved with the education of our children, run for school board, run for local office. you will get browbeaten by qanon supporters if you are say you are are a fan of qanon. they are saying there are qs and there are anones, but there is no qanon. they are encouraging each other to run for office but they are not telling the public they are supporters of qanon. >> okay. what is happening ultimately? are they getting elected to local positions? are they filling school boards? what are you finding? >> yeah, there are cases throughout the country where this is happening. in california, pennsylvania and michigan. that's what happened in michigan this woman who tweeted once that

qanon was confirmed -- when she was asked about that tweet she said there is no such thing as qanon. that's the qanon talk right now, it never happened, was never part of their liveless. it is definitely happening. their goal is to run in elections where not a lot of people are paying attention. one of the first, tracy diaz won a seat with 170-something votes. it is in the off-year elections when the base is riled up, but nobody else. those are the seats they are trying to capture. >> so, we had the anonymous leader of qanon according to your reporting disappear after trump's defeat. who is the person that's driving new conspiracy theories for this group? is it a splinter group? is there a main branch from which everything is emanating? >> it is kind of complicated the person who many people believe is q for a number of reasons,

ron watkins, he runs the website where q posts. he said right after the election that he was not going to be involved in that website anymore. then he immediately shifted to election conspiracy sees, and those made their way to the president in the next two months. all of those q supporters were dragged to election conspiracy theories because their leader moved on to those new spaces. while q hasn't posted since december 7th, coming up on more than seven months now the influencers who pushed this movement moved on to stop the steal stuff and moved on to all of these other things that have become republican, gop, pro-trump orthodoxy. >> the troubling beliefs that this group currently holds, i mean you say this orthodoxy. describe some of them, some of the beliefs that they are holding now, how they have changed since previous theories about trump retaking office, of

course that didn't pan out. where do they stand on that? >> some still believe he is going to retake office. they keep kicking the can down the road. that's what qanon does, takes these dreamy fan tees and applies new end dates. >> when they do that, do they lose some of the followers that are going, yeah, maybe not now becauser in seeing what they have banked on being disproven? >> sometimes they do, but weirdly enough the psychology on this works in reverse, people double down, they triple down, they think even more so that they are doing something to make this all work. there is a book in the '60s where they followed a cult where people thought they were going to be raised up out of the earth and they would be raptured by the whole world explodes. there was a specific date. when they followed those people afterwards, the book called when

prophecy fails. after that date came and went, they doubled down, tripled down. that's what you see consistent is he of lee with qanon. there is something in the psychology of this where it is better in your brain to keep going with this than to be embarrassed and realize it was all a scam. >> before i let you go, what is the biggest concern you have about qanon, however you want to label it, whether it is q, anone, or not, whatever? how concerns you the most? do you see something fomenting where you are like, oh, this could get out of control? >> yeah, to me it is the fact that it has permeated regular political spaces throughout the country and that it isn't just died to one party anymore. to me the scary thing is a lot of people believe now there is some cabal running the world. that's what q aknown was and is, a way to unifies a lot of conspiracy theories about a big,

mostly anti-semitic new world order by the way. once that becomes something that a lot of people believe across political spectrums, it is hard to come out of that. that's how the beginnings of fascism air audios begin. it is becoming part of our regular political life, that's scary to me. >> by that description, scary to me, too. ben collins, good the see you, thank you for joining us and sticking around through all the space race stuff. there are some folks at cpac the conservative meeting under way right now in texas who are all in on the conspiracy theory that the former president is due back at the white house very soon that strange seven-point plan, and a catch to that. we'll go through it you realize new possibilities on america's largest, fastest, and most reliable 5g network. plus customer experience that finds solutions in the moment. and first-class benefits, like 5g with every plan.

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as president in a matter of days and doubling down on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. >> since the election, everyone that i talked to is furious. i mean, we are livid. we are upset. we feel like the election was stolen. >> they attack our republic by engaging in unparalleled voter fraud and election -- activities. >> ally vitale is joining me again from dallas. i want to point out that this seven-point plan, the cards that were passed out. this group is a fringe group. it is not availiated with cpac, they have not been endorsed by them. but they are there, behind he. talk about conservatives who are waiting for their leader. >> i saw those cards being handed out to people who were here at this gathering, this seven-point plan as you talked about to get trump back into

office all predicated to this idea of the lie which is what we talk about all the time of how somehow the 2020 election was rigged against the sitting president. it is not true. but it is one of the focuses of the conference when you hear about how they have been talking about the 2020 election. you have seen it in state houses about how the idea of a rigged election is turning into more restrictive voting laws. former president donald trump is closing out the conference here. it underscores he is not the etiological leader this party. he is certainly the one with the biggest megaphone. this morning he spent time calling into fox news spending a considerable amount of time

defending the rally he held on january 6th saying thinks speech were in his words mild and how the crowds surrounded him with much love. consider that are the reality of what happened on january 6th and the reality of what we are seeing inside courts across the country of people who stormed the capitol in that insurrection are going through their legal charges and through their legal proceedings. here at cpac and other conservative gatherings i have been covering there is a rewriting of history happening here. i was listening to you your conversation with ben collins how it relates to the q conspiracy. i think the reality is the conspiracies, the disparate threads of misinformation and conspiracy theories are sort of getting lost in the jumble here and being infected by certain parts of the conservative movement. that's what you are getting, you are hearing it from the loudest

voices in the room, people like president trump and it is trickling down to grassroots, folks who are conservative attending conventions like this and want to keep hearing from particular particularly, the president. >> that's what ben collins said he is most concerned about, that these outlandish ideas are accepted and expected. joining me is massachusetts congressman seth molten. good to see you again, my friend. let's get into it here. first starting with the january 6th select committee. as we await the minority leader mccarthy to make his picks do you have any concerns about the five whom he might appoint? >> yes, absolutely. this is deadly serious business. and we have got to have people who are going to take it seriously and mott make this into a political farce. but i think adam kin zinger, a

republican who knows mccarthy well, i think his concerns are right on the money, that mccarthy is going to make this into political theater because he is concerned about the result. when you hear about this crazy qanon stuff, the things that they are promoting at cpac, it is like comic book material, alex, but it is deadly serious because qanon is joined at the hip with the republican party a major political party in the united states that crows almost half of congress and half of legislatures across the country. so this is deadly serious business for our democracy. we have got to get it right. >> 100%. let me ask you quickly -- i hadn't intended to, but about the seven point plan to reinstate donald trump. if you are not familiar, it involves ousting house speaker nancy pelosi, eventually up stalling donald trump in her place because he would be named

speaker, and then he would bring up impeachment charges, remove the imposters president biden and kamala harris and then get back into the oval office. i mean, what? >> again, this is the republican party. they have a cultish following of this crazy leader who was a fraud in business. he was a fraud in government. he was the worst president that america has ever had. but you have an entire political party that's aligned behind him. i mean, this is -- this is from -- you know, this is a playbook from the worst -- the worst stories of history. this is how -- you know, this is -- this is the playbook that gave rise through a democratic system of government in germany to adolph hitler. these are dangerous times for our democracy. as much as we can shake our head at this stuff and almost laugh at other side for believing in it we have got to realize just

how close we came on january 6th to losing our democracy. when, when we go back to certify the next american president how serious will republicans take that responsibility? or will they realize that next time they truly can't overturn the results of the american people, the will of the american people. and then our democracy is truly in shambles. >> yeah. >> this is serious stuff, alex. >> 100%. let me ask you how you feel about going back to work now now that the fence has been taken down, when you are in the capitol hill office. do you feel safe? given the potential rise of violence again how do you feel about that? >> look, the intelligence reports are very clear, safety is not the same as it was before january 6th. aim at home today and we have had to have an extensive security system installed at the recommendation of the capitol police in order the just keep my family safe in our own home?

wow. >> look, it's not as safe as it once was. at the same time i am happy to see the fence come down because it is the people's house and we want people to be able to visit the capitol just like i did when i was a kid with my parents. the security situation right now is all about whether we are going to really fund the capitol police as they have been requested and make sure that we do the training and intelligence gathering to prevent another january 6th from ever occurring. the fence has always been a temporary measure. yes, i am hardened to see it come down. -- heartened to see it come down. but make no mistake, the threats still exist and they will come back if we don't do anything about it. >> let's talk about afghanistan and nbc news reports about the biden administration really still debating how to safely

evacuate afghan interpreter. richard ingle spoke to one interpreter who has been waiting for four years to get his visa approved after helping 150 combat missions. >> president biden said people like you have a home in the u.s., you can come and live in the u.s., the door is open. >> i got a lot of announce its, there is no action. >> you helped the u.s., now the u.s. needs to help you? simple as that. >> yep yes, yes. >> that translator told richard that he fears for his life right now. is it a filature that these people are not out yet? what is it going to take to get them out? >> it is not a failure until they get slaughtered. but that could very well happen any time now. it's why myself and a number of other veterans on both sides of the aisle in congress have been urging the administration to act

quickly. it's not just about speeding up the visa process. we have to have an evacuation. that's the only way to get these folks out in prime. good news coming out of the president's press conference on thursday. he said all of the right things. he said we will get people who served alongside us, our allies and friends out safely and they will have a home in america. we will believe it when we see it. i have been pressuring the administration to produce a detailed plan to appoint a commander and to make a serious commitment that they will see this mission through, however long it takes. the president mentioned all three of those things on thursday. i was heartened to hear that. he is clearly listening to us in congress but we still actually haven't seen the plan. we don't have the name of a commander. and we need to see this start going into action within days if it is going to be successful. >> to your point, here's what is concerning relative to the words you used, being slaughtered. u.s. withdrawal, we are about

90% complete now, from afghanistan, but it's the taliban that appears to be filling this vacuum left by the u.s. the point press secretary was addressing the concerns of a takeover today. take a quick listen to that. >> we are certainly watching with deep concern. we are watching it and monitoring it. which is why we are again working with our afghan partners to encourage them to use the capacity and capability that we know they have. we know they know how to defend their company. this is the time for them to step up and do exactly that. >> are you confident they can do it? >> no, i am not. just to be realistic here. the taliban has a pretty good track record and they are reinforcing it with their successes over the past few days. i know there are a lot of american troops, brave young americans who have risked their lives, some have even given their lives training the afghan security forces and we have a lot of afghans who are well trained. and given the equipment and the skills and expertise to fight

the taliban. if you lewis look at history here, and you look at the reality on the ground, you know, that's why -- that's how you understand the intelligence reports that are leaking out about how the afghan government could fall in a matter of just months. that not only reinforces how critical it is to get our allies out. because the image of a massive evacuation would not be great. the image of a mass slaughter would be far worse. make no mistake, that's exactly what the taliban intends for any people they find who served alongside us risking their livls not just for their country, afghanistan, but for america as well. >> congressman seth molten i appreciate and you the time you have given me on a sunday afternoon. coming up next, the trump family member who could be in big legal trouble. and soon. starting at age 45, instead of 50, since colon cancer is increasing in younger adults. i'm cologuard®. i'm convenient and find 92% of colon cancers...

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. there are some new questions about who could be the next target into the investigation into the trump organization.

the indictment of ceo allen weisselberg lists him as just one of the largest individual beneficiaries of the defendant's scheme ask. the dily beast suggests that prosecutors may be looking now to turn up the heat on the children children, the indictment saying a list of seven trump companies including one where ivanka trump held the position as ceo eight years. dan, you know this process well. does the indictment suggest that the d.a. is going after a bigger fish? although he is pretty big. are they now going to go after trump children? >> i will give you the short answer. yes, it suggests that they are going after others. but remember that the function of the indictment is not to suggest to the public anything, it is to give charges to a defendant to give them notice of what it is they are being charged with. prosecutors do do what they call

speaking indictments where they give some information. and it habitant liesing and picked over over the last week or so by everyone. what we have here is there are allegations within the scheme to defraud, which is the main charge itself that this was not isolated to allen weisselberg. that the trump organization did do this kind of thing with at least two other executives. and further, elsewhere in the indictment, it talks about this scheme to take bonuses to, you know, this is a little kind of in the weeds of taxes, but to pay bonuses as if employees, executives were contractors, 1099 employees versus regular employees, w-2s. what that does is allows the company to save money on payroll taxes. whether that becomes a criminal charge or not, we are a long way on that. we are reading the tea leaves sprinkled throughout the indict. i think two or three of the

trump kids were executives during some or all of this time period, they are obviously people for the d.a. to be looking into. >> i heard this described as the first inning of a nine-inning baseball game, right? i used the term bigger fish. is there anything you have seen so far that could lead to donald trump himself being held accountable for the actions of his organization? the word is, the reputation is everything he has always suggested about himself and the way he runs thing is that doing happens without his approval, that he knows everything that's going on. does that damn him in the eyes of prosecutors or those going after research and trying to figure it out? >> i think as you and i talk here, as i talk to my family in my living room, of course a guy like trump is not going to be completely ignorant of the scheme that's laid out in the indictment. it would be very, very odd if he didn't know exactly what was happening with every penny and exactly how they were dodging

taxes with weisselberg and others allegedly. but prosecutors have to actually put specific knowledge and specific intent, including the willful attempt to evade taxes into donald trump's head. they have to prove that he knew about it, somehow authorized it, or aided it or directed it. and that is much more difficult. in the typical case of accounting fraud at corporations you have communications, texts, emails, et cetera. trump famously doesn't use email, as we know. so you are going to have to see what kind of conversations are there between him and other executives who might be willing to testify and perhaps with counter-parties sometimes that helps as well. we just don't know what the d.a. has. but you are right, i mean, donald trump presents himself as a guy who understands everything that's going on. there are some famous statements which are admissible against him that nobody knows taxes better than he does. i think we didn't believe him at

the time and if he were charged his lawyer would argue he was not telling the truth about that, ironically. but those statements could be used against him. i would use them as a prosecutor. you are the greatest tax genius in history? okay, well that's one piece of evidence against you. >> dan, thank you for your time weighing in. i am sure we will have more to discuss in the future. coming up next, the coauthor of nightmare scenario with new revelations on trump's pandemic response. onse or that her grandpa's dog tags would be left behind. but that one call got her a tow and rental... ...paid her claim... ...and we even pulled a few strings. making it easy to make things right: that's what we're made for. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. get a quote today.

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49. dr. anthony fauci urging some areas to consider mandating vaccines as the nationwide vaccination rate stalls. >> i believe at the local level, jake, there should be more mandates. there really should be. we are talking about life and death situations. we have lost 600,000 americans already. and we are still losing more people. there have been 4 million deaths worldwide. this is serious business. so i am in favor of that. >> despite that, many americans remain divided over they would support requiring vaccines before returning to work for school. a new report shows half of americans think students 12 and over should have a shot in order to return to classrooms. for teachers that number jumps to 63%. as for americans returning to work vaccinated, 53% like that idea. a new book on how the trump administration handled and mishandled the coronavirus

pandemic. nightmare scenario, inside the trump administration's response to the pandemic to change history uses first-hand accounts to highlight the confusion and chaos in that ensued in the white house throughout 2020. joining me the author of the book. yasmin, welcome. i am curious why you and the partner with whom you wrote this book chose to focus on this particular time in the trump white house? >> i think it was the biggest test trump white house and the crisis that people feared when he came into office, whether he would be equipped and his staff would be equipped to handle a major national emergency. this is what people warned about when he was first elected. and there was a rotating cast of staff coming in and out while he was in office. i think the coronavirus crisis put all of that to the test in catastrophic ways. 400,000 americans died while trump was still in office.

we thought it was important to provided a comprehensive and adequate an account of why things went wrong, why they did and how things started at the beginning of the year and got progressively worse. >> there are a number of things revealed in this book, one is making headlines. a report that subjected donald trump suggested sending covid patient americans to guantanamo bay. can you elaborate on that? >> u.s. officials were focused on repatriating people from cruise ships and people who were stranded overseas in countries who had bigu covid outbreaks before the u.s. started to grapple with it. the "diamond princess" was docked off the coast of japan with a couple hundred americans on it. the president was angry when he learned that u.s. initials to fly back infected americans

which at the time doubled america's case count. he was very concerned about how the numbers reflected on him and his leadership and his ability to tell people there wasn't a lot to worry about. in one of these meetings shortly after the various cruise ship incidents he suggested sending them to guantanamo. the reason essentially being, if they are not here, they won't reflect badly on him. >> the other thing that people will find surprising is even because donald trump himself never endorsed wearing masks there was a plan in the white house to send everyone in the u.s. masks. what happened there? >> the hhs put together a plan that reached out to a number of undergarment manufacturers like haynes and jockey to see if they could convert some of their manufacturing facilities to produce masks. the idea was that they would produce 650 million by mid may and they would send every american household a mask. in the ends, you would have

enough to send every american two masks. when it was presented to the fask force, all the doctors were on board. they were hoping it would depoliticize the idea and that it was coming from the white house that it was up to every american to protect themselves and their neighbors. but when secretary azar modeled the mask he was mocked and he was told it look like you have underwear on your face. they decided it wasn't ready and it came off the agenda. that was a key moment because after that masks became political and diesive. >> extraordinary after we watched the president come down with a serious case of covid in 2020. he and his doctors downplayed his condition. they said he wasn't that bad. he was fine. but in the book you uncovered

information that counters those claims. >> we did. we spent a lot of time trying to understand what happened that week when the president got sick. it was a critical point in the response. at that point he seemed to evade the virus numerous times where people around him were getting infected. but what we learned is that the president was sicker than his doctors and ferls were telling the public. when he was transferred to walter reed his doctors presented it as a precautionary measure. he's the president, we want to make sure he has access to the best care. but the president was resistant to go to walter reed and his doctors at that point feared he would have to go to a ventilator and told him you can go the wallet ear reed now when you can still walk out on your own or you can wait until you have to have wheeled out on a grny and everyone will know how sick you are. for a period of time hissed a viers were fearful he would not

make it out. he received access to an experimental medication at the time. it is now authorized. and it is credited with the president's rapid turnaround. >> the book is nightmare scenario. i hope it is a big hit. it is absolutely fascinating. thank you. while many some pretty stiff head witnesses. pretty stiff head witnesses. medicare supplement plans help by paying some of what medicare doesn't... and let you see any doctor. any specialist. anywhere in the u.s. who accepts medicare patients. so if you have this... consider adding this. call unitedhealthcare today for your free decision guide. ♪ for your free decision guide. did you know prilosec otc can stop frequent heartburn before it begins? prilosec otc uses a unique delayed-release formula

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the biggest year in history. >> that's the ceo of united airlines, scott kirby. it comes as the country has hit a major milestone. the holiday flying the fourth of july weekend, as i bring in my friend sara nelson, president of the association of flight attendants. it was bonkers. crazy lines. i couldn't even believe it. when at the talk about a timeline looking ahead to next summer as the apex of getting back to normal, what do you think about that? is it realistic? >> i think so, alex. first of all, i'm so glad to

have you back in the air with us. thank you for joining us. >> what we have right now is almost every single person coming to the airplane doors as a first-time flyer. trying to understand how this is working today. what we're seeing now is people wanting to get rue united, wanting to travel, get owl, but we need that business travel back. we don't have it back in parse, and this pandemic is not over. that's why you still have the mask policies in place we have also have the unruly guesting going on, we need to get that tamped down. his assessment is probably

correct. >> let me clarify the word "bonkers." that does not actually apply to the airplane experience. your colleagues have been fantastic. they have had to deal with an uptick of behavior issues they literally had to duct tape a woman who was have some sort of a mental breakdown. she was trying to open the door on the flight, saying i've got ton on this plane. >> yeah. everyone needs help right now. we need people to be helpers. our workload is much higher, because we're helping a lot more, but then you have people

who are stressed out. sometimes that comes out on the plane. we had a flight attendant bit this week, and thank you for the kudos for the crews trying to keeping it in order. try to go help people what to expect. >> get to the airport like an hour before you think you need to. then you won't stress out. even though you see the huge lines, you won't stress out if you give yourself that kind of time. i'm very glad to see masks still on the plane. they expect they specific the mask man daze lifted later when

the government -- and they say the airplanes are the safest plays to be indoors because of the air filtration. what are your thoughts? >> i they it depends on what we see happen with the delta variant. remember, we have people on the planes who don't have access to the plains yet. the air filtration is great. safer than any other play indoors, but you're in a metal tube jammed together. that's not really an office environment, right? those studies you saw about the air filtration and the airlines being some of the safest places and most controlled environments so it doesn't matter if you don't also have people wearing masks. i think as we go ahead closer,

we want to make sure the transportation isn't extending this thing. >> sarah nelson, my friend what would a weekend be without talking to you? >> i love it. thank you. the discovery of a cache of weapons and ammo in a hotel room, that raises fears. that's ahead. room, that raises fears. that's ahead toothpaste, we can help actively repair enamel in its weakened state. it's innovative. my go to toothpaste is going to be pronamel repair. this isn't just a walk up the stairs. when you have an irregular heartbeat, it's more. my go to toothpaste it's dignity. the freedom to go where you want, knowing your doctor can watch over your heart. ♪♪ (vo) conventional thinking doesn't disrupt the status quo. which is why t-mobile for business uses unconventional thinking to help your business realize new possibilities. only one 5g partner offers unmatched network, support, and value-without any trade offs.

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i'm sure this isn't something money can't solve? what the fudge? oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! breaking news. this new video in from just inside the largest wildfire north of lake tahoe. it's only about 8% contained. new evacuations have been ordered. in oregon, a separate fire burning through a national forest has doubled in side athlete days in a row now, more than 200 square miles. that's 0% contained. a heat wave is torching the west. palm springs said a new record high of 120 degrees yesterday. that's a wrap on this edition of "alex witt reports."

my friend yasmin vossoughian continues our coverage. have on good one. good afternoon, everybody. a lot going on, on this sunday afternoon. richard branson becomes the billionaires. plus president biden preparing for a major speech on voting rights even as republicans in texas move forward with their assault on democracy. we do want to begin with breaking news. the new space race is now a reality, history being made just a few hours ago. 5, 3, 2, 1 -- release, release.