tv Katy Tur Reports MSNBC July 14, 2021 11:00am-12:00pm PDT
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it is good to be with you. i'm geoff bennett in washington where president biden is locked in a delicate and high-balancing act on infrastructure. he is meeting behind closed doors with his party on capitol hill, and here is the monumental challenge. the senate democrats say they have reached a deal on themselves on a 3.5 trillion blueprint on the left side of
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the screen for what they call the human infrastructure plan to fight things like climate change, to prop up health care, and dramatically expand medicare and family service programs for child care, elder care, universal pre-k, and two years of free community college. >> we are going to get this done. >> we are getting this done. >> but getting all 50 senate democrats and independents from bernie sanders to joe manchin agreeing of what to agree on what needs to be included and the maneuver to bypass the republicans, there is no room for error and not a single defection of the dems and can they keep the house progressives on board, and at the same time, the president is trying to keep the ten senate republicans on board with the separate bipartisan hard infrastructure plan for roads, highways and
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bridges and major works project, and so now you can see where the balancing act is coming into play. they have to keep all of the democrats on board, can't alienate the republicans they need and want to pass the two-track plan with a total of more than $4 trillion cash infusion that historians say is on par with lbj's great society and fdr's new deal. senator schumer who is not known for being understated say that we know that we have a long way to go, and those at playbook say "long" is an understatement, and painstaking and treacherous are a couple of others. now i want to bring in our correspondent at pbs newshour, and also anish and garrett haake at his post outside of the room where president biden is meeting with the senate democrats, and garrett, we are in the 40 minute mark where president biden has
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been having that meeting. biden just walked out we are told. so give us a sense of what he said if anything on the way out. >> yeah, geoff, you are right. the president has just left this meeting and he spoke for 40 minutes with the democratic senators on his way out of the door was quite, and he was quite happy to be back here in the senate where he spent so many years, and where not much, and we have been able to learn so far from the senators who were largely in the room except this, the president underlined the historic nature of the opportunity in front of them, and the historic nature of both the reconciliation piece of the puzzle and the bipartisan infrastructure bill that you were laying out, and essentially their moment in which to act that is going to be the important rallying cry for him to continue to give and to keep all 50 democratic senators and all of the disparate viewpoints in the house in line. chuck schumer has for a couple of days now been making this point to the members, do not draw lines in the sand, and let
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this process work out, and i expect we will hear a similar message from president biden coming through. >> and we are told, michelle, that the president took an exit that was not visible to our cameras, so aneesh, the president is playing games here with the senators and unity and the outside game, too, because he has the meeting with the bipartisan governors and mayors who understand that spending on the roads and the bridges and the broadband is important, and breakdown the white house strategy for us. >> well, the white house strategy is to convince really members of the democratic party why they should coalesce and not have daylight between them. press secretary jen psaki was asked bluntly, does the president believe he has the votes for the bills to pass, and he said, if we have the votes, there would be a vote. so the work is cut out for the president, and he is there on
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capitol hill to talk about the importance of the work, and yes, we have scattered personalities and different prior tis, but we want to make sure that the bill gets passed and the two-track systems and the two-track plans get through, and another thing that is noted is that he going to be meeting with the infrastructure experts on the ground, and mayors and governors and those are the people who can then give him the ammunition to talk specifically about what these communities and where this money is going to go, and how they will be benefiting from it, and have the pushback from the quote, unquote infrastructure, but in louisiana, it is going to home health aid, and in texas, to people who need town care credit, so part of the strategy is talking to local officials to gaer inning the stories so when the white house is talking nationally, they have several things to talk to. >> and jake, what the democrats are trying to do with the
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dual-track strategy is more complicated legislative maneuvering since what they had to do to pass the affordable care act and arguably more difficult than that because of the fact that they have smaller majorities now. >> yeah, this is going to be, and this is the most significant legislative undertaking that i have seen in my time on capitol hill in more than a decade. essentially, what they are trying to do is to pass a very, very large budget in a 50/50 senate and in a house with a historically tight democratic majority, and then at the same time, they are trying to hold together a very fragile, and extraordinarily fragile republican coalition, and the top of the party is mitch mcconnell who has historically as we all know, because we have covered it all three of us incredible sway over his party. so that is just in and of itself without getting into the
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particulars, and we are not into the particulars yet, and those things that i have said illustrate just how difficult on the top line how difficult this is going to be, and done in a compressed time line. and government funding, geoff, it runs out in september, and the debt ceiling has to be hiked in september and october, and so we are getting into the period where the democrats are trying to -- and by the way, i am not suggesting that it won't pass, and i am trying to underscore that people have to be very, very patient, because this is a long bumpy and complicated road. >> about that, jake, i spoke with a white house official a couple of weeks ago who said that they hope to get it passed by september. is that still a realistic time line? >> well, i hope to sleep at 8:00 at night and wake up at 10:00 in the morning, and that does not happen for me frequently. i understand what they hope to happen, and it might happen, but i am not saying it won't happen, but it is very, very, and it is
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a very lofty goal at this moment, because we are in the middle of july, and congress is off in august and come back in september, and they have government funding and the debt ceiling, so understanding that, if you believe it can be done in september, maybe you are right, but i don't know. i am not trying to be overly skeptical, but i am skeptical given what we have seen on capitol hill in the last 15 years. >> and yamiche, the troops are being pulled out of afghanistan, and how is the president applying the political capital to get everything passed in order to get everything else done on his plate? >> it is a great question, because the presidents have to walk and chew gum and juggle the foreign and domestic issues and he is not the first president to do that, but it is a big set of challenges, and he says that he is going to take the political
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capital to the senators face-to-face to get it done, but he is facing pressure with the speech on civil rights leaders and he is going to have a great messaging and now where is the actual action? i interviewed the president at the naacp president derrick johnson and al sharpton is saying where is the word fill buster in that long passionate speech? where is the action of the way forward and the strategy of how the democrats are going to match? what is the efficiency of the republicans who have introduced more than 800 bills across the country when it comes to voting rights and of course, haiti and latin america, and this is a white house who is prioritizing a lot of ways russia and china, but this is latin america and issues and crises knocking on the white house's door, and i put a question to the press secretary about haiti, and they don't have a strategy there in terms of if they want to send troops, and the push now from
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the house haiti caucus to try to halt deportations to haiti, and the president has to make a decision on that, and he has not yet, and a lot juggling here, but he is using a loft the political capital on infrastructure trying to get the bills done while all of this other stuff is happening. >> and garrett haake, if you are back with us, and waiting to see if you are here, and you are. here is half-baked question that i want you to do something with, and on this question of the democratic unity, chuck schumer said this proposal of 3.5 trillion funds every major program in biden's economic plan and included is a robust expansion of medicare. old people who vote benefit from an expansion of medicare, and why wouldn't every democrat in that room be on board with that? >> they very well might, geoff, and this is part of it, right. if you have a priority and a democratic lawmaker that you ran on two years ago or four years ago or six years ago, it is
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probably somewhere in this reconciliation package and this is part of the challenge for someone like manchin who might want to vote for it with things that are more expensive than he wants or things that he doesn't want, and key things that he does want, and other expansion to cover dental, and hearing and vision. and so there is no bigger bloc voting than seniors. and an expansion of the benefit that people have come to rely on could be enormously possible, and that is the heart of the democratic gambit here, and they know that the numbers are big and scary sounding, and walking a tight rope here, and in the end, if they can get it passed, elements are going to be extraordinarily popular and look at the child care tax credit trying to expand in the bill. in the end, if things are becoming law, they will get the credit for them, but they have to walk through a real gauntlet here to get there. >> garrett haake, i knew you could pick up the baton and run
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with it, and thank you as always, and yamiche and derrick as well. and now, joining us isnan what ily, the democratic mayor of dayton, ohio, and darren holt who is the mayor of tulsa, oklahoma. and now, mayor what ily, you have called on congress to take immediate action on the bipartisan agreement of the hard infrastructure of roads and bridges and broadband and why is federal investment in infrastructure so important for you, as you see it? >> for the mayors and the people across the country, what we see is the real need to see that the roads and the bridges are fixed and that we have the money to really build our wastewater and water systems to keep them safe and to make sure that we have broadband and we have seen in this past year how important it is for the communities and both
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for education and job growth, and finally, we need to connect our cities with the transit and public transit in our communities. all of these things, we have been calling for year after year. we see a bipartisan way forward, and the mayors across the country stand ready to fully support it, and get it done now. >> and mayor holt, talk about oklahoma, because highway safety is a mayor issue of oklahoma as well as the rural areas and you have a number of the narrow two-lane roads that are dangerous if they fall into disrepair, and in preparing to speak to you, i looked up the data, and rural roads and highways account for 60% of fatalities and serious crashes in oklahoma, and that is one of the reasons that you see it as an urgent imperative. >> yeah, i mean, there is obviously some important things specifically for oklahoma city that i am passionate about, but i can see the benefits for the entire state of oklahoma rural and urban, and it is important
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to point out that the proposal for the bipartisan framework has a ton of road and bridges dollars including the currently expected highway funding that comes every year, but also more and more on top of that. and yes, that is critical infrastructure, and that is something that should be nonpart nonpartisan and bi-partisan. >> do you care if it gets done bipartisan? >> well, there is an opportunity to have a bipartisan package and we are down the road and no pun intended, but we have support, an bipartisan support in the u.s. senate, and that can be, i think built upon if we continue to take this approach that the president has advocated for so far which is a bipartisan approach, which is compromise. we do it a lot as mayors and i'm glad to see washington doing it on the package. i think that is why we are all getting involved in this. we think it is the closest that
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we have ever been over the last decade of talking about infrastructure to get something done. it is fantastic to be bipartisan, and obviously, in oklahoma city, we want the infrastructure however congress has to pass it, but if it is bipartisan, a great statement for the country, and certainly to make everybody feel good and much better about this, but however it happens, there's some critical stuff in here, transit and roads and bridges as that you talked about to do so much good for people of oklahoma city. >> and mayor what ily, and taub about da -- mayor whaley, let's talk about pothole issues in ohio, and the president wants to call
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human infrastructure? >> he is taking a page from the mayors' playbook and that is why he is successful. this is things that people need in the communities and the other piece about the infrastructure bill that is so important is that it takes daytonians and oklahoma cityians to do this work, and make the roads to provide for our families and it is on the cusp of, and mayors are saying to get this done. >> and mayor holt, what about that, the spending on the human infrastructure, and the republicans in the congress don't support the expansion of the safety, social safety net, and do you want to see the paid community college, and subsidized child care and elder care? >> well, it is important because we have a moment here in time to have a bipartisan care for the
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package, but it is important to keep the focus on the bipartisan part of package, and that is part of the real recognition of the package, but that is not what the mayors signed on. and individual mayors can sign on that, but we are focused on the core infrastructure included in the bipartisan infrastructure framework, and i don't necessarily have a position on that, and it is an important one with the country, but i see what is happening with the infrastructure part, and that is why millions of mayors signed that letter and the particular part has bipartisan support in congress. >> as a mayor, would you take that social spending as it comes in? >> look, i'm a -- i'm not a one-issue vote ser, but i am here today to advocate for
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infrastructure, and if we can get something done after ten years of infrastructure weeks, then i would be happy to look at that. >> and now, something to be looking at a movie plot of four iranians looking to kidnap a journalist. and recreational marijuana plot, and some senate democrats have a plan to go all of the way. and now, the escalating voter rights and now companies are pushing congress to pass new voter rights legislation. ghts
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>> there's more pressure to day in the escalating battle over voting rights. this morning some of the biggest names of corporate america including pepsi and target came out in favor of voting rights legislation, and on capitol hill, the voting democrats are keeping the pressure on, too, and they met with vice president kamala harris and leader chuck schumer and a meeting with joe manchin on the books tomorrow to convince him to create a carve out in the filibuster for voting rights legislation which is best hope to stop the restrictive measures that the republicans are charging ahead with back home in texas. priscilla thompson is covering all of this from the perch fair
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there in austin texas. and priscilla, the democrats are keeping a busy schedule, but what about the republican counterparts where you are. walk us through where you are. >> yeah, geoff. we are well into day two without a quorum here. the house has convened, but they are currently at ease, and the republican lawmakers are telling me they that are having meeting and working on the legislation, but of course, they can't get any action done on that, and any bills passed without that quorum. what we are seeing here is a narrative emerging or a message emerging around what the democrats are walked out on, and with the republicans saying that this session was not just about this election bill or some of the other more contentious issues of governor abbott's issue of trans sports or something like that, but the retired teachers getting the 13th check, and improves to foster care and property taxes and things like that.
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and so later today, the gop is going to be meeting with the retired teachers, but now, there is nothing that the republicans can do to bring the democrats back. they have sort of moved forward with giving the sergeant at arms permission to send for those democrats, but because they are not in the state of texas, that is not likely going to happen. and so, i spoke to republicans here about what comes next, and what can they do here? listen to one lawmaker told me. >> the speaker and leadership are looking to what the options are to compel the tenets, and this is the rule, and this is the law. so they are supposed to be here. you know, given time, it will tell, but i expect when the new wears off and the novelty act ends in d.c. and they have worn out the welcome and gone to all of the receptions and the cocktail parties and been to the capitol and seen the vice president, pretty soon, there is going to be like, they will come to the realization that it is
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time to come home. >> now, one thing that did happen here yesterday is that the texas senate which does have a quorum did actually vote on their version of that voting, that elections bill, and that did ultimately pass, but of course without that quorum in the house, and both chambers in agreement, that would not become law, and it would have to go into another special session. geoff. >> yeah, priscilla thompson on top of all things politics in austin. thank you for the great reporting. and joining us is texas state representative eddie rodriguez, one of the democrats who left the state, and big welcome to you, and we have been warned that our connection is spotty, but we will give it a go. and so you have been met with the vice president, and second meeting with her, and second time to advance the voting restrictions, and what was her message to her about stopping
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this? >> her message was first to thank us for what we did in breaking quorum. secondly that she has heard our message loud and clear that it is time for congress and the senate to get to work. and that is the message that she, that she got from us. >> and what are you hoping to convey to senator manchin tomorrow, because he has signaled that a carve out for constitutional issues and voting rights issues are off of the table. >> i think it is incumbent upon us to explain this bill, and how terrible it is for the voters in texas, and that really just to ask him what he can do to help us. this is obviously going to be a trend going on throughout the country, and the republicans are going to be doing it in georgia, arizona, and texas and other states, and we have to put a stop to it now, and understand
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that he is not 100% for the people act and we understand that. but something has to happen, and it has to happen now. we are just going to convey how bad this bill is, and how much we need him, and ask him what he can do to help us. >> all right. texas state rep eddie rodriguez and we will check in with you thaf meeting. another update out of an important story out of texas, the cold snap that paralyzed that state, and state officials said that 210 people died from that storm, and that is 59 more than the state reported back in april. most of the deaths were the result of exposure to freezing temperatures, but some inhaled carbon monoxide huddling as texans huddled near cars and grills for warmth. they say that the death toll could continue to rise. and a pop star teams up with the biden administration, and what olivia rodrigo was doing
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with marijuana now legal in 18 states, the senate democrats are rolling out a plan to legalize it at the federal level. the bill has the potential to turn the marijuana industry on its head and potentially create a lot of revenue from new taxes. nbc's gabe guterres got exclusive details from this new proposal and what are the details from senator schumer and how it would affect the cannabis industry? >> earlier this year, voters voted for pot sales, and the details are being sorted out, be now the democrats are hoping to capitalize on the green rush. >> reporter: for years now, the state after state after state has given the green light to the cannabis industry, but perhaps now the biggest pot push yet. >> there is an urgency to this because people all over the
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industry are seeing their lives destroyed and hurt. >> reporter: today, the senate democrats are rolling out a plan to try to legalize marijuana at the federal level and first obtained exclusively for removing cannabis from the controlled substances act, and expunging the records of non-violent records of those offenders. and creating a tax. >> two senators will help. >> what we have seen is that it has generated more than six times predicted revenue. >> reporter: is this one of the top priorities of the democrats? >> it is one of the high priorities but we have a lot of
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top priorities. >> you haven't done infrastructure, and why now? >> we have to move forward on a number of things. >> reporter: experts say it is moving too fast and marketing the high potency to kids. >> we can expunge the records, and we don't have to go to extreme of pot gummi bears and 99% thc dabs. >> reporter: supporters argue that communities of color are disproportionately imprisoned for a drug that is legalized in many states. 18 states plus d.c. allow recreational use, and 37-plus allow medical marijuana. stephanie shepherd spent nine years in prison because of the charge, and rental and job applications are brutal for her. what has a drug conviction done to your life? >> changed it completely. my life will never be the same.
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>> reporter: and what has also changed dramatically is americans' views in weed. in 1969, only 12% backed marijuana legalization, and now 68% do. >> more and more people across the political spectrum on it, and so it is going to roll. it is going to roll. >> reporter: and the senate democrats face a uphill battle not just with the republicans but some in their own party including president biden. press secretary today jen psaki did not endorse the new legislation. geoff. >> it is a good point. our thanks to gabe guterres for that report. >> and meanwhile, pop star olivia rodrigo went to white house to get young people vaccinate and she is at a press briefing today and she is making videos to send out to her 14 million instagram followers to
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encourage the gen zers to get the vaccine. >> i am grateful to help. >> and teens have the lowest vaccination percentage in the country. and new today, britney is talking about a abusive situation. and now, a plot of some iranian operatives to kidnap a brooklyn journalist. dnap a brooklyn journalist. animal! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ is struggling to manage your type 2 diabetes knocking you out of your zone? lowering your a1c with once-weekly ozempic® can help you get back in it.
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i want that. eliquis. eliquis reduces stroke risk better than warfarin. and has less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis has both. don't stop taking eliquis without talking to your doctor as this may increase your risk of stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking, you may bruise more easily... or take longer for bleeding to stop. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, or unusual bruising. it may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. the number one cardiologist-prescribed blood thinner. ask your doctor about eliquis. we are following the legal developments out of new york in a case that sounds like it was ripped from a movie script. federal prosecutors have charged four intelligence agents from iran with plotting to kidnap a brooklyn journalist and human rights activist who has been publicly critical of the iranian
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government. now the plot included hiring private investigators to trail the journalist condubting surveillance of her home and even researching how to use, quote, military style speedboats to get her out of new york. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams is following the case closely, and pete, what do you know about the charges and how far did this plot get? >> well, it certainly got to the point of spending almost half a million dollars on it according to federal prosecutors and money funneled through a woman in california so they could use it to spend money to hire private investigators to surveillance the home of a outspoken woman of the iranian regime. she does it on social media, and does it in speeches and written a book, and highly critical of the iranian human rights record insofar as the treatment of women, and says by claiming that
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they were representing somebody in the middle east that she owed money to, they hired private investigators to watch her house 24 hours a day, and researched how to get her in a boat and take her to venezuela, a country with more friendly relations to iran, and where she could be taken to back to iran, and iran calls the charges baseless and ridiculous, but the state department says they have a history of going around the world to find the dissidents and dragging hem back to iran to be put in jail or in some cases even executed. the fbi was so concerned ability this, geoff, that for eight months, she was moved around to three various safehouses while they investigated this plot. and the investigation was very thorough. they, the court records have documents showing what the men, the four iranian intelligence operatives who hatched this plot and ran it from iran, what they were saying on the emails and
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even one, a screen shot that one of them looked at to try to research this issue of taking her by boat. the justice department says that this is a solid case. and of course, the four are in iran, and at this point, no way to bring them to justice, and makes it very hard for them to travel anywhere, because they would be subject to arrest if they leave the country. >> pete williams, thank you for the update. and now, turning to a story of a different variety. a short time ago, a courtroom cliff hanger in the saga surrounding britney spears. the last time, she blasted the conservatorship that controls her fortune and her every move for 13 years which led to the resignation of her court-appointed lawyer and a private battle now very much in public with her father, the conservator who controls her money. another conservator controls her life choices. spears called the situation abusive and says she is
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prevented from everything from getting married to having birth control removed so she can have more children. she has been prevented from doing thing like painting her kitchen cabinets. i want to bring in attorney joyce vance, and columnist kimberly atkins, and half of the sisters-in-law podcast, and the other jill winebancs and jill moore, and so, spears is in discussions to hire another lawyer who happens to be a former federal prosecutor who would be expected to aggressively push to end this conservatorship, and what do we know about her, and what about this permission to ask the court to hire a lawyer? >> that is a central question here in the conservatorship, because once you lose control of of your personal affairs as someone like britney spears does
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in a conservatorship, these personal decisions like who is your lawyer are no longer yours to make. and one of the complaints is that she was not aware that she could ask to end it. so the natural next step for her is to have a lawyer that she trusts, but that is going to require a minimum of an approval from the judge who could sign off from the selection or possibly given some form of assistance, and some sort of a guardian ad litem process or consultation process that would help her counsel her in the choice of approval, and another person that spears would have to answer to, the and this is exactly what she is trying to get out from undernear here. >> and britney spears publicly pleaded with the judge in this case to grant her independence and to remove her father as the conservatorship, and her father is still in charge, and so why so difficult for her to get out
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from under this? >> well, it is right to what joyce is talking about. when you have somebody under the conservatorship in a law of the state in this case california, it strips every right that person has. the right to enter into a contract and like you would have to do to hire your own lawyer, and sets up a specific process about what happens when a conservator is removed and it puts all of this in the hands of the judge who has to make the decisions based on the evidence before him or her, and in most cases, this is somebody who can't really take care of themselves or is in failing health, but in this case, it is somebody who is clearly a healthy woman, but whose conservatorship began over mental health, and now it is showing how difficult it is to get out of all of this. one of the conservators in this has withdrawn saying that i did not want to act if it is against her wishes. her attorney who is still representing her now, and
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seeking to withdraw is citing the same thing. and even britney spears' mother has given a statement to the court saying that she should have control to choose her own lawyer and to make more decisions for herself, and even when everybody on the side of the person under the conservatorship is saying that we need to make a change, it is hard to get out of them, and this is one reason that you see the aclu involved in the case, and you can see a lot of discussion about amending the laws that are in place that could be rife for abuse and not doing what is best for the person under conservatorship. >> and joyce, if the judge allows her to hire this new lawyer who has represented everybody from sean penn to steven spielberg, what could be the next step in this case? >> it will take a new lawyer a while to get up to speed with everything that has happened. that is probably okay, because these sort of proceedings tend
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to move slowly, but once he has his arms around the situation, if he is appointed as her next lawyer, and hired by her as his next lawyer, he would have the ability to move and to end the conservatorship, and that is likely when the fireworks begin. although, there is some possibility for this to happen, and he has given every indication that he would intend to fight the conservatorship, and he has not failed to spend her money on legal fees when necessary, and amassing bills north of $1 million in the 13 years of the conservatorship of the proceeding, and he needs a lawyer to do two thing, and rosengarten who could fit the bill, and he is a experienced litigator, and prosecutorial background and represents a-list
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stars and knows how that environment operates, but he works at a firm who has a strong group who works in the area of california probate issues, and that is specialized knowledge that is going to be something to be essential to represent spears' interests, and the last thing that i would say is that while it is her's individually is also a marker to be suspected about 1.3 million americans in conservatorship, and we don't know the precise number, because the precise numbers are shrouded in secrecy, and others will face this situation, and her case is going to shine a light on them. >> i was going to ask about the precedent and the larger impact and you answered it for us. thank you both for joining us. and nation's largest reservoir is drying up before our very eyes. of petsworth vetworld. business was steady, but then an influx of new four-legged friends changed everything.
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not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider if cologuard is right for you. the hoover dam is running out of water. record high temperatures and a severe drought have pushed water levels there to their lowest point ever at lake mead, the massive reservoir created by the dam this. lake provides 90% of all water to nearby las vegas. it's not just a problem for recreation and drinking water, it's threatening the area's power supply, too. the hoover dam supplies power for parts of california, nevada and arizona, and currently the dam is operating at 25% below where capacity levels could be.
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nbc's cal perry is in boulder city, nevada on the shores of lake mead. how are experts talking about this drought? >> reporter: well, we're in the middle of a 21-year mega drought. as you laid out this is a power story, a water story, an infrastructure story. i'll go ahead. we can push in and sort of give a look at the cliffs here. we really shouldn't be able to see these cliffs. the water has revealeded 140 vertical feet, 5 trillion gallons of water. it is remarkable to sort of see this. when we were driving in, the scale of this is really stunning. as you laid out california, nevada, arizona, states that rely on this water, and later next month when the federal government declares an emergency, those states will have to curtail the use and the amount of water that they are using. i had a chance to talk to the climate coordinator from the state about the situation. take a listen to what she told me. >> i would say this is really
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the visual manifestcation of climate change in the western united states looking at lake mead or its sister reservoir lake powell. climate change has a strong fingerprint on exactly what we're seeing on lake mead. when the atmosphere warms it holds more water so you're sucking -- the air is essentially sucking the landscape dry, drying out our plants and forests as well as our crops. >> that is the macro. you have, of course, the micro. we're talking about a place that brings in $3 are 50 million every year. this was kind of lake-adjacent 20 years ago. the docks have to continually move down to the water and that's what the park service is doing. they are spending millions to move as the water movements i spoke to someone like an hour ago, and they said we're trying to keep up, but we don't know what's going to happen. it's just so unpredictable. >> those cliffs where it turns from light brown to dark brown, that's the water line, where the
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old water level used to be? >> that's right. they call it bathtub ring. go ahead and push in one more time. again, it's kind of frankly a little bit alarming when you see it in person. in the last 20 years that's the amount of water that has been lost and it's really due to climate change. this is going to be the stories frankly for the rest of our lives, infrastructure stories, power stories, all brought on by a major drought, is is 17 degrees in las vegas on sunday. that was a all-time high. we'll get up to 110 today. triple-digit temperatures every day this month. >> thanks for bringing that important reporting for us. amman mohyeldin picks up our next hour with "nbc reports." r . a destination this one time, but usually -- no, i-i usually have a destination. yeah, but most of the time, her destination is freedom.
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when i'm shaving down there not just any razor will do venus for pubic hair and skin with a patented irritation defense bar for a smooth shave with blades that barely touch skin good afternoon, everyone. i'm ayman mohyeldin in new york. we're keeping an eye on the white house this hour where later president biden will meet with a bipartisan group of mayors and governors to talk about what the infrastructure package could mean for their communities. we expect to hear from the president at the start of that meeting, and, of course, we'll bring you his remarks live when they begin. now, this comes shortly after he went to capitol hill to rally senate democrats on the bipartisan infrastructure plan and a proposed $3.5 trillion bill focusing on other infrastructure priorities. here's what the president had to say as he left that meeting. >> i have n
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