>> emma, i just have no hand-eye coordination so i am in constant just awe of these athletes. thank you much for your time. that's all the time i have. i'll be back here next weekend for more "american voices" but now i hand it over to mehdi hasan. hi, mehdi. >> hello, aleashia. how is it possible in 2021 that a group of women are being fined for not wearing bikini bottoms at a sporting event? that's weird. >> it's -- it's -- thank you. that is actually the right word. it is very strange. and here we are. >> very strange, and i'm with the norwegians on this. have a great rest your night. >> thank you. >> to the rest of you, good evening. tonight on "the mehdi hasan show," six months after the riots at the capitol, the house select committee will finally hold hearings on tuesday. there are five key questions that i think need to be answered, but will they get answered? former republican congresswoman barbara comstock is here to

discuss. and it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated with the delta variant surging in their states, some republican governors are finally, finally changing their tune on the vaccine. the republican former governor of new jersey christie whitman joins me live. plus, the possibility of war with iran has loomed over many presidencies. how will the biden administration face this thorniest of foreign policy challenges? i'll speak to the u.s. special envoy for iran, roberty mally. and ben & jerry's ice cream engaging in terrorism? that's what israel president claims, and it's just as absurd as it sounds. good evening. i'm mehdi hasan. it's been six months since many republicans helped incite an attack on the united states capitol. it's been five months since republicans refused to impeach or convict donald trump for his role in that violence, and it's been two months since republicans rejected the formation of an independent bipartisan 9/11 style commission

to investigate january 6. finally on tuesday a house select committee will begin investigating how that armed insurrection came about it. will be led by democrats but feature republicans, too, and not just liz cheney. >> will you be appointing more republicans to the committee like congressman adam kinzinger? >> that would be my plan. >> within hours pelosi named kinzinger to the committee but frankly unlike so many here in d.c. i care less about the bipartisan composition of the committee and more about what they plan to find out because there are in my mind five main questions that this committee has to get to the bottom of starting tuesday. number one, were republican members of congress involved in organizing stop the steal rallies, including the big one on january the 6th in washington, d.c.? i'm not just talking here about those who spoke at such rallies like congressman jim jordan who gave a speech at a stop the steal rally in pennsylvania two days after the election. no wonder nancy pelosi blocked

him from joining the committee. no, i want to know if elected republicans helped organize the big one because the far right pro-trump activist behind that rally has said this. >> i was the person who came up with the january 6th idea with congressman gosar and congressman mo brooks and congressman andy biggs. >> representatives gosar, biggs and brooks all deny alexander's claim, but why should we take their word for it? the committee needs to look into this. number two, weren't republican members of congress in contact with the insurrectionists before the attack on the capitol? remember all the talk of reconnaissance tours being offered to the rioters by certain members of congress. democratic house member steve cohen said he and another member witnessed freshman congresswoman lauren boebert giving tours in the days before 1/6, something she denies but she was tweeting the speaker's location an movement to the world during the

midst of the attack on the capitol and we know that some house gop representatives have ties to the well some of the far-right militias whose members were involved in the attack on the capitol like gosar and the oath keepers, or lauren boebert and the 3 percenters, seen here in 2019 during her campaign posing with members from the group. a conservative youtuber seen on tape breaching the capitol on january the 6th later appeared to accompany a group of gop house members, including republican study committee chair jim banks to the border. no wonder nancy pelosi blocked banks from being on the select committee, too. so what the committee needs to investigate is whether there were connections or contacts between specific members of congress or specific rioters or militia groups on or immediately ahead of january 6th. we need to know. number three, what happened to the d.c. national guard on january the 6th? where on earth were they? >> for three hours the head of the d.c. national guard had to

wait to get the authority while we were all watching on tv these insurrectionists breach the police line, break the glass. the defense department still didn't give authority. >> why not? we know that one of the top military guys involved in the conversations around the national guard that afternoon and reportedly not keen on involving them was lieutenant general charles flynn, brother of the pro-martial law pro-qanon national security adviser to donald trump, lieutenant general michael flynn, so was the guard blocked from deploying, and if so by whom? we need to know. number four. why were capitol police so unprepared for the attack despite numerous warnings in the runup to january 6? capitol police had clear advance warnings about the january 6th attack according to a report by their own inspector general, but officers were instructed by leaders not to use their most aggressive tactics to hold off the mob. sorry, what? congress needs to investigate this. and number five, perhaps most

important of all, what did the president know and when did he know it? when trump tweeted big protest in d.c. on january the 6th. be there. will be wild. what did he think would happen? what did he want to happen? since nowadays he's openly saying stuff like this about the rioters. >> what i wanted is what they wanted. >> as pro-publica has reported, the trump team had been warned the january 6 events could turn chaotic with tens of thousand of people potentially overwhelming ill-prepared law enforcement officials. rather than trying to halt march, trump and his allies accommodated its leaders. on the day of the attack, why didn't trump take action? did he block others from taking action? according to testimony from republican congresswoman herrera beutler when house republican leader mccarthy ran trump from the white house on january 6th to demand trump call off his mob the then president replied well, kevin, i guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.

those are just the five main questions on my mind. there are many more unanswered january 6th questions out there, and to be clear, i'm not pre-judging. i'm not suggesting i know for sure the answers to all these questions, though, as i've demonstrated tonight, there's plenty of prima facie evidence suggesting a lot of evidence including the former president have a lot to answer for. look, that's the whole point of having a congressional investigation, to get to the facts, to get to the truth, and hopefully to get justice for the people who died. i'm joined now by barbara comstock who served two terms in the house as a republican representing northern virginia including during the trump virginia until she was defeated in the 2018 mid-terms and she's since become an outspoken critic of the former president and her own party. thanks for joining me on the show tonight. are you happy to see adam kinzinger and liz cheney on the january 6 select committee? you must be welcoming the move seeing that kevin mccarthy and the rest of the republicans took their toys and went home last

week? >> i am certainly thrilled to see this. the investigation is bipartisan and what's important is the information that's subpoenaed. and i've been saying since january 7th, for example, that the president -- that donald trump who was then the president on january the 7th, that his phone records, his texts, all of the documents from that day should be subpoenaed and now we know from these many books that are coming out there's a lot of details from the people with him there on january 6th. the whole time frame before i was a member of congress i was a chief counsel on the government reform committee which is the largest investigative committee, and what we would do is get a timeline and subpoena all the documents, and i think in this case you want to go, you know, around election day through january 20th. >> yeah. >> and find all of the people

who were involved in meetings on challenging the elections, these rallies, what were his real lawyers like pat cipollone and the white house counsel's office, bill barr, what were they saying, and he was ignoring their advice and bringing in the kooks and the cranks and get the republican voices working with donald trump at that time officially and then on the campaign, get their voices and then you will have republican voices who will put truth to the big lie. >> so those are great points, important points. simple question then. why are so many of your fellow republicans in congress, your former congressional colleagues, so keen and so desperate not to talk about what happened that day, not to find out what happened in the days and weeks that led up to that attack? >> well, it is sad. i think actually a lot of them will be happy to have liz and adam there, maybe some who are quiet to get that information

out because donald trump continues just as he did last night to, you know, perpetuate a lot of lies, but i think -- >> yes. >> he is becoming diminished and even though he's still dangerous he's a diminished force, and the more the facts and the truth come out, and that's what this committee will do. i am thrilled that we're going to hear from these frontline heroes, you know, that were there on january 6th saving the capitol, saving members of congress. >> yes. >> saving the staff. these are people who put their life on the line and now you have some members of congress who, for example, won't even shake the hand of michael fanone, an officer traumatically injured on that day. and we'll hear from those heroes and the firsthand account but it's democrats that are in charge of the subpoenas, so they need to get ton it and get those subpoenas out to mark meadows, to ivanka, to trump, jr.

everyone who was involved in all these meetings. remember, there was a december 21st meeting you didn't have on your list where margorie taylor greene was at the white house planning for january 6. mo brooks has already said in sworn documents that the white house invited him to be at that rally, so what was the extent of the white house involvement and the trump involvement? we've all seen that video given the tent with all threatening everybody that you better stick with us, so you have a lot of information that's already out there that needs to get a -- >> a lot of information. i'm going -- a lot of information well summed up. i'm glad you mentioned december 21st as well, but there's also a poll this week that found that a majority of trump voters that described what happened ridiculously shamelessly as defending freedom or patriotism and you've become a critic. when so member voters of your

pary are that far gone, why would you want to remain in the party with those people? >> i don't want to give them the satisfaction of having donald trump dominate this. as i say, it's like chipping away sort of at the berlin wall. eventually it's going to come down because it is a fraud. you know, you see the $75 million that he's raising. it's not even going to things that's been recently reported. it's not going to the stop the steal things. who knows what he's doing with these things, so it really is -- i think i'm very happy to see conservatives. adam kinzinger and liz cheney are very conservative republicans but this is about being pro-democracy, not whether you're a democrat or republican. it's being for the rule of law, for the constitution and for getting the facts on the record and so i am thrilled that they will be doing it and hopefully my friend -- >> i appreciate -- >> deb wriggleman will be there. >> i appreciate what you're saying and other republicans

speaking out against trump, you are saying you don't want him to dominate your party. your critics will say you should have spoken out while you were still in office and i know you criticized the muslim ban and a few other things that happened on trump's watch, but according to 538, you had a 98% of voting with trump's priorities. in fact, your democratic opponent ran ads against you calling you trumpstock in 2018. i wonder in hindsight shouldn't you have come out against trump and your party's craziness much sooner than you did? >> well, actually i voted against him in '16 and publicly when i was on the ticket with him said that i did, but i am a conservative republican also. i voted for tax cuts. i voted for increasing the military, and so the policies that i voted on are republican policies, bills that he happened to sign, things like opioid legislation and others, so because i'm a conservative republican doesn't mean i supported trump and i did regularly speak out against him and i did not support him in 2020, but i think the important

thing now is that everybody who cares about the constitution and the rule of law, about backing the blue, about our officers who were brutalized, many of those people, you know, live in my community. i was on the committee that worked with them. >> yeah. >> i was concerned with the deal with a lot of the threats during the kavanaugh, you know, confirmation hearing. there were a lot of protesters then and i worked with them then so i feel very strongly that their voices need to be heard and they need to get their story out. >> yes. >> and that's what will happen on tuesday and going forward. >> we're almost out of time but i know this is a subject you care very strongly about. very briefly, how much should the select commit be looking into the role of facebook and social media giants in terms of producing the january 6 attack? they banned after the attack after the horses had already bolted but there's plenty of dangerous incitement still on those platforms today, isn't it? >> actually, it's the people who

do it. the people who are inciting the violence should be held accountable. that's what these hearings and prosecutions will do. and you've seen you know, discussions of, you know, who on the media are -- are putting these things, you know, whether it's lies like donald trump putting forward or others. you know, trump ironically is suing social media companies for banning him and they have banned him and he calls them state actors that ironically he says facebook who banned him is the government when in fact when he was banned he was still the president in charge of the government, yeah, so his attacks on social media also are a big fund-raising thing just like his promotion of the big lie. >> very good point. >> it's all about raising money, and that's, you know. >> yes, it is. >> all people do, for one thing, his case is unconstitutional

that he's bringing against social media and even alan dershowitz reportedly wouldn't sign on to it, but he was immediately sending out fund-raising e-mails after he put the case out so it's a frivolous case. it's not serious as so many -- >> unfortunately, congresswoman, we're out of time. former congresswoman barbara comstock of virginia. thank you so much for your time and insights tonight. appreciate it. coming up, the delta variant surge has southern republican governors rethinking their vaccine messaging. the republican former governor of new hampshire christine todd whitman joins me to discuss. plus the threat of war with iran looms over every modern presidency. how is the biden administration approaching this foreign policy challenge? i'll speak to the u.s. envoy for iran when we come back. iran when we come back by rootmetrics. and our customers rated us #1 for network quality

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george w. bush, barack obama, donald trump, all of them at some point during their presidencies almost went to war with iran. it's been one of the biggest foreign policy challenges facing every recent u.s. president, and as we know there was no love lost between trump in particular and the iranians. the former president applying what he called maximum pressure as he tore up barack obama's nuclear deal with tehran in 2018. so where is joe biden on iran six months into his presidency? the president had promised to rejoin the deal, but talks in vienna aren't exactly going at lightning speed. in the last week iran's supreme court national security council rejected a draft agreement negotiated indirectly with the u.s., and as a result the iranian economy remains under immense pressure due to u.s. sanctions. protests breaking out this week as ordinary iranians suffer from extreme heat and power outages and water shortages and, of course, the pandemic. so is there any hope for a new deal between iran and the united states? joining me now is robert malley,

the u.s. special enjoy to iran. rob, thanks so much for come on the show tonight. i want to start by asking you about the vienna talks. iran has rejected the latest proposal, and some might say that's understandable. i spoke with democratic senator chris murphy from the senate foreign relations committee on this show a few weeks ago and said, look, we're the ones who pulled out and, therefore, we should be the first ones back in. he's right, isn't he? the burden is on us first to get back into the deal because it was america that pulled out of it first. >> so, first, thanks, mehdi, it's great to be on the show. listen, we inherited a situation that president biden decided we're going to try to end which is a maximum pressure campaign that the trump administration had imposed on iran which has failed miserably and has hurt u.s. interests. we're seeing iran accelerating its nuclear program and intensifying its regional destabilizing activities, all of which happened after the maximum pressure campaign which was supposed to address those problems was implemented, so president biden ordered us to go

meet if we could with the iranians or indirectly as they requested and we said very clearly we're prepared to come back into the deal if they are prepared to do their part. in other words, we'll lift the sanctions if they are prepared to come back and to come into compliance with the nuclear constraints or the nuclear obligations that they signed up to in 2016, and that deal has been more or less on the table. there never was a deal but they have been sort of ideas that we've put forward. you don't want to take my word for it. ask the iranian president and the iranian foreign minister both of whom have said several times including last week that if iran wanted to see the sanctions lift it had could have had them lifted in march, april, in may, in june and july because at all of those sages there was -- there were ideas that the u.s. had presented about lifting all of the sanctions that president trump had imposed in violation of the nuclear deal, in exchange for iran coming back into compliance. >> rob, what about the humanitarian situation in iran?

coronavirus cases are surging. the country is crippled by those economic sanctions from the u.s., many of them from trump. president biden talked extensively, i remember even during the campaign, about humanitarian exemptions, a pause on sanctions. where is all of that? if you were an iranian sitting in tehran this evening, rob, struggling to put food on the table for your family, would you think president biden has done enough to help during this pandemic? >> well, my first blame my government first but i'll let the iranian people say that. president biden is right, said it during the campaign and said it since that we inherited a sanctions architecture that he's asked his team to review to make sure that the humanitarian exemptions can be ekt effective. the administration issued a general license to allow iran to more easily import what it needs to combat covid. but let's be honest -- all that have could help, none that have will make the real difference. what will make the real difference is if the sanctions

are lifted because they are so multi-layered and that what we've prepared do if iran is prepared to do if they will do what they said they would do which is a return to mutual compliance. we're prepared to go much further and lift sanctions imposed in violation of the deal and iran has to do its part and what is trouble that at this point it's still not prepared to do it, and it needs to -- >> let's be clear very briefly. mutual return means america and iran at the same time or are you still insisting iran goes first? >> no, we're not insisting and we never insisted that iran go first. what we're saying we're happy to talk and have a creative sequence. we're not going to do steps in a way that there's a sequence that will be pragmatic and creative. that will not be the obstacle to a deal. the obstacle is as of now iran is asking us to do more than we signed up to do and is offering to do less than it signed up to do.

>> rob, we've learned in recent days that trump reportedly told associates that he killed souleymane because he was under pressure from senators before the impeachment trial and general millie warned him not to strike iran after the election saying you're going have an f'ing war. don't the iranian government and people have a right to be outrained to know that our country killed their top general for domestic political purposes and our general had to stop them from starting a war with them for nakedly political reasons. >> i don't know exactly what happened but i think that the american people have the right to be outraged with a policy that claimed it was going to keep american safe. by killing suly manni. american is less safe by -- the very steps that the trump administration says was going to tackle through its campaign and killing souleymane.

the issue is not to pass judgment on him, it's whether his killing made america safer or not. i think the verdict is clear, it just invited more people rather than deescalate tensions. >> the incoming iranian president ibrahim raisi is a hardliner and has been accused of mass murder. can america and you work with this new iranian president when he takes office? >> no illusions there. what amnesty international and others have laid out is very clear. and not very surprising to say the least. but our goal is negotiating with iran never stems from a view that we had the same value system or that we agreed with them. it's because we believed that an iran with a nuclear weapon is something we couldn't tolerate or accept and all of our problems would be much worse if iran were heading in that direction. so if anything, this makes it

even more imperative to reach a diplomatic outcome that would curb iran's nuclear ambition and make sure it's not going to seek a bomb and then we can try to negotiate to solve the other problems. it won't be easy. it will take time. diplomacy is the answer. it's certainly not war as you laid out at the outset. >> and just -- well, that's good to heart. finally and briefly i want to ask about the pegasus spyware reporting story out this week, including allegations that the saudis and others were spying on opponents. we'll cover this later in the show but i want to know your personal reaction that you were on the list of potentially hacked phone numbers and will the u.s. state department be taking any action on this? >> so i'm not going to speculate about what might happen. i'll say this, that it's an operational matter. the operational questions and i'm not going to comment and i'll leave it to others to take this in the direction that the administration decides. >> all right. well, i had to ask the question. rob malley, thanks so much for being with us tonight. appreciate it.

>> there's a new ben & jerry's ice cream flavor and it's bittersweet, but first richard lui is here with the headlines. hey, richard. >> hey, mehdi. some stories we're watching for at this hour. team usa winning six swimming medals at the tokyo olympics on sunday. kalisz took home the gold in the men's 400 meter individual medley, and emma weyant won silver. the u.s. is third in the overall medal count so far. ten killed and 40 injured when a bus swerved off a highway and crashed in croatia. that bus was coming from germany to kosovo. that could be a 20-hour drive. the driver may have lost control of the bus after briefly falling asleep. now to a car rescue in new york. a warning some viewers may find the following video disturbing. a mother and her baby struck by a car. yonkers police officers lifted the vehicle that weighed roughly 2,600 pounds. the mother and daughter have bone fractures and are expected

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jerry's said they would stop selling ice cream in illegal territories. if the palestinians can't vote in the israeli elections then by your own admission our an apartheid ice cream. -- ahart -- apartheid state no to the ice cream or yes to the apartheid. you choose. coming up, an israeli company spy ware are being used to hack the phones of journalists, human rights activists and politicians. we'll discuss why you should be concerned after the break. after. 'l neuroscientist. and i love the science behind neuriva plus. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance. more brain performance? yes, please! neuriva. think bigger.

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phones around the globe? i'm talking everyone from american government officials, members of middle eastern royal families, heads of state like the president of france and the prime minister of pakistan. it sounds like the plot of a bad sci-fi movie but actually it's terrifyingly real. this week an investigation by a global group of news organizations including "the guardian" and "the washington post" broke what's bound to be the biggest spying story of 2021. it surrounds an israeli firm called nso which sold to repressive gulf governments spyware called pegasus. once in the phone it can track just about everything you do, your data, keystrokes, location, even hijacking your phone's microphone and camera. globally more than 50,000 phone numbers of potential pegasus surveillance targets have been revealed. the nso group denies the allegations, but the numbers include those of journalists, activists and academics. even rob malley, the biden administration special enjoy for

iran who we spoke to earlier on the show, his number on was on there. how do we stop this? amnesty international helped uncover this story. the secretary-general of amnesty international joins me now. thanks for coming on the show. i want to start asking you about the death of journalist jamal khashoggi. you concluded in a report in 2019 you conclude that saudi arabia was responsible for jamal's premeditated execution. we now know nso's spyware was used by the saudi to monitor people close to khashoggi, family members before and after his death. how much of a surprise was that to you? >> not quite. you know, it was an important crucial part of the execution. he was monitored before and clearly his death did not stop the monitoring because it also targeted his fiancee for the

four days after his murder. there was an attempt to control the information after the murder and to keep track on the trial itself. >> and what do we do about this spying software because it's coming out of this israeli firm, but it's not just them. it's technology that's proliferating across the globe. edward snowden, the famous whistle-blower, is calling for a spyware trade ban or moratorium. in israel lawmakers are saying they may look into spyware export restrictions and nso, the company at the center of all of this, says this is used to fight crime, terrorists. what do you believe is the appropriate reaction to this huge story? >> the first is to realize that what we're dealing with actually a weapon. it's a weapon that is used to undermine human rights. it's a weapon that is used to undermine fair trial, to undermine democratic price

supports and to violate freedom of the press. the best way to look at it is as a weapon and the weapon is to be regulated and the moment it's on published there's no control and no regulation and basically everything that they want at the moment with a particular weapon. we need the moratorium while we're developing the regulatory framework at international level but we also need action at the national level. >> and the french president emmanuel macron who has been identified as being one of these potential numbers on the list, he's getting a new phone as i'm sure many people are on the list of 50,000 numbers. how worried are you about your own phone and what measures should people like yourself journalists, activists being taking now? is anyone safe? >> no, nobody is safe. instead of becoming more transparent they are becoming more and more secretive that means you can become infected without even clicking on anything.

nobody is safe. i am right now safe apparently. i've checked -- my phone has been checked many times, but everyone should understand that they can be a target even though right now the targets are human rights defenders and potentially it is a survey of society that is being constructed. that is why we need to intervene. we need to create a ban at the international level and at the national level there needs to be a proper legal framework, policy framework, oversights over the use and the sale of that weapon. >> one last quick question before we're out of time. amnesty international helped get ahold of these 50,000 leaked numbers. is there more to come? >> i'm pretty sure this is not the only leak of potential targets so there will be more to come. there will be -- you know, as long as we don't take action to

curtail and regulate that particular spyware and similar spywares you can believe that there will be more leaks and more victims around the world. >> that is depressing to hear but great work from amnesty international. thank you so much for appearing on the show tonight. please do stay safe. coming up, one republican governor finally said out loud what the rest of us vaccinated folks have kind of all been thinking when it comes to this new covid surge. >> it's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. >> but is it too little too late from the gop? that's next. we did it again. verizon has been named america's most reliable network by rootmetrics. and our customers rated us #1 for network quality in america according to j.d. power. number one in reliability, 16 times in a row. most awarded for network quality, 27 times in a row.

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welcome back to the world. viking. exploring the world in comfort... once again. i'm old enough to remember when if march politico declared ron desantis had won the pandemic. he won what the now? politico failed to reach the coronavirus for comment because the sunshine state that he's governor of is now leading the country in infections accounting for one out of every five new covid cases. >> and so these vaccines are saving lives. they are reducing mortality. >> i'm glad republican governor ron desantis is advocating for vaccinations, perhaps a thought he should stop fund-raising by selling anti-fauci beer koozies and t-shirts but let's see how things are going in neighboring alabama.

wow, the very last out of all 50 states and the district of columbia with vaccination rates at under 34%. shameful, really. no wonder gop governor kay ivey is trying to shirk responsibility for that. here's a suggestion. she could double that rate in a single weekend by declaring there were no auburn football or alabama football this fall unless fans get vaccinated and i promise you most vaccine hesitancy would evaporate. next, i'm going to talk to a former republican governor, who was in charge of new jersey in the '90s. she joins me on the other side of this break. do not go away.

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♪ dream on ♪ ♪ dream on ♪ ♪ dream on ♪ ♪ dream on ♪ - yes! ♪ ahhhhhhh ♪ ♪ dream until your dreams come true ♪ we have breaking news tonight on the spread of the coronavirus. louisiana republican congressman, clay higgins, confirmed this hour he contracted covid-19 for the second time. the congressman has encouraged people to get the vaccine but has not said whether he, himself, has been vaccinated. republican led states like louisiana are seeing the worst of the delta variant surge. so now some republican governors across the south are changing their messaging on getting the shot. joining me to discuss this further, is former republican governor of new jersey. and the former epa administrator

under the george w. bush administration. you have gop governors like desantis and abbott who have allowed covid to run rampant in their states, mocked dr. fauci, haven't been concerned with low vaccination rates. you have sarah huckabee sanders running for governor of arkansas saying stuff like this. take a listen. >> if i am elected governor in arkansas, we will have mandates on the vaccine, we will not shut down churches and schools and other large gathering because we believe in freedom and personal responsibility. >> do these republican governors have blood on their hands? >> well, they do. in one way you could say this is darwinism. 99% of those -- over 99% of those that died in the recent outbreak were unvaccinated, and they were in the republican states where the governors -- and the leaders have been

poo-pooing a vaccine, calling out fauci saying he should be taken out, nobody should listen to him, and these vaccines are bad for you. but that's the analogy i've heard. a bit like being on the "titanic" and being offered a life vest as the boat goes down and having them refuse to take it. it's mind boggling. now what they are saying is going to make that much of a difference unfortunately, because people have heard this other message for so long. >> yes. mind-boggling is the right phrase. it's not just republican voters. you were the epa chief. you had to deal with climate change among other issues, and today you have a bunch of prominent republicans like senator ron johnson of wisconsin who are anti-vaccers and climate change deniers. isn't it embarrassing to see what has happened to the modern day republican party? it's basic denial of basic science? >> i think it's a death throe for the party ultimately. they could win back the house

in this next election cycle, because that's kind of typical of the cycles, once the presidential election is over the party out of power tends to pick up seats, but overall long-term, this is not a winning strategy. it's just not. people understand that the vast majority of the american people, better than 50%, and even among republicans know climate change is occurring and we need to do something about it, and the floods, droughts, wildfires, the extraordinary storms we have had, people understand. this is what we are doing to mother nature, and we are so exacerbating a natural trend. the climate has been changing since the earth was formed but what we are doing now to nature means nature can no longer absorb the changes and we're paying the price, and it's only going to get worse. you can look at coronavirus and say this is one of the things that happens when you change the environment and you change ecology, then you have things happening and joining together

that you never did before. >> so earlier, dr. anthony fauci told cnn that bringing back masks for vaccinated americans is back on the table. if you were still the governor of new jersey and you have seen the kind of case rises we have seen nationally right now, would you consider bringing back state mask mandates, and what other steps would you be taking that some of your fellow republicans aren't right now? >> obviously i would be strongly encouraging taking the vaccine, and i would be working with businesses to encourage them to say that they require their employees to do that, and you would say schools, you would require at least the teachers to do that and the older students to do it. i would call for mask wearing, even for those of us who have been vaccinated inside. i think it's an issue with the younger children. the older children who are 15 and older, at least in the state of new jersey, now you can get the vaccine at 15 and hopefully it's going down to 12 or 11 soon, then those children might

not have to wear masks all day, but it's starting to get to the point where this new delta variant that we're going to -- masks are going to be part of our lives in the future, and yes, they are uncomfortable and nobody likes to wear masks, but it's not the end of the world. it could be if you don't wear it. >> yes. it isn't the end of the world, although dying is. one last question, you were nearly one of 150 republicans that threatened to leave the gop and form a new political party thanks to donald trump. is that still on the cards, any closer to seeing a new table? >> what we want to do is support and reclaim the republican party, to support those candidates who have stood up against them and go after those, and see what happens in the next cycle or two. it's hard in this country, third parties haven't been terribly successful, except the last one was the republican party and

that was back in the 1850s and '60s. that's the last thing we want to do but we will do it if we have to. >> i suspect that moment is getting closer and closer, and it's not getting any saner in the republican party. thank you for your time tonight. appreciate you coming on. thank you all at home for watching as ever. we're out of time. we'll be back here next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. catch me monday through thursday at 7:00 p.m. streaming on the peacock, and now it's time to turn it over to joshua johnson. >> before you go, you asked her about this effort to break away from the gop? do you think that will happen? what do you think? >> i don't think it's going to happen. it's very hard to start a new party, and i don't think the fight back within the republican party will work either. it's a bad case regardless. >> yeah. be interesting to see how that turns out.

anyway, appreciate you making extra time. i appreciate you making time. good evening. it's good to be with you tonight. tonight house speaker nancy pelosi announced another republican member of the committee investigating the capitol riot, adam kinzinger, an outspoken critic of donald trump. and we will see if the long-awaited infrastructure deal will get done.and we will see is that long-awaited infrastructure deal finally gets done. democrats from the texas legislature are still in d.c. tonight protesting restrictive voting bills and their state. six of their members have tested positive for covid. speaking of which, covid cases are on the rise across the country and vaccinations have flatlined. you will hear from an emergency room doctor what it's like fighting the delta variant right now. from nbc news world headquarters in new york, i'm joshua johnson. welcome to the week. ♪ ♪ ♪ ok