first public hearing tomorrow. less than 24 hours from now. the committee's first witnesses will be the law enforcement officials who protected the capitol on january 6th and in doing so suffered beatings, tasings, brain injuries and more, not to mention untold psychological damage. this weekend nancy pelosi commented on the importance of the committee's work set to commence tomorrow dismissing ream republican attempts to distort it and distract from it. >> our select committee will seek the truth. it's our patriotic duty to do so, and we do not come into our work worried about what the other side, who has been afraid. maybe the republicans can't handle the truth, but we have a responsibility to seek it, to find it, and in a way that retains the confidence of the american people. >> kinzinger's appointment adds to the bipartisan reaction to many flash points since january

6th to impeach donald trump on the january 6th insurrection was bipartisan. ten house republicans voted with the democrats then. the vote to convict donald trump included seven republican senators who joined all 50 democratic senators. the vote it create an outside commission to investigate the january 6th insurrection was bipartisan across the board. 35 republicans voted for it in the house. six in the senate. all those efforts to hold the ex-president accountable came up short, though, because of the partisan obstruction campaigns waged and led by kevin mccarthy and mitch mcconnell. they sit on the deck of the titanic, though, erecting to shield the public from an unfiltered view of the firsthand witnesses begins to unravel this week. take this statement from kinzinger accepting his appointment to the committee. he said this, quote, self-governance requires accountability and responsibility. my faith requires the same of me. truth is necessary for order, and that's what i will do.

let me be clear. i'm a republican dedicated to conservative values, but i swore an oath to uphold and defend the constitution. and while this is not the position i expected to be in or sought out, when duty calls, i will always answer. so starting tomorrow the public will see with their own eyes the testimony of firsthand witnesses to the deadly attack inspired by the ex-president's lie, a lie about election fraud. "the washington post" preview tomorrow, on tuesday four police officers, two from the capitol's protection squad and two from d.c., police are set to provide the first public testimony before the select committee. they're expected to testify about their experiences both physical and verbal abuse on january 6th as they tried to protect the capitol from a swelling hoard of demonstrators determined to stop congress' efforts to certify the electoral college results and declare joe biden the next president. while republicans will now certainly spend more time trying to figure out how to punish

cheney and kinzinger than they will the insurrectionists, kevin mccarthy who once weeded out from a bowl of star bursts the flavors trump didn't like appears to be losing badly to nancy pelosi. punch bowl writes this. to be candid mccarthy has been outmaneuvered by pelosi on this issue. since the speaker first floated the idea in mid-february of a bipartisan commission to investigate the january 6th insurrection. pelosi has a big advantage. senate republicans blocked the bipartisan commission after the house passed it. the house then passed a resolution creating a select xe. this allows pelosi to do what she wants pretty much. and like the trump impeachment proceedings, pelosi is running things. she hand-picked the chair and members. her office announced the first hearing. her office announced the panel staff. this will unfold as she sees fit. the beginning of the first bipartisan hearings of the select committee investigating

the january 6th insurrection is where we start this hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. jackie alemany is back. she's up on capitol hill, author of "the washington post" powerup newsletter. also joining us former senator claire mccaskill and an msnbc political analyst, and charlie sykes is here. claire, thanks for handling these hours last week while i was away with my son. let me start with you on how speaker pelosi and liz cheney will basically assume the role of the ranking member. smart move? >> very smart move. and she's up for this job. she will be very good at this job. she knows how to handle herself in front of the press. she knows how to keep this very not allow the democrats to go off on some sort of anti-trump

thing. this will be about what happened that day and why it happened that day. and trump will figure into that. liz cheney will be terrific at this job. you know who knows it? kevin mccarthy. when he called them pelosi democrats, he looked silly. he looked like a little kid who hasn't gotten his way and doesn't know how to deal with it. i really do think that even if she has more republicans, they're in a strong position now to justifiably say this has, in fact, been a bipartisan effort. >> i want to show you, jackie, some of the sound that claire is talking about today, the feeble effort on kevin mccarthy's part to smear the republicans serving on the committee and the reaction to it. >> some republicans have been saying that the gop should play ball on this committee. >> really? who was that? adam and liz? aren't they kind of like pelosi republicans?

>> pelosi republican? >> this is very serious business. we have important work to do, and i think that's pretty childish. >> it's childish. we're doing big things right now. we're getting to the answers of the worst attack on the capitol since the war of 1812. they can call me whatever names they want. look, bottom line, i'm an elected member of congress. i'm a republican. >> jackie, the threats are pretty hollow, too. i think your reporting has pointed out there's not much that kevin mccarthy can do other than maybe say things. and you can tell that kevin mccarthy spends all his time on fox news because his commends in the rose garden sounded ludicrous. >> and as adam kinzinger told us there, he shrugged off the threats and said it says far more about the status of the republican party right now than it does about him and liz cheney. that's exactly why these sorts of attacks we're seeing from

republicans that amplified over the weekend. that's why we're going to be hearing from these four police officers mostly to kick off this hearing tomorrow. we just spoke with adam kinzinger and had a background briefing with adam schiff, who isn't the chairman, but has a lot of experience dealing with these sort of high-profile investigations. he said his main goal is to make sure that these police officers communicate the physical and emotional trauma that they've been through, try to set the stage for a public that has been fed a lot of disinformation and lies about what happened on january 6th, a reality of what they struggled with in the aftermath of defending lawmakers and reporters and everyday citizens and really protecting democracy. we're going to see a lot of video footage, audio footage. adam schiff said we're going to see new video that has not previously been seen by the public although he adds that he doesn't believe the american public is even well aware of how

the events went down on january 6th. so this is sort of an introductory hearing for the public. >> you know, charlie, listening to jackie's reporting and have been reading it to catch up myself. these were not victimless crimes. the crime of lying about the insurrection left the law enforcement officials who the political affiliation was not known to anyone, still really isn't. the trauma that was done to them happened on live tv. we all saw it with our own eyes. for republicans to have denied their heroics, to have denied the brutality to have denied the gruesome nature of their beatings at the hands of donald trump supporters, is almost a crime on top of a crime. i want to read something that one of the officers said about the pain physically and psychologically he's been through. this is from somebody who has been on the show.

quote, i can be fine now and see or hear something and next thing i get emotional, said gonell, who was hurt when rioters tried to yank away his ballistic shield, threw a speaker at him and sprayed him with chemical irritants. quote, i tried to be strong, he said in the months following the riots. i tried not to show my emotion. i completely broke down. the horror and the disgrace of the republican party led by kevin mccarthy's treatment of these officers will also be on display. >> it will and i expect the testimony will be very, very compelling, will be very, very dramatic, and will, in fact, make it very difficult for the public not to recognize the assault on law enforcement. but you almost have to recognize the incredible political karma of the way this is playing out,

and claire mccaskill is absolutely right when she talks about liz cheney's role and how strong she is going to be. kevin mccarthy's goal was to exile her, was to make her a nonperson. and now, look, she's going to be the grown-up in the room. adam kinzinger is going to be the grown-up in the room while you have kevin mccarthy out acting childish, you'll have counter programming from some of the members of the caucus who will be complaining about how unfair the victims we're treating. if you wanted to choreograph the worst possible political scenario it's hard to do a better job than what kevin mccarthy has done. also, i hope people as they watched this testimony tomorrow understand that all but two republicans in congress did not want you to hear this. trump supporters have gone to the wall to prevent this hearing from taking place. and i think that's a point that needs to be made over and over and over again that these voices are being heard over the objections of republicans in the

senate and the house. >> claire, that's such a good point. i hope that people heed charlie's advice there. i want to just read some of the advice that this committee is getting, and i know that your former colleagues watched the kinds of things that you said on tv during the two impeachment trials, and i want to read it and then wonder if you agree with this advice. so this is from security. the committee should consider the acts and omissions of legislative branch of entities and individuals in the runup to the events of january 6th and the use of disinformation to incite violence. suggesting collection of this evidence is not to presuppose liability but the country needs an accurate record collected as contemporaneously to events as possible. only by understanding all the factors that did or did not contribute to the attack can we hope to prevent similar attacks in future. on that last point about the

factors that could prevent similar attacks in the future, i'm sure it didn't air on this network, but the lies that inspired the insurrection were on full display at one of the sort of meccas for the big lie about the election by the ex-president. how much of this committee's work is about preventing the next january 6th? >> well, i hope a lot of it. what i'm most fearful of is that there are way too many americans that won't watch this hearing in progress, that won't take just a few minutes out of their time to listen to these police officers and understand what actually happened that day. now the visuals are very powerful. clearly this was an angry, violent mob that was willing to break down the sacred doors of our nation's capitol and attack police officers in order to do trump's bidding. but the bottom line is, nicolle, i'm afraid there will be way too many people who won't watch it

and i think the part that may be most compelling would be the testimony of kevin mccarthy about the content of his phone conversation with trump that day, or, importantly, the testimony of jim jordan who went to the white house and had a meeting about this in december, how they were going to do this on january 6th and have a big protest and push back on what is a pro forma event, counting the votes that had already been cast by the electoral college. so it is, i think, a really seminal moment to getting to the bottom of it. but with social media what it is today and the echo chambers that have been calcified, i'm most worried the people who need to hear this the most will tune it out. >> well, i never disagree with my friend claire mccaskill but i think the people who have been brainwashed, they have them locked up. they have those people, claire.

to charlie's point, they don't care if the fox viewer has this happen. they've got those folks, right? >> that's right. >> but what charlie is talking about is reminding everybody else that this is something mccarthy didn't want you to see. this is almost sort of elicit testimony in the view of mccarthy. mccarthy was for it until something happened. and if he's subpoenaed and adam schiff suggested that they'll start subpoenaing folks right away. liz cheney has already said kevin mccarthy should be subpoenaed. don't you think that is the kind of testimony that just might sort of be the kind of thing you can't -- political rubbernecking. you can't look away from that. >> the people i'm talking about here -- i get the trumpers are locked up and i get that there are a whole lot of people that are already convinced the facts are pretty clear as to what happened that day, and they place the blame at the footsteps

of donald trump. but what i'm talking about are a huge swath of americans that are not watching fox, that are busy trying to figure out if they can afford to retire, or if their mother is being taken care of in the nursing home, and they are not paying as close attention now. what i'm hoping is once those people, once this starts hitting the airwaves on once it starts coming up on social media we will pull back in the tens upon millions of americans that know it was bad but maybe don't know how bad it was and hopefully the dramatic testimony will help with that. >> that is the political imperative of this committee's work and they read like -- we just had the all-star game in baseball. they read like the all-star team of trump's impeachment managers. let me read the list of the

committee. zoe lofgren, bennie thompson, adam schiff is a chair, stephanie murphy, jamie raskin, the lead impeachment manager the second time around, liz cheney, and as we've been discussing adam kinzinger. what is the sort of talk among these members about their goal? does it line up with what claire just described? >> that's a really great question that is being overlooked in a lot of the discussions and the back and forth between mccarthy and pelosi. my colleague and i interviewed them for a piece previewing tomorrow, they told us in extensive interviews they laid out their objectives which are far more serious than how many republicans are going to serve on the select committee. take someone like stephanie murphy, for example, who actually worked at the pentagon in the wake of 9/11 and tried to implement some findings from the 9/11 independent commission from

that report. these evidentiary gaps and make sure this doesn't happen again, the lines that were crossed and threatened our democracy. murphy has interesting personal story, her family escaped from vietnam. so she has personal reasons for this, too. the really gripping comment she made to me if you look at all other authoritarian regimes in the world there was always an unsuccessful coup that preceded the successful coup. they are reading hundreds of pages of documents right now. all the indictments that have previously been published and working in close coordination with them.

you have a justice department that is being led by a democrat right now. a lot of these subpoenas complied with. otherwise these republicans they are eyeing issuing a subpoena to are going to face more serious repercussions than under bill barr during the trump administration. >> that's the hope at least. >> some great reporting that i will read to you. republicans should know better by now, a former trump aide told power up. the worst thing that can happen is for democrats and never trumpers to have multiple shots on trump that will be shown on every cable news network. to claire's point and jackie's, he's been impeached twice. none of the facts were in dispute. we do know the ex-president has this trigger that not being

defended and he fell in love with stefanic who was constantly defending him, where jim jordan in his world decided. this is where trump's fan boys and girls were made defending him on tv. there will be none of that. where do you think of it on that side of the disinformation divide? >> that's another indication of how badly kevin mccarthy has handled this. you set up the alternative. you could have had that bipartisan commission. this is the real challenge with republicans who at one time we're saying we want to move on. they don't want to relitigate the election, relitigate january 6th. and yet have you noticed the trumpism and the republicanism is starting to contract,

starting to shrink down. he said, look, this is the most important issue, this stolen election. it's more important than the border, more important than anything else. what he's signaling to republicans is you might want to talk about other stuff, but i am not going to stop this. i am going to go deemdeeper dowe rabbit hole of crazy and insist as a matter of a litmus test that you go with me down this rabbit hole of crazy. at the same time you're having this hearing, trump's rhetoric is, i mean, more extreme, more deranged and demented than it was and this is a huge problem for republicans who are not going to be on television. they may hold press conferences with marjorie taylor greene but contrasting liz cheney and adam

kinzinger who are acting as pro-democracy republicans, so this is not the way that republicans would have wanted to draw it up at all, and i think that's going to become apparent. not to mention how powerful it will be when republicans have to watch law enforcement officers, cops. remember, this is the party of blue lives matter. we back the blue. we are the party of law enforcement and they're leading off really with the most vulnerable aspect from the republican point of view which is that this was an insurrection that attacked law enforcement and the lack of respect for law enforcement will be on display tomorrow. >> i would say it is good for the country. historic disinformation levels bringing about another covid surge. counter programming used to be a term for getting the other side out. it's now doing great harm to the

country. jackie alemany, we will stay riveted by your reporting and will watch for the piece. thank you for starting us off. claire and charlie are sticking around because when we come back, because we've been discussing the gop can't shake their addiction to donald trump's big lie. one was booed off the stage because she dared to say the arizona audit was a farce. she's not alone. risking trump's rants, most republicans too afraid to speak up. big lie is the latest litmus test coming up, plus the unvaccinated in this country aren't just a risk to themselves. we are now all paying the price of their inaction. the very latest on the covid surge and the new mandates popping up all across this country and it's a big, big week on capitol hill as we've been discussing. we'll talk about it and what's at stake with our friend agnus king when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. u" continues after a quick break. ♪ born to be wild ♪ ♪ ♪

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why don't you listen to what i have to say? we, the people, who are empowered -- listen, i am running to be your next secretary of state. i'm going to win the primary, thank you very much. >> all right. let me explain what you just watched and why it matters. that was a republican in arizona, republican state senator and candidate for secretary of state there. and she was getting booed off

the stage at a conservative conference, happened to be the same one where the ex-president would later appear. her sin in the eyes of the crowd was that she opposed a voter suppression bill, one of many in arizona and all across the country inspired and predicated on the big lie by the ex-president there was fraud in last year's election. that moment, though, indicative of what's happening on the right and yet another sign of just how deeply rooted in and hard wired the myth and loyalty to the myth of a stolen election now is in republican politics. we're not going to show you any of the ek president's deluded, and as charlie described, increasingly nutty and extreme election fraud conspiracy theories, but politico's reporting trump cast further doubt on the results of the 2022 midterms and the 2024 president election which haven't happened while touting his own popularity and prospects should he decide to run. trump falsely intimated he could return as president before the next presidential election.

all of it has the bulwark's amanda carpenter warning republicans as long as donald trump is the gop leader the party will be stuck living his lie. we're back with claire and charlie. i have a serious question. we now know and it's amazing how stark it is and disturbing it is from a distance that his supporters are willing to die for him. they're not getting vaccinated because he and his sort of echo chamber cast a lot of suspicion and doubt around public health measures. we know they're willing to commit violent crimes for him. i think there are at least 500 people who have been charged in the capitol insurrection. in your reporting, in your view, is there anything they won't do for him? charlie, you're frozen. we're going to get you unfrozen. claire, what do you think? >> well, no, i don't think there's anything they won't do. this guy is now looney tunes.

he was bad before. i'm not playing the tape but i watched some of it. and this whole rant, he has this new rant about the routers, that are just crazy. clearly has no idea what a router is. he doesn't have any idea what it does. somebody just said something about the routers and it's, of course, been debunked thoroughly that somehow the votes were switched on the internet. it's so nutty. >> what's the router, like a computer router? >> he went on and on. this is all about the routers. they're riding the routers. he mentioned the word router like 11 times in two minutes. like he found a new best friend and it was the routers that they can't get. there are lots of reasons, one, they're being used. if they had to pull them out it would be very expensive and, three, they've been checked and

everybody knows that there wasn't some satellite that came in through the internet and switched votes. this has been debunked by every credible source out there. and this thing that's going on in arizona, it is not an audit. it is really unfair to auditors everywhere to call it an audit. a stupid political theater game. it's a fairy tale. i wish somebody would play that tape of trump losing it, looney tunes, and make the republican caucus and the senate watch it with a camera on them. and then put a microphone in front of their mouths, what do you think? is this your guy is this the guy? is this the guy you're losing it over? i mean, it's just amazing to me these people i know well, that are smart, intelligent, many of them have a kind heart even though i disagree with them on a

lot of stuff, that they are silently watching this guy take them down crazy lane. it's unbelievable. >> charlie is back. i think we can answer that question for claire because we saw their faces, and i think she's probably talking about members who became subservient to trumpism, who used to seem to believe in things, maybe people like rob portman or blunt who seem to be republicans first. we saw their faces when he talked about grabbing women, saw their faces when he called african nations bleep hole countries. we saw their face when is he fired mattis. we saw their faces. they won't do anything. i don't think trump being crazy is the headline here. i think the headline here and the reason this is news is because the base of the republican party is with crazy, and that is a threat to all of us. >> yes. >> and my question to you before you froze up, and i'm curious what you think, we know when you look at who is dying of covid,

it is largely unvaccinated americans, the largest numbers of unvaccinated americans are self-described people who voted for donald trump. they're dying now out of that sort of belief system. there are almost 500 who have been criminally charged around the violent january 6 insurrection. if you're willing to die for him, is there anything his supporters won't do for him? >> we haven't found it so far, have we? i had the same fantasy claire had after watching that router thing. i wanted to make a pat toomey watch it and watch his eyes. but you're absolutely right. they've become numb to all of this because it's normal. they've gone so far. and here is the question, though. what is happening? i do think that anytime you get someone to believe a lie or something that is insane, you establish more power over them. at a certain point they

surrender to you. and so what you're seeing it escalate, they go along with it. i'm glad you played that bite of the republican -- conservative republican state senator running for secretary of state and she is booed off the stage because she won't go along with this farce. that, to me, is a symbol of a shrinking republican party. this is not a party that is expanding its base. this is a party that is not only getting crazier, it is getting smaller. and what donald trump is doing, it's almost like he's saying how far can i push these people? how much can i make this a litmus test for them? and he will demand that they agree and support this, and they're doing this in states that, in fact, have been trending away from the republican party. i do want to know what do republican senators think when they see the president who seems like he's 30 seconds away from saying the election was stolen from me by jewish space lasers.

i mean, it really is bizarre. donald trump doesn't know what the routers are. if you don't buy it, that is your fate. that image that you showed is what will happen to you in the republican party if you do not buy the full crazy. this is a remarkable moment and the republican party had so many off ramps. we've talked about this before over and over again. but they are joined to him more tightly than ever and he is more aggressive in saying this is the litmus test. the litmus test is no longer immigration. it's no longer china. it's no longer any of these other things. the litmus test is the stolen election and you need to go along with all of this stuff including the crazy talk about the routers. >> it's so interesting to hear you say, charlie sykes, once you believe someone's lie, you basically are a political hostage to them.

>> yes. >> i need that explained to me by a psychologist. claire and charlie are sticking around. up next for us, it did not have to be this way. grappling whether to mandate vaccines and masks. a live report from one city that has reinstated indoor masks for everyone next. s for everyone next. that. okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee... yeah i should've just led with that... with at&t business... you can pick the best plan for each employee and only pay for the features they need.

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covid cases are tragically

and unfortunately rising again in every state. hospitalizations are up again, too, all thanks to the delta variant. even more so it's thanks to the more than 30% of u.s. adults who have yet to receive even one dose of the covid vaccine. it's now almost entirely preventable. a pandemic among the unvaccinated and we're all paying the price for it. new mandates popping up around the country. in new york city starting in september all city employees will be required to either get vaccinated or to get tested for covid once a week. today california announced the same mandate for all state employees and some health care workers starting next week. on masks, dr. fauci says updated guide lines for the vaccinated are, quote, under active consideration. and starting today in st. louis, masks are required indoors again for everyone. missouri has become a hot spot of the delta variant with nearly 2,200 new cases every week. one of the highest in the country. and just over 48% of residents

fully vaccinated there. claire and charlie are still with us. let's start with shaq brewster. indoor masks are required. my question for you is there now a bifurcation, people okay with putting back on the masks, tend to be the vaccinated? i mean, do masks fall on the same lines as vaccinated folks there? >> reporter: that's really going to be the main question and that's some of the frustration you're hearing among people. over the course of the day walking around, at least the downtown area, you're seeing signs pop up on business windows again similar to what we saw at the beginning of the pandemic. sometimes handwritten saying your mask is now required so you get a sense of how the businesses are adjusting to the new update, and when we heard from the mayor and the chair or the executive, the county executive, when we heard them explain this new decision earlier today. for the first time they pointed to the surge that you're seeing,

the increase in hospitalizations, the increase in covid cases, and the depressed and subdued vaccination numbers, and it's because of that that they said they are now requiring those masks indoors. but that decision is also facing a lot of opposition from state leaders like the governor who tweeted earlier today that the decision is wrong. you have the attorney general threatening to sue the county and the city, and you have a response from the mayor to that threat. listen to what she said at the press conference earlier today. >> already we see right-wing politicians try to tell us what's best for st. louis, teeing off against our city to score political points. our attorney general, who is running for senate and has a history of filing failed lawsuits, wants to file another frivolous lawsuit to serve his own interests at the expense of public health. it's easy to grandstand with your biggest concern is filming

your next campaign commercial and chasing clout. >> reporter: right after she left the podium there, you had a county councilman come up and say he opposes this. he says he doesn't believe that the county has the authority to put this mask mandate in place, but i have to note if you listen to the mayor, if you listen to that county councilman, if you even listen to the governor of the state, a republican here, all of them are saying is go and get that vaccine. that's the one way that is guaranteed we get out of this. while they disagree on the mandates and on the different mitigation efforts in place, they all say just get your vaccine. nicolle? >> claire, i want to bring you in. what should the message be? >> here is what's going on. the county executive is a doctor. together they decided to present a united front.

they are struggling in the city of st. louis with a vaccination right, partly to do with the distrust of health care, a lack of health care, in some parts of st. louis where we don't have enough resources to have good health care for everyone. remember, missouri is a state that refused to expand medicaid. you cannot get medicaid in missouri up until the supreme court ruled, if you are an adult without children, no matter how poor you are. there is really some pockets of unvaccinated folks that make it more complicated for the people who have been vaccinated. make no mistake about it. this ridiculous attorney general filed a lawsuit against china. i mean, come on, nicolle, who takes a guy seriously who sues china? he's just a joke. and the governor has poo-poo'd any mandates from the beginning, never got serious about the vaccine until we became a hot spot. the majority of people who live in st. louis city and st. louis

county want public health and science to win the day. and that's why these two political leaders took the step they took today because it's about health and public safety and science not about donald trump and being afraid to say that you're for masks or for vaccines. >> charlie, i want to read you something in "the new york times" that just stopped me in my tracks. america is one of the few countries with enough vaccines at its disposal to protect every resident and has the highest res resilience. the unvaccinated will set this nation on fire over and over again. >> that is the sentence of the day. and if you're upset about mask mandates, you need to focus on the unvaccinated and the man made crisis of disinformation,

demagoguery, ignorance and stubborn nance that we're seeing here. this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. sure, i think perhaps mask mandates will have a place. i think it's time, also, to grow up and say, look, especially among conservatives. you have to balance freedom against your civic responsibility. my right to swing my fist ends where it hits your nose. my right to refuse a vaccine ends when i begin to infect other people with a potentially fatal illness. and we used to understand this kind of balance. and if people will not go along with it we need to create much more aggressive incentives or disincentives. i have no problem with proof of vaccination. in the south, for example, they were to require proof of vaccination to get into high school and college football games, i think it would be a

marvelously clarifying moment for many of the anti-vaxers. we need to get a handle on this. we're not going to get our freedom back. we are not going to get our economy back, our lives back, until we develop herd immunity. we're not going to get herd immunity. i think it's good some republican politicians are now saying we need to vaccinate, but it is too little, too late. they need to be held accountable for the culture warfare that they have waged that has gotten us to this point right now, this deadly point. >> to be continued among all of us. shaq brewster live in st. louis for us, thank you. to my friend charlie sykes, thanks to you as well. claire is sticking around a little bit longer because coming up from investigating january 6th to the fight over voting rights now infrastructure, why can't anything in washington get done more quickly? we'll ask one senator next. natot

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you're in good hands with allstate. click or call for a lower auto rate today. we are at the beginning of a really important week on capitol hill. you already know about the house select committee hearing tomorrow on the january 6th insurrection, but also consider this, what the associated press is calling a, quote, make-or-break week for a new infrastructure package in the senate. the goal was to have a bill finished by today. but despite offers and counteroffers there are worries about a prolonged stalemate. not only that, there is pressure mounting on the issue of voting rights without any significant progress on federal reform.

lawmakers woke up to headlines like this one from polite about what they're calling a concerned bordering on alarm. quote, we're -- democrats fear turnout catastrophe from gop voting laws. joining us is independent senator angus cane of main, part of the group negotiating the bill. claire, we will get to the infrastructure bill, but i can't read a quote that colorful without asking you why there isn't any activity, work or effort or strategizing on voting rights, or is there that we just don't see? >> well, there is. as a matter of fact i'm going to a meeting in about 25 minutes on that very subject and how to move forward on the voting rights question. i got to tell you, nicolle, as an independent i don't understand a political party basically saying, we are not going to worry too much about the quality of our candidates or our ideas, we are just going to keep a bunch of people from voting. i mean that's a kind of sad commentary, i think, if that's where you are as a party, and

that's what is happening around the country. it is a shame. i mean it just -- it is not consistent with who we are. maine is a state that we have no voter id, we have no-excuse absentee voting, we have mail-in voting and drop boxes and virtually no fraud. opening up the electoral process doesn't encourage fraud. it encourages voting. i always thought that was the idea. >> you know, i think the sentiment among democrats and to quote maya angelou, the republicans have shown you who they are. they were for against voting and voting among minorities because they don't tend to vote for republicans. is it time for the democrats to sort of come to the fight that the republicans seem to be winning? they've very successfully passed almost two dozen voting restrictions and they have 389 of them pending in 48 states. >> well, i think it is time to

talk about voting rights, and we had a hearing and a mark-up in the rules committee. i had quite a day with sitting across from ted cruz and mitch mcconnell, and there's a lot of good elements to s-1. i think some of it is probably not necessary, but we're trying to work out with joe manchin and others a bill that will be effective. but here is one of the problems, nicolle, i can tell you is that it is sort of like whack-a-mole. it is hard to craft a national bill that will anticipate all of the various ways that these folks in various states are coming up with to restrict voting. a lot of it isn't really apparent. a friend of mine in maine said, you know, this doesn't look like such a big problem, but if you analyze what they did in georgia, for example, it will lead to much longer lines, five, six-hour lines in minority communities and half-hour lines in the suburban communities.

that's the kind of -- it is very subtle and this is hard to get a national law that will really be protective against this attack that's coming from so many directions. >> so, angus, i'm curious. has schumer threatened yet to keep everyone there through august if we don't get a bipartisan infrastructure bill in writing by sundown tomorrow night? >> well, it is pretty close, yes. i think he has said exactly that, and talking about staying through weekends and staying into the august -- what we call the home state work period. so, yes, that's a very realistic possibility. the infrastructure bill has just been dragging and dragging. my father used to say the pentagon was the only building in the country you could drive straight towards and it kept getting further away, and that's the way i feel about this infrastructure bill. i keep hearing that, you know, we are on the two yard line.

we had a meeting of the group i think on thursday, and it was really close. and then all of a sudden there are new problems that arise. one of the problems, nicolle, is there's a group of ten that have done the principle negotiations, then there's a larger group that i'm a member of, of 22, that have been sort of working along and approving and moving in and out of these negotiations. but now we are having people who aren't a member of either of those groups come in and say, well, wait a minute, i have a problem with the way you are doing the transit or i have a problem with the way you are doing, you know, some of the airports or something. so it keeps coming together and then unraveling, and time is running out. the framers designed this system to be cumbersome and slow, and they succeeded beyond their reason -- beyond their wildest dreams. one other piece, and i would like to hear claire's thoughts on this. i sometimes think of the senate as a high school football that

hasn't won a game in five years. we've forgotten how to win. we've forgotten how to do this. do you know what i'm talking about? >> listen, i think it is even more serious than that. we have members of the senate that have never participated with a full debate with amendments on the floor of the senate, and they've been there for years. it is really a problem the way the leadership has husbanded all of the power and written all of the bills, you know, in committee and not allowed the senate to fully debate and amend. if this process would get opened up, maybe they could learn how to win again, angus, but you're exactly right. the senators have forgotten how to be senators. >> senator angus king, claire mccaskill, i could listen to you talk about the senate as a high school football team that hasn't won in five years forever. we'll do it again. thank you important r for spending time with us. the next hour of "deadline: white house" continues after a

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here's the truth. if you're fully vaccinated you are safer, with a higher degree of protection. but if you're not vaccinated, you are not protected. now, what we have now is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. by the way, you know, that old expression, you notice a lot of our very conservative friends have finally had an altar call, they've seen the lord. whether it is on fox news or whether it is the most conservative of commentators. >> hi again, everyone.

it is 5:00 in the east. in past times of nationwide crisis we have seen our country unite, come together, guard against a common enemy. but the covid pandemic has revealed a remarkable divide in this country, one only exacerbated by the vaccine because, as the president mentioned there, we are now seeing a pandemic among the unvaccinated, among those choosing to not take the necessary precautions against a deadly virus. choosing instead to follow conspiracies or put defiance of expert guidance above everything else. their actions fuelled and encouraged by republicans. as "the washington post" reports, quote, across the country, gop lawmakers are rallying around the cause of individual freedom to counter community-based disease mitigation methods, moves experts say leave our country ill-equipped to counter the resurgent coronavirus and a future unknown outbreak. in some states anger at perceived overreach by health officials has prompted legislative attempts to limit

their authority, including new state laws that prevent the closure of businesses or allow lawmakers to rescind mask mandates. some state courts have reined in the emergency and regulatory powers that governors have wielded against the virus. and in its recent rulings and analysis, the u.s. supreme court has signalled its willingness to limit disease mitigation in the name of religious freedom. so now, now we are left with a new coronavirus surge in the u.s., infections rising in all 50 states, but ones with low vaccination rates are obviously being hit the hardest. among those hospitalized, 97% of them are unvaccinated. as our country grapples with the split-screen pandemic and concerns of more variants emerging, health experts stress that the only way out is mass vaccination. this leads a columnist of the post to pose this question, quote, republicans unleashed a deadly vaccine skepticism. can they now contain it?

it seems in the gop are now trying to undo that damage. there was senate minority leader mitch mcconnell saying, we need to get shots in everybody's arms as rapidly as possible. and in the state which earlier this month accounted for 20% of the country's new infections, that would be florida, their governor, ron desantis, is now touting the efficacy of vaccines, saying, quote, these vaccines are saving lives, they are reducing mortality. there are even public calls of regret among the unvaccinated individuals themselves. a mother in alabama who lost her son to the virus said this, quote, it took watching my son die and me suffering the effects of covid for us to realize we need the vaccine. we did not get vaccinated when we had the opportunity and regret that so much now. conservative radio host in tennessee, phil valentine, who previously said that he would not get the vaccine because his chances of getting the coronavirus were so slim is now hospitalized and in critical condition after he contracted

covid-19. his station put up this statement, quote. phil would like for his listeners know that while he has never been an anti-vaxxer, he regrets not being more vehemently pro-vaccine. he looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon. which brings us back to that column that says this, quote, so, please, republican politicians, keep shouting from the roof tops about the imperative of getting vaccinated. but you also need to take another virus seriously, the spread of extremism in your party is deadly, to our health and to our democracy. two pandemics, one of a virus and one of disinformation is where we start today with some of our most favorite friends. dr. peter hotez is here, the co-director of the center for vaccine development at the texas children's hospital, the dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine and author of the book, "preventing the next pandemic." joining us, our friend eddie

glaude, chair of the department of african-american studies at princeton university and an msnbc contributor. also the author of "begin again" which comes out in paperback tomorrow. i can't believe the paperback release as well. clint watts is back, former consultant to the fbi counterterrorism division. dr. hotez, this is your sort of joint mission. i feel like since the beginning you have been warning about covid, you have been explaining to us nondoctors how this virus would surge through our country and our comments, but you have also been warning from the very, very beginning about the dangers of disinformation, especially once there was an abundance of vaccine supply. what do we do now? >> that's right, nicolle. it is very sad. i have been a vaccine scientist for almost 40 years and have been fighting anti-vaccine aggression for about 20 years or

23 years, and now it has accelerated. the game changer is over the last year or the last few years, the anti-vaccine movement has adopted this political component to it, that somehow -- that being part of the extreme right or the far right requires you to wage a war of aggression against science and scientists. we have seen this at the cpac conference over the last few weeks. we have seen their claim that vaccines are nothing more than a political instrument of control or they're going to take away -- or use it to take away our guns. as ridiculous as it sounds, unfortunately, it has been believed by many. then we have seen this number of hearings about side effects of -- emphasizing the side effects of vaccines. all of this has had a very untoward effect, and, of course, it has been amplified nightly on

the conservative news channels. now i think what has happened is a number of the members of the gop have realized they've unleashed a monster, and it has driven down vaccination rates and it is responsible for this massive surge across the southern states. you can show a very sharp association between covid-19 accelerated from the delta variant and low vaccination rates very much along a partisan divide, and now people are piling into hospitals and now the school year will be starting in a few weeks down here in the south. so i'm extremely worried now that this is going to filter to the adolescents and the kids who are going to start seeing pediatric intensive care units. so, yes, i think it is great, as the president says, that now you have some strong conservative voices that are now saying to vaccinate, but i think things are too far gone. i don't know how successful they will be. >> i want to ask you about the wear and tear on our public health officials, because we've

all covered the firing of the tennessee, dr. fiskis. there's great reporting in "the new york times" today about what is happening in louisiana. let me read it to you, dr. hotez and we'll talk about it on the other side. a year and a half into the crisis, their battered departments are now struggling to contain the spread of the delta variant with testing and contact tracing the best resources, despite their limited reach, in the place where vaccination rates remain low. they're facing new heights of hostility and new battles are looming over what safety measures schools and businesses should put in place in the fall, decisions the cdc said should be made in consultation with local health officials. what is sort of the degree of alarm and panic about back to school? i mean david leonard of "the times" writes even the delta variant is not proving more lethal among children, but you are right about a number, an uptick in kids if we don't get the vaccination rates up. how do you see this impacting

back to school? >> well, it very much depends on where you are. so, you know, in many of the north eastern states and on the west coast where almost all of the adults and adolescents are vaccinated, i think i have a lot of optimism about in-person classes. but, you know, you look at a state like louisiana or mississippi where 15% to 16% of the -- only 15% to 16% of the adolescents are vaccinated, 30% to 40% of the young adults, we have the delta variant accelerating, the number -- number of doctors saying they refuse to implement mask mandates. you know, we don't give our public health experts much to work with, you know. so we've got to have something to work with, and if you can't use vaccines and you can't use masks and other nonpharmaceutical interventions, what do you have left? that's the big worry right now. so in louisiana, many parishes, the school -- in-person classes

are starting august 9th or august 10th while delta is accelerating and nobody is vaccinated and very few will have masks. it is hard to imagine how this goes well. and so i do believe we're going to see a lot of adolescents sick and a lot of teachers and staff get sick, because the difference now is this delta variant is twice as transmissible as anything we have seen before. so this is the convergence of a perfect storm. >> you know, clint watts, we have talked so much about the power of disinformation and the power that it has to get people to do something, that the lies around the election incited people to violence. we don't talk as much, and we probably should, about the power of disinformation to stop someone from doing something that could save their lives, that could save their families' lives. i wondered when i read this tragic account of the mom in alabama whose son died, i followed phil valentine's fight. his wife has sent some heartfelt

tweets out about her husband not doing very well. i wonder about the power of those messages and messengers to combat disinformation about covid vaccines. >> that's right, nicolle. we've talked about it a lot over the last few weeks, and it never made sense politically to pursue such an approach. i mean you could push misinformation, disinformation around some political issues and, yes, we will see the slow death of our democracy. we have already seen that really with the insurrection, but this is really information darwinism ultimately when it comes to health and public safety, both in terms of extremism, which we have talked a lot about over the past few months post-january 6th, but ultimately covid-19 is going to spread and people will get it. that's why it has always been confusing, and you are starting to see these people coming out now and saying, "i can't believe i didn't get the vaccine, if i could have changed the way i was doing it i would do it." i think that message, the message of a former is almost always the most powerful. you can think back to smoking.

what did people remember in terms of advertising? people that had the voice box, you know, put in because they had actually suffered from cancer. you look at drugs, the same sort of message, that people that have suffered through extremism, for example, when they come back, should they survive on certain battlefields, they're the best messenger for those that might be considering it. so i'm hoping we can take a lot of these people that were formerly resistant to the vaccines who have gone through and suffered. governor chris christie of new jersey is a great example of this. he has proven to be a fairly effective messenger in this space. we can get that message out. i think another one that we need to reinforce which we didn't quite do is we didn't have that message of sharing consequence whenever covid-19 hit. here in new york state we saw people die and we saw people sick, we could hear the fire engines running, we could hear the ambulance, we could hear the sirens. we have to get out there and show people that americans really are dying and they're dying in your community, and you can avoid this for you and your family. >> you know, eddie, i

remember -- i mean you are always eloquent, but one of your powerful messages on this show when we hold up a mirror to what we are is, "this is us." when i read these stories of people who have been purveyors of disinformation, i feel so sad that anyone's loved one would be sick and would be stricken. the other half of that is they chose to put themselves at risk. i wonder how as a society we hold and pray for those who are stricken while also feeling very angry that they had access to the vaccine, and there are countries that would kill for a vaccine stockpile and supply. we have more than enough to vaccinate every adult, and because of this belief system, because of an adherence to disinformation, people chose not to take it. >> right. i mean, look, first of all we need to acknowledge that over 600,000 of our fellow americans are dead. you engaged in that harrowing ritual at the end of your show for how many months, nicolle, where you were telling the story

of everyday, ordinary americans who died of covid. so here we have a group of folk who have no responsibility. they seem to have no responsibility to our dead. what they have done in some ways is kind of revealed, as covid has done over and over again, not only the deep inequality in our health care system, the deep inequality across the society, but it has revealed in some ways how in some ways the social fabric of the country has frayed. we have these rolling civic power outages, nicolle. >> wow. >> whether it is january 6th, whether it is the attack on voting rights. now there's no sense of obligation or mutuality to each other. there's a notion of liberty that is so tethered to selfishness that i don't know how democracy works. rolling civic power outages, that's what we're facing, and now we know that death is on the horizon because the delta variant is rampaging throughout the region where i come from. >> i am going to need you to say more, eddie. i mean rolling civic -- i mean

talk about how we fix that. i mean i live in a place where when the power goes out, it can stay out for eight days. we don't have solutions for the actual power. how do we fix that? >> well, part of what we have to do i think is that we need to begin talking about what are our obligations to each other, nicolle. what is the moral and social contract at the heart of american life? what are our obligations to each other when it comes to elderly getting sick, fellows getting sick? what are our obligations to each other in terms of making a living wage? what are our obligations to each other in regards to if there's a health crisis that we should be mindful, not only of our own liberties but of the health of our fellows, right? so what is the social and moral contract that makes this democracy possible? i don't know what that is anymore. it just seems to me that there's a party that's more interested in ruling than governing, and then there are those of us who are trying to figure out how to make do in the midst of what

seems to be, again, short-circuited democracy. i'm at a loss. we need a new moral and social contract. >> you know, dr. hotez, if you look at what the biden administration does when they look at what eddie is describing, i mean how do you incentivize what he is talking about? it is a message more focused on transmission. don't be the person to spread it to someone who might die from it, even if you believe in your, you know, toughness or virility or whatever that message is that is making the vaccine less appealing to some groups of americans? what should this white house be communicating and to home? >> i have been in discussion with various members of the white house covid response, and, you know, this is the question that they're asking each other, and it is really tough because this is unprecedented, where people have tied defiance, defiance against masks or social distancing and now vaccines to

political allegiance. as eddie points out, you know, there's a reason why 600,000 americans lost their lives, or 614,000 americans have lost their lives. it is partly due to the sars-2 coronavirus, but in equal measure it was in defiance to all of those things, and it is self-defeating and so heartbreaking. it is not over. we will be looking at delta sweep through the schools, and even though the deaths may not be as high because a lot of older americans are vaccinated, we don't know the full consequences of long covid in children and adolescents. we have seen some of the mris in the adults who have brain degeneration and clinical pictures that resemble the cognitive decline with aging. this is not what we want to subject our young people to, but that's what i'm worried about. so we could be looking at long-term neurologic consequences for many years because of this.

so, again, the disinformation out there is, hey, if you are a young person, don't worry about it. the death rates in young people are really low. that's true, but this virus is so much more than that. once again, we are fighting disinformation on the streets across southern cities and southern rural areas and we're losing the battle. >> dr. peter hotez, eddie glaude, clint watts, thank you so much for starting us off this hour. when we return, as the january 6th select committee gets ready for its first hearing tomorrow, phil rucker and carol leonnig offer a roadmap of sorts in their new book "i alone can fix it." they will be our next guests. plus, democrats on capitol hill are expanding their probe into the botched response to the pandemic during the last administration and zeroing in on trump era meddling at the cdc. and mike flynn receives a gun as a gift and promptly threatens to use it on somebody in washington. more evidence of why the

ex-president's lie remains the biggest security threat facing our country as "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ♪ [band plays] ♪ a place where everyone lives life well-protected. ♪♪ and even when things go a bit wrong, we've got your back. here, things work the way you wish they would. and better protection costs a whole lot less. you're in good hands with allstate. click or call for a lower auto rate today. millions of vulnerable americans struggle to get reliable transportation you're in good hands with allstate. to their medical appointments. that's why i started medhaul. citi launched the impact fund to invest in both women and entrepreneurs of color like me, so i can realize my vision and give everything i've got to my company, and my community.

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full prescription-strength? reduces inflammation? thank the gods. don't thank them too soon. kick pain in the aspercreme. we will follow the evidence wherever it leads and to whomever it leads. so i think once we are composed and we are getting close, we will be defining the scope and the order and the priority of our witnesses, and i don't want to get ahead of that process. >> do you expect to have to issue subpoenas? >> yes, i do. we want to make sure, for example, when we request documents that we get all of them, that we don't have people withholding information because it is a voluntary request.

so, yes, i favor going to subpoenas and going to them early, and with witnesses i expect some will be reluctant to testify and will need to be compelled. that's certainly my expectation. >> congressman adam schiff there, a member of the january 6th select committee, hinting, further than hinting that the committee will not be afraid to pull out all of the stops in order to get to the bottom of the capitol insurrection. fortunately for them there's ar a roadmap of sorts for their investigation thanks to the detailed, inside look of the trump white house in the book "i alone can fix it" from "the washington post" phil rucker and carol leonnig. in one scene members of the white house counsel began to go over avenues of the investigation by congress into the insurrection. the afternoon of january 6th it started dawning on the white house counsel and his deputies trump could conceivably be charged for setting off the deadly riot. congress was sure to examine what led to the violent breach

of the capitol including the president's role in instigating it. any good prosecutor would examine closely what the president, donald trump jr., rudy giuliani and others said at the rally, had they egged the mob on to the capitol. if so, what was their intent? joining us now, pulitzer prize winning "washington post" reports carol leonnig and phil rucker, authors of the brand-new book "i alone can fix it, donald trump's catastrophic final year." i got to talk to you guys last week from vacation about the book. i read it ahead of that, and i'm so excited to get to talk to you today, especially as the select committee starts its work. i was thinking you could help them draw up a witness list and i want to start with your white house reporting specifically. should they subpoena the white house counsel and what might he share? >> nicolle, i think it is really -- >> carol, you first. >> yeah, i think it is really interesting of the idea of the witness list inside the white house, and phil as i, after a lot of pain staking reporting,

could provide a list but that's not our job. people can read open court material and look and see exactly what we wrote about january 6th and the days and hours before. but in that group of people, definitely includes pat cipollone who was threatening to reside the evening of january 6th along with his deputies, so perturbed was he and unsettled by the suggestion that he was offered of sort of a protective, you know, pardon for the president and his sons and rudy giuliani, and that concern they would look like they were trying to obstruct justice by such a pardon. there are other people though, too, nicolle, that know a lot about what was happening inside the white house that day and who know more about what trump knew at the time and what he was doing, including watching television, kind of glee, to see his supporters charging up the steps and the hill of capitol

hill. those people include chief of staff mark meadows and the president's own daughter, ivanka trump. >> you know, i thought of this idea of your book as one of their roadmaps, as carol said, phil, there's a lot of open source reporting. so much of what happened on that day happened on tv. but i wonder, so much of the book centers around how general milley functioned as a bulwark inside the inside inner circle. talk about that, especially leading up to january 6th and through january 20th. >> yeah, nicolle. general milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, is not somebody that we heard a lot about in our day-to-day reporting at the time, but when we went back and did this deeper excavation for this book, we learned that he played a really critical role in trying to prevent the president from doing dangerous, illegal or unconstitutional things. and miley in those months between the november 3rd election and joe biden's january

20th inauguration, he saw his role not just as being the top military officer but as being a bulwark protecting america's democracy because he feared that trump was going to use his power as commander in chief to order the military to help him stage some sort of a coup to stay in power despite the will of the people, which, of course, was to elect joe biden as the next president. it was a really harrowing period for milley when he had to meet with the fellow joint chiefs, the heads of the army, the air force, the navy, the other branches of the military to try to game out what they would do if an order came down from the president that they thought was dangerous for the country or unconstitutional or illegal or unethical, and they were planning to resign one by one in sort of a reverse saturday night massacre in order to prevent the president's order from being executed by the military. it is pretty extraordinary. >> i mean, phil, all of this

goes to so much knowledge in advance of january 6th of donald trump's corrupt intent. i mean you look at all of the sort of criminal law education we all got watching the mueller probe. i mean milley was going to resign. cipollone was going to resign. there's extraordinary reporting in the book about bill barr who did walk away. they all knew he was going to do something catastrophic in that period between election day and the inauguration. do you think they're worried about being subpoenaed by this select committee, phil? >> they certainly could be worried and, you know, milley is somebody, unlike the others who is currently in government service, he has an obligation to speak to congress when he is called. he testifies regularly about a range of topics before the congress, and so he's in a slightly different position than some of these former officials who have left. but you're right, and it wasn't just milley, it was bill barr, the attorney general, even mark meadows knew something could have been adrift. of course, after january 6th

mike pompeo, the secretary of state, according to our reporting in the book was just as concerned and would have these daily check-in calls with milley and meadows to see what was on the horizon, what sort of dangerous land mines were out there. so certainly they could speak to the president's state of mind, to his intent, you know, whether there was actually a plan on the part of president trump to do something illegal or criminal, we're not really sure. but, you know, there were a lot of fears at the very highest levels of the government that something dangerous could happen. >> i mean, carol, your book points out at the very, very tippy top highest levels of the government, the vice president didn't trust the rest of the government on january 6th. talk about what your report and why it has struck so many nerves. >> well, it definitely had the hairs on the back of our neck go up, nicolle, when phil and i were learning the very specific details. you know, there are a lot of

critics of vice president pence as being sort of this silent statue, never objecting, always nodding along with whatever slightly dangerous thing that the president next proposed. but on january 6th the vice president was determined that he was going to certify the election. i will just tell you a few things that happened that day. he was evacuated rather rapidly once there was an alert put out through the secret service radios that protesters had breached the capitol, they were breaking through glass on two sides of the building, and finally many dozens were inside. he was evacuated rapidly along with his wife, his daughter, his brother and several of his aides to a hideaway office seconds before actually a group of rioters charged up to the landing where he had just crossed. his detail leader urged he leave twice. we have to get you out of here, sir, this is not safe, we have to evacuate the capitol. twice pence said no. the third time the detail leader

said, i'm so sorry, sir, we are going, there are no ifs, ands or buts about it. they evacuated as we have all seen on television down those back steps, that tape recording. they had armed agents in front of them to clear the path and maybe sure they didn't run into any trouble since there were thousands of rioters streaming into the building, calling for pence's head and for his execution. when pence got to the secure subterranean basement where his car was waiting, an armored limousine, his detail leader, tim gable, said, let's get inside the car, sir. the vice president said, no, i trust you, tim, but you're not the guy driving the car. the other agents will, i know, drive away and i'm not leaving this building. so essentially -- >> wow. >> -- multiple ways pence said, i'm sticking right here. >> and the whole history of the day could have been very, very different if he hadn't. carol and phil aren't going anywhere because when we return

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there is a major escalation in efforts by democrats to probe the trump administration's response to the covid pandemic. "washington post" is reporting that congressional investigators are seeking interviews with top

trump-era cdc officials and political appointees and looking at attempts by trump appointees to edit cdc reports to make them reflect trump's often dangerous spin on covid. among the officials now being asked to speak to the house's select subcommittee on the pandemic, former cdc official nancy mesone whose honest warning about covid in february of 2020 reportedly infuriated the trump white house. phil rucker and carol leonnig report in their new book. quote, mesonnier's warning of intending disruptions to everyday life quickly became banner headlines on television news. aides watching from the west wing were gobsmacked and believed she was alarmist. at the same time trump was fuming about her becoming obsessed with a cdc scientist he had never met. trump called azar from the plane. what the hell is this woman doing, he said, what are these statements? the market has collapsed. the president added, she is

scaring people, this is killing me. azar said her only failing was getting out in front of the president in explaining it to the public. we're back with carol and phil. i said this to you wednesday night, the reporting on covid is groundbreaking in terms of the crisis we are now facing with a third surge rooted in adherence to disinformation and politically aligned with donald trump, all the more urgently important for people to understand. i want to first ask you about that excerpt i read, and i remember when rachel maddow did those -- aired those comments the night that they happened. of course, being rachel she got to them first, i believe, but talk about how that sort of blew open something that donald trump obviously planned to keep secret. carol, you first. >> sorry. you know, what is interesting is

nancy messonier was exactly on the money, she knew what she was talking about because it was her field, her expertise, and she was right. donald trump on air force one didn't want to hear what was right, wanted to hear the happy talk he continued to push, and it didn't stop there, by the way. it continued for months after we were all experiencing exactly what messonier had forecast. he continued to say the virus wasn't a problem. well, here we are now, people who didn't think the virus was a problem are literally in icu units questioning how this could have happened when they were told repeatedly that the virus was a hoax and was just a political thing that democrats were using to hurt donald trump, or at least his foes were. i have to stop for a moment and say one thing about the reporting that phil and i did in this moment. so angry was donald trump about messonier, so angry was he about this sort of to him, you know, anonymous doctor that alex azar, the hhs secretary, warned the

deputy cdc director, please, as soon as you get to the podium, tell him you are not nancy messonier. he doesn't know what she looks like. >> oh, my. >> just make sure you tell him you are not nancy, and he was worried about anne being basically ripped apart. just a funny and not-so-funny moment. >> well, it is a window into his mind and how punitive he was toward scientists and truth tellers. the other side of that coin was their total reliance or charlatans. i want to read this about meadow as sort of disinformation from the highest levels of the white house. throughout the summer meadows worked tirelessly to ashrine the virus guidance with trump's claim that things were looking good no matter the reality. scott atlas was key to meadows' strategy. he firmly established himself as

charlatan in the eyes of other doctors. they were told atlas was there not so much to shape up deem i don't logical policy as to trumpet to the public that the threat of the virus was declining as the campaign entered its final months. this effort, this meadows-directed effort killed people. i mean to the degree that people believed the lies, that it wasn't deadly, that they didn't need to wear masks, that you could inject bleach into your lungs, that hydroxychloroquine would fix it. there are still people making decisions about covid and about masks and about vaccines who were infected by this effort. what is the prospect of holding these people accountable, phil? >> well, nicolle, you just nailed it by describing this as a disinformation strategy, and that's what it was inside the trump white house from day one of the coronavirus because trump knew he was standing for reelection on november 3rd, and the paramount concern for him

every hour of every day as this pandemic was raging across the country was how does he look, what do his poll numbers show, what is his popularity, can he get reelected. that's what he cared about. so the outrage with nancy messonier was because the markets reacted poorly in response to her warning. what you saw from mark meadows when he became chief of staff and even more so when scott atlas came on board as the white house medical adviser is just an effort to distort the truth and the science about this pandemic and to convince people out in the country that the risk was declining, that the threat was going away, that they could be free and safe and run around without their masks on. that suddenly there would be this sort of revival heading into the reelection campaign because that's the kind of environment that trump thought would help him politically. what he learned, of course, on november 3rd is that what would have really helped him more politically is that if he had leveled with the american people and shared truth and fact and science because, you know, he

ended up getting hit by the voters for his covid response. but in real-time as we -- as we looked back in this reporting, trump thought the only way to win in that election was to convince people that the reality was so much better than it really was. >> it is a mosaic of things that you thought you sort of understood at the time from your great reporting in the newspaper, but you guys go so much deeper. i have already told you this. i will say it again. i love this book. it is called "i alone can fix it." carol leonnig, phil rucker, congratulations on the book. thank you for coming back and spending some time with me today. when we return, the department of homeland security has been sounding the alarm about domestic terrorism for months now, which makes mike flynn's latest remarks all the more dangerous. that story is next.

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only at t-mobile. chilling words in light of the fact that we now know trump supporters taken literally, even if meant as a joke, from trump's disgraced former national security adviser mike flynn. they show the threat it comes to to our national homeland security. we won't play it for you, his violent suggestions. as he was gifted a semi automatic rifle at a rally at a church earlier this month in an

off-the-cuff remark said this. maybe i'll find somebody in washington, d.c. when he said that the crowd cheered. it is a case in point on what mayorkas said on friday, that trump and his rewriting of the narrative of january 6th helped create a space for domestic terrorism. joining us is miles taylor, naoko-founder of the republican alliance for integrity and reform, and pete strzok, former fbi counterintelligence agent and author of the book "compromised." pete strzok, i want to start with you. in normal times maybe someone is given a gun and they say, maybe i'll find someone in washington, d.c. and we don't cover it, it was an off-the-cuff comment. but now we are living in extremism rooted in the lies of the insurrection. what did it sound like to you? >> it sounded crazy. it is a three star general, a

former national security adviser to the president of the united states, who is upon receiving this automatic weapon in a church saying, maybe i will find somebody with this weapon in washington, d.c. i don't think anybody thinks he is going to take the gun and go to washington d.c, which you can't have guns in washington, d.c. but the reality is there's a small percentage of the population that aren't entirely balanced, who might take up arms and do something violent. the problem is what flynn is doing is most of america is law abiding. we raised our children to be law abiding, where being a good citizens means you follow the rules, but things that radicalize people is doing what flynn is doing. you have him coming from a church, which is given religious authority to what he is saying, you have the fact he is a retired three star general and he was in a political authority. all of these people that otherwise might be inclined to do things in a peaceful manner are being engaged to do

something in a violent manner who is saying on the eve of the investigation into the january 6th insurrection getting people to go to the capitol and engage in violence. >> reporting has been done on the insurrectionists themselves and listening to what they heard from trump and flynn and rudy and the others at the rally is instructive. i want to show you an interview from scott mcfarland on friday. let's watch. >> the president invited the people to be there and then who told the police that it was okay to collect weapons and assault those people? like, that's preemptive assault. that would be like me inviting you to my house and then having somebody there to beat the hell out of you. >> it wasn't his house though. >> well, i understand that, but he's the -- he's the leader of the executive branch of the united states government.

and that property that we were on was federal property. like where did the orders go wrong here? >> so, miles, scott mcfarland interviewing one of the defendants from the insurrection. what he heard was donald trump ordering him to the capitol. he saw donald trump as the head of ordering him to the capitol, he saw him as the head of the executive branch of the government, he had the authority to be there, and the police officers were wrong to stop him. so, what are your concerns when you hear from the defendants themselves, that they had and saw a permission structure from these guys? >> as a former homeland security official, this is not a joke. i would take it seriously. and my response to an episode like this, someone like mike

flynn maybe needs a visit from a united states secret service agent after making the type of suggestion he made. these people try to say they're joking, but this is not the case. their words are often a dogwhistle to the extremist supporters. in the past year, we saw some of these same types of supporters talk about kidnapping the governor of michigan, the governor of virginia. steve bannon said anthony f fauci's head should be put on a pike. donald trump went to a rally and said that very bad things should happen to me personally. that rhetoric does lead to potential violence. it means the war on terror has gone from overseas and now the

battleground is here in our background. and that's the concern that the dhs secretary had expressed recently. >> pete, what is the framework for fighting a terror threat that is so interwoven in the rhetoric at the highest levels of one of the two political parties in our country? >> you have to break the republican party being in the thrall of donald trump. as long as he's espousing the views, the big lie, the run in 2024, supporting that sort of nonsense and lies will only make more kindling for people that might be inclined to violence. there has to be, not only from the democratic side, but across the border, a rejection of this kind of rhetoric. and it's not happening. when you see the composition of the january 6th committee, and

the response to that, people across the country are not standing up to say this is wrong. and it's only a matter of time before we see radical violence from people who are being egged on by people like flynn and former president trump. i don't think there's any easy way to walk back this sort of incitement that you see continuing to this day. >> let me just put you on the spot, pete. do you think a period of political violence is imminent for us? >> i think we're going to see political violence. i think it could be triggered by a couple of things. certainly trump is playing games with he'll return to power in august if the vote is found to be fraudulent, if the midterm elections don't go the way somebody perceives it should go, and certainly the presidential elections in 2024. when you see a large segment of society who feels aggrieved, who

feels they have been cheated, and are being encouraged to engage in this extralegal activity, again, not by most people, but you don't need most people. you need one, two, three, or five people, and it's a matter of time before we see deadly violence, unfortunately. >> miles, does this threat of violence not shake any more than just the handful of you who are fighting this movement inside the republican party loose to protect the country? >> well, i mean, i think it does. but the people have been so cowed into silence, that's my worry. i'd go a step further and say donald trump actively encouraged it, even before he was

president, calling for a muslim ban. then he started to use the same tactics, arming white supremacists with supportive language. and you have to ask the question, has this had an effect? and i think the answer is yes. it's led to a spike in the number of domestic terrorism cases. and reporting showed election workers are scared to go back to their jobs. liz cheney said members of congress are scared to vote the way they actually believe they should because of threats. and we saw the insurrection at the united states capitol. so i think donald trump's legacy when it comes to terrorism is not counter-terrorism. i think he's put a loaded gun in the shape of rhetoric into the hands of terrorists. and it's a big concern for

democracy and on open society. >> miems miles, do you think th hearings are a target? >> look, i think the hearings themselves need to happen. there needs to be transparency. but what i worry about is not just trump, but republicans have so heavily politicized this discussion around domestic terrorism, that's what we're actually going to get. we'll get political in-fighting rather than answers. i don't recall when the 9/11 commission was stood up, us having huge partisan squabbles about who was trying to kill americans, and how to stop them. so this will affect the security of this country. and republicans who fall behind donald trump and stay quiet are the ones to blame right now. people in my own party. >> wow. miles, pete, thank you so much. we'll be back after a short break. don't go anywhere. ort break. don't go anywhere.

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thank you for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. "the beat with ari melber" starts now. hi, ari. >> thank you. we have an important show tonight. chairman schiff joins us on the eve of the first january 6th committee's hearing. sometimes we have a new story that echoes an old one. the news tonight is starting to look a lot like last summer if you look around and pay attention. it's looking like other periods where america has been battling this rising covid problem, even when there are available solutions to