never ceased. it really didn't. he became an educational justice organizer but we continue to do this work and what was extraordinary is he was not limited by political expediency, he just did what was right. now. ali velshi is filling in for her. thank you. thank you for joining us this hour. rachel's got the night off. the day was march. you don't think of big things going down in federal court on a saturday. this was really, really big. nothing like it had ever happened before. a whole bunch of top associates of the president of the united states had to march into court that day to plead not guilty to a whole bunch of federal crimes. >> good evening.

seven men who once had been the most powerful in president nixon's reelection campaign were in federal court today. each of them pleadet not guilty. >> the first defendant arriving in the darkness of the underground garage. out front, several hundred persons had gathered. some came to watch and others to demonstrate. campaign lawyer, now defendant, kenneth parkinson arrived. then former attorney general john mitchell. >> put the traitors in jail! >> reporter: there were jeers for charles colson and strawn and his lawyer aliving almost unrecognized, and one by one,

sandwiched among their ten lawyers, the defendants responded to the charges, mitchell first loudly, not guilty to all counts. martian, not guilty, colson, not guilty ehrlichman, not guilty, halderman, not guilty and parkinson and strong, not guilty. they were taunted with cheers of "law and order." >> law and order was one of nixon's slogan and now they were using it to taunt his attorney general as he arrived to face his own criminal charges. so that was a big unprecedented day. america watching all these top aides, pleading guilty it these serious crimes and giving up their passports. more than four decades later, we have got ourselves another

president who picked up richard nixon's habl of talking about law and order and calling people crooks. over the last few years we've had to watch all these close friend and associates of president donald trump walk into court one at a time. each of them often facing charges in a completely separate criminal enterprise, each of them unique. like snowflakes. we watched trump's personal lawyer arrive in court to face charges of making hush money payments to trump's alleged mistresses. we watched his national security adviser head into court to face charges of lying to the fbi. when trump's campaign chairman was indicted on a raft of felonies, including tax and bank fraud, he did the walk very fast like maybe he could outrun the press. trump's long-time political adviser, roger stone, did the walk like he does everything else, flamboyantly, dressed like

a cartoon villain and attended by a giant entourage to face his sentences for lying congress and witness tampering. and when steve bannon was charged with defrauding donors who thought they were donating to a fund to build trump's wall but were donating to steve ban non's pockets, he was quite am able and jovial and jolly, looking quite tanned and relaxed because he had just been arrested that morning on a chinese billionaire's yacht. still wearing two shirt, though. always with the two shirts. and now tom barrack arriving in federal court to plead not guilty to charges of acting as a agent of a foreign government of the united arab emirates and lying to federal authorities about it. barrack is out on $250 million bond. as far as we can tell, the

highest bond set in this history. he had to give up his passports and will be monitored by an ankle bracelet. he said "i am innocent and we will prove that in court." and he will prove it in court. for tom barrack, it is too late for a trump presidential pardon. even having lived through nixon and watergate, as a country, we're just not accustomed to watching our courtroom's play host to presidential officials and friends and donors all from a single one-term presidency. it's not just high-profile figures. the upper echelon folks from donald trump's inner circle, our nation's courts from coast to coast are packed with people, hundreds of them, who are charged with committing crimes in the former president's name. many of the americans who attacked the capitol on january 6th are explicitly arguing in court that president donald trump told them to do it. he told them the election was being stolen.

he told them it had to be stopped. he told them to go to the capitol. donald trump's whole second impeachment was based on the allegation that his actions and rhetoric in the weeks leading up to january 6th up to and including his incendiary speech on that day led directly and predictably to the capitol insurrection. so here is where else we are in unprecedented territory as americans right now. not only are we still grappling with the aftermath and the repercussions of january 6th, not only are its hundreds of alleged perpetrators still making their way through the legal system as we speak, but the dynamic that led to the insurrection, donald trump and his allies riling up his supporters with the big lie, with accusations of a stolen election and demands that something be done about it, that is ongoing. there's no real analogy for the situation.

imagine if after all of those nixon officials went to trial and then a few months later nixon resigned under threat of impeachment, but then nixon went on a national watergate speaking tour and he held rallies to tell crowds he'd be backing off as long as his great patriots supporters did everything they could to keep obstructing that deep state fake watergate investigation. well, this weekend donald trump was in phoenix, arizona, appearing in front of a giant back drop that said "president donald j. trump" like he's still the president. he was there to heap praise on the ongoing so-called ballot on the 2020 maricopa ballots at the citing of ninjas. at his rally he said the arizona audit and all the audits that republicans are trying to start in other states will reveal that the election was stolen, and then he implied that he will be reinstated as president.

trump's buddy, the pillow salesman, has actually put a date on it now. trump will be reinstalled in the oval office on august 13th. mark your calendar, friends, friday the 13th. as with all things trump, it's funny and ridiculous and dangerous. there's a fear that some of trump's supporters might actually be marking their calendars. here is the chief of the capitol police speaking with cnn this weekend. >> does it concern you we might see a repeat of january 6th? >> i'd be a fool to not be concerned about that. >> there has been chatter looking to august, some of these extremists thinking that that's the month that the former president is going to be reinstated. have you seen any intelligence in the run-up to august or what is possibly planned during august that concerns you?

>> certainly we are absolutely laser focused on information like that. we're paying attention to that. we are -- we're not going to show all of our card and say these are all the things that we know but i can tell you this, we're going to plan for everything we know. >> that's the new capitol police chief who's got a lot on his plate, even as his force has to face more possible violence stemming from election conspiracy theories. many of the officers on capitol hill are still suffering the aftereffects of january 6th. some 100 were injured. one died that day of a stroke, two others died by suicide. many officers are still coming to grips with the full extent of their injuries both physical and emotional. quote, they have emerged from january 6th with a complex jumble of physical and emotional trauma that has made diagnoses and treatment challenging, a problem some officers have made more difficult by republican lawmakers trying to downplay the riot.

even as the former president is out on the road pushing the big lie, raising the specter of more violence, still his allies in congress are rewriting the history of the insurrection, describing it as a normal tourist visit, describing the insurrection, describing it as a tourist event and taking up their cause. tomorrow some of the trumpiest, including matt gaetz are holding a press conference outside the justice department to demand answers on the treatment of january 6th prisoners. and republican leaders in congress have done everything they can to block serious investigation of what happened on january 6th, first blocking the creation of a bipartisan commission, then trying to stack the new house select committee with members of congress who have actively pushed election conspiracies and downplayed the violence of january 6th, then boycotting the committee altogether. speaker pelosi appointed to republicans to the select committee anyway, adding adam

kinzinger of wyoming along with liz cheney. at a white house ceremony today to mark the great triumph of the americans with disabilities act, kevin mccarthy took time-out with the press corps to attack nancy pelosi and his two remember colleagues who joined the select committee calling them -- i hope you're sitting down for this one -- pelosi republicans. with or without the cooperation of kevin mccarthy or any other republicans not named liz cheney or adam kinzinger, that house select commit me to investigate the january 6th attack will begin its work tomorrow and it's very first hearing will feature testimony from police officers, four police officers who were at the capitol that day, two from the u.s. capitol police, two from the d.c. metropolitan police.

tomorrow we all will get to hear their stories and it will include new video from the attack not seen publicly before. what should we expect tomorrow and from the investigation it moves forward? joining me congressman jamie raskin of maryland. he's a member of the january 6th select committee, and he served as the lead impeachment manager in the second impeachment of donald trump. he's also a member of the judiciary committee, a former constitution an law professor as well. congressman, thank you for joining us tonight. it's good to see you again. >> it's great to see you, ali. >> let's talk about what happened here. just this evening in the house of representatives, the republican house leader tried to get his nominees no this committee seated. he still thinks there's some play to be had there. but you are moving ahead. it is bipartisan, whether it needs to be or not, it is bipartisan and it moving ahead tomorrow. what does success look like for you? >> success looks like an investigation that gets at the truth. you know, we're not going to be distracted by any of kevin mccarthy's circus antics or side

shows here. we're starting off with the law enforcement officers because they were on the front lines defending congress, defending democracy against this waves of medieval-style violence. they're going to describe getting beaten up with baseball bats and confederate battle flags and trump flags and really gruesome, awful things that went on for four or five hours. this was a premeditated, coordinated, violent assault on the congress. united states. and of course it's pathetic that you've got members of congress and people like kevin mccarthy doing everything that they can to sabotage a real investigation. but i think speaker pelosi has outmaneuvered them, despite the fact that they rejected the veryive pen accident commission that they demanded, five republicans and five democrats with equal subpoena power.

we did that and the republicans still killed it because they don't want a real investigation. america is starring to ask the question what is it they're hiding? it's not all about donald trump. you don't attack the congress of the united states with one guy. we're looking at what were the networks of political influence and domestic violence, extremism that got together to attack the capitol on january 6th? how did they try to thwart the democratic process and stop the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our history? >> you're going to hear from a few police officers. we're heal from harry dunn, officer ganal and metropolitan police officer daniel hodges.

they will present evidence very much like you did at the impeachment trial, evidence that matches up with images that many of us have seen and are familiar with that you describe this medieval attack on the capitol but the other issue, the network of influencers, the extremists who were in there, how do we get to the bottom of that? who do you call and how do you get them in front of the committee to explain who inside congress empowered these insurrectionists? >> well, that's going to be the next wave of our investigative process. and we've got some top flight investigators and lawyers and staffers here on capitol hill who have come together as part of the select committee to try to unearth what were all of the networks of influence that got together to mobilize this attack on congress. and, of course, we have subpoena power and investigative power, and we're going to let the chips fall where they may and follow every possible lead in order to determine what happened, how it happened, why it happened, who paid for it, and are they still out there?

what do we need to do to prevent the next attack because, you know, the political scientist will tell you the surest sign of a successful coup is a recently failed coup where the perpetrators were able to study the weaknesses and inadequacies and security of the program that existed. this is deadly serious business, and i'm glad we've got a very cohesive bipartisan committee working to get to all the answers. >> after january 6th, you really describe the effect that it had on you. your daughter had seen it and been there. how is it that one's party can affect their need to get to the bottom of an attack at their workplace that targeted all of you, your staff, your police, your security, in your case your family. how does that fall along partisan lines? i'm sure you've asked this question of your colleagues. >> well, i've got to say that

that overstates it because it's really not along partisan lines. liz cheney and adam kinzinger are proving there are republicans out there who are not afraid to examine these events. it's one guy and 80 or 90% of the republican party that have come under the psychological spell of donald trump. so we were living through the remarkable moment when a modern political party is behaving much more like an authoritarian religious cultive personality where one person dictates what everybody says and what everybody does. and so when kevin mccarthy comes out today and calls my colleagues pelosi republicans, it's clear he sees a patriotic american acting beyond political party and he sees a pelosi republican. in other words, that's the way all of the trump robots see it. it's really scary. but you're going to see in this select committee real

bipartisanship at work. that is, every member of the committee is contributing a lot toward a common goal to look at what happened and make sure it never happens again. >> we appreciate your time tonight. we've got a lot of news to get to tonight, including what looks like it could be a big step in this fight against covid and against people who refuse to get vaccinated. that's next. stay with us. vaccinated that's next. stay with us

i've been telling everyone... the secret to great teeth is having healthy gums. crest advanced gum restore. detoxifies below the gumline... and restores by helping heal gums in as little as 7 days. crest. the #1 toothpaste brand in america. do you struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep? qunol sleep formula combines 5 key nutrients that can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up refreshed. the brand i trust is qunol. ♪ ♪ for deb, living with constipation with belly pain

was the same old story for years. trying this. doing that. spending countless days right here. still came the belly pain, discomfort, and bloating. awful feelings she kept sugar-coating. finally, with the help of her doctor, it came to be. that her symptoms were all signs of ibs-c. and that's why she said yess to adding linzess. linzess is not a laxative. it helps you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. and is proven to help relieve overall abdominal symptoms belly pain,discomfort, and bloating. do not give linzess to children less than six and it should not be given to children six to less than 18, it may harm them. do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach area pain, and swelling. could your story also be about ibs-c? talk to your doctor and say yess to linzess.

stopping non-emergency surgeries. a single county in central florida is seeing 1,019 cases a day, the hospitals to capacity, the mayor saying they're in crisis mode. unfathomable that we're back there again.

with the highly contagious delta variant on the rise, look at the right side of your screen. last month the cases per day has quadrupled every day nationwide. they have tried giving people free beer and food, cold, hard cash as incentives to get the shots. only 49% of the country is fully vaccinated against covid, well below the threshold needed to achieve herd immunity. now some states are pulling out the last tool in their arsenal to try to curb the spread of covid. we saw it last month with a hospital system in houston, texas, required all of its health care workers to get vaccinated if they wanted to keep their jobs. it was a little bumpy at first. more than 150 workers either quit or were fired for not complying. a group filed a lawsuit against the hospital.

since that, 98% of the employees at the hospital system have been fully vaccinated. 2% received exceptions or deferrals, and the judge in the lawsuit tossed out the case, saying, quote, the hospital was just trying to do their business of saving lives without giving patients the covid-19 virus. if you measure success here by how many people got vaccinated in the ecosystem of people working at this one hospital system, this worked. a 97% vaccination rate among a single group of people is probably higher than anyone else in the world right now. so now other people are running houston's playbook. today both the city of new york and the entire state of california announced they would require all of their employees to either get the covid vaccine or subject themselves to weekly testing. this new rule will apply to around 340,000 municipal workers in new york city from teachers to police officers to government officials. in california it applies to

every state employee, roughly a quarter of a million people, plus 2 million on-site public and private health care workers in the state. the department of federal veteran affairs imposed the first vaccine mandate at the federal level in america. just tonight the justice department has issued an opinion that says federal law does not prohibit businesses or agencies from imposing covid vaccine mandates. this may encourage more businesses across the country to issue these requirements. get the shot or don't come to work. there's been a real flurry of action around mandating the covid vaccine for certain slices of the population. and it a trend that many medical professionals hope to continue. today nearly 60 different medical groups issued a joint statement calling for mandatory

vaccine requirements for all health care workers in the united states. for many groups on the list, it was the first time they made such a public endorsement of mandating vaccines, but their reasoning is clear. they write, quote, as the health care community leads the way in requiring vaccines for our employees, we hope all over employers across the country will follow our lead and implement effective policies to encourage vaccination. the health and safety of u.s. workers, families, communities and the nation depends on it." joining us now is dr. rachel villanueva, the president of a national medical association, one of those who signed on recommending the vaccine mandate among health care workers. she's also an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a member of the medical advisory group of the

black health trust. doctor, thank you for joining us this evening. your response, first of all, to this new news of the department of justice issuing an opinion to say it would not be illegal in their opinion for businesses and organizations and employers to issue mandate. >> thank you for having me. i think it's such a great piece of information in our arsenal against the covid-19 vaccine virus to have this information. it is critically important that we encourage all members of society that are able to get the vaccine to get vaccinated. it's really the only way we're going to surmount the pandemic. >> it's kind of interesting. let's put up the cdc's latest numbers on the percentage of vaccinations. the percentage of the total population vaccinated just under 50% right now. doctor, are you surprised that we're surprised that we're

bumping up against this level of resistance? is this what you would have expected? >> i'm not surprised. i'm disappointed, but i'm not surprised. i think we have had a lot of -- it's been politicized. >> thank you. i have trouble with that one too. >> there has been so much misinformation around the vaccine, and i think confidence in the vaccine is not very high, and so i'm not surprised. i think it's not unusual for any individual to have considers about taking a new medication or a new vaccine. but it is critical that we encourage all members across america who are able to get the vaccine to get the vaccine. >> you are an obstetrician and a gynecologist. you are in the business of dealing with people's fears about medicine, you know, what they don't know about medicine,

and doctors in theory should have a great deal of empathy for people. how do you blend the empathy that you got for people who are fearful, maybe subject to this misinformation about the vaccine with the fact that it is affecting the rest of us? we are actually seeing another wave of covid coming back because it's affecting those of us who are vaccinated? >> i think it's very simple. i think it's being a doctor 101 or being a health care provider 101. you really have to listen to your patients. it's not -- you can't really beat them over the head with the information. i think you have to meet them where they are. you have to help educate them, you have to validate their concerns and walk them through why it's so important. and at the national medical association, our patients are primarily the underserved,

marginalized, and underresourced populations whose vaccine rates are significantly lower than the general population. so for our organization it was so important for us to sign on to this statement so that we could encourage our own patients to take the vaccine. >> i've written down the word so i say it right. the politicization you were talking about about the vaccine. mask were politicized before the vaccine. now dr. fauci is suggesting that mask guidance is under consideration. he said on sunday, revising mask guidance is part of the discussion. the taking off of the mask where people are vaccinated felt like a return to normalcy. do you think we might have to go back to everybody being masked? >> i would definitely leave that up to the experts. what i will say is that we see a return to normalcy, but now we're seeing a surge and a return to what we saw last year.

increased rates, cases of covid-19, hospitalizations and deaths. over 90% are in people who are not vaccinated. so as far as the vaccination, we encourage all that are able to get vaccinated to get vaccinated and whatever mitigation strategies we need to do to surmount the pandemic and the covid-19 virus we will do. if that means that the experts decide that we need to continue to wear masks or vaccinated people need to start wearing masks again, then i think that's what we need to do. i think nobody wants to live through the trauma that we've lived through last year and the number of deaths we lived through. so whatever we need to do, we'll do. >> i think that's the right attitude. dr. rachel villanueva, thank you for joining us. she's the president of the national medical association and clinical assistant professor of obstetric and gynecology at the

ny school of medicine, and i managed to say that properly the second time. on thursday, rachel told you representative johnson there? the suit and a group of men were arrested. today dozens were arrested in arizona for doing the same thing. i'll give you a few guesses as to whose office that took place outside of. the answer when we come back. ugh, these balls are moist. or is that the damp weight of self-awareness you now hold in your hands? yeah (laugh) keep your downstairs dry with gold bond body powder. keep your downstairs dry for bathroom odors that linger try febreze small spaces. just press firmly and it continuously eliminates odors in the air and on soft surfaces. for 45 days.

the for the people campaign is ramping up. it held 27 rallies in cities across the country. if phoenix, william barber and jesse jackson held a real rally to put pressure on kyrsten sinema's office. they held a march where they held a sit-in, blocking the entrance as they sang "this

little light of mine." both civil rights leaders were arrested at the sit-in. barber posted this photo of him in zip ties with the caption "we've got to get these shackles off our democracy." and senator sinema's spokesman said there could be stricter voting laws down the line. it's been over a month since senate republicans voted to block for the people act and frustration is growing not just for senator sinema and her counterparts but also president joe biden. reverend barber will be in texas tomorrow to launch a four-day selma-to-montgomery march. today state representatives left texas to go to d.c. to restrict voting access in that state. that group of texas democrats have met with the vice president, kamala harris, house

majority whip james clyburn but they have not been able to get a meeting with the president himself, and their frustration is starting to bubble over. during a remote office call with a member of congress, texas state representative richard raymond said he won't meet with us on zoom like this. i'm trying to be tactful, but i don't know how else to say it, man. i'm just pissed off at this point. here's what leticia brown told politico, quote, hope is constantly turning to frustration. when in the hell are those who claim they are committed to democracy going to show up to protect those that protect democracy? joining me now, latosha brown, co-founder of black voters matter. you have spoken patiently with

us for a very long time. you, too, are running out of patience but you are being joined by this direct action. we are seeing arrests on acts of civil disobedience on a daily basis across america in a manner we have not seen largely since the civil rights movement. >> absolutely. we've not seen the kind of affront, attack on voting rights that we are seeing right now is similar to what we saw in the '60s. this isn't just about voter i.d. this is about states and the gop putting themselves in a position where they're weaponizing the administrative process so they can actually take over the election results. we're seeing that in georgia and all across in nation. to the extent the texas democrats had to flee from their homes to go to d.c. to stop this voter suppression, i think that's a demonstration of how intense this fight is that we're in right now. while we're seeing this direct subscription, it's not going to stop. this is not something that's not

going to go away, that we can out-organize, out-litigation, we're going to have to have federal legislation to make sure we have protective voting rights and really unravel a lot of the damage that republicans are doing right now. >> let's look at the states enacting restrictive laws right now. these are states voting, enacting voting rights laws. you've got a second map here, states that are actually efforting these audits like pennsylvania and michigan where they may not get much traction but they are trying. latosha, until people not directly affected by this as you in georgia were or people in texas were, until everybody understands this is an affront on all voting rights, we're not activating the rest of the population. how do we get people to understand this is their problem, this is not a black urban problem, this is not a black voters in the south

problem, this is a democracy problem. >> i think there's a number of things that we have to do. one, we have to be honest and look what the is happening right now, that this isn't just what happened in georgia. while black and brown voters have been targeted and the egregious laws, the truth is it's going to impact all voters. one of the pieces we have to also help people understand is that any time a political party, be it the libertarian, the green, the democratic, the republican, doesn't matter, any time a political party abuses their power to really be able -- and their authority to put laws in place so that whoever does not vote for them they can punish or they can prevent them from voting or make it more difficult that, that in itself is political corruption. that is literally the unraveling. that is how democracy dies. when we look at the democratic institutions and nations all across the world that when you're starting to see the effects of democracy and how democracy was taken down, we're seeing those effects right now. we're seeing those steps.

and so we've got to really recognize there's a larger issue that's really even beyond just the right to vote, that any time a party is abusing the administrative process to literally be able to navigate and create the results that they want, which is precisely what trump was asking them to do in the last election. >> latosha, thank you for your time tonight. thanks for your continued efforts to preserve everybody's right to vote. la tosh ya brown is the co-founder of black voters matter. in just a minute we'll be joined live by richard engel. he has a lot to say about his time in afghanistan last week. we'll be right back. we'll be right back.

isn't it disappointing when your plug-in fades? once that freshness goes away, you're left thinking, “okay....now what?” febreze fade defy plug works differently. it's the first plug-in with built-in technology... to digitally control how much scent is released... to smell 1st day fresh for 50 days. it even tells you when it's ready to be refilled. upgrade to febreze fade defy plug.

this is the headline from the "arizona republic" today. andy biggs and paul gosar vote to abandon the afghan allies. they're part of a small group of 16 republicans who voted against an overwhelmingly bipartisan

bill to expedite the process to get afghan translators who helped u.s. forces to safety as america ends its longest war. quote, when the u.s. pulled out of vietnam, there were unfortunate, sometimes tragic repercussions for some of the vietnamese who assisted our troops. the idea of the house bill was to not let that happen again, to appreciate loyalty, and understand humanity. in voting no, the congressmen proved themselves to be unmistakably the opposite. they are not the only facing backlash for voting against helping afghan translators. >> when nearly every republican and democrat in congress comes together to make sure local interpreters who served us faithfully and kept you are troops safe are offered a way out if they want it, guess who teamed up and voted to abandon

them to the taliban? bovert and greene. they wouldn't know a patriot if one stepped up and shook their hands. praise traitors and insurrectionists. let's make it our message to replace them. >> there are 46 days left until we reach the biden administration's end of august deadline for withdrawing all remaining u.s. forces from afghanistan, 46 days. other members of congress and veterans groups across the country are doing everything they can to try and save those afghan translators and their families before it's too late. with each passing day, the challenge faced by those translators becomes more dire. thousands of afghans eligible

for a u.s. visa face a perilous journey through taliban territory just to reach the capital, kabul, from which they can be evacuated. mohammed, a 33-year-old i.t. technician in kandahar who worked for the u.s. military told cnn news, our city is surrounded, afghans must run a taliban gauntlet to reach kabul for u.s. evacuation. meanwhile on the battlefield, the taliban's grip on the country continues to grow. they control about half of afghanistan's district centers. the bright red areas on these maps show just how much territory the taliban has taken. that's just three months. over the past week the u.s. has supported the afghan army with air strikes, but it remains unclear how much longer that support will last. so as the situation on the ground in afghanistan continues to get worse and with the u.s. and nato withdrawal now more than 95% complete, what will

happen to the thousands of u.s. allies in a country that is desperately looking for a way out? joining us now, richard engel, nbc chief foreign correspondent who is with me in person. you're the first correspondent i've been in person with for the last year and a half. welcome and thank you for your great reporting. >> it's a great honor. i'm surprised. i didn't know. >> you didn't know it was such a special thing. >> i'm not in new york often. i came in from afghanistan. i'm looking around, and no one's home. >> we're get back to normal. afghanistan is not. your reporting of afghanistan is tonally different from what the biden administration says is going on. they're saying there's a very strong military and air fofrmts we'll back them up a little bit, but they can handle the taliban. everybody on the ground is saying that doesn't look like that's how it's going to go. >> look at the map and the quotes you put on the screen. many cities are surrounded.

the taliban could probably take most of afghanistan if it wanted to. >> wow. >> if the u.s. pulled back and stopped these last air strikes that are carrying out. they're surrounded many of the capitals or major urban centers and have set themselves up to take over militarily. there's a negotiation process going on in qatar. many don't put a lot of faith in that. they think the taliban are just waiting -- wasting time, allowing this process to go on and on. in theory what they're negotiating about is a future power-sharing agreement which the u.s. has been backing up until now. taliban says, okay, we'll give

you half the government 50%, 60%. the taliban is saying let's keep talking, and they've set up troops in position around the cities, around kabul so as soon as the last of the u.s. machineries leave, they can take the cities and the process would be meaningless. >> those kinds of power-sharing agreements have not worked very well in the middle east. we saw one fail in tunisia. >> what's happening to the translators is absolutely tragic and was avoidable, frankly. it's america's longest war, 20 years, so you think you would have had time to plan for an exit like this. this deal to pull out was signed by president trump. so it's been a long time that they've had to plan for this day day, and the u.s. military does plan very well. they were able to get out their troops safely and get out the equipment and weapons. i don't know why they didn't put

any thought into this, and there are still thousands and thousands of people there who can't come into kabul and send in their forms and get processed, and they're going to die. they're going to die unless something happens. >> we fully understand the argument about president biden wants to get out of afghanistan, america's longest war, trying to prevent sending in another generation of soldiers. but on the other hand, what's the danger of watching afghanistan fall? >> many. aside from the horrible outcome from the translators and all the people who work for us, which is a moral failing, it sends a message of the rest of the world. who's going to work with us, those who signed contracts, got paid, went on rescue missions. who's going to work with us? but then afghanistan itself, the taliban are using this as an enormous rallying cry, and already there are 22 extremist

groups. they're already coming to join the party. they want to see this taliban victory. the taliban is going to be able to save for generations to come that it pushed out the united states. it did what isis couldn't do. it will become the champion of extremist groups. it does a lot of damage. it encourages the extremists, could potentially destabilize pakistan, and that's an interesting dynamic. now pakistan is worried about spillover. it is worried it encouraged this fire and the fire can jump over the border and engulf pakistan as well. pakistan is a massive country 2rks 00 million people, nuclear weapons. destabilizing pakistan. allowing afghanistan to become this symbol or taliban to become the symbol of extremist defiance and victory and then the sort of moral baseness of leaving behind

the translators. but there's still a little bit of time, but the window is closing. thanks for your reporting on this. >> it's good to be here. let's do it again. >> we absolutely will. richard engel is nbc's chief foreign correspondent. one more story tonight. stay with us. we'll be right back after the break. stay with us we'll be right back after the break.

here are the two battling to the line and allyson felix... simone manuel's above her trying to fight on, and above simone... getting an opportunity to show her stuff. nonstop, displayed at the highest performance level... finding something and the us takes gold! ♪ dream on ♪ ♪ dream on ♪ ♪ dream on ♪ ♪ dream on ♪ - yes! ♪ ahhhhhhh ♪ ♪ dream until your dreams come true ♪ it's rare when you can get a lobbyist to speak candidly how

things work. posing as recruiters in an elaborate sting operation, greenpeace uk and the outlet channel 4 news tricked one of the senior lobbyists into thinking he was interviewing for a position in another country. listen to him describe exxon's approach to climate science. >> did we aggressively fight against some of the science? yes. did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts, yes, that's true. >> exxon mobile insists its lobbying complies with all laws and this sting was a decades-long campaign for greenpeace to smear them. today that committee sent a letter to keith mccoy, the exxon

lobbyist in question, requesting a transcribed letter under oath. the committee wants an answer by next monday. if they deny the request, a s&p subpoena could be around the corner. as rachel says, watch this space. that does it for us. we'll see you tomorrow. "way too early" is up next. coronavirus cases are surging across the country and now some states and officials are rolling out vaccine mandates. with so many millions still unvaccinated t question is could this be a tipping point. plus, the house committee investigating the deadly january 6th capitol riot will hold its first hearing this morning. the question is what will we hear from the officers who are set to testify? and tennis star naomi osaka is eliminated from the tokyo olympics after an upset loss. now the question is who's going