>> wow. wow. that's a bold claim. we can do three hours on talk sports radio tomorrow on that. so item put a pin in that one. thank you so much. that's "all in" for the week. "the rachel maddow show" starts with ari melber. good evening, ari. >> thank you, chris. i'm ari melber in for rachel during her much deserved vacation. i have some good news on that and her return which we'll share with you later tonight. it involves actually some of you or at least one of you, an msnbc viewer who happens to be a wonderful grandma. this is real and we'll get into it later after some of the news. now, as for the kind of good news that usually leads the actual news, today the white house announcing 50% of americans are fully vaccinated against covid. a key milestone thanks to the quickening rate of vaccinations, up 11% in the last week, and up

44% over two weeks. these improving signs come but not soon enough for everyone. consider that last year, around this time, there were about 57,000 new covid cases per day. so that's one way to count it. that is a clear number. and that was obviously a lot. you know, we lived through this together. 2020 was a year that became synonymous with tough times. so how are we doing now? tonight? are we approaching that same rate i just showed you? are we a bit higher? a lot? well, the news is no good there. the daily case rate is now almost double. that's about 100,000 cases, spurred by this contagious delta variant. the other big difference is, this year, right now, we basically have a cure. if only more people would take it. so people in positions of power are now, as has become so clear what the holdup is for some,

they're taking more dramatic action. new jersey's democratic governor became the first in the nation to mandate all children returning to school this fall wear a mask regardless of the vaccination status. he spoke about this safety measure and the contrast to other approaches in other parts of the country. >> anyone telling you that we can safely reopen our schools without requiring everyone inside to wear a mask is quite simply lying to you. because we can't. i want as much, believe me, as much as anybody else in our state, to see our kids' smiles as they start their school years. but i do not want to see, at the same time, any of them getting sick needlessly or schools have to shut down again and go remote because of an outbreak, and especially of a dangerous variant that is putting kids in its crosshairs. absent this requirement, that's exactly where we'll end up. that's not speculation. if you look to what's already

happening elsewhere, across the country, in schools that have already opened, and they're mostly in the southern part of the country, without a mask requirement, it's not a matter of if we would have a school closing outbreak, but when. >> the governor is referring to the strange experiment america has been undergoing since the vaccine became basically available everywhere. some places have gotten high vaccination rates while still deploying a range of safety measures. other places are just sitting out the evidence-based path to recovery. now, he's clearly throwing shade at places like south carolina, texas, florida, where republican governors are talking up exposed freedom measures, a freedom priority over safety measures like pushing vaccines or masks. and let's be as fair as possible. there is a version of a fact-based dialogue out there about trade-offs and liberty when it comes to government policies. we're all adults. we can deal with this together. we can discuss it together in a

democracy. but let's also be real. that is not what we're seeing in many of these red states, where the posturing and the right wing virtue signaling are leading to policies and rules and methods that just sound ridiculous when you read them out loud, like texas stating that under their rules, there will be no requirement to even notify parents when there is a covid outbreak at school. well, remove the word "covid." and just ask yourself if any parents of any ideology would ever want a new school policy that states when there's an outbreak of something that can impact your kids, chicken pox, drugs, whatever, you don't even find out about it as a parent. and that has nothing to do with liberty. that's just forced ignorance. that affects your ability to make informed decisions for your own family. now for all the talk of freedom

and local control, there are other red states overriding the local control and choices of their own school districts who in some cases have decided they do want to follow evidence and use safety measures including masks. in florida, which is breaking all records for its most covid cases ever this week, you see it there, they're letting students return to school tuesday as the governor goes to war against masks. some counties are pushing back against threats to defund schools over the issue and still backing a mask rule at least for a certain amount of time like the opening weeks of school. now, this is not a drill. and this is just not some theoretical exercise. the school leaders in one county in florida are sharing their hardship, the evidence, and the realities their living through. two quds who work in-- two

school workers have contracted the virus. that's where we begin tonight on a very important story. carly simon is the superintendent of alachua county public schools. thanks for making time for us tonight. >> thank you for having me, i appreciate the time. >> tell us what you're doing and what you see as the best thing for the people involved in your schooling. >> so we're focusing on making sure that we have workforce available to provide the education that we know our students need. we're very excited about having our students back in school on tuesday. and because of what we're seeing in our covid numbers with our staff, we needed to make some decisions. it started on monday when we started to see the spike. we still at that point hadn't even had teachers on campus. and just to give you some

context, the last three weeks, our covid cases are as much as the last five months combined. and for this reason, we decided that we needed to make sure we mandated masks for all of our employees, our vendors, and any visitors on our campus. then we also were incentivising the vaccinations, because although the masks will help with prevention, really the goal is to get vaccinated. and so we have an incentive for individuals who have been vaccinated as well as any individual who is interested in being vaccinated. on top of that, we also, because we understand that our staff that have taken the time to be vaccinated, not only are they helping their own personal safety and the safety of their family, but they also are helping our community, our education community. and one of the things we are offering is that we'll also provide covid leads for vaccinated staff if they have a breakthrough of the delta variant. the goal is to thank them for

being a contributing member of keeping our workforce functioning so we can provide education to our students. on tuesday our board listened for quite a few hours to medical professionals from our community. one of the benefits of alachua county schools is the university of florida is in our backyard. and we have medical professionals that are world renowned experts on pediatrics as well as immunology and epidemiology. and they have been giving us guidance and consulting with us. after their presentations at the board, the board was compelled to vote unanimously 4-0 to approve a mask mandate. we're hoping to revisit this in two weeks. the mandate is for the first two weeks of school. then what will end up happening is we'll look at the data and determine from the data and consult with our professionals again and decide if we needed to extend this. we are concerned about this, we

would like to finish that up. >> right. and that really makes sense, i think anyone listening can hear the way you're approaching it. the republican governor desantis really clashing with you and says this is in his view you overriding the parents of the system you serve. take a listen. >> it's parents' choice in florida and government can't override the parents. and so we believe the parents are the ones to have the choice. and we obviously have an executive order to that effect. alachua county can't override the parents. that's clear from the parents' bill of rights i signed and frankly i think that's the right thing to do anyways. >> i wanted to give you the benefit of your response. >> we believe in choice as well. that's one of the benefits of the rule making process that occurred today with the governor and the department of health and the department of education, is that they provided an additional

layer of choice by allowing family members to utilize a hope scholarship voucher fund for them to choose if there is another school or a school district that would provide them the type of environment that they would like. on top of that, for our own families, we do have a medical exemption where they can have a medical provider determine if the child can be exempt from having a mask. and then of course we have choice options that have existed for quite some time in the state of florida. and so i believe we are offering choice. but we are also making sure that we follow our constitutional responsibilities and that is to provide a safe, high quality education to all students. >> superintendent job, with a big job in the middle of all this, thank you for your time. we turn immediately to the nation's largest city, los angeles, which is facing a spike in covid cases.

since the beginning of the pandemic, one in every eight l.a. county residents have been infected. the city is considering new actions following the example of new york, the council introducing a new motion that would require vaccination proof in certain places like restaurants, gyms, and sporting events. we turn now to someone else on the front lines. there's a lot of discussion, a lot of debate. these are people who are actually having to figure this stuff out as they go, the president of the l.a. city council, introducing this motion. thank you for being here tonight. tell us what you're doing and advocating. >> thank you. the intent of the legislation is to require eligible adults to at least get one dose of the vaccine if they want to enter into indoor places such as restaurants, bars, entertainment centers, gyms, spas, movie theaters, moving forward. the city council will consider this motion next week for a vote. >> and that makes a lot of sense. as mentioned, some other places have done it. again, helping people understand how this works, what do you say

to those who look at this and argue that it's designed to push people, who say, well, okay, are you trying to make those places safer or are you just trying to withhold things and places from people so they'll get vaccinated, and if so, is that itself maybe a good public health idea? >> quite frankly, everyone is exhausted. angelenos have been asked to stay home and protect themselves and others. we are tired of having to explain to folks the importance of vaccination. our hospital workers are tired. moms are exhausted of staying home. some of them have lost their jobs, have turned away career opportunities. kids are about to return back to school in about a week and a half. and if we're going to protect our kids, we have to mandate vaccines. if you want to go ahead and not get vaccinated, no one's forcing you to do that, but if you want to go out and have fun and go into a restaurant or a bar, you're going to have to get vaccinated, because those of us who have stayed home and done everything humanly possible to

protect ourselves and each other are quite frankly just exhausted. we don't want to go back to the days of shutting down restaurants or businesses or issuing stay-at-home orders because people don't want to adhere to what science and the data is telling us. cases are rising. we need to do everything we can to protect each other. but most importantly, our children who are getting ready to go back to school. we cannot afford another year of them missing the entire school year because adults don't want to listen to data and science and what our medical experts are saying. >> yeah. and you say you're exhausted, i think people hear and feel you on that. we've covered some of these places. i showed a governor earlier, basically respectfully criticizing more conservative areas in the south where they've had this idea of arguing against the science, talking about liberty, talking about choice, going against what we've learned about how the vaccine and other measures work. california of course is diverse, like anywhere else. but i think l.a. county is known to be far less conservative than

some of these southern areas. i'm curious what else you think is contributing to some of the problems out there and do you think misinformation and thin spreading on the internet is part of the problem? >> i think it's misinformation. we're doing everything we can in los angeles, we have three vaccines that work. we have vaccination events throughout the city of los angeles. in my district we actually door-knock on people's homes and actually take the vaccine with us to incentivize people to get the shot right there and then. misinformation has a lot to do with it. that's why we need to continue to push that information that works, give people the information they need, arm them with the information that's going to save their lives and the lives of their children. >> nury martinez, again, two guests on our broadcast who are in the middle of this, doing the work. thank you so much for spending time with us, i appreciate it. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. coming up, the republican assault on voting rights is

continuing in many different ways. where is the meaningful action and what are the legal standards that you need to know? as there are some real signs of life. that's next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google, turn up the heat. ♪ ♪ ♪

team usa is ready for the olympic games... ...and so are mike and eddie! show me the olympics. they easily catch every single event with the award-winning xfinity voice remote. show me bmx racing! show me swimming. track and field. shot put. skateboarding. water polo. climbing! discus. surfing. dressage. dressage? it's horse dancing. magnificent. with the best of the olympics, and everything else you love, it's a way better way to watch! cheer on team usa with xfinity x1. say "show me the olympics in 4k" so you can watch in stunning 4k ultra hd.

it was 56 years ago today that president lyndon johnson signed the voting rights act, a landmark civil rights bill and the culmination of a movement that marched, fought, and bled for the right to vote. some states would suppress the right to vote. you can see martin luther king there with lbj. today lbj was honored with a new statue in houston, the vice president tracing the rise and fall of this law. the law was weakened by chief

justice roberts and the conservative bloc on the supreme court. >> the supreme court has stripped away protections contained within the voting rights act and states have responded with a slew of antivoter legislation. americans deserve options to be able to cast their ballot. and that is why president joe biden and i are calling on congress to pass the for the people act and the john lewis voting rights advancement act. >> a large part of this boils down to how bad you think voter suppression is. the original law operated on the premise that it is so bad, it must be stopped in advance. unlike some other problems or even crimes, that there was a larger national imperative to protect this right to vote, not just punish voter suppression after the fact. so the law had something that required states with a history of racist voting tactics to get clearance in advance for many voting reforms. that's the part the supreme

court gutted, calling it antiquated, out of date, and basically unnecessary in today's world. rachel's been reporting on attorney general garland's various tests at doj and the challenges he faces. this is surely one of them. and he's out swinging the bat for restoring the full law and its approach, righting of the voting rights act's preclearance provision were still operative many republican voter suppression laws wouldn't have been allowed in the first place, that's the key preclearance issue i mentioned. if it feels like people are always playing kind of a legal catch-up with these restrictions all over the place, that's not an accident. that's because the supreme court swooped in and made it so the only way to advocate noting voting rights is to be reactive. a new report out today argues this is an inflection point at protecting our democracy and says after reviewing thousands

of pages of evidence and a lot of testimony from experts, congressional action is needed. senate democrats suggest a vote is coming on a slimmed-down version of the for the people act written by senator merkley who stood with the texas democrats who have been in washington pushing on the issue. >> they say everything is bigger in texas. what is bigger than defending our national right to vote and our freedom to vote? they say don't mess with texas. i say don't mess with these texan legislators who are defending the right to vote in their home state. i am so inspired by the voice that these texans have brought here to washington, d.c. that voice has continued to reverberate. my colleagues and i have been meeting, working to lay out that bill that can get majority support in the senate.

>> i'm joined now by that senator, jeff merkley of oregon. thank you for being here today. >> ari, it's very good to be with you here on the 56th anniversary, who can believe we're still fighting this battle more than half a century later? >> yeah, i hear you, and we think about all the historical strands. what did it mean for you to be out with those official and lawmakers we showed you with today and what are you fighting for? >> you know, it's so helpful to have people on the front line who are experiencing the direct impact of republican statehouse and senate and governor who are trying to steal their right to vote, make it harder for them to vote by mail, to vote early, to do souls to the polls, buses from their church to go to the polls, make it harder to vote on election day. this targeted strategy is what existed about 1965 and it took

incredible efforts to enforce the '65 law before we could say we have fully secured the right of every american to fully participate in democracy and shaping the future of our country. we've gone so far back over the last couple of years, especially this last year, as these state legislators start to -- not the texan democrats, but the state republicans back home, start to reshape the laws to block the ballot box. so they're coming to washington, and their bold walkout to defend the constitution of the united states, it helped focus the conversation. extremely helpful. i must say they are real freedom fighters. >> when you look at this suppression today, how much of it do you think is fundamentally racist, which echoes the '60s, and how much of it is bare knuckle partisanship which may or may not be legal? >> former president trump saw in

georgia that when people have access to the ballot box, communities turn out, and they elected democrats as senators from georgia. and his response was we're going to make it harder for black georgians to vote and black americans all over the country and these efforts are not just targeted at black americans but other minority communities, native americans, and college students. and so it's a very targeted effect. they know that if they can force people to vote on election day, that there's time-tested strategies to make turnout low, by reducing the number of precinct voting places, changing their location, understaff them so people have to wait five or six hours in line, putting out false information about the date and location. they know these things, so they are trying to cheat americans out of the right to vote. so much of it is targeted at black americans. there is a fundamentally racist element to it. >> and we've also been keeping

an eye on this looming vote that we're told would be in the congress here. i want to read about sort of slimming down that john lewis act. chuck schumer reportedly telling you and your caucus, you have these voting rights votes within days, and that they would trim the ethics provisions from the original bill, scale down the mandates for automatic voting reg, and ban attempts to change the composition of the fec. it's a mouthful of what's cut out and by implication there's still plenty left to the bill. what would your response be to skeptics who say, if you're waiting on republicans and it's going to be that kind of thing, how are you going to get any of this out without reforming the filibuster? >> so there are three basic missions. one is to stop the dark money so billionaires can't buy elections, hiding from the

american public. the second goal is to stop gerrymandering. and there is intense conversation among republicans right now about basically gerrymandering on steroids. they know that in just four states, they can gerrymander another six to 13 seats that would be a 26-vote swing in the house. they already feel like they have about a 15-seat advantage, that is a 30-seat swing, as it is. the margin, which is eight seats right now, should be about 38 if there was equal representation. so this is extremely important. then defending the ballot, that means early voting, vote by mail, that means making sure people have full access upon election day as well. these things will all be well-protected in the bill that we're producing. so you think of the first hurdle is, we have to get a bill that 50 members agree to even though they come from very different systems of voting. we lay out a national set of

standards and the end to dark money and the end to gerrymandering, lay that out and agree on it. that's what we're working on right now. i think we've narrowed it down from a hundred issues to about two or three. and we're working hard to resolve the final pieces. then, when we are away from washington, there's going to be an intense effort by several of our colleagues to recruit republicans to join us, because they should join us. they swore an oath to the constitution to defend the rights of americans to vote. and if we come back and we do not have their support, then we have to find the path for 50 of us to get this done, unfortunately without them. and i'm very confident we'll find them. >> interesting. senator merkley, i want to thank you very much. coming up, embracing the big lie and its consequences for everyone except maybe trump. but could that change? stay with us. ♪ all by yourself.♪ - oh. - what? rain. cancel and stay? done. go with us and get millions of felixble booking options.

expedia. it matters who you travel with. hey frank, our worker's comp insurance is expiring, should we just renew it? yeah, sure. hey there, small business owner. pie insurance here with some sweet advice to

stop you from overpaying on worker's comp. try pie instead and save up to 30%. thirty percent? really? get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie.com. wow, that is easy. so, need another reminder? no, no no, i'm good. uh, yes please. oh. ho ho ho, yeah! need worker's comp insurance? get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie.com.

when a truck hit my car, the insurance company wasn't fair. i didn't know what my case was worth. so i called the barnes firm. i was hit by a car and needed help. i called the barnes firm,

that was the best call i could've made. i'm rich barnes. it's hard for people to know how much their accident case is worth. let our injury attorneys help you get the best result possible. ♪ the barnes firm injury attorneys ♪ ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ donald trump lost the presidential election so

clearly, across several states, that there was never even a single case that made it all the way to the supreme court regarding his loss. there were some other lawsuits as well. i spend a whole bunch of time doing legal reporting on them back in those sundry days of november, december, 2020. most were actually worse than just losing cases. they were frivolous. some were so far beneath the basic legal requirements to get into court that they were just tossed. or worse, some appeared to be infractions themselves, because while lawyers can make many arguments for a client, they cannot blatantly lie in court. that's perjury. that can get you in trouble. just ask rudy giuliani. now, accountability throughout our court system still takes time, it always has. and now we are seeing some of that process, like a supposed class action suit that was filed in colorado on behalf of all of the registered voters that claimed trump actually won the 2020 election. that's just not a claim a lawyer

can submit to a court without evidence. now the lawyers behind that very case are facing consequences. a federal judge is hitting them with a major penalty. they must now pay the lawyer fees for everyone, individual and companies, that they sued. if anyone knows how high lawyer fees can get, well, it's lawyers. to quote someone else familiar with the law, shawn carter, change is cool the cop but more important is lawyer fees. that's how it is now, that's how it always be. so true. and that's how it be for a whole group of people that are paying the price for these election lies. giuliani, by the way, paying with more than fees. he's losing his livelihood. he's already banned now currently from practicing law because his license was suspended over specifically the election lies. he is also separately under criminal investigation.

another judge is looking at sidney powell and lin wood. as the first hearing of the committee investigating that insurrection showed, there's also a gap here because most of this conducted was done for someone, as one police officer put it, for the hit man who ordered the hit, who requested much if not all of this be done. i'm talking about donald trump. now, a new piece by legal experts makes the case he should be federally investigated by all of this by the garland doj, which is familiar with the doctrine that sitting presidents cannot be indicted but that no longer shields trump. these experts argue efforts to overturn a fair election simply cannot be tolerated and trump's conduct must be investigated. we're joined now by one of the authors of that piece, legal expert and former federal prosecutor joyce vance.

joyce, thanks for being here. >> good to be with you, ari. >> tell us about the evidence in the case you make here. >> the argument i think is a simple one, and it's intuitive. it balances the need that doj has to restore its bona fides as an agency that's above the political fray, that doesn't do anything for political reasons, and to balance that very important priority against sustaining the rule of law. and we conclude that in this absolutely remarkable situation, where you have every appearance that a sitting president was involved in insurrection, that the justice department must fully investigate the facts and circumstances around that. we don't know, it could be there's investigations going on and that doj, as it so often does, has managed to do that in secret. but the point that we make is that that investigation must be

robust, it must look at a wide variety of possible federal crimes, and if there is sufficient evidence to charge, charges should be brought. >> i think it's a very important piece that you write. and politics here are funny and are supposed to have no role at the doj, i think everyone has been reminded of that over the last four or five year. although it may be counterintuitive, there's evidence that some biden folks view that as potentially a political distraction or worse for them. but of course that shouldn't matter any more than what trump's political prerogatives and goals were, it should be independent. i think you and your co-authors go to great lengths to look at the idea that if there was this kind of felonious conduct, potentially, it should be probed. in a related development that was breaking just as we were getting ready to come on the air, we have new details about the lengths that were pursued to cook the books, to override state results, to try to get

some government supported laundering for conspiracy theories. this comes against the back dron of people testifying. an outlet has a story about former deputy attorney general donoghue, who late december spoke with the senate judiciary committee, rosen is on the way. this comes with a lot of detail about a trump loyalist inside the doj basically trying to get intelligence briefings or other support for really wacky, unfounded theories. and then perhaps even become attorney general himself. what did you think about all of these new stories? >> we should be paying attention to this, ari. this is deeply distressing. this shows there was a trump loyalist inside the justice department who had not only fully bought into the big lie

but who was advocating it and advancing it in a very real way, because if jeff clarke had gotten his way, then-acting attorney general rosen had would have sent a letter to the georgia legislature directing them to take over the election in georgia and to compel an outcome for trump despite the absence of any evidence of fraud. and it's fortunate, frankly, that the acting attorney general pushed back, declined to play games with clarke, who was someone who had been an assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division. he had become the acting head of the civil division. he was so far out of his lane, asking for an intelligence briefing on ongoing criminal matters, that it's difficult to see how that even happened. but it speaks to how much dysfunction there was and how the trump monkeys were really running the show at that point. >> yeah. joyce, thank you so much, really appreciate it as always.

when we come back, there are big developments here regarding the allegations against new york governor andrew cuomo. we have that story and much more. stay with us. stay with us e else... i appreciate that liberty mutual knows everyone's unique. that's why they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. [ nautical horn blows ] i mean just because you look like someone else doesn't mean you eat off the floor, or yell at the vacuum, or need flea medication. oh, yeah. that's the spot. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪

[john legend's i can see clearly now] ♪♪ make your reunion happen with vrbo. ♪♪

your together awaits. ♪♪ new york governor andrew cuomo facing new levels of legal trouble today after a woman who asserted that the governor groped her in the executive mansion has now filed a criminal complaint against him. that's a new development. the unidentified individual referred to as executive assistant 1 in the report by the new york attorney general is one of the 11 women who have made allegations of sexual harassment against the governor, who denies her specific allegations. the alleged incident first reported in march by the "times union." than the governor's office referred to the matter to the albany police. prosecutors have already opened criminal probes into the governor and prosecutors in three other counties have asked for investigative materials. that suggests five different

offices having some level of review, we can't say exactly the formal description of each investigation. governor cuomo faces a separate but related process inside the new york state legislature, that is the impeachment investigation. today several lawmakers announced they're introducing a measure to prevent officials who are impeached from receiving a state pension, which would encourage governor cuomo to resign. calls for his resignation intensified this past week. long-time cuomo allies in the democratic party as well as the president of the united states are coming together and saying he should step down on the strength of the evidence in the report. governor cuomo denies all the allegations and is standing firm. today his attorneys held a somewhat unusual press conference via zoom where in

addition to responding to the report they spoke to the new allegations against the governor in a criminal context. cuomo basically has to deal with what is now apparently an open criminal investigation. the governor's lawyer says we should expect to actually hear more from the governor soon. >> the person identified as trooper number 1 alleges the governor ran his finger down her spine and said "hey you" and touched her stomach near where she carried her gun. will the governor respond to those allegations? >> i will let him speak for himself. >> when will he do that? >> umm, i can't give you a timeline but i know he wants to do it soon. >> we're joined by dan alonzo, he was the deputy, number two official at the manhattan

district attorney's office, also has experience as a federal prosecutor and a lot of insight into exactly how these kind of investigations work. we're here now at the end of the week. it's quite a set of developments for the governor. what do you see as the most serious legal exposure that he has right now? >> well, he's got a multifront war, ari. he's got the possibility of serious civil suits. he's got the possibility of being removed from office. he's got the possibility of a criminal charge. obviously criminal charges are always serious. this is not the kind of criminal charge that could result in incarceration, but that doesn't mean it's not serious, right? these theoretically at least are misdemeanors which are still crimes, which are still, you know, not nothing, but they're not the most serious crimes around. so, you know, i would say probably he's most focused on staying in office. so the assembly is going to meet on monday to start the process. they've given him a week to respond to some of the

allegations. and i expect that in the next week or so, the assembly will be deciding on articles of impeachment. >> when people hear that multiple das in new york are looking at this, help us understand how that's the case if under geographic jurisdiction, typically, it wouldn't be all that many different places. >> it's only because the report itself, or the das have learned that the various acts that could theoretically be criminal have taken place in multiple counties. so we have oswego, new york, albany. it doesn't mean they're all serious, it doesn't mean they'll all result in criminal charges, but it does mean those das are at least fulfilling their responsibilities to look at the charges that the attorney general has suggested in her report. >> speak on that, because attorney general james conducted a very thorough and relatively quick report here. it certainly had bad evidence against governor cuomo in the

sense that multiple individuals with different experiences and different places were reporting and alleging misconduct, so that obviously in the eyes of the investigators and the careful review they did, went to the probative value, the likely truth, they thought, of these allegations. and that's what came through in the report's findings. having said all that, attorney general james also said publicly that this was all largely civil in nature. so help us understand why having said that, we're hearing about multiple criminal -- at least criminal reviews this week. >> so the reason is because the acts, even though she made findings that they violated civil laws, there are some acts that are talked about like the grabbing of the rear end or the grabbing of the breasts under the blouse, which of course would constitute a crime. but prosecutors don't prosecute by report. so i think that attorney general

james appropriately declined to say this is a crime, and instead left it to the people that have jurisdiction over criminal activity. you know, your viewers may not know that the new york state attorney general has very limited criminal jurisdiction. so she could not have taken those bats and run with them. so it's up to the local das of the counties where it geographically happened. you said yourself, geographic jurisdiction to look into the criminality. look into the criminality. so it was appropriate for the attorney general not to say oh, by the way i find this violates the laws against touching -- she didn't do that. she's leaving it to the jurisdictions. we need to interview the witnesses. they need to see what corroboration is for themselves and make their decisions in the interest of justice. >> and finally given your expertise, how do you assess the way governor cuomo has denied

and rebutted these allegations? >> listen, he's got a right to do that. and there is -- you know, there is a point that his lawyers made today about not having access to the evidence. i think that's not a bad idea to release the transcripts of the witness interviews so that the governor can use them in his rebuttal in the assembly. in terms of, you know, i think some of the rebuttal is a bit thin today. it certainly didn't address all the allegations. it addressed some of it. but i think that those lawyers are a little bit fighting with one hand tied behind their back because they don't have all the evidence. i think we have to wait and see and give the governor a chance. >> understood and appreciate the legal analysis you bring particularly as someone who's handled a whole range of investigations. thank you for your time tonight. i want to tell everyone we'll be right back -- thank you -- we'll have as promised an answer to the burning question many of you have been asking about rachel in a fun way i think so stay with us. a fun way i think so stay with

us

president george w. bush in october 2002 signed a permission slip from congress to send american troops into iraq. formally it's called the authorization for use of military force. now his dad george h.w. bush also received one from congress when he sent troops to it gulf in '91. both of those authorizations from congress are both still in the books and the balance of power in our system of government is supposed to kick in here. the power of war, which the president can use, isn't supposed to just be there forever. now almost two decades after the start of the iraq war, more than 30 years after the gulf war finally it actually looks like congress is ready to reel in some of these authorizations because the senate foreign relations committee voted to repeal both of them this week. giving democrats the 60 votes that nowadays they need for most things because of the

filibuster. so it looks like we'll actually see an effective repeal of this war power, the first in 50 years. and that's an updated we wanted to give you before the week's out. and now we turn to the long awaited news about rachel. some have asked a big question including a lovely lady named pat who's gained a following online just by being herself. her granddaughter shared these videos of her on tiktok doing everything from enjoying chocolate covered marshmallows to showing how she keeps kleenex handy in her walker. now she's got a new video features pat wondering when rachel maddow will be back and sparring a bit over what the key question is here. watch this. >> i mean that's her private business where she is. you can't ask that. it's just when will she back? that's the question. when will she be back? >> okay, okay.

here's a picture of her -- rachel maddow's page there's a picture of her with a fish. >> probably she's fishing somewhere, yes. i could have told you that. she's fishing. i want to know when she's going to be back. i don't care where she is. i don't want to know where she is. i mean that's her business where she is on her vacation, not my business. so -- so there. >> now, pat could have told you she's fishing you can see she also respects boundaries. she just wants to know when will she back? well i'm here to report live on msnbc to pat and anyone else wondering the answer. rachel will be back monday. and with rachel back monday i hope you tune in right here at 9:00 p.m. eastern to welcome

her. if you happen to be looking for me, ari, well i'll be back 6:00 p.m. eastern on "the beat." and let me share something with you. next week on the beat we're going to have an exclusive interview with one of it two people you see here in this photo. this is a picture from the vice president's office. we'll have a very influential voice on many issues including black lives matter. on the right is artist little baby and he was welcomed on the anniversary of george floyd's death. and we'll have him on the beat to discuss those issues, his meeting with vice president harris and what's going on in black lives matter in atlanta and around the nation. that's next week. if you want to find me and ask me any questions like pat or talk about tiktok or anything else, you can try me on social media. or the best place to always reach me is arimelber.com. we share highlights from the

beat, music, law, anything like that. that's it for this hour. but keep it right here for jonathan capehart and lawrence o'donnell. hey, jonathan. >> hey, ari. thank you very much. well, the biden plan is working. that's how president biden responded today to the u.s. jobs report. the u.s. added 943,000 jobs last month. and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.4%, the lowest unemployment rate since the start of the pandemic. >> while our economy is far from complete and while we doubtlessly will have ups and downs along the way as we continue to battle the delta surge of covid, what is the disputable now is this. the biden plan is working, the biden plan produces results and the biden plan is moving the country forward. we've got a lot of hard work to be done both to beat the delta variant and conti