first you had the trillion dollars from the covid plan, then this is the hard plan with roads, bridges, and then we saw the $3.2 trillion for the human side infrastructure yesterday. that's the part that changes government permanently. once you have pre-k for everyone, once you add some of those, they're not going to go away. that's how you have a legacy presidency. >> mike allen, as always, thank you. thank you for getting up way too early with us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts now. the other democrats crack the whip and there is a weird thing, there is a herd mentality that the obey chuck schumer and their only answer is sir, yes, sir. >> that weird thing ted cruz is noting there, where a political party develops a herd mentality

and follows a single person. huh? is this you, ted? republicans are facing a make or break moment. get behind the science of masks and vaccines or reap the consequences of a resurgent pandemic that is happening right now. governor ron desantis has made his choice on masks in florida, now threatening to withhold pay for educators if they try to protect their school kids. you heard that right. it seems twisted. but that is what is happening with the desantis variant in florida. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, august 10th. joe will be back tomorrow. but willie, let's get right to the news and there's a lot of it. yeah, the numbers are spiking again, mika. a tally confirms the u.s. now has passed 36 million cases of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic and for the first time since february, the country

is averaging more than 100,000 new cases per day. fuelled largely by infections in areas with low vaccination rates. in some parts of the country hospitals are nearing capacity with available icu beds in the single digits. patients now are being turned away in some instances. morgan chesky has details. >> reporter: as the delta variant reeks havoc nationwide, hospitals in crisis mode. >> we're in an emergency situation. >> reporter: the virus causing the highest numbers since february. hitting the south especially hard. in austin, texas home to nearly a million people. only 6 icu beds remain open. residents getting this robocall over the weekend. covid-19 situation in austin is dire. health care facilities are open, but resources are limited due to a surge in cases. the county's top doctor calling

it an hour by hour situation. >> cases are rising so sharply you could potentially send patients out of state? >> it's a possibility. >> reporter: the surge forcing worse case scenarios like covid overflow tents in houston and pediatric units full. as stephanie watched crews fall her daughter to a hospital nearly 150 miles away. >> it's overwhelming, heartbreaking experience. >> reporter: many states including new jersey and arizona haven't reissued mask mandates while in arkansas, the governor regretting a prior ban. >> it was an error to sign that law. >> reporter: experts warn the type of mask matters. >> wearing a higher quality mask becomes more important. >> reporter: n95 masks are safest, cloth masks provide just 20% protection. a procedural mask offering 40%. >> most people don't wear those

masks well, they don't fit. >> reporter: for now the push to vaccinate. the pentagon announing mandatory vaccinations for military members. >> we're not making a difference. >> reporter: doctors and medical workers fighting burn out now digging in for yet another surge. morgan chesky, nbc news. focussing on florida, the state with the highest number of children hospitalized with covid-19. nbc's kerry sanders has the latest. >> reporter: this is kerry sanders in florida where the covid crisis has gone from bad to worse. the florida department of health revealing a single day record, 22,903 covid cases, the third time in a week florida surpassed its all-time high. >> it's overwhelming our staff. >> the spread alarming among children, florida now reporting

179 pediatric cases, this as k through 12 reopens in much of the state. in collier county, masks will be optional. florida governor, ron desantis. >> no mandates in the state of florida. >> we have one ask, wear a mask. >> pediatricians in collier with a message for every parent. >> i'm trying to encourage everybody to please take this delta variant seriously, it is incredibly contagious and our children are getting sick. i can't do this. >> reporter: olivia's two children starts school, she wants them to wear mask because she won't up in the hospital with covid. >> i cannot imagine my kids going through that. i would really just cry. >> reporter: teachers like megan wilkes stuck in the middle. is it difficult to be the teacher but also the police officer on mask, no mask and having everybody get along. >> at the beginning it'll be a

challenge. >> reporter: at least eight florida counties say they will defy the governor with mandate masks with an option to opt out. >> joining us now, ed jimenez, ceo of the university of florida health that's overseeing the teaching hospital and six specialty hospitals. sir, i'd like to start where the health care worker, the expert there broke down into tears about these children. we have 179 pediatric patients in florida that we know of. how young are some of these patients, as far as you know? >> so they're certainly young. without breaching patient privacy, i can tell you more than zero days but we're talking single digit ages here. >> good god. so would these kids going back to school wearing masks perhaps be able to be protected from being in that situation?

>> well, so i think it's a bigger question about the unvaccinated. so we know that right now if you're 12 years or younger, there's no vaccine for you. this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. the bigger thing we have to focus on, and i watched your piece here is about the vaccinated status. so anybody who's not vaccinated is clearly at risk. >> so, the problem is, though, that there are people choosing not to get vaccinated. and there appears to be no talking to them. although we're all still trying, doctors are trying, the cdc is trying. most political leaders are trying, except for those who are too afraid to try. so if you have a population that is partially unvaccinated, are masks the only and next line of

defense unless you start quarantining again and working and doing school from home? >> i think, especially in florida, we're back to having to employ a bunch of strategies. where we are located in the center of the state we're pretty well vaccinated. but once you leave to rural parts the numbers are different. quote honestly, i think we're back to considering social distancing, outdoor versus indoor spaces, people should be contemplating masks where appropriate. and certainly we should be cognizant of who we're with in relation to their vaccination status. all of those strategies are helpful if we're not going to be a fully vaccinated world around us. >> can you tell me what you're hearing from your health care community, your experts, workers, about why people coming

in with covid, some of them with symptoms close to fatal, why they are not -- why they are still not getting vaccinated? >> there are several reasons. the biggest reason we hear from patients and their families is that the vaccines are not approved. so i think that is creating a big of dialogue that is mysterious. there's a piece that's certainly motivated by individuals' belief systems, whether they're personal, political, but they have their own belief systems. and then i think there's a third category that is just afraid about the future. certainly we hear that often for people not vaccinated. what's going to happen to me in one, two, five, ten years. >> good morning, it's willie geist. we appreciate you being here this morning. can you take a step back for us and give us a snapshot, in terms of where you are with numbers in

your hospitals compared to last year. there are some who accuse the media of overblowing the situation in florida, how dire things are there, we know that single day records have been set there the last couple of days since the pandemic. but what does it look like in your hospitals? >> its's a struggle. our peak for the winter, which would have been in january, was 157 patients. this morning we're at 214. so that alone would suggest to you new peak, maybe 30% higher, that's a challenge. but there's a big erstory here. which is eight weeks ago, june 17th, we had 11 patients. so there's this rapid and accelerated rise that's unprecedented. >> what percentage of the patients you're seeing are unvaccinated? how many people of that group you just described, what percentage is unvaccinated?

>> so this morning, 90% of the patients in our hospital are unvaccinated. so it's -- again, the risk of being repetitive. this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. >> and what about your nurses and doctors, the scenes you described for us sound a lot like the scenes we saw in new york city, for example, last year, where doctors and nurses put on brave faces we celebrated them rightly and continue to do so, but what is the stress and the strain, not just on the health system broadly but on the individuals, the heroes, the nurses and doctors handling this explosion inside the hospital? >> for me it's an awful struggle to see what they have to go through. the way i describe it is, every day they're here doing heroic and amazing things. and they are in touch with patients' families and they're the lifeline between patients and loved ones from a conversation perspective. then they have to go home and

they have to confront whatever home brings, whether their spouse has a job or not, their family's company is open, their kid may or may not be going to school. so our staff don't get to turn it off. on some level, maybe all of us can imagine that they can muscle through it. but i don't know that they can muscle through it for 18 months. we've not been able to take our foot off the gas pedal. so i am in daily awe of the university of florida staff, because they are amazing. we're the flagship hospital for us we're bringing in patients from all over the state and from the southeast. >> mr. hi men jez -- >> this is willie. >> sorry go ahead. >> what should be the mindset, how should people be thinking based on what you just described? >> i spoke to the governor yesterday and i will tell you

that he is aware and open minded to what we need to do. to our community, we have to really focus on vaccination and we have to employ strategies between now and then. if people around us were not vaccinated receive their vaccine today it takes time to take effect before they get their second vaccination. so we need to think about spacing, knowing each other vaccination status, masking where appropriate. there's several strategies we need to employ between now and when we achieve full vaccination status. >> so mr. jimenez, you mentioned something about the fear that people have and you put quotes up not approved. i can think of a couple of scenarios in which me or a friend of mine has been in actually a tough talk with someone begging them to get the vaccine and it's gotten heated.

and yeah, we heard just that. it's not approved. not approved by the fda. is there anything you can tell us that would help us ease minds who are really holding onto that one fact that's a reality. i know in a few weeks one of the vaccines may be approved by the fda, but as of now that's what they're holding onto, and it's not untrue. but how can we, can you as an expert, compel people to understand that the vaccine is safe? >> lately we've been trying to convey the importance of vaccination in words and messages that people can relate to on a daily basis. we have doctors explaining to our community that they were vaccinated. if i needed a heart surgeon, i would talk to a surgeon or somebody in a hospital and say, what kind of heart surgeon would

i go to because i have this trust that they understand. so we're trying to use messages that make sense. within the last month you may have seen university of florida's athletic department, because in florida football is big, that the football program pushed out vaccinations important as we get to football season in the fall because for some people they understand the importance of football and they can relate that if the athletic department says this is important at a minimum they should pay attention and do their own investigations maybe. we're trying to convey the message in words that folks can relate to on our daily basis. we have pastors in our community talking to their congregation, because some folks believe wholeheartedly what their clergy have to say. so we're trying to make it real, using messages on an everyday basis that people can understand

the words they hear. >> thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. willie? we were just talking about governor ron desantis of florida. the governor is now threatening to withhold pay for education officials who enforce mask mandates for students. a statement from the governor's office warns florida's board of education could narrowly tailor any consequences, citing salaries as an example for school board members and superintendents who require a mask. a school superintendent responded say, quote, you quote you can't put a price on someone's life, including my salary. it's one of the counties that has already issued mask mandates for school. this is just perverse, you're

telling superintendents in school districts where there are outbreaks in south florida you cannot put masks on kids to protect them. in our next hour we'll be joined by one florida school superintendent who is out with a new washington post op-ed entitled why our school district is defying florida's ban on mask mandates, even if it means we lose funding. look forward to that. more now on the move by the pentagon to require all members of the u.s. military to get vaccinated. in a memo sent to troops yesterday, defense secretary lloyd austin disclosed he would seek president biden's approval to mandate the vaccine no later than mid september or immediately after it is approved by the fda. the president, who needs to sign a waiver to make the shots mandatory, quickly issued his support for the order.

in a statement yesterday he wrote, quote we are still on a wartime footing and every american who is eligible should take immediate steps to get vaccinated right away. i am proud that our military women and men will continue to help lead the charge in the fight against this pandemic. and they so often do by setting the example of keeping their fellow americans safe. the pentagon says more than 1 million troops are fully vaccinated. and another 237,000 have received one shot. willie? some big news out of capitol hill this morning. just a few hours from now, the senate will hold the final vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. senators will meet at 9:30 this morning. chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell boast expected to speak. the legislation is expected to pass by a wide margin. 19 republicans already have joined all democrats to back the bill. and that number may go up from here.

directly after the final bipartisan infrastructure vote, majority leader schumer says the senate will vote to proceed with the democratic only budget reconciliation package. let's bring in jake sherman, msnbc political contributor and msnbc white house correspondent monica alba. jake, let me begin with you, it was a long road to get here to this vote this morning at 11:00. what do you expect to see in terms of numbers? >> so, willie i think what you said was right, 19 republicans who have already voted for some element of the plan in the procedural runup to this legislation's final passage. i would note, though, willie, we are not at the end of the road, we are at a stop sign let's call it, this bill is going to go to the house of representatives where it could linger until like october or november. so i just think that we need -- we need to be cog any sapt of the fact this is a massive

victory for joe biden and chuck schumer and even mitch mcconnell who democrats thought, we weren't sure what would happen but democrats tha thought he would hold up this legislation. so a big moment but just the intermission, willie, as we look toward the rest of the agenda. >> monica you're traveling with the president in wilmington, delaware, he'll be back this morning in washington, i imagine a celebration on the senate side at least for him as he's tried to get something through on infrastructure since his administration. >> and he campaigned so long, willie, of course, on bipartisanship. something he was mocked for early on in the process when talks with republican senators initially fell apart and when he was the one who said, i don't care how we get this done but i definitely want it to be with members of both parties. that was something that the president carried through the entire process and you can

expect him to tout that. i am here in delaware where the president was expected to stay for longer than a week or so. he has a couple of homes here, of course. and he was going to have somewhat of a working vacation, but as the senate continued its work, he decided, of course, he wanted to be back in d.c. where we do expect, and i wouldn't be surprised at all, that there will be some kind of celebratory event whether at the white house or what shape or form it looks like given the delta variant and other concerns with gatherings at this time and challenges present. we expect this to be a white house that is going to celebrate this today. but as jake said this is the two-track plan the white house had envisioned from the start, but it's not over yet. so they're not going to declare full victory on infrastructure knowing what's to come on the so called human infrastructure part of it. but we can expect the president to talk about it. he got into trouble a couple months ago when he did tie these

two things directly together. saying i'm not going to sign one without the other. in the end he had to walk that back but the white house will tell you, and officials have said, that is exactly what they hope is going to happen here and all signs point to that being the reality. even if they didn't get there in that exact way, this is what president biden wanted, it's what candidate biden promised and we will expect to hear from him in the next couple of hours in a celebratory tone mostly on the issue of bipartisanship, though the real work begins on the massive $3.5 trillion package now. >> as monica said, the white house took great pains to show it was exercising bipartisan on the bill. this isn't the big bill that progressives wanted. what should we take away from this in terms of the way democrats and republicans work together. are there other areas we might see that happen? >> probably not this congress, willie. i hate to say.

this is probably the last gasp of bipartisanship. i stand awaiting to be surprised here. i just don't believe there's much else they'll find in common. i think the main takeaway here is this is working from the middle out. there is a governing coalition within the senate that includes people like rob portman, who is retiring at the end of this session so he had incentive to get this done. he's been in washington for the majority of his adult life, worked in the white house, capitol hill for a long time, more than 25 years. i don't know that there's anything big we can take away here because the remaining items of the democrats' agenda are things they anticipate will only pass with democratic support. one thing monica said, i think it would be a mistake for the white house to celebrate here. i think this -- i think we all, the collective hive mind willie is wrong in that this will slide through the house. i don't see that.

i think this is going to be an extraordinarily tricky and long pass in the house of representatives. nancy pelosi has a three-seat majority and they're waiting for the larger $3.5 trillion package, it will be harder for the house to make the case this is two pieces of legislation. i think this is going to be tricky. at the end of the day, odds are it's going to pass but you don't want to have a celebratory moment, i don't think, without knowing what's going to happen in the house of representatives. >> made all the more difficult by midterm election season. jake sherman and nbc's monica alba traveling with the president in delaware. thank you both. still ahead on "morning joe," dr. anthony fauci is our guest. as coronavirus cases across the u.s. hit the highest level since february. plus, baltimore ravens quarterback, lamar jackson still isn't sold on a covid vaccine despite coming down with the

virus twice. also ahead with the 20th anniversary of september 11th next month, the justice department is pledging to review documents related to the terrorist attack for possible public release. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪♪ [sfx: radio being tuned] welcome to allstate. ♪ [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.

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welcome back to "morning joe." a little bit of cloudy morning here in new york city as we come out on 6:30 on the east coast. yesterday on the show we talked about the handful of professional athletes who still are refusing or reluctant to get the vaccine. you can add lamar jackson to that list. >> have the ravens talked to you about getting vaccinated? are you worried about getting it for a third time? >> i just got off the covid

list, so you know i got to talk to my team doctors and, you know, try to see how they feel about it. i keep learning as much as i can about it and go from there. >> so you might go for it? >> we'll see. we'll see. talking to the doctors. we'll see. >> so you heard that right, lamar jackson has had covid twice, still on the fence about getting a vaccine. the former nfl mvp returned to training camp saturday after missing ten days, the league mandated quarantine for unvaccinated players that test positive. he also tested positive in november missing a game then. joining us now, mike barnicle, eugene robinson and alicia menendez. good morning to you all. i want to ask you about lamar jackson, so many of these guys are heroes, people look up to

them. lamar jackson saying despite having covid twice he needs to learn more about the vaccine before getting it. >> incomprehensible, lamar jackson is a great quarterback but setting a terrible example for his fans. and he says he's looking into the vaccine, he apparently hasn't heard of long term covid. he's had the disease twice. he had bad symptoms twice. now it's not -- he didn't have asymptomatic cases. he was home sick. quite ill. and he got better. he could get it again. and that endangers his season and his team. his teammates. it's just -- so i hope the doctors are telling him the right thing and i hope he listens. >> mike, we've seen this in the nfl, in professional baseball,

in the nba, a reluctance among the athletes, of course, it's their right not to get the vaccine, but again so many people take their cues from the huge sports stars. >> yeah. you know, lamar jackson is a tremendous quarterback, athlete, no doubt about that. but he's not a team guy because he has just proven he's not a team guy. the national football league has a rigid policy on vaccines, they urge all players to get vaccines, i think something like 75% of all the teams in the nfl have a pretty good vaccine program going. and if lamar jackson transfers whatever element of covid he might still have or might still get in the future and risks his team, forfeiting a game, that's a loss for the team. so already he's proven not a team guy. the other aspect of it, getting covid twice and still being worried about the vaccine. i mean, that is truly mystifying in this current time. truly mystifying. >> it is because of the people

who he could spread it to who could have far worse symptoms. it's like being on team covid. gene, one of your reports in "the washington post" is too many republicans are taking covid-19's side in the fight against the pandemic. you write this, this is the gop's pandemic now, cynical and irresponsible republican politicians have created an environment that is killing americans who shouldn't have to die. swamping hospital systems with desperately ill patients. and they've done so in their own self-interest. yes, the more infectious delta variant is driing this new wave but vaccination and mask wearing have the power to check that spike in cases and to prevent the new diagnoses from turning into hospitalizations and deaths. florida governor, ron desantis has taken the position that

pandemic public health measures are an intolerable assault on personal freedom, a message many rank and file republicans apparently welcome. their basic message, your body, your choice, nobody else's business. and, of course, this was written before governor desantis threatened the salaries of school board members and superintendents. they're siding with death, the virus. to what political end for someone like governor desantis does this have? because ultimately the numbers are going to go against him in terms of the rise in death, rise in numbers. one hospital health system has 179 pediatric patients. these are kids. they can't get the vaccine yet. they're young as single digit numbers, and they're in the icu.

>> yeah. sickening and killing your political supporters seems to me that the stupidest and most short-sided political strategy i've ever heard of. yet that's what desantis is doing. he wants to inherit the trump wing of the republican party. and so he's being trumpier than thousand. and this threat against the salary of school officials who impose mask mandates is -- it certainly is on brand for desantis, but again. we're talking about real people. we're talking about more children in the hospital now than ever been with covid. unfortunately we're not hearing reports or a lot of reports of -- fortunately we're not hearing reports or a lot of

reports of children actually succombing, dying from the virus. but do you want kids sick enough to die from the virus, do you want them to suffer that fate? yet that's what desantis is insisting on. he's insisting that pediatric wards filled with covid patients, it's outrageous to say the least, and frankly it's criminal. it should be criminal. he's harming people. you know, in search of his own political aims and it's disgusting. it is. >> i know you've been looking at the situation on the ground in florida. i spent a lot of time in florida, i know a lot of people that refuse to get the vaccine and the one thing that ties them all together is facebook. they spend time on facebook. i wouldn't spend time on

facebook and i certainly wouldn't be getting my news from facebook. and yet that's the other thing that ties them together is they get news from sites that spring up or spread their headlines around facebook. what are you hearing? >> it's interesting. i was talking to a woman, mika, who lost her 71-year-old otherwise healthy dad to this virus. she said he wasn't what she called an anti-vaxxer but he was a small business owner and kept putting off getting the vaccine, he spent the final month of his life in an icu without his family around him. he was exposed to some of this misinformation that you are referencing, which is why in as much as we talk about what it is that desantis and other governors across the south are doing. i look for glimmers of hope and i find them, mika, in the way that some of these local leaders are pushing back. so i think of the mayor of miami, francis suarez, who's

also a republican, i spoke to him and earlier on in the pandemic he lauded governor desantis for the way he handled parts of the pandemic. now he is standing up against him saying we may need to mandate masks in schools, as you said pushback from superintendents across the state of florida. the superintendent of miami-dade saying at no point should i allow my decision be on the threat of my paycheck. i heard it from superintendents in phoenix. and the line over and over again. i think we'll hear it the next several weeks and as we head into 2022. this isn't about politics. this is about the health and safety of our students, of our workers, and of our community. and local leaders are so desperate, mika, to take politics out of the equation and it keeps being injected over and over again by some of the

leaders at the state level. >> we're hearing that in dallas, too. the superintendent saying the same thing. this is not a far-off question. school started in a swath of the country this week, this is happening right now in schools. so much of it is pushed through the prism of politics but if we step back on a human level that governor x from party x is telling a superintendent where there's a spike in covid case, and that superintendent is worried about kids in their classroom, for their safety, and that governor saying if you force them to wear a mask, protect them, i'm going to take away your salary, or funding to your school district. that's sick whoever is saying this. >> that's why this is the biggest, most important story in the country right now. it is a story of ego, that of

ron desantis, a graduate of harvard law school, a man who is now saying to the parents in the state of florida, i'm going to roll the dice with your children's lives. that's what he's saying and doing all under the guise of ambition, his political ambition running for higher office, aka the presidency, and also putting a philosophy out that government is too big, let's get government out of our lives. i can guarantee you and i would bet on my children's lives. i would bet that ron desantis will take as much money as he can grab out of the fourth coming public works bill that's going to pass the united states senate and be signed into law, he will grab every penny available to the state of florida and try to further enhance his own reputation.

but on this one, using the children of the state of florida, interfering with the parental right to take care of the safety and well being of their own children, it's the biggest and most important story culturally and politically right now. >> i couldn't agree with you more, mike barnicle. in a few moments we'll be talking with dr. anthony fauci about that and a lot more as the delta variant continues to rip through this country. coming up, the taliban makes new advances in afghanistan as u.s. troops prepare to fully withdraw at the end of the month. plus, the biden administration expands sanctions on belarus. but are they strong enough? president lukashenko is shrugging them off. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming ri back

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♪♪ all right. welcome back to "morning joe." 45 past the hour. a live look at capitol hill. a lot going on there this morning. let's get another must read in here. max boot writes for "the washington post" in a piece entitled "biden's centrist strategy makes sense, it can prevent trump's return" and max writes in part, quote, it is easy to describe the republican lunge to the lunatic right but hard to know what to do about it. biden is probably on the right path by trying to work with republicans where he can, ducking the culture wars, and keeping his language mild. centristism got him into the

white house and can keep him there. there's nothing more dangerous for our democracy than a trump comeback. biden needs to stay popular enough to make that happen. but occasional pieces of bipartisan legislation should not blind us to the ugly reality of today's gop. journalists love the faux balance of suggesting that both parties are catering to hard liners and ideologies, but that's not really true. only one party in the united states has gone to extremes. and that would be, gene robinson, the covid party. >> yeah. >> i mean, the republican party. you get my point. >> i get your point and that's absolutely right. and that's why max's thesis that biden is best off and the country is best off if he stays centrist is, you know, i hope that's right. but it is -- because we don't

have two legitimate competing parties right now, we don't have a center left party and a center right party and -- between which there is a middle where you can meet and get stuff done, maybe infrastructure, you know, proves me wrong, but that's not what we have had in the last few years certainly in the last couple of election cycles. we've had this crazy situation where the republican party has lost its mind, the democratic party has to fill the role of the entire political spectrum, from aoc to joe manchin, and we somehow muddle through. so what is being centrist in this environment? i'm not sure we know. so far it seems like whatever biden is doing is working pretty

well. and now that it looks like he is going to get infrastructure through somehow, and the senate is going to work on human infrastructure, it looks like maybe he's onto something and maybe this path he's taking is the right one. but we'll have to see. our politics is not what it used to be. it's just not. >> mike, this infrastructure package, the bipartisan one that's expected to go through the senate today clearly and easily with republican support is not exactly what progressives wanted, obviously they had a bigger wish list but still a ton of money being appropriated out from the federal government, led by president biden. but you're very plugged into this white house, you understand how he has managed the progressive wing of his party and also trying to get elected, he had to ignore some of the noise from the progressives during the election. now as president how is he handling this balance of acknowledging what his party wants on the progressive side

but also saying we have to be pragmatic in some places if we want our legislation to get through? >> yeah, you know, willie, i think if max went back and looked at that piece this morning that we just read an excerpt from, he'd probably drop the word "probably". where he said and wrote probably on the right path. the presidency, president biden is on the right path. and he's on the right path, i would submit, because like a lot of people over the course of the last 40, 45 years in joe biden's career in the senate, as vice president and now as president, some people have a tendency to under estimate him. under estimate his sense of awareness, where he is politically and where the united states senate is. >> for sure. >> he knows the republican party is not the party of 1981, '91 or

2001. i think he's under estimated because i think that he has made maybe ten times more phone calls to various representatives and senators in the house and the senate than anyone can imagine trying to pull this thing together to get us to the point where we are today. where this massive bill will indeed pass and become law and be a savior for many city, states and towns and increase employment as well. but the underestimating of joe biden you do that at your peril. he's a quiet, confident guy and he knows what he's doing and knows what he wants. >> and he loves what he's doing. and he loves connecting with people. and he loves politics and he loves -- he was served in the senate for many, many years. so you can argue, we can look behind, you know, back beyond trump even the obama years.

i think joe biden makes an attempt to connect with both parties and with members of the house and the senate on -- he will on a far higher level than the past two former presidents. and still ahead, arkansas just set a new record for hospitalizations from coronavirus. we'll talk to one hospital executive who is seeing burn out among nurses and facing staffing shortages as infections surge. again, all of this preventable. dr. anthony fauci joins our conversation at the top of the hour. "morning joe" is coming right back. hour "morning joe" is coming right back

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50% of the country is fully vaccinated.

is it just me or does it feel like a group project where half the team does all the work? what are we doing? speaking of the vaccine, united airlines announced they're requiring all of their employees to get vaccinated. but this is annoying, they're now charging every passenger a $9 common sense fee. meanwhile, spirit isn't requiring vaccines, they're like we're going to fly with the windows down. >> seems dangerous. dr. anthony fauci joins us in just two minutes. we have a long list of questions for him on vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and much more. dr. anthony fauci next on "morning joe." re dr. anthony fauci next on "morning joe."

from prom dresses to workouts and new adventures you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. although uncommon, up to 1 in 5 survivors of meningitis will have long term consequences. now as you're thinking about all the vaccines your teen might need make sure you ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. ♪ when i was young ♪ no-no-no-no-no please please no. ♪ i never needed anyone. ♪ front desk. yes, hello... i'm so... please hold. ♪ those days are done. ♪ i got you.

♪ all by yourself. ♪ go with us and find millions of flexible options. all in our app. expedia. it matters who you travel with. ron desantis. desantis isn't worried. he says that the spike is seasonal, as floridans spend more time together indoors to

escape the summer heat. it's like when the governor of pompeii announced, hey, guys, ignore the rain of ash, it's just volcano season. let's all make a fun pose for no reason. welcome back to "morning joe," it is tuesday, august 10th. mike barnicle and eugene robinson are still with willie and me. joe is back tomorrow. let's get right to the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases and chief medical adviser to the president, dr. anthony fauci. dr. fauci thank you for being on. we'll start broad on this issue. where in the country is covid and the delta variant the worst, and what's the potential that delta mutates and creates a scenario that we go back to square one for the entire country? >> well, in answer to your first question, mika. it's certainly worse in the

under vaccinated states. if you look at louisiana, florida, texas, states like that, mostly in the southern area. if you look at the dynamics of the virus there it really is surging extremely, acutely with an inflection curve that is if you look at the total country, we've had well over 100,000 cases a day for the last several days. that is really, really a problem. we have 93 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated, who are not vaccinated. and this, as we said so many times is an outbreak of the unvaccinated. one of the problems and the answer to your second question is that if you allow the virus to, essentially, freely circulate among people, essentially among the unvaccinated, then you give it an ample opportunity to continue to mutate. there's no doubt and we know this in virology, it's

fundamental, that a virus will not mutate until you allow it to replicate, and you give it free rein to replicate when you allow it to circulate. and when people don't get vaccinated, they say i'm taking my own chances i'm a young, healthy person, if i get infected, i will likely not get severe disease, which is true. not completely free of that, but it's unlikely. what they don't fully appreciate is even if they don't get any symptoms they allow themselves to be a vehicle for the virus to spread in the community. and when you do that, you have an impact not only on yourself because you could get seriously ill but you have an impact on everybody else because if you allow the virus to mutate to a variant that evades the vaccine then even vaccinated people are going to be negatively impacted by people not wanting to get

vaccinated. because we know now, we're lucky that we have a vaccine that does reasonably well, in fact, quite well with severe disease against delta but we don't know if that's going to continue if we get a different variant that evades the vaccines that we now have that are so successful. so we spoke to one head of a group of hospitals in florida that is seeing, like many others, a rapid unprecedented rise in patients. one hospital system has 179 pediatric patients, very, very young some of them. 90% are unvaccinated. and some hospitals, that percentage is higher. it's mostly unvaccinated parents -- it's mostly unvaccinated patients that come in and say i wish i had got it. joe and i are at a point where we're begging our unvaccinated friends, begging them, to get

the vaccine. and the pushback we get is it's not fda approved. for some reason we can't compete with facebook on this. what's the response when someone says and is really tired of hearing it from us, that this is not fda approved and they're not getting the vaccine? >> that nonfda approval is a true technicality. we have emergency use authorizations that we do. it is usually a situation where you kind of have marginal and maybe moderate efficacy and you want to balance the risk benefit so you give it an emergency use authorization. what you see now with these vaccines is that we've been giving them to hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. it is highly effective and very safe. this idea about getting official approval, which understandable, the fda has their way of doing things. they do that, they've been very

successful in keeping people safe. but there's no doubt that these vaccines are going to get fully approved. so what's going on now with the vaccines is as good as full approval. so this idea about it's not fully approved is really a false narrative. it really is. you should consider this as good as fully approved and get vaccinated. the idea that i'm waiting for something magical to come on it, it's going to happen. guaranteed it's going to happen. >> dr. fauci, kids in florida are going back to school right now, should they wear masks? >> you know, the cdc recommendation is that they do. and the reason is that even though the vaccines protect very well against infection, there is always a situation given that no vaccines are 100% protected, that even people who are

vaccinated will have breakthrough infections. it will be unusual but it does happen. we hear about it all the time. the thing that's different with the delta variant, that's different than what we've been experiencing with the original alpha variant is that even if if you get infected when you are vaccinated, namely what we've been referring to as a breakthrough infection. when we're dealing with the other variant, the alpha, the amount of virus of a vaccinated person who gets a breakthrough infection was really quite low, making it extremely impropable that you would transmit it to someone else given the incredible capability of this delta variant to transmit and to replicate, we find now that the level of virus in the nasal is extremely high, and even a vaccinated person who gets a

breakthrough infection and may have minimal symptoms or no symptoms, that person may be capable of transmitting the virus to someone who's uninfected. so for that reason the cdc changed guidelines in two ways, saying if you are vaccinated, if you are in an indoor public setting where you have a situation where you're in a zone, which is most of the united states, that is either a high or substantial degree of transmission, you should still wear a mask. and the same thing goes for being in school. you have a situation where the best way to protect children is anyone that can be vaccinated surround the kids with people who are vaccinated. teachers, personnel in the school, whomever. but in addition to that, you should have everyone be wearing a mask. we know how that can be uncomfortable. but you'd rather have an

uncomfortable situation with a well child than temporarily comfortable and a child in the icu. that's what we want to avoid. >> dr. fauci, do you agree with randy winegarden, the head of the largest teachers' union in the country who came out and said yes, teachers should be vaccinated in schools. do you think teachers should be mandated? >> i'm going to upset people but i think we should. we've had 600,000 plus deaths and we are in a major surge now as we're going into the fall, into the school season. this is very serious business. you would wish that people would see why it's so important to get vaccinated. but you're not going to get mandates centrally from the federal government. but when you're talking about local mandates, mandates for schools, for teachers, for universities, for colleges, i'm sorry, i know people must like

to have their individual freedom and not be told to do something but i think we're in such a serious situation now that under certain circumstances mandates should be done. >> and those mandates could come from governors, for example? >> absolutely. absolutely. i think what you're going to see apropos of the question that i was just asked about getting full approval, full fda approval, when that occurs, which i hope will be really quite soon, i think you're going to see that local institutions, local enterprises are going to feel empowered and appropriately so, they're not worried about any, you know, getting sued or anything, that they're going to be saying if you want to go to this university or this college, you got to be vaccinated. if you want to work in our organization, you have to be vaccinated. i think we're going to see a lot more of that. >> you've made a point, dr. fauci in the last several weeks to say that yes, kids are

getting sick and that there are hospitalizations in pediatric hospitals that are going up. i think for so long during this we heard kids tolerate covid well, even when they get it, they're okay in schools, schools have proven not to be a big vector. but they are getting sick now and those kids under 12 cannot get the vaccine yet, of course. so as we enter school season, which has started in a lot of the country, actually, this week. how should parents of young children be thinking about this? if kids are getting sick and they can't get the vaccine and schools are opening, what is a parent left to think? >> i mean, we obviously have to balance, you know, the discussion that we've had now for, you know, over a year is to balance the negative impact on kids from keeping them out of school. the mental health, the develop mental and others, balancing that with making sure that you do whatever you can to keep the children safe in school.

because we are dealing with a different virus now, a much more transmissible virus. and that gets back to what i said a bit ago. a couple of things you can do. one of which is to surround the children with people who if they are eligible to be vaccinated to get vaccinated. that's the reason i answered positively to your question about what my opinion is about mandating vaccines for children. anyone eligible for a vaccine, if you want to be around children, you have to do whatever you can to protect them. if you're eligible to get vaccinated, get vaccinated. since children of certain ages can't get vaccinated. that's why you get the recommendation about wearing masks in school. i know a lot of people push back about that, but again, that's the -- the weapon, if you want to call it, that we have. vaccinate those who can be vaccinated and wear masks in situations in which you have unvaccinated people.

>> dr. fauci, you've been looking every minute of every day at this disease for coming up on two years, it'll be this fall. as you look now at where we are in this moment, headed into the fall, heading into school season, you look at the vaccination rate. if we kind of bump along the way we're going, maybe a few more people do get vaccinated after fda approval but if we stay broadly where we are, how long are we in this? how long does it go? >> you can't predict it. that gets to the issue of one of the original questions i answered a few minutes ago, if you let the virus smolder, it's not going to smolder benignly, if it goes from person to person you give it ample opportunity to mutate. when you have a virus like this, the only way you get it, at it really well is you crush it. you get as many people vaccinated as you possibly can. i might say, not only in the united states, but worldwide.

and that's why you also hear me talking about what i think is our obligation to play a major role with other major countries in getting vaccines to low and middle income countries because even though we can be relatively well protected in this country if you get the overwhelming majority of people vaccinated, you don't want the mutation and variant from another country from the travel that goes on get to the united states. we have the tools to stop this. that's the thing that's so painful and frustrating. we have 615,000 or more people in this country that died from this. we have to take this seriously. when you hear people saying i don't want to get vaccinated, i can understand the need for people's personal liberties but this is a very unusual time in our history and that's the reason why we have to do unusual

things. that means use whatever means possible to get people vaccinated. >> so to that point, given the data we know so far from the very beginning with covid, dr. fauci, what happens if florida, for example, continues as is with a governor threatening to block salaries if they, you know, wear masks at schools, and the unvaccinated continue to hold onto their facebook misinformation and refuse to get the vaccine, where do these numbers take us, scientifically? >> they're going to take us continuing to escalate up and the people of florida are going to suffer unnecessarily. they will be unnecessary hospitalization and tragically, unnecessary deaths. that's exactly what is going to happen. it is entirely predictable on the one hand, and entirely preventable on the other hand.

>> dr. anthony fauci, thank you very much for everything that you do. and thank you for being on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you, doctor. still ahead on "morning joe." as i mentioned, florida governor ron desantis is threatening to withhold salaries for school officials who require masks for students this fall. we'll be joined by one florida school superintendent who is pushing back against the governor saying educators don't have the luxury of ignoring the current crisis to score political points. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. watching "" we'll be right back. i've spent centuries evolving with the world. that's the nature of being the economy. observing investors choose assets to balance risk and reward. with one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold.

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welcome back. governor ron desantis is now

threatening to withhold pay for education officials who enforce mask mandates for students. those mandates are to keep them safe. a statement from the florida's governor office warns florida's board of education could narrowly tailor any financial consequences, citing salaries as an example for district superintendents and county school board members who require masks this fall. the superintendent for leon county responded defiantly telling school officials at a meeting yesterday afternoon, quote, you can't put a price tag on someone's life, including my salary. leon is one of several florida counties, including broward, hillsboro, palm beach and others that have mask man dates in school. >> another person pushing back

is a superintendent in north central florida dr. carly simon with an op-ed in "the washington post" entitled why our district is defying florida's ban on mask mandates. in it she writes, my district is experiencing a dramatic spike in the number of employees testing positive for covid-19 and school hasn't even started. tragically two of our employees died from complications a week ago, many are quarantined and unable to work. in light of this sobering reality, the board voted to require masks for all students during the first two weeks of school. a necessary step to start the academic year safely. certain lewe're concerned about the threat of lost funding but it should not come to that. after all we want what desantis wants, to keep schools open and kids in the classroom. i value life too much to take changes with the lives of

others. as our school board chair has put it, better a loss of funding than a loss of lives. and superintendent carly simon joins us now. dr. simon, thank you for being with us this morning. we appreciate it. so your calculus here is no mystery. you want to keep your kids safe, there's a spike in your community and masks will help you to do that. how much did you consider? how much weight did you put in the threat from governor desantis that he would take away funding and now saying he may trim the salaries of people like you who put in mask mandates? >> obviously i thought about it, i shared this before that, you know, any form of threatening to cut our funding is a concern. but i think that, you know, really when i reflect on the job i need to do, then this is just something that i'm going to have to push forward. i need to provide the secure, safe school environment that's constitutionally mandated to my

students. and i believe that i need to just focus on my job. >> make sure that i'm providing that opportunity for the students. and i believe i am with the mask mandate. and i have been getting quite a bit of feedback from my community specifically my staff and families, that are thankful that i'm going in this direction. >> and it seems obvious to most people it's the responsible thing to do given the cases in your community and what you've seen in your own staff, as a matter of fact. what do you expect to happen from the governor's mansion now, a lot of people thought this was a political threat, posturing from governor desantis, do you expect to lose funding? >> so last night i received, at around 7:00, a letter from the commissioner of education addressing this component. and they're asking for a response today before 5:00. i am reviewing it, i would say that i don't believe my stance has changed.

i will respond to the letter. i believe that they are still moving forward with this threat. >> what did the commissioner say to you in that letter? >> well, he mentioned that i need to follow what they believe to be the expectation of the rules that they shared. and he demanded a response before 5:00. and outlined his components that he believes are the rationale for how that rule making came about. i don't see it through that same lens but i will be responding to him before 5:00 today. >> so just to lay this out in stark terms, you have said clearly as you said in your piece in "the washington post." a dramatic spike in your community, two members of your staff have died of covid-related sickness. you're worried about the health of your kids who dr. fauci told us are at risk that pediatric

hospitals are filling up more than they have ever and the response from the governor and the commissioner was, we're going to take away your funding? >> it was. i think that, you know, where i am right now, you know, today is the first day of school, so i'm excited about that. after this interview i plan on running and visiting quite a few schools that i can to say hello to everybody and welcome back. but i do understand from what we're hearing from our medical experts is where we are today is 30% higher in hospitalizations than where we were in january. and i was superintendent in january. and i can tell you, we were very concerned about covid and we had a mask mandatory mandate back then. i would say now i have more of a reason and argument for why we're doing it when you add on the fact that i have more pediatric cases in the hospital than we ever did before. we need to make sure that we are providing this safe environment and i intend on doing so.

>> governor desantis has said he wants to give parents the power to make the decision about masks. what is the reaction from parents about your putting in a mandate for the first couple of weeks of school? >> it's an interesting perspective, because i think there's two sides of this coin. we didn't get both sides from the governor. so there are families who want that choice component. and the hope scholarship, i believe, was the right approach to provide that choice. but i also have families who want mandatory masking in the school. so by having parent choice it appears that the parents who want to have mandatory masking aren't having the same choice as the parents who don't. but if you use the hope scholarship, this does provide that opportunity. so families who want a mask optional, every surrounding county that i have is -- is mask optional. so they have those. they have the private schools that are within the district

that are offering this as well. so i think if he lets this stay the course, he is providing parent choice to all parents, not just the parents who would like mask optional. >> so you have a decision to make by 5:00 today. this, as you say, is your first day of school, you should be worrying about other things. but what are you going to say to the commissioner in your reply, the mandate stays and maybe you lose your money? >> i would have to say i believe that's probably some portion of how the letter will be written. i have work to do, we're going to focus on the work that we have to do today, as far as opening the school, we will respond to the letter, but i think we have to have a longer conversation and less than 24 hour response to a letter of his. >> mike barnicle, i can't believe we're having this conversation. this is sick. the superintendent is doing what she believes to be right for kids, and she gets a letter from the commissioner saying we're going to take your money away.

>> and this is from an administration, a republican administration, the governor of florida, governor desantis, who is basically a no government guy, government get out of our lives and yet here you have the government of the state of florida threatening to take the funds from superintendent simon. dr. simon, could you please help us out here in furthering the definition of the hope scholarship? it's our understanding that the hope scholarship is offered to parents as an option to sending their child to schools in your district wearing a mask. it's an option for them to take advantage of the hope scholarship which would send their children to a private school, perhaps, and i'm wondering if the private school tuition is paid by the hope scholarship funds and that would be state taxpayer funds being sent to a private school to take

care of a student who ought to be in your school district going to school, and yet is afforded a private school education on the backs of florida taxpayers, is that correct? >> so the hope scholarship is a taxpayer funded voucher program. and the way that it's being utilized in this rule making component that occurred out of the executive order, is that parents can say that they are being covid-19 harassed and they can use this voucher to attend a private school within the district and they can also attend public schools outside of the district in order to have their mask optional component. now what the rule making didn't address, and i would argue does exist is that if i was at a district that had a mask optional and i wanted a mask mandate, i would think that those families should have the same access to that voucher to come, for example, to my district where we would have the mask mandate in place.

and the language of the rule making didn't speak to that. similarly, to the opting out component, and so, i believe that, again, this is a coin that has two sides. so if non-mask optional -- or people who want a mask optional are allowed to use this voucher, i don't see why people who want a mask mandatory couldn't as well. >> what a mess. >> yes. what a mess. dr. simon, i read some of the names that you've been called here. this is really a twisted and perverse situation. i'm wondering how you are doing and what are you hearing from parents in the community? what are you hearing from people? >> so i'm doing well. i have a lot of support behind me. not only do i have like support of family and staff and friends and loved ones, but i also have the support of my county commissioners, i believe my city

commissioners in the city of gainesville. i think that -- actually, i've been receiving quite a few letters of support from around the country. and i think that's, you know, really kind of helped me continue to push forward. this is a challenge. i mean, i understand the power that i am pushing up against. i don't under estimate that, but i also feel that i need to do this in order to look at myself in the mirror every night and to sleep at night. and this is just something that i have to do. >> i so wish some politicians would do that as well. look in the mirror at night and actually think about this. i really appreciate it, carlee simon, superintendent. thank you for staying strong and for protecting the children of your county. we appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. i appreciate it. gene robinson -- yeah. yep. gene robinson, i again, i

cannot -- i cannot believe we are here, but then again, we always ask, where is the bar? and for the republican and for this specific republican governor, it appears there is no bar. there is no lower low than he can go. he keeps going lower. and he's going to have more and more dead constituents. i don't understand the math here at all. >> no, i don't -- the math can't possibly work in his favor. it's the sort of, you know, faux populism and making the assumption that this is what his constituents want or the trump supporters want. and he wants them to support his eventual run for president. and meanwhile, to keep him in the governor's office. and so, it is -- this is a new

low, i think, in american politics that a governor is using, you know, the threat of withholding funding and salaries to keep local school officials from doing their best to keep students and teachers and staff at schools safe from a deadly disease. that is a new low. we've learned over the last few years, if we haven't learned anything, we should have learned that there is no bottom. there is no bottom to this. and so, who knows what it will be tomorrow. she got the letter from the -- from the -- the state education office and so, sure enough, they may cut her funding. they probably will not listen to her logical explanation of why the hope scholarship should also

give people -- parents who want a mask mandate a choice of schools. because that's not on brand. that's not on desantis' warped idea of his brand. and it's -- there's no bottom. this is a new low. but we know by now it can go lower. >> we're in an age where the cops who protected the capitol are being called actors and superintendents of schools are having their salaries threatened by trying to protect their children from the pandemic. this is where we are with the covid republican party. >> it's breathtaking. if we stop and absorb what dr. simon told us, trying to protect her children in schools, many not eligible to get the vaccine because they're under 12 years old, she has the support of her school board, this is a local issue. she's trying to protect children

from getting sick and being put in the hospital and the response from the governor and the school commissioner -- speaking of looking in the mirror, i don't know how he did after that letter -- we're going take away your funding. and the idea that mr. small government desantis is using this top down pressure of the governor's office to dictate what school boards can do, flies in the face of the argument that he doesn't want the federal government telling him what to do these are local issues. but on a human level with no politics involved, a career educator is trying to protect her kids from getting covid and she's being threatened now in an official letter she has to answer by 5:00 today with having her funding taken away from the state. >> add to that it's the delta variant that flies through the state that attacks children more so than the regular covid-19

virus. the delta has kids in the icu. hundreds of them. and the numbers are growing. kids on ventilators. kids under 10. coming up, in the shadow of the global pandemic looms the existential crisis of climate change. we'll dig into the sobering new report from the u.n. that officials call a code red for humanity. "morning joe" is back in a moment. humanity "morning joe" is back in a moment welcome to allstate.

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now to the climate crisis and perhaps the most urgent warning yet. a new u.n. report declaring the world is at the code red stage. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has more. >> reporter: the signs are all there. with fires raging around the world, in greece and turkey and in california the dixie fire is now the second largest wildfire

in california history burned more than 600 structures and still threatens some 13,000 homes. >> reporter: where there isn't fire, there's water. once in a century flash floods killed hundreds in germany, belgium and china this summer. the climate is getting more hostile and the u.n. said it's already too late to stop some of the devastating impacts of climate change. >> it's indisputable that human activities are causing climate change and making extreme weather events more frequent and severe. >> reporter: the report is the world's largest and most up to date study on climate change. it says rising sea levels and shrinking glarkiers and arctic sea ice are rereversable. it's not entirely without hope. finding that temperatures can be

stabilized if we act decisively over the next several decades. >> joining us now, president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass and distinguished professor of atmospheric science at penn state, arthur man. richard, it appears the fight is becoming even more difficult, or is upon us. and do you think the world community and the united states is taking climate change seriously enough and putting measures forward that can combat it? >> the short answer, mika, is no. the gap between where we are and where we need to be is large. unfortunately it's going to get larger, even under the most optimistic scenarios. the current situation, which is bad, is going to grow somewhat worse and under more pessimistic scenarios it's catastrophic or

existential. so the real answer is in glasgow and beyond will the world take climate change simply and will it ask for actions by the 192 countries part of the process but will it also set up structures to pressure governments to do the right thing. there's so many parallels between what you've been talking about for the last hour and a half about covid and this. but in both cases we talk about an international community and we're not seeing one in reality. >> doctor mann, nothing in this u.n. report will surprise you as someone who studies the issue so closely. but what does it look like for the world and specifically america to take this problem more seriously? what are those steps and how realistic are they? >> hi, willie. this report is sobering, and you're right, as a scientist, i'm familiar with what goes into the report.

the report represents, it's already been published in the scientific peer reviewed literature. so no surprise. but i was struck by just how clearly they connect the dots in this report. the authors of the report basically come out and say what they haven't been willing to say before. these unprecedented weather extremes that we are seeing out -- seeing play out in real time right now, wildfires in california, the floods in europe, we would not be seeing such extreme and damaging weather events in the absence of human-caused climate change. so there's a clear message of urgency, but there's a message of agency as well. and the report does lay out how we can solve this problem. it's no mystery. we have to stop burning fossil fuels. and we need policies that will make that happen. and we have the technology to do it. what's missing is the political will power and of course we say

this as we're about to see a debate in congress about an infrastructure package that could potentially provide the sorts of policy backup for the commitment that the united states has made to lower its carbon emissions by 50% within the next ten years. that's a bold pledge. it's bringing other countries to the table but as richard haass pointed out there's an implementation gap as well. there's a gap between what countries are pledging, committing to, and the policies that are actually in place. and that's where we need to see a lot of work. >> gene, you write about the u.n. climate report in your latest column. here's part of it. we're out of time. it's as simple as that. if the world immediately takes bold, coordinated action to curb climate change, we face a future of punishing heat waves, deadly wildfires, and devastating floods. and that's the optimistic

scenario, according to an alarming new u.n. report. if on the other hand we continue down the road of half measures and denial that we've been stuck on since scientists first raised the alarm, the hell scape we leave to our grandchildren will be unrecognizable. at the rate we're going the world could raise by 8 degrees fahrenheit at the end of the century. relatively few of us alive today would be around to witness what we have wrought, but we know we need to change our ways. this sounds like something else we've been talking a lot about when it comes to science denial. but this is something that we pass on not just way down the road to great, great, great, great grandchildren. this is the people in our lives in the near future who will carry this burden. >> yeah. those people who -- those 13,000

homes that are threatened by the dixie fire and the 600 structures that have already been burned and the 200 plus people who died in those floods in europe, you know, these thousand year and two thousand year weather events are happening like every few months. and that's the world we have already made. and that we now have to live with. and adapt to. while taking bold steps to keep it from getting worse. you know, i covered the first earth summit where the u.n. group, the ipcc first issued its report on climate in 1992 and the language was measured, here's what we know, don't know. the language in this report, the sixth report, is strikingly definitive about what we do know.

the language -- you know, we know a lot more and we see it coming. the pe to richard haass, though, china is the biggest carbon emitter by far. and india's rising and other nations, of course, the u.s. is number two, but what is your sense of where china is in terms of actually committing to and then acting on reductions in carbon emissions? >> china's a big part of the problem. it's probably producing now, gene, over a quarter of the gases that are causing climate change and the reason is they put economic growth first. the communist party of china has largely based its legitimacy on being able to deliver economic performance. so they keep pushing down the road when they are going to get to zero emissions, the latest soft pledge is 2060 meanwhile in the next decade or so they're going to increase their

emissions. china is building coal plants, the worst form of fuel domestically and internationally. so i think one we have to shame them by the examples that we and the europeans and others would set. but that's not enough. we have to put economic pressure on china in this area. and my idea is that the united states, rather than standing on the outside, should start getting into some of these trade agreements, including some of the big agreements on asia, and essentially we and these other countries, the japanese, koreans and others would go to the chinese and say you want to export to us, we know that's important to you. guess what, we're going to slap tariffs on you if you keep producing your goods using things like coal. so you want the access you want that you need for economic and political reasons, fine, but you have to act responsibly on climate. until then you are going to pay an enormous price. >> it used to be on the list of important political topics to

americans, climate change was down the list. but among young people in this country they recognize the problem. there's more awareness, willingness to do something about it. but they're also, as you know as a doctor who worked in this area for so long, is skepticism. we've been told for decades now if we don't do now if we don't do anything within five years, florida will be under water, all the ice will be gone and those proclamations won't be true. how do you impress upon them how serious this is? >> thanks, willie. it's a great point, because our young folks, our children, grandchildren, they're going to bear the brunt of this problem if we fail to act. this is more than anything else, it's really our ethical obligation to future generations to not make decisions now that lock them into a degraded future. now, there is a lot of energy. the youth climate movement has

really moved the needle. it's put a lot more pressure on policymakers. you can see that in the far more bold policies that we're seeing put forward, and just the tenor of the conversation and the sense in our public discourse that this is a crisis, an even greater crisis than the coronavirus crisis in the long term. there is still some intransigent by, as you say, the older generation who is sort of locked into their way of doing things. they resist change, and we need massive change. we need to reduce our carbon emissions by a factor of two in the next two years if we want to remain on course to blow a catastrophic 2 to 3 degrees fahrenheit. that's going to require compromise. that's going to require

concentration with what biden is doing right now, because as we just heard, china needs to be brought back into the fold. they were under the obama administration, then donald trump came in, said we're not going to respect our obligations, and there we saw china start to build more coal-fired power plants. we need to get them back in the fold. if we don't get china and india and other developing nations on board, there is no way we're going to limit carbon emissions below dangerous levels. >> distinguished professor of atmospheric science at penn state, dr. michael mann, thank you very much, and richard haas, thank you as well. still ahead, an explosive new lawsuit filed by a jeffrey epstein accuser seeks to hold britain's prince andrew accountable for alleged sexual abuse. plus it's been just six weeks since the deadly surfside

condo collapse. overnight residents in another building were forced to evacuate after officials deemed it unsafe. we'll have the very latest from south florida. "morning joe" is coming right back. these days part of the movement is being cruel, mocking people and deriding them when they were in pain or suffering or having a problem. when you build a political movement whose emotional core is transgression and cruelty, ultimately no one is safe from that kind of treatment. so what kind of governance will that lead to once these folks are in power? e these folks are in power ♪all by yourself.♪ you look a little lost. i can't find my hotel. oh. oh! ♪♪ this is not normal. no. ♪♪ so? ♪♪ right?

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weeks after that deadly building collapse in south florida, hundreds of residents were ordered to evacuate a condo building in miami last night after city officials deemed it an unsafe structure. christopher dahlgren has the latest. >> reporter: overnight a condo building evacuated after safety fears after the surfside condo collapse highlighted condo safety. >> we have a lot of elderly who have nowhere to go. some have covid, some can't

walk. >> the first day i found that notice, i came home from work and started crying. >> reporter: the building company started making repairs but they weren't good enough. >> the structural clarity has been degraded. >> reporter: this came after the surfside champlain south tower building collapsed, killing many. firefighters there ending their search for bodies just weeks ago. details emerging after the tragedy showed structural concerns with the building before the collapse. >> we've got to get the answer to where that building fell down sooner than later. >> reporter: in nearby miami, residents of the newly evacuated building are now safe. the city is working to house the over 130 that are displaced, but many still questioning how this happened. >> they didn't give us a warning. they didn't send us anything. this is unacceptable.

and still ahead, covid hospitalizations in florida increased at record-breaking levels for six consecutive days last week. we'll have the latest on the surge there as kids are getting ready to go back to school now. plus the pentagon is moving to require vaccines for troops. will other mandates follow? here was dr. fauci answering a question from willie just moments ago. >> do you agree with randy weingarten, the head of the largest teachers union in the country, who came out yesterday and said yes, students should be mandated -- teachers should be mandated inside schools? do you think they should be mandated? >> we're at a point now where i think we should. we're in a major surge now as we go into the fall and school season. this is very serious business.

you would wish that people would see why it's so important to get vaccinated. but you're not going to get mandates centrally from the federal government. but when you're talking about local mandates, mandates for schools, for teachers, for universities, for colleges, i'm sorry, i mean, i know people must like to have their individual freedom and not be told to do something, but i think we're in such a serious situation now that under certain circumstances, mandates should be done. ok everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. whoo hoo! ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, now introducing ensure complete! with 30 grams of protein.

the other democrats, they cracked the whip. it's a weird thing, sean. there is a herd mentality among progressive democrats that they obey chuck schumer, and their only answer is sir, yes, sir. >> it's a weird thing where a political party develops a herd mentality and follows a single person. is this you, ted? the senator's projection aside, republicans are facing a make or break moment. get behind the science of masks and vaccines or reap the consequences of a surging pandemic. ron desantis has made his choice on masks in florida, now threatening to withhold pay from educators if they try to protect their school kids. you heard that right. it seems twisted, but that is what is happening with the

desantis variant in florida. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, august 10. joe will be back tomorrow, but willie, let's get right to the news and there is a lot of it. >> yeah, the numbers are spiking again, mika. an nbc news tally confirms the cases have passed 36 million cases since the start of the pandemic, and since february, the country is averaging 1,000 new cases per day, fueled largely with infections in low vaccination rates. if some parts of the country, hospitals are reaching capacity with available icu beds in the single digits. in some instances patients are being turned away. morgan chesky has the details. >> reporter: covid rising in many states, pushing hospitals to an emergency crisis mode. >> we're in a sad situation here, no doubt about it.

>> reporter: in the south where vaccinations remain low is especially hard. in austin, texas, home to nearly a million people, only six icu beds remain open. residents getting this robocall over the weekend. >> the covid-19 situation in austin is dire. health care facilities are open where research is limited due to a surge in cases. >> reporter: this doctor calling it an hour-by-hour situation. >> reporter: cases are rising so rapidly, you could potentially send patients out of state? >> it's a solution. >> reporter: as stephanie lopez watched crews fly her 11-month-old daughter ava to a hospital 150 miles away. >> it was a very heartbreaking experience. >> reporter: many states, including new jersey and arizona, haven't issued mask mandates, while the governor of

arc park regretting a prior ban. >> it was an error to sign that law, i admit that. >> the virus is being spread through aerosols and not droplets. >> reporter: n-95 masks are safest, warning cloth masks provide just 20% protection. a procedure mask providing 40%. >> most people don't wear those masks well, don't fit them well, so they're not getting that much protection. >> reporter: the pentagon announcing mandated inoculations for people in the service by october. doctors and medical workers already fighting burnouts now digging in for yet another surge. morgan chesky, nbc news, austin. >> focusing now on florida, the state with the highest number of children hospitalized with covid-19, nbc's kerry sanders has the latest.

>> reporter: this is kerry sanders in florida where the covid crisis has gone from bad to worse, the florida department of health claiming 22,903 covid cases. >> it's overwhelming our staff. >> reporter: florida hospitals now report 179 pediatric patients. this is k-12 reopening in much of the states. in colliard county, masks for much of the state will be optional. >> no masks for florida. >> reporter: pediatrician warnings for every parent. >> i'm asking every parent to take this very serious. it is incredibly contagious and our children are getting sick. i can't do this. >> reporter: olivia deangelis'

two children are starting school. she wants them to wear masks because she ended up in the hospital with covid. >> i don't want my kids to go through that. i really would just cry. >> reporter: teachers like megan wilkes stuck in the middle. >> reporter: is this difficult for you to be the teacher and also the police officer saying, mask-no mask from the beginning? >> i think in the beginning it would definitely be a challenge. . >> joining us is the doctor watching over a teaching hospital and six serving hospitals. sir, i would like to start where the health care worker, the expert there broke down into tears about these children. we have 179 pediatric patients in florida that we know of. how young are some of these patients, as far as you know?

>> well, so they're certainly young. without releasing patient privacy, they're more than zero days, but we're talking single-digit ages here. >> good god. would these kids going back to school wearing masks perhaps be able to be protected in that situation? >> i think it's a big question about the unvaccinated. we know that right now if you're 12 years or younger, there is no vaccine for you. so this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. i think the bigger thing we have to focus, and i watched your piece here, is about the vaccinated status in folks. so anybody who is not vaccinated is clearly at risk. >> so the problem is, though, that there are people choosing not to get vaccinated, and there appears to be no talking to

them, although we're all still trying, doctors are trying, the cdc is trying. most political leaders are trying, except for those who are too afraid to try. so if you have a population that is partially unvaccinated, are masks the only and next line of defense unless you start quarantining again and working and doing school from home? >> i think, especially in florida, what we're back to having to employ a bunch of strategies. where we are located in the center of the state, we're pretty well vaccinated, but once you leave to rural parts, the numbers are dramatically difference, so there is a lot of risk there. quite frankly, i think we're back to considering social distancing, we're back to considering outdoor versus indoor spaces. people should be contemplating masks where appropriate, and

certainly we should all be more cognizant of who we're with in relation to their vaccination status. i think all of those strategies are helpful if we're not going to be a fully vaccinated world around this. >> can you tell me what you're hearing from your health care community, your experts, your workers, about why people who are coming in with covid, some of them with symptoms close to fatal, why they are not -- why they are still not getting vaccinated? >> there are several reasons. the biggest reason we hear from families is the vaccines are not "approved." i think that is creating a bit of dialogue this is mysterious. there is a piece motivated by people's belief systems, whether they're personal or political, but they have their own belief

systems. there is a third category that is just afraid about the future, and certainly we hear that pretty often for people that are not vaccinated. what's going to happen to me in one, two, five years? >> mr. jimenez, good morning. it's willie geist. we appreciate you being here this morning. can you just take a step back for us and give us a snapshot in terms of where you are with numbers in the hospitals as compared to last year. there have been some who accused the media of overblowing the situation in florida, how dire things are there. we know that single records and cases have been set for a couple days there since the beginning of the pandemic, but what does it look like in your hospitals? >> it's clearly a struggle. i'll give you some data points. our peak in the winter, which for us would have been in january, was 157 patients. this morning we're at 214. so that alone would suggest to you new peak, maybe 30% higher, that's a challenge. but there is a bigger story

here. eight weeks ago, june 17th, we had 11 patients. so there's this rapid and accelerated rise that's unprecedented. >> and what percentage of the patients you're seeing are unvaccinated? how many people of that group you just described, what percentage is unvaccinated? >> so this morning, 90% of the patients in our hospital are unvaccinated. so, again, at the risk of being repetitive, this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. >> and what about your nurses and doctors? the scenes you've described for us sound a lot like the scenes we saw in new york city, for example, last year where doctors and nurses put on brave faces, we celebrated them rightly, we continue to do so. but what is the stress and the strain not just on your health system broadly but on the individuals, on the heroes, the nurses and the doctors who are

handling this explosion inside the hospitals? >> for me it's an awful struggle to see what they have to go through. the way i describe it is every day they're here doing heroic and amazing things, and they are in touch with patients' families and they're the lifeline between patients and loved ones from a conversation perspective. then they go home. and they have to confront whatever home brings, whether their spouse has a job or not, their family's company is open or not, their kid may or may not be going to school, so our staff don't get to turn it off. on some level, maybe all of us can imagine that they can muscle through it. but i don't know that they can muscle through it for 18 months. we've not been able to take the foot off the gas pedal, so i'm in daily awe of the university of florida staff, because they are amazing. we're the flagship hospital, so for us we're also bringing in patients from all over the state

and from the southeast. >> ceo at the university of florida health shands, ed jimenez, thank you so much for being on this morning. still ahead, two big stories out of washington. the military mandates, vaccines for u.s. troops as capitol hill inches closer to an infrastructure deal. updates on both of those headlines when "morning joe" comes right back. s right back welcome to allstate. where our new auto rates are so low, ♪ you'll jump for joy. ♪ here, better protection costs a whole lot less. you're in good hands with allstate. click or call for a lower auto rate today. this is a gamechanger, who dares to be fearless even when her bladder leaks. our softest, smoothest fabric keeping her comfortable,

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immediately after it is approved by the fda. the president, who needs to sign a waiver to make the shots mandatory, quickly issued his support for the order. in a statement yesterday, he wrote in part, quote, we are still on a wartime footing and every american who is eligible should take immediate steps to get vaccinated right away. i am proud that our military women and men will continue to help lead the charge in the fight against this pandemic, and they so often do by setting the example of keeping their fellow americans safe. the pentagon says more than 1 million troops are fully vaccinated, and another 237,000 have received one shot, willie. >> some big news out of capitol hill this morning, mika. just a few hours from now, the senate will hold the final vote in the bipartisan infrastructure

bill. mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer both expected to speak. the vote will be held at 11:00. the bill is expected to pass by a huge margin. all gop senators have backed the bill and that is expected to go up from here. majority leader schumer says the vote will proceed with the democrat-only budget reconciliation package. let's bring in jake sherman. he is an msnbc political contributor, and white house correspondent monica alba. good morning, jake. leet me begin with you. it was a long road to get here to this vote this morning at 11:00. what do you expect to see in terms of numbers? >> willie, i think what you said is right. there are 19 republicans who have already voted for some element of this plan in the procedural run-up to this legislation's final passage. i would note, though, willie, we are not at the end of the rope, we are at a stop sign, let's

call it, for the senate. this bill is going to go to the house of representatives where it could linger until, like, october or november. so i just think that we need to be cognizant of the fact that this is a massive victory for joe biden and chuck schumer and even mitch mcconnell who we all thought, democrats thought, we weren't sure what would happen, but democrats thought he would hold up this legislation. so a big moment but kind of just the intermission, willie, as we look toward the rest of the agenda. >> monica, you're traveling with the president in wilmington, delaware. he'll be back this morning in washington. i imagine a bit of a celebration, at least on the senate side, for him as he tried to get something through on infrastructure since the beginning of his administration. >> reporter: and he campaigned for so long, willie, of course, on bipartisanship, something he was mocked for a couple of times early on in this process when talks with republican senators initially fell apart, and when

he was the one who really said, i don't care how we get this done, but i still definitely want it to be with members of both parties. that was something that the president carried through this entire process, and you can absolutely expect him to tout that. in fact, i am here in delaware where the president was expected to stay for longer than a week or so. he has a couple of homes here, of course, and he was going to have somewhat of a working vacation, but as the senate continued its work, he decided, of course, he wanted to be back in d.c. where we do expect, and i wouldn't be surprised at all, that there will be some kind of celebratory event whether it is at the white house or some shape or format it looks like given the delta variant where gatherings at this time and challenges present, we do expect this to be a white house that's going to celebrate this today. but as jake said, this is sort of the two-track plan the white house had envisioned from the start, but it's not over yet. so they're not going to declare

full victory on infrastructure knowing, of course, what's to come on the so-called human infrastructure part of it, but we can expect this president to talk about it. remember, he got into some trouble a couple months ago when he did tie these two things directly together, saying i'm not really going to sign one without the other. in the end he had to walk that back, but the white house will tell you, and officials have said, that is exactly what they sort of hope is going to happen here, and all signs point to that being the reality. so even if they didn't get there in that exact way, this is what president biden wanted, it's what candidate biden promised, and we will expect to hear from him in the next couple of hours in a very celebratory tone, mostly on this issue of bipartisanship, though the real work begins on the massive $3.5 trillion package now. >> nbc's monica alba and jake sherman of "punchbowl news," thank you both very much for being on this morning. we'll circle back for that mandate of u.s. troops to be

vaccinated. political analyst paul wyckoff weighs in straight ahead on "morning joe." yckoff weighs in straight ahead on "morning joe." from prom dresses to workouts and new adventures you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. although uncommon, up to 1 in 5 survivors of meningitis will have long term consequences.

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yesterday on the show we talked about a handful of professional athletes who are still reluctant or hesitant to get the vaccine. you can add lamar jackson to that list. >> i have to talk to my team, see how they feel about it, we'll go from there. >> reporter: so you might get it? >> we'll talk to the doctors. we'll see. >> lamar jackson has had covid twice. still on the fence about getting a vaccine, he returned to training on saturday after being absent ten days, one of the

football players who tested positive. we have associate editor of the "washington post," and political analyst eugene robinson and host alicia mendez. eugene, i need to ask you about these heroes. a lot of people look up to them. lamar jackson said despite having covid twice, he still needs to learn more about the vaccine before he considers getting it. >> incomprehensible. lamar jackson is a great quarterback but he's setting a terrible example for his fans. also he's endangering his career. he says he's looking into the vaccine. apparently he's never heard of long covid. he doesn't understand the potential long-term health consequences of getting covid. he's had the disease twice. he had bad symptoms twice. it's not -- he didn't have

asymptomatic cases, he was home sick, quite ill, then he got better. he could get it again. and that endangers his season and his team, his teammates. it's just -- so i hope the doctors are telling him the right thing and i hopes he listens. >> mike, we've seen this in the nfl, we've seen it in professional baseball, we've seen it in the nba, a reluctance among these athletes. of course, it's their right not to get the vaccine, but again, so many people take their cues from these huge sports stars. >> yeah, you know, lamar jackson is a tremendous quarterback, a tremendous athlete, there is no doubt about that, willie. but he's not a team guy because he has just proven he is not a team guy. the national football league has a pretty rigid policy on vaccines. they urge all players to get vaccines, i think something like 75% of all the teams in the nfl have a pretty good vaccine program going. and if lamar jackson transfers

whatever element of covid he might still have or might still get in the future and risks his team forfeiting a game, that's a loss for the team. already he's proven he's not a team guy. the other aspect about it, getting covid twice and still worried about the vaccine, that's truly mystifying. >> alicia mendez, i know you've been looking at the virus on the ground in florida. i used to live in florida. i know they're hesitant to get the vaccine, and the one thing that ties them all together is facebook. they spend time on facebook. i wouldn't be spending time on facebook, and i certainly wouldn't be getting my news from facebook, and yet that's another thing that ties them together as they get news from sites that spring up or spread their headlines around facebook. what are you hearing? >> you know, it's interesting,

i was talking to a woman who lost her 71-year-old otherwise healthy dad to the virus. he wasn't an anti-vaxxer, but he owned a business and he just kept putting off getting the vaccine. what she did say is he was exposed to some of this misinformation that you were referencing. inasmuch as we talk about what governor desantis and others across the south are doing, i look for glimmers of hope, and i find them, mika, in some of the ways these local leaders are pushing back. anthony suarez, i spoke to him, early on in the pandemic he had lauded governor desantis for the way he had handled elements of the pandemic. now he is standing up against him saying, we may need to mandate masks in our schools, we may need to have masks in public buildings. you're seeing pushback, as you

said, from superintendents across the state of florida. you referenced one county, i'm going to reference another. this is from the superintendent of miami-dade who said at no point should i allow my decision to be influenced by a threat to my paycheck. it's not just florida. i've heard the same from superintendents in phoenix, and the line over and over again. i think we're going to hear it over the next several weeks, i think we'll hear it again as we head into 2022 that this isn't about politics. this is about the health and safety of our students, of our workers and of our community. and local leaders are so desperate, mika, to take politics out of the equation and it keeps being injected over and over again by some of these leaders at the state level. coming up, we'll talk to the leader of one of arkansas's medical centers that has too many covid patients and too little staff. a look at that untenable position when "morning joe" comes right back. s right back

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do you agree with randy weingarten, the head of the largest teachers union, who said teachers should be mandated in schools? >> i think we should. we are in a critical situation now, we've had 615,000-plus deaths and we are in a major surge now as we're going into the fall, into the school season. this is very serious business. you would wish that people would see why it's so important to get vaccinated. but you're not going to get mandates centrally from the federal government. but when you're talking about local mandates, mandates for schools, for teachers, for universities for colleges, i'm sorry, i mean, i know people must like to have their individual freedom and not be told to do something, but i

think we're in such a serious situation now that under certain circumstances, mandates should be done. >> doctor anthony fauci on "morning joe" last hour voicing his support for vaccine mandates for teachers. in florida, forget vaccine mandates. it's mask mandates for students that continue to be a flashpoint. we've talked a lot about governor ron desantis and his threat to withhold pay for education officials who enforce mask mandates for students. the governor's office said florida's board of education could, quote, narrowly tailor any financial consequences for district superintendents and county school board members who require masks this fall, citing salaries as an example. willie? >> and in our last hour, we spoke with dr. carly simon, the superintendent of alachua public

schools in northern florida whose school district has defied the ban on mask mandates. it was an extraordinary conversation where she said since she's putting in a mask mandate for the school year, she got a notice that her funding could be revoked. >> any threat to cut our funding is a concern, but when i reflect on the job i need to do, then this is just something that i'm going to have to push forward. i need to provide the secure, safe school environment that's constitutionally mandated to my students, and i believe that i need to just focus on my job and make sure that i'm providing that opportunity for the students. and i believe i am with the mask mandate. >> what do you expect to happen from the governor's mansion now? a lot of people thought this was just some kind of political threat, it was just posturing from governor desantis. do you actually expect to lose funding? >> so last night i received, at around 7:00, a letter from the

commissioner of education addressing this component, and they're asking for a response today before 5:00. i am reviewing it. i would say that i don't believe my stance has changed. i will respond to the letter. i believe that they are still moving forward with this threat. >> what did the commissioner say to you in that letter? >> well, he mentioned that i need to follow what they believe to be the expectation of the roles that they shared, and he demanded a response before 5:00 and outlined his components that he believes are the rationale for how that rulemaking came about. i don't see it through that same lens but i will be responding to him before 5:00 today. >> what are you going to say to the commissioner in your reply? the mandate stays and maybe you lose your money?

>> i would have to say i believe that's probably some portion of how the letter will be written. i have work to do. we're going to focus on the work we have to do today as far as opening the school. we will respond to the letter, but i think we're going to have to have a longer conversation in a less than 24-hour response to a letter of his. >> as you heard, she has to respond to that letter by the state by 5:00 today. we'll be following that story very closely, mika, but i think you got a preview of her response. she's saying, well, maybe you'll cut my funding or my salary, but i have to protect my kids. >> good for her. adventhealth, the region's largest health care system, says there are about 1,000 patients hospitalized with covid-19 and that the crews there are currently operating in a, quote, black status. the status designation means

officials are able to defer non-emergency surgeries while time-sensitive pediatric procedures can be conducted with the approval of the chief medical officer. here's how dr. anthony fauci described to us what is happening in florida earlier on "morning joe." >> the people of florida are going to suffer unnecessarily. there will be unnecessary hospitalization and, tragically, unnecessary deaths. that's exactly what is going to happen. it is entirely predictable on the one hand and entirely preventable on the other hand. >> let's bring in epidemiologist and inspect or for protection, dr. shu.

dr. shu, can you give us a sense of what is happening in your facilities right now, especially with covid patients? how young are they, how sick are they? >> right now we have close to 1600 patients hospitalized in our hospitals throughout central florida. our peak is continuing. we haven't seen the peak yet so we're continuing to see a rise and we do not know when this peak is going to end. right now the trend is toward younger patients. we are seeing younger patients who are very sick on ventilators, and 40% right now of our hospitalizations are due to covid. our numbers right now are almost double. we're at 95% additional hospitalizations due to covid since our january peak. so there is -- there comes a point when hospitals start to break. we're holding on our own, but there is still just massive

concern throughout the organization of staffing shortages. we're doing our best to take care of these patients. >> how young are your patients on ventilators, the youngest ones, and what are your thoughts about kids going back to schools now, because schools are opening now without masks, because, of course, younger children are not vaccinated? >> we do have some adults in their 20s, and there have been pregnant women in their 20s who have been put on ventilators. it's not very often, but again, we are seeing that in our younger patients. as far as schools are concerned, i have a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old. my 14-year-old is vaccinated, my 10-year-old is not able to. they are wearing masks, and i hope every student in school will wear their mask because we do know that science is very clear that wearing that mask

does help stop the spread of covid. >> all right, so this is an epidemiologist, an expert in infection prevention who has his kids wearing masks. point this out, our viewers, to your friends who don't want to get vaccinated or think the mask mandates are ridiculous. these are the people to listen to. can you explain to me, dr. hsu, your concerns about what is coming in the future if people continue in florida to refuse to get vaccinated and these mask mandates are considered unlawful? what is the potential? scientifically. >> scientifically we are still seeing spread among the unvaccinated population. the number of cases in florida continue to rise, and again, our hospitalizations have not yet reached its peak.

this is something that we are still dealing with, and i think the lesson to other jurisdictions, other states, municipalities, is that this can be avoided to some extent if we can encourage and increase our vaccinations. we work on, at least temporarily during the surge, getting those masks on and social distance. we can avert the crisis that you've seen here in florida. so this would be my message to those throughout the rest of the country. >> executive director of infection prevention for adventhealth in florida, vincent hsu, thank you very much for being with us this morning. willie? >> let's move now to the state of arkansas which ranks third in the united states for new daily virus cases. the state set a new record for hospitalizations yesterday since the beginning of the pandemic. the department of health there reported only eight icu beds left available in the entire state.

joining us now, chancellor of the university of arkansas for medical sciences, dr. cam patterson. dr. patterson, thank you so much for being with us this morning. give us a snapshot, if you could. we just heard about hospitalizations, we just heard about covid cases setting new records in the state. how does it look inside your hospitals right now? >> yeah, you know, it's a similar story here in arkansas as well. we're overwhelmed. we added about 10% additional covid-19 patients in the hospital across our state over the weekend. we're seeing the same trends of younger patients in the hospital. in our adult hospital, a year ago the median age of patients with complications were in their 60s. now it's 40. we also have pregnant women who have been admitted to covid-19. we have done a heart bypass. unfortunately, some of those moms have lost their babies

. and in children's hospital, they rarely have two or three covid patients at a time. now they have 22. over half of those kids are vaccine eligible but none of them have received a vaccine. the youngest, five weeks of age. >> good god. >> this is the thing we're hearing again and again and again. it's the unvaccinated who are filling up hospitals across the country. what can you do in your state that has not already been done to get that message out? you hate to think that it would take death on the scale that we're seeing and hospitalizations on the scale that we're seeing in your state to wake people up to vaccinations. what is the problem there and how can you do better? >> well, the problem is that we are a state where there is possibly people who graduated from high school, very rural states, so those are people who are susceptible to vaccine hesitancy, medical

misinformation, and that's been a hindrance to us. at the same time there are laws that have been passed that are putting roadblocks in the way of mask mandates, unfortunately, that recently got caught in the courts and vaccine mandates. it may be up to the private sector to start mandating vaccines and mask wearing and making sure that people in our state are doing the right thing. because, really, the only offramp for covid-19 is getting vaccinated, and, you know, we're alarmed by the delta variant, but if we don't get vaccined and masked up, there are more variants coming down the road. >> you just described the current scenario where it's young people coming in, the average age down from 20 years than you were seeing just a year ago. what about the young children you talked about just a second ago? what about schools? we just heard from governor

hutchinson saying, yes, it was a mistake for me to stay in the way of mask mandates for some districts where there are spikes in cases. do you think it's safe to be back at school in the state of arkansas? >> it's not safe if kids are not masked up, it's not safe if teachers are not vaccinated. that's just not a safe safe sitd we shouldn't put our kids in solutions like that. i salute the little rock school district, city of fayetteville, both have instituted mask mandates. but it will be extremely treacherous when schools reopen. marian county already reopened their school year. within the first week, 900 students were on quarantine. >> so, sir, i notice a little frustration in your face. i can imagine you're extremely worried about the health care workers who have been on the front lines of this all along who are now in this situation

again. many of them being pushed to the breaking point in terms of their own mental health and trying to keep their lives balanced and handling everything that they are dealing with. what are people thinking? what is happening with the people who are coming into these hospitals who have not been vaccinated and what are you thinking at this point of this? >> well, you know, this is a tough situation. we've got great dedicated health care providers, but i heard from a nurse who said that she cries in her car before she comes into work every day. we've had nurses walk out in the middle of their shifts, almost 20% of our nursing positions right now are vacant at a time when the demand for services from our team members is greater than it has ever been. it is easy to be frustrated. easy to be angry. but the key is we can't be angry at our patients. we need to direct our anger at the people who are driving this

wave of medical misinformation. >> couldn't agree with you more. and there is a lot of disinformation out there. chancellor of the university of arkansas for medical sciences, dr. patterson, thank you very much. let's get back to defense secretary lloyd austin's memo seeking president biden's approval to mandate the vaccine for active members of the military no later than mid september or immediately after it is approved by the fda. joining us now, iraq war veteran paul rykoff, host of the independent americans podcast. and paul, you -- we've been talking about this for quite some time and thought that it would be the right thing for the military to be on the front

lines of this war just like they are on every war that they fight for this country. but it will be waiting for fda approval at the very least. what are your thoughts on this move to try to get the military vaccinated? >> it is a good move but long overdue. you've been painting a picture about places like arkansas and florida. consider the fact that over 0% of the military right now is not vaccinated. we can't afford to have outbreaks like we're seeing in florida and arkansas inside the special operations community, inside the 82nd airborne, inside the fighter pilot communities. these are the people on the front lines and only 65% have been vaccinated. there is a precedent for this. george washington mandated the very first vaccination of our troops when he was losing 90% of his troops to smallpox. so this is a chance for the military to lead, there is precedent. i've got more shots in my arm than i can count and biden i think really dragged his feet here. and the military can lead. i think the military having the

vaccine, standing up and showing that they are strong and ready do this, will inspire other people who have been reluctant to take the vaccine. so i think this is an overdue move and it is about our national security. >> paul, good to see you. as you say, this is kind of a snapshot of what is happening in the country. a lot of people have gotten a lot of vaccines over the years and done so willingly suddenly are against this vaccine. what does it do to the troops if men and women say i'm not taking the vaccine, what happens then? >> they probably will get court martialed. and they should. when i went through basic training, measles, mumps, rubella, we even got something called the peanut butter shot because it was so thick it was like peanut butter. so we've done it before. people who want to oppose the vaccination of their military, will they oppose body armor or having helmets? it is not an option to protect yourself and it shouldn't be an option to get the vaccine and if you are not willing to do it, you should frankly get out

because you are not a team player, you don't understand science and you are not ready to protect yourself and the people around you. >> and the secretary defense says it will go into effect next month. and you formed veterans of america, you founded that group after serving in iraq. i want to ask you about afghanistan where the taliban is advance quickly capturing two more provincial capitals. and kelly cobiella has a report from kabul and we'll talk on the other side. >> reporter: the afghan air force striking taliban targets in the south, climbing to have killed 16 insurgents after a rapid advance in the north. the taliban taking over three cities in one day. they are now in control of at least five regional capitals and fighting for more. the u.s. providing some air support to afghan forces, but no ground troops.

>> it is their country to defend now. >> reporter: families are now homeless in kabul. the conflict taking a toll on children, 27 killed in the last 72 hours alone according to the u.n. this man worked with u.s. funded aid agencies and is applying for visas. he has three young sons and two older daughter, both educated and unmarried. >> what is your fear for your daughters? >> it is very difficult for me to say. very difficult. >> reporter: like so many, he is afraid he is running out of time. >> kelly cobiella reporting there. paul, i don't think most people are surprised by what they are seeing, many people predicted this even those who supported the pullout of troops from afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of 9/11. what do you think as a veteran, what do you think as a guy who is so plugged in and in touch with so many people who served in afghanistan, what do you think as you see these images?

>> it is infuriating. i support the withdrawal, but i think many of us feel it didn't have go this way. when spokesperson for the pentagon says it is their problem now, well, it is our responsibility too. we have potentially humanitarian disaster on our hands, our allies who were interpreters are being slaughtered and the white house seems to want to wash their hands of it. yes, we don't have to stay forever, but what do we do about an emerging humanitarian disaster as the taliban rolls through the country. i think that is the question for president biden and the white house right now. >> and president biden has said we retain the capability to strike if we need to just from outside the country as the situations flare up, we can go in and take care of them. what does that look like to you? does that mean american troops eventually go back into afghanistan? >> i think that is what everybody is concerned about. and remember, there is an election. what is to say the next president can't say we're going

back in. afghanistan has been in and out, in and out for almost two decades now. so we've called it forgot-istaan because it is off the radar unless it is terrible. it is terrible now. we need a plan to protect our allies, to stabilize that area and to look forward to the future. tell the afghan people who will happen next because right now they are being slaughtered and it is our responsibility even if we don't have troops on the ground. >> paul, tomorrow marks one month until the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the horrible day that launched had war in afghanistan. you were a 9/11 first responder, you were down there. i know that we'll be talking to you much more as we approach the anniversary here, but what are your early thoughts? >> we said a lot never forget. and the question now 20 years later, did we for get, did we forget what it was like to be humbled as a nation, what it was like to come together, did we forget what it was like to have the whole world on our side.

i think that should be the lesson of 9/11, that we can come together as a nation especially thousand when we're so divided and recognize that we have new 9/11s. we have the pandemic, domestic extremism, many other challenges that could hurt our nation potentially. so the message of never forget is that america can, should and must come together especially right now. >> one of the great leaders in this country. your podcast is a must listen. thanks so much. another day and another list of crazy twisted stories that are leading the news. and this has gotten to a level that is even surprising us as this point. we thought we had been surprised enough. but to threaten people's salaries while they are trying to protect children from getting a deadly virus, that is as sick as it gets and the republican

party can really brand itself as the covid party as this point. and we know how that ends. very badly. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there, tuesday august 10th and this morning we're following several major stories. in just about 30 minutes from now, the senate is set to gavel into vote on the nearly $1 trillion infrastructure package. the bill is expected to pass despite 11th hour holdouts from a few republicans. we'll be speaking to senator elizabeth warren. and also job openings are surging above 10 million for the first time ever. with so many open jobs and sonl americans out of work, we'll dig into what is causing this major disconnect. and as students return to