infrastructure bill in the house and keeping all democrats, from moderates to liberals, in line for that multitrillion dollar reconciliation bill. thank you for getting up "way too early." "morning joe" starts now. american and delta airlines will not require employees to be vaccinated. a twist, frontier is now the classy airline. didn't see that one coming. i prefer the 3m duct tape, please. good morning and welcome to "morning joe," it's thursday, august 12th. you got duct taped to your seat that one time they ran out of mr. pibb. >> i did. no mr. pibb, no rc cola, i was like what am i doing here? you know, you talk about duct

tape, of course, everybody remembers the early years of "morning joe" when you and mika at times had to duct tape me to the chair. >> we did. >> on an occasion or two, everything worked out okay. >> it didn't interrupt you. while we were doing it, you were still going. >> kept talking. we have the white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire and we have catty kay. >> something happened last night, like a haley's comet. the red sox won a game last night. >> i saw it. >> when tampa bay spotted us 19 runs going into the ninth inning it was hard not to blow it but we gave it the 6-1-7 chance. didn't we?

>> blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while joe and we were able to get the win. we needed all 20 wins in the ninth we gave up more and more and more. we needed 20, they scored 7 or 8, i guess we missed the extra point. let's be clear here, joe. these are dark times for the boston red sox. >> this is bad. >> the surging new york yankees today playing in iowa, the field of dreams field where they will undoubtedly pick up -- they signed rizzo, they got joey gal low, today probably the ghost of shoeless joe jackson. >> use him. >> this is a team of destiny. if you didn't know your new york yankees, willie, were the team of destiny, you were a member, i said earlier this year, the yankees are coming. but any evidence you need is in the game tonight. the yankees are the team of

destiny. build it and they will come. and yes, they're coming. not only for the white sox but for the world series. i'm going to do it. i don't usually do it. i'm going to guarantee your new york yankees are going to win the world series, going to beat the dodgers in five games, willie. five games. you all are destined to win this game. alex just said why not three games? you guys -- you have spent so much money. you've spent more money than billionaires building space ships to go around in orbit for three and a half seconds and m come home and call themselves astronauts. this is an extraordinary thing you yankees have done. we're going to sit back and admire it and pretend that the red sox have any money to spend on pitchers when you desperately need pitchers. >> this is the argument from 20 years ago. you forget you have joined the

money spending party. you are part of the evil empire. you're right there with us and the dodgers. welcome to the dark side. when i heard the score, 20-8. i knew the two of you were going to ignore the 20 runs scored and focus on the 8 given up. i knew it. >> we gave up. you're up 20-1 and everybody is texting everybody and you're sure that you're going to win, and then you give up seven runs in the ninth inning! you give up a touchdown. in the ninth inning. and i mean, if you've seen how the red sox have been playing, you know, they're playing poor, hungry ball. there was no guarantee they weren't going to give up another 14 runs. >> i believe when it was 20 to 1 to start the ninth, i texted joe, white knuckle time and proved to be right. and to your argument, willie, the red sox have money to spend,

i point to this as evidence. at the deadline we didn't spend any. so clearly none to be had. >> they're hording it. talking about the field of dreams game, the white sox with a 10.5 game lead in the season. let's get to the news. today the fda expected to approve covid-19 booster shots for people with weakened immune systems as cases surge across the country including with a growing number of pediatric patients. morgan chesky has the latest. >> reporter: as covid cases surge yet again, the fda looks to speeds up the time line for booster shots. the agency will authorize a third dose of pfizer and moderna vaccines for the immunocompromised according to sources familiar with the plans. fuelled by the delta variant. unvaccinated patients filling up hospitals as schools face push back over mask mandates.

>> i'm not willing to pay russian roulette with somebody's life like that. >> reporter: the delta variant setting new records in pennsylvania infections up 186%. tennessee 170%. nationwide, children make up a fraction of covid cases but in hot spots like memphis almost one in four new cases are kids under 17. >> now we're seeing more kids who are symptomatic and more kids being hospitalized due to the delta variant. >> reporter: cities and states reising mask mandates. hawaii limiting social gatherings and california asking school staff to show proof of vaccination or submit to testing. seven governors banning mandates in schools. including florida and texas. >> we believe the parent should make that decision. >> reporter: in texas districts fighting the same battle facing

threats of fine. >> our goal is to keep schools open. >> reporter: the deputy superintendent of dallas school district says when it came to the more than 140,000 kids filling classrooms, masking up made the most sense. >> with the governor's executive order in place was there any hesitation here? >> we obviously want to make sure that we're following the law, we've been really clear that the most important sequence that we're looking at is how we keep people safe. >> i think it's really starting to break through, not just to democrats or people in the media but also republicans, how crazy it is that these governors in huge southern states, texas and florida, are passing bans on mask mandates for these states that are massive, that have different democratic breakdowns, have different sort of regions that will be responding to the covid crisis differently. and what you're seeing time and time again in the state of

florida, also in the state of texas is, you're seeing counties, local school districts, schools completely ignoring the governors' advice in both of those states. in south florida, a lot of places that voted for trump still moving forward in their schools with mask mandates. why? because they want to keep the schools open. they want kids in school and with the delta variant running wiled it's the safe smart thing to do. >> we're seeing it from school superintendents and mayors of major cities. we'll talk to the mayor of san antonio in a few minutes who says, i hear your threat governor abbott, i see the legal brief you filed yesterday, but i'm doing it anyway because i want to protect our people. we're hear his argument in a minute. the cdc has updated its guidance to recommend pregnant women do get vaccinated against

coronavirus. they previously had a neutral stance on whether immunization was safe for pregnant women. now they say there's no increased risk of miscarriage among those who have been vaccinated. the cdc found pregnant women were more likely to get severely ill than not pregnant ones. a 30-year-old woman died days after giving birth to her daughter on july 27th. she cradled her newborn long enough to take two photographs before being taken to the icu. let's bring in dr. kavita patel, an msnbc medical contributor. lots to get to with you, but let's start with pregnancy and the new recommendation from the cdc, did they make the right call here for pregnant women? >> yeah. we've been speaking for months this is safe and now we got more

data, this is from a cdc registry of pregnant women, women breast-feeding who want to get pregnant, it confirms the benefit of the vaccine at any stage in pregnancy, of course talk to your doctor, is beneficial. we're confirming research that it can help the newborn, the baby. catty kay? >> why did it take the cdc this long? i remember speaking to pregnant friends of mine back in march, april, when the vaccine first became available and doctors had been telling me that pregnant women should be getting them. that's three or four months before the cdc weighed in with this guidelines. shouldn't they have moved earlier on this? >> yeah, look, i think that all of us would like to see the cdc move earlier. but what they did was really try to make sure when they put out a statement that says you have the

same chance of miscarriage with or without the vaccine that your pregnancy is actually safer with the vaccine, that does take time to accumulate that data. i think your point is actually well taken and could be applied to the design of trials. because that's what we're talking about. we didn't have enough pregnant women and issues of safety of including pregnant women in trials but this pandemic has illustrated we need to do a better job with that and do a better job of thinking how we're including populations such as the immunocompromised, that's why we're talking about boosters as well. >> i want to ask about the masking in schools, if you listen to people against masking children in schools, there's no scientific evidence that masks on kids are beneficial enough to outweigh the down side, which is to say the trouble they may have communicating, things happening

in school, kids coming out of school, what do you say to that? where is the medical evidence in terms of masking in school and preventing transmission. kids we know don't get as sick as adults they're less likely to have severe illness or hospitalization. what do you say to that argument? the. >> this is a conversation a number of us have been having with schools, superintendents, school boards. the conversations are getting ugly and heated, and people are being incredibly emotional, by the way. so put the facts in front. number one we have incredible evidence when you do masks combined with ventilation and distancing, you can reduce the chances of getting or giving covid. as much as 83%. so that's incredible. especially when you have an unvaccinated population. they also know the quality of the masks matter. so if you cover your mouth and nose with a high quality mask on a child or adult, you too can reduce up to 90% of transmission

if someone is symptomatic. i think the second thing that's been amazing to me is exactly what you said, people say children don't get that sick. first of all, this is not like the flu or the common cold. it's much more infectious. up to 8 to 10 times more infectious than the coronavirus we had a year ago which was already a threat. and then number two, we're still trying to unpack, even if only 1% of children get hospitalized, why would we want to inflict that? we're seeing already thousands of cases, talking about life flighting children out of state because we don't have the pediatric icu beds. you've been talking about that all week. the third point i've been trying to get across to schools is this concept that children are somehow harmed or abused by wearing masks. is not founded in any science and further more, willie, i don't think we're talking to the children. when we talk to schools and classrooms of children, they are happy to wear masks, especially if they can protect their families.

and they also seem to know more than the adults do in the room. so this concept that there is no scientific basis for any of it -- i would say, further more, when we have talked about schools that were open the last year, all i have to do is point to the schools that were able to stay open, all of us know them, and they were able to do so by putting the strict policies in place. not just masks but also contact tracing. the state of texas, my home state, has not allowed or given guidance for contact tracing. so you can't really help protect households without those procedures in place. i'm glad that you have the mayor, i'm glad there are people speaking up. imagine how much energy is being expended on fighting what is supported by science and common sense and how much energy that could go to protecting the kids and keeping them safe and dealing with their mental health issues after this tragic year that they've been out of school. >> i think it's really important

to get that out there from your point of view, the medical point of view and use her expertise because that's an argument out there and you say it's coming up aggressively in school board meetings across the country. dr. patel, thanks so much. as we heard, california became the first state to require all teachers and school staff to either get vaccinated or take a weekly covid test. the policy applies to staff members working with students in if kindergarten through 12th grade. >> we think this is the right thing to do and a sustainable way to keeping our schools open and to address the number one anxiety that parents like myself have. i have four young children, and that is knowing that the schools are doing everything in their power to keep our kids safe. >> earlier this week on "morning joe," dr. anthony fauci told us directly he supports covid-19 vaccine mandates for teachers. meanwhile, in texas where like florida, republican

governor greg abbott issued a fan on school mask mandates. there's now been a court action filed to strike down mask mandates by local officials. they announced any school or local official defying the order will, quote, be taken to court. schools and officials also risk a $1,000 fine. joining us now the mayor of an antonio texas, who is challenging texas governor greg abbott's authority to suspend local emergency orders during the pandemic. thanks for being with us this morning. why did you take this action? >> good morning. we took the action because we have now thousands of students who are under 12, and families around them, that are now being forced into close quarters, going back to school, which they should be doing, but they aren't eligible for vaccines so we're trying to do everything we can

to protect them and do as other communities are trying to do, and keep their schools open. we want to make sure that schools are healthy, safe environments so we can begin to get back to, you know, a strong opening and get this delta variant under control where it is surging through our communities right now. our hospitals are simply overwhelmed, stretched past their limits not just in san antonio but across the state of texas. so we wanted to challenge the governor's authority or purported authority using his emergency powers to prevent local officials, public health authorities from dealing with the actual emergency. >> mr. mayor, how ridiculous is it that the governor of your state is seeking outside help for the covid-19 crisis that your state is now undergoing, and yet, he's banning local mask

mandates and other health care mandates that local government officials are trying to implement to actually alleviate it? as far as mask mandates go we heard from dr. patel, scientific studies show maybe 80, 83% less of a chance of passing around covid if you're wearing masks. >> it is. and it's tragically ironic, again, that the governor would use emergency powers to prevent us at the local level from dealing with that emergency which we are responsible for statutorily. so the fact that this delta variant now has grown out of control to the point it's stretching every bit of medical capacity we have here in texas, we've been asking for help with regard to bringing nurses in as they did in previous surges, and the governor has not done that, up until now.

and so, you know, the challenge is, this is a raging fire across texas. he is asking for outside help but it is the governor's actions that have contributed to setting this course in motion with how difficult it's been on all of our medical community our entire system of education, we need intervention. we need local mitigation. most importantly we need to listen to the public health authorities, which have helped us throughout this pandemic. >> katty kay is with us and has a question. >> we've seen incidents of medical professionals getting harassed by parent communities when they tried to propose mask mandates for schools. do you have a sense in san antonio when you speak to parents of the children in the community, how do they feel? could you give us a broad sense

of where parents stand? are they in favor of mandating masks or do they have an ambivalence about it? >> i have been overwhelmed and so have my colleagues by messages, my calls, by visits from parents, in tears after we had the court ruling granting our temporary restraining order which then allowed us to put in the mask mandates. in tears because they finally felt safe sending their children to school. i had someone tell me yesterday that their 7-year-old daughter cried because when she heard the ruling she felt like finally somebody was caring about them and their health. so the overwhelming majority of response has been approval for mask mandates simply because of this. children do not have a choice. we have tens of thousands of

public school children and their families depending on our public school system. if you are in a public school, you have a responsibility to the public health and we should be guided in those decisions by the public health authorities. that's what this is about. we are not infringing on anyone's rights or choices. but if you're going to choose to be in a public school, you have responsibility to the public around you. and that includes many of those 12 and under, the children, the teachers, the parents, the community around those schools that deserve to be protected and safe from an infectious disease not by decisions made by politicians but by public health officials. this emergency action, what we're trying to do at the local level from the very beginning is simply to adhere to the cdc guidance from the very start that helps us keep our community safe. >> mr. mayor, it's jonathan lemire. the other piece keeping schools safe beyond masks are vaccines. can you give us an update on the

percentage of those vaccinated among students 12 and up, students eligible, but also teachers, how many are being vaccinated and what's being done to urge or require them to do so? >> one of the challenges here in san antonio that's unique, we have 17 disdistricts that are quite large, all answer to their own school boards. so the importance of the authority is to provide guidance to all of them to help adhere to the public health authority's advice and facts, data, to keep our children safe. with regard to the vaccines, there has been a lot of work with those school districts to make vaccines available to staff and to teachers and even to the communities around them. we're going to continue to do that work. there has been good adoption, a good penetration of the vaccine, we have exceeded the biden

administration goal quite a while ago. we have a lot of work to do yet in reaching that last, you know, 20, 25% of people. and that work continues. in the meantime we have to use the tools available to us to keep folks safe. and we know, also, that regardless of vaccine status, this delta variant is infecting people with -- who have already been vaccinated. fully vaccinated or with a single dose. so we have to make sure that we slow down the surge that's already been accelerating and overwhelming our hospital system. we know from the data already that those who are vaccinated and who get infected are not seeing the severest illness. what the vaccine does is prevent severe illness and death but doesn't necessarily stop transmission. >> you heard the joint statement from the governor and attorney general yesterday saying anyone violating their order will be taken to court. what do you take that to mean?

what happens next? >> we're quite confident, again, that communities around texas, republican, democrat, all shades, will see it in their best interests to protect the lives of their community. this is really about making sure that our schools are safe environments, that we can begin to, you know, see our economy back open again, which is not going to be possible if people aren't able to go to school in a helpful way. so we're going to continue to fight on the side of public health authorities. again, i will say over and over, it is tragically ironic that the governor would use his emergency powers to prevent local officials and public health authorities from dealing with the actual emergency. >> you're not alone. dallas is doing the same thing you're doing with masks. we'll see how this plays out across the state. mayor, thanks for being with us this morning. joe? >> i want to underline the fact

again, willie, how ironic it is, cynical actually, how stupid it is you have these governors presiding over massive states with massive populations that have communities -- thousands of different communities that have different needs and they are putting a blanket order over the entire state saying local governments can't respond to an emergency the way that the local communities need them to respond to that emergency. it is the antithesis of being conservative. we have clowns running around calling themselves small government conservatives who are trying to consolidate power in a centralized state. it's just not what you do. you let people on the ground, you let doctors, you let nurses, you let mayors, you let city council people, you let local officials, hospital administrators, they know what's best. school officials know what's best for their own schools. more than somebody in a

centralized state, an executive in a centralized state having a one-size fits all approach. and my gosh, in texas, of course, they do have an emergency in texas. the governor is right, there is an emergency there, that's why he's calling for help from outside the state. but he can help his own state by letting people on the ground closest to the hospitals and to the schools and to the local crises make those decisions on their own. the same thing in the state of florida, how crazy it is that you have a governor doing a one-size-fits-all approach. i can tell you one school after another school after another school in areas that supported donald trump, across the state of florida, are saying, we need our children, we need our teachers, we need anybody on campus to mask up. we just need to play it smart. we need to play it safe.

these governors are way out on a limb here. >> as you say, governor abbott is calling up emergency medical personnel because he knows the crisis is so bad and calling in people from out of state to help with it while trying to prevent people like the mayor of san antonio from doing his job. but the local officials and school officials are calling the governor's bluff. whether it's in texas or florida. saying we're going to mask up our kids, come at us. we'll take the chance, but as school starts we want to protect our kids. still ahead, former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb joins our conversation ahead of the expected announcement that some americans will be given a booster shot. plus the taliban now controls two-thirds of afghanistan. the latest on the campaign of

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the one constant through all the years, ray, has been baseball. america has rolled by like an army of steam rollers, erased like a black board, erased and built again. but baseball is marked for time. this field, this game, it's a part of our past, ray. it reminds us of all that once

was good and it could be again. oh, people will come, ray. people will most definitely come. >> is it just me -- is it just me? does everybody have chills watching? >> always. the last scene, it's too much. i can't think about it. >> stop it. stop it. stop it, willie. >> we mentioned at the top, major league baseball brings "field of dreams" to life in the matchup between the yankees and white sox. they're set to play at the 8,000 seat stadium built in the cornfields of iowa. a sellout crowd expected and major league baseball's debut in iowa. reports are that none other than kevin kostner will throw out the

first pitch we know he's in town there. >> i got to say, you see some of these guys in hollywood that do baseball movies and you can tell, they never threw baseball. >> that's right. >> they never threw the baseball with their mom or dad growing up. but kozner has the form -- alex is trying to get me to move on. i'm not going to. i'm going to ask each of you, since this is the greatest movie of all time, other than the "natural" what was your favorite scene is that it? >> i gave it away a minute ago, it builds and at the end when he looks at his dad, do you want to have a catch? get a little lump in your throat. >> that's the right answer but i'll also nominate the answer that james earl jones' character

says he heard the voice at fenway. and moonlight graham who never got the at bat. it's a wonderful movie, i was thinking my oldest, who's 10 now, it's time. we'll do it this weekend, watch this. >> you got to. >> i was going to say the vw van turns around, makes the u-turn and there's james earl jones saying moonlight graham. it's amazing. he was such an extraordinary character. so that's -- that's one of my favorite moments in the movie. i've got to say, my boys and i watch the movie all the time. i found my second favorite moment in that movie is when mika walks out of the room and stops saying, i don't get it. i don't get it. >> she doesn't get that either? >> no, she doesn't get "field of dreams". i don't get it. what do you mean you don't get

it? let's bring in meteorologist bill karins. do you have a favorite field of dreams moment? >> i've seen it two or three times but you guys are at a whole other level on this one. >> does that mean you've never seen it and you can't pick out even a single scene that you like? you don't have to say i've seen it 12 to 13 times, but that space alien part. come on. do you have a favorite part. >> i remember his first at bat when he steps up and gets the brushback pitch. that's the part i remember. >> moonlight graham. and you saw that in 1924? okay. okay. why don't you tell us. >> it was a long time ago. >> it was a long time ago. it was a long time ago. so we're going to keep talking about this in a second. but bill, you're going to talk about some crazy weather in the united states. i woke up, though, to reading

these stories on the twitter machine about -- >> oh, boy. >> i thought it was an error. like 120 degree weather in italy? could that be right? >> yeah, that's -- it was a southern tip of italy. if they verify that, it will be the hottest temperature ever in europe. that was right. that was yesterday afternoon. so, yeah, that was pretty incredible stuff. let me get you into it. as far as the baseball forecast goes, iowa is going to get a break today but not areas of the southern portions of missouri down through little rock. we have 106 million people impacted by the latest heat wave. we are going to see possible record highs around the new york city area, d.c. has a shot of breaking the record high of 99 degrees today. it's just going to be oppressive. should be one of the hottest days in in the summer in the

northeast. continues to friday, many areas get a break into saturday. philadelphia has a heat indexes today about 108 degrees. we have what was tropical storm fred now a tropical depression. friends in florida watching this one closely. right now it's a very weak, the mountains of the dominican republic tore it apart in the last 24 hours. but we could have a storm making landfall in the florida panhandle sunday night into early monday morning. that's something we have to watch as we head through the weekend, joe. headed towards the peak of the hurricane season so this is the time of year they can pop up in a hurry. >> it is that time, bill. we've spent a lot of time talking together over the past 17, 18 years talking about hurricanes in florida. thanks so much, bill karins who reported to alex before the segmentment that his favorite part of field of dreams was the

part about baseball and the corn. we may have you have write a book on "field of dreams". i have to say that obviously james earl jones' character is incredible. and kevin kozner. but burt lancaster's moonlight graham, it was a beautiful, beautiful role. he did it extraordinarily. >> a role late in his career. everyone's health care, especially bill karen's, is to watch field of dreams before the big game tonight. >> and "the natural". watch "field of dreams" and the next night sit down with the family and watch "the natural". coming up next, new reporting that senator rand paul's wife bought stock in a company that makes an anti-viral

drug used for coronavirus. plus senator josh hawley pushes a measure to hire more police officers around the country, turns out a program already exists and it was created by democrats. we'll explain next on "morning joe." 'll explain next on "mornig joe.

madame president -- >> senator from new jersey -- >> i am so excited. this is perhaps the highlight of this long and painful and torturous night. if it wasn't a complete abdication of senate procedures i would walk over and hug my colleague from alabama. i will tell you thank god because there were members of this body that wanted to defund

the police. now this senator has given us the gift that finally once and for all we can put to bed the accusations that somebody in this great esteemed body would want to defund the police. so let's 100 people not walk but sash shea down there and vote for this amendment and put to rest the lies that i'm sure i will see no political ads attacking anybody here over defund the police. and i would ask consent to add something to this bill, can we add that every senator here wants to fund the police, believes in god, country and apple pie. thank you. i love watching cory booker and he substituted spartacus with the word sashay. i'm not exactly sure what it means except i think as a southern i should know. i've heard the word a lot. but cory booker when he gets

excited, nobody like him. reminds me of the apostle peter, the excitable one, gets out there in front. still jesus built the church on simon and peter. i like it, he's really excited and he had a great point there. i don't know why you're laughing willie. >> you want to know why i'm laughing? i have a reverend sitting next to me laughing at your comparison. al sharpton. >> let's bring in the rev. this is what i love about peter. peter is so overmatched by life, i'll go on the water, jesus goes out the water, i'm scared, let me on the boat. i'm going to be you, keeps falling asleep. when he wakes up, he cuts off a roman guard's here. peter, what am i going to do with you? but he's excitable and jesus likes that about him and that's what i like about cory booker.

when he gets in there, baby, he's not going to cut off your ear but he gets in there and he was excited. what say you, rev? >> i have known cory booker since he was a councilman in newark. and he ran for mayor, was mayor, onto the senate. i've never heard him compared with saint peter, i've never heard that. >> that is a compliment. you have paul, paul a little -- i'm not going to pick up script, alex. we're in the middle of our gospel lesson this morning. you have paul a little too cerebral to me, i can't relate to paul. but i can relate to peter, overmatched. that's what i say about cory booker in all the right ways. now, rev, let me ask you a second question because i'm sure catty kay knows the answer to this. what does sashay mean? >> i think it's like a side

shuffle down the aisle. >> come on, guys. >> it's a mixed hustle. >> katty, you know what sashay means? >> i'm talking to guys that never be ballet class. it's like moving in a flow but a slight little to one side and then the other. >> that's how i described it. >> you did a whole segment on "field of dreams" but you don't know what sashay means. >> i'm disappointed, i thought there was a southern reference to sashay and you're telling me it's classical. that takes the fun out of it. >> we can throw in southern, too. southerners can sashay, right? you can do that. >> that sounds good. now that i completely ruined the segment, let me continue. so cory booker, he does that, rousing endorsement of tommy

tuberville's plan to defund the police or punish people who defunded the police. he jumped on that. every democrat voted in support of the amendment which passed 99-0 which means no republican will ever campaign against the democrats saying they want to defund the police. that same night, republican senator josh hawley also tried to put the democrats on the spot and it didn't turn out well. watch this. >> my friends across the aisle say they don't want to defund the police, let's go a step farther, let's fund them. let's put 1,000 new cops on the streets to protect our family and children. >> this has been a historic day in the united states senate. we started bypassing a bipartisan infrastructure bill that made history. and now, the senator from missouri is finally coming around to supporting the cops hiring program that was created by senator joe biden in 1994.

since its creation, the cops program -- listen to this -- has helped over 13,000 local police departments hire over 134,000 officers. we believe in it on the democratic side. we're glad you've come around. we sent a letter to the appropriations committee signed by 37 democrats for the cops program. do you know how many republicans signed the letter? none. with your amendment tonight clearly you've come around, the republicans are joining the democrats in supporting joe biden's cops program. you are right we need 100,000 more police and we stand with joe biden's program and glad that you've joined us. >> they keep walking into the screen door, rev. i don't get it. look up before you try to walk out on the back porch, stop walking through the screen door. i just got to take it -- i got to get it fixed. so josh hawley does it there. i don't know where he's been but this is what republicans have

been attacking joe biden for for 20 years. the crime bill of '94 where they put 100,000 cops on the street. that's like -- biden got hammered last year for doing that. he's been hammered nonstop for it, so yeah, adding 100,000 cops to the streets that's what joe biden pushed for in '93, '94 and that amendment passed 93-3. so i guess republicans can't attack democrats on that issue either, rev. >> well, i think probably that was a masterful show of the hypocrisy of what the republicans are say. when you look at the uptick in the communities of color, particularly the black community, of violence, we want policing. but we want good, well trained, well balanced policing. and for them to try to label people, particularly the democrats in this case, being anti-police or defund the

police, just backfired big time. you're right, joe biden took a lot of heat from even people like me about the crime bill but not about that portion saying we need proper police in the streets and we particularly need them now as we see crime, gun violence going up in chicago, new york and other places. >> we've talked about this a million times. i want to say it one more time. ask you this question one more time about cops on the street. obviously it is communities of color who are most disproportionately impacted when there aren't cops on the street, representatives have said so, you came on the show saying don't defund the police, reform policing. but we want more cops in our kids' schools. we want more cops on our city streets. we are on the front line is what, again, one neighborhood after another in queens, brooklyn, the bronx has been saying and it's probably why

mr. adams won all of those buroughs. >> i believe the fact that eric adams won the nomination for mayor of new york is because he had a balance of good policing, how to bring in more police, he was a policeman, and he was part of the police reform movement. it's the balance that people want. when you get extremists on both sides distorting the message, you get nothing done. you need people that want to see the system work since we're all in the system. not people that just wants to take shots on the outside because they don't think they can make anything work. and i think that those that are in the reform movement of policing, want to deal with mental health, with excessive force are those that want to make policing work accurately, not endmy policing and have anarchy, that wants to feed

those that wants to be the conveyer of violence in our community. >> let's bring in the president of the naacp, derrick johnson. you put out a statement that caught my eye the other day, after the infrastructure bill passed the senate, you talked about voting infrastructure and you said that now that the senate is moving forward on roads and bridges and infrastructure, the most critical thing that joe biden can do is focus on voting infrastructure. talk about that, if you will. >> voting infrastructure is to ensure that the devices that we are using are adequate, the nation cannot afford interference to ensure the integrity of the election. you have the convenience of the instant count but the reliability of a paper ballot so you can verify the true will of the voters of any jurisdiction. but most importantly the voter infrastructure could also increase the standards so we

don't have issues of one voting place having more machines of another place. we don't have the problems of making sure that more people are assigned to one area and less people to another area creating long lines. those are basic voting structure infrastructure. but we're looking at the true will. when there is a will, policy happens. we have to prioritize political will around protecting the right to vote. and to do so we should not get caught into procedural conversation, stay focused on the outcome. and the outcome in this scenario is providing access to all americans equally, fairly, so we can truly ascertain the will of the voters across the country. >> katty? >> mr. johnson, when there's been a lot of celebration in washington over the bipartisan

nature of the infrastructure spending bill this week, but it looks like on a host of other things there's little appetite on the republican side to do things that the biden administration wants to do, and key amongst them is the voting rights bill. if the white house can't persuade key senate democrats to get rid of the filibuster in order to get the voting rights through, it looks like there won't be things on the agenda to help communities of colors, and the voting rights bill seems to be the key to getting a load of other things done. >> the unfortunate thing about new deal policies, it was the greatest set of policies that this nation has ever seen but the new deal policies, half of it was left out. social security was wonderful but southern democrats had an exception that agricultural and

domestic workers could not be allowed in the program. that was 80% of african-american. when the federal home program was made it left it to developers who developed a system to red line where blacks could not or should not get loan, accelerating already huge wealth gap. if this administration passed a historic bill and leaves out access to voting, it is no different than a new set of structural racist policy that has been created. african-americans will benefit from the jobs created, african-americans will participate in all we've seen with good roads and bridges. but over time if we don't deal with access to voting, protecting voting rights undoing what we've seen in georgia, you'll find that african-americans and latinos will be left out.

>> you know, the voting rights bills have been pushed to the back burner as congress looks at the massive infrastructure package. the spike in covid got attention. but s-1 was a nonstarter for all republicans and a handful of democrats. joe manchin thought it went too far among others but what about the jon lewis act? do you see a path forward there or do you see a way to get s-1 finished. what's the best way to get through this congress? >> i don't think we should quarantine the conversation to two vehicles, s-1 and hr-4, we should look at what is the outcome on that we're pursuing. we need to make sure that every american have access to voting too. we need to make sure we reverse any vote suppression methods implemented in the last three months. we must account for reinstating the voting rights act so the

coverage of jurisdictions with a good formula would not be able to create intentionally standards. and fourthly we need to stand up a level of transparency with the outcome of our elections so what we're seeing in arizona and other places we can prevent on the front end. those are basic things. how we get there, i don't want to be part of that conversation. get it done. >> i want to ask about patience and priorities, there's been a lot on the left upset that the white house has not prioritized voting rights that they've taken a backseat to infrastructure. and the time line here is between the infrastructure bill going through the house and reconciliation, this could be months and months where that's going to eat up most of the political oxygen in the white house. i know you talk to president biden with frequency. what do you think, and what are you hearing from your allies who say this white house is not going enough? should they push forward at the same time with voting rights

which so many believe is the fundamental, sacred right and could cost democrats the midterm next year? >> history is important here. voting rights, civil rights was never the priority of a white house. we had to make it a priority. i think what we're going to see is that we are going to make this a front burner issue. one of the reasons martin luther king iii and i have called this march on august 28th, right past the white house. we're going to start at black lives matter plaza, march past the white house and do the rally at the national mall where the capital will be in the background. it's about these bills. they're doing things with a broad base that a campaign is going around the country. we are going to do what they did in '65 to get the voting rights act in the first place. we are going to the ground, mobilizing, galvanize, and turn the public attention on voting rights to make it happen.

lyndon johnson didn't lead the voting rights movement, he signed the bill. it was jon lewis and dr. king that led the movement and that's what all of us are doing together. >> very exciting. naacp president and ceo derrick johnson. thank you so much. it's great to have you here as always. please come back very soon. so willie, we've already talked about let's see "field of dreams," heat waves, hurricanes -- >> whether in italy. >> -- pandemics, whether in italy. southern tip of italy. the yankees' 28th world series. spartacus, saint peter. much, much more. i know it seems to those watching that this show has already lasted 14 hours but we have a couple more hours left. buckle up, enjoy the ride. no telling what we're going to talk about. rev, any final thoughts before we let you go?

because we like you so much, we don't want to have to hold you here any longer to hear any more of my new testament. >> i want to sashay out since i now know what it means. but no, just this weekend, michael regan, the first african-american head of the epa is going to be our guest on "politics nation" that's on sunday. we're going to deal with the voting rights movement and other issues. so people should spend their weekend the way mika does watching "politics nation". >> we all do. we get the popcorn and watch it. you're coming up on your decade anniversary. >> ten years. i remember when i first started "politics nation" people say i wouldn't last two months we'll be ten years old that i hosted the show here at msnbc the end of the month.

i'm excited about it. between getting up doing "morning joe" and weekends here, i almost feel like it's home. >> well, that is exciting. at least they didn't put duct tape next to you when you began the show like they did when i started "morning joe." reverend al, thank you so much as always and congratulations on ten amazing years. willie? congrats. peter and paul debate with joe coming up on weekend also. we have crossed the top of the hour, it's 3 after. today the fda is poised to authorize covid booster shots for immunocompromised americans. two sources familiar with the move said the agency is expected to move the emergency authorizations to allow some people get a third dose. it would be the first authorization of an additional dose in the united states. according to the cdc, about 2.7% of american adults are

immunocompromised. let's bring in former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb. how significant is this? what goes into a decision like tula, and how many people will it affect? >> it's unclear how many people it's going to affect. depends on how the fda ultimately writes the authorization. they could say that the boosters will only be available to people on active immune know suppress ant drugs. they might say it's available to people who have conditions that would leave them compromised, which would scope in a broader selection of people. it remains to be seen how broad the language is going to be here. i suspect they're not going to be too prescriptive in defining what they have to have here. they'll leave it up to the committee that advices the cdc

to interpret the approval or authorization and ultimately issue more granular advice to patients. >> there's questions about boosters to anyone who's received the vaccine. do you see a third shot coming for those of us who are healthy and have had the vaccine? >> i do. as you know, i sit ononths ago at high risk, people in nursing homes and health care workers were the first to receive the vaccines. we do see evidence of de-clining effectiveness over time. we thought that might be the case so this shouldn't be a surprise. we do think people vulnerable, vaccinated a long time ago, we should be contemplaing giving boosters to that population

based not just on evidence in the united states but in israel where they're collecting real world evidence looking at the population of people vaccinated. israel started giving boosters last week to people 60 and above. they're probably going to finish vaccinaing their elderly population by the end of the week. so the population of 60 and above from israel will be given a third dose. we'll get evidence out of israel how that works. we'll probably get good evidence in the week on what the performance is. >> you helped guide us the last year and a half and give us a reality check of where we are. we are getting reports of overrun hospitals in states where vaccinations are low. as you pull back a little bit and look at the state of the pandemic right now in america, where are we? it? >> look, it's a very difficult situation in the south right now. i think that the south, the epidemic surge in the south is starting to peak, there's evidence that cases will start

declining on a day over day basis. even if cases are starting to decline, the epidemic is contracting you're still accruing new cases on a daily basis. and the health care system is maxed out in some of those states. they'll continue to accrue new hospitalizations. the other challenge is patients infected with covid and requiring hospitalization, those are longer admissions. the average length of stay is five days for patients with covid. the hospital is going to have a hard time discharging patients to free up new space even while accruing new cases. even if it peaks and looks like the situation is improving in the south, the strain on the health care system is going to lag by weeks. that's a difficult situation right now in states like texas, florida, louisiana, arkansas where you see systems get maxed out. >> you mentioned florida and texas. as you know, the governors in those states have said local

officials, school boards cannot put into effect mask mandates that they'd be violating an executive order if they did that. a lot of municipalities are doing that, school boards are doing that, saying we have to keep our kids safe. so in your view, should kids as they go back to school and this week they are back to school in many places, should they be wearing masks? >> i think the goal has to be, number one, to keep kids safe in the classroom and keep the classrooms open and keep inclass learning available for students. different school districts have different resources available to them to keep kids safe in the classroom. i wouldn't go into the school year in the delta variant tying one hand behind our back taking mitigation steps off the table.

schools without good ventilation systems, maybe crowded conditions. so i would look to local officials to reach for the tools they need to prevent outbreaks in the school setting p thapgs what we're trying to do, is prevent the situation where you have a single introduction of infection you don't have a widespread outbreak in the school. the best judgment is to leave the discretion up to local officials about what resources are available to them and take into consideration what parents are willing to accept, rather than do it at a state or federal level. >> doctor, it's great to have you here. i want to ask you a couple of questions. a view from 30,000 feet, there's so much information and disinformation that americans have to absorb. let's talk about the breakthrough cases first. last you saw, what's the percentage of people that got the vaccine that have breakthrough cases of covid? >> look, the bottom line is we don't know.

we're not tracking outpatient breakthrough cases here in the u.s. we have of how many people are requiring hospitalization or developing severe infection who have been vaccinated and that percentage is still low. the vast majority of the hospitalizations are still people unvaccinated. as you see continued spread of the virus, it's going to start to get into vulnerable settings where you have vaccinated people and ultimately, if a certain percentage of them are getting infected some end up with hospitalizations and more severe infections. that's why we need to look at the situation in the elderly, particularly long-term care facilities, we need to consider booster shots which i've been talking about for a long period of time now. but in terms of how many people are having breakthrough infections in the outpatient setting developing mild illness we don't have good data on that, seems to be a growing number of people, i'm hearing more

reports, of people who have been vaccinated, gone to parties developed a mild case of covid, they've done well, recovered, but they're getting infected at a higher rate. i think you have two things happening at once. you have a vaccine that was delivered to a lot of people awhile ago. people were vaccinated six, even months ago, seeing some evidence of declining efficacy over time, and you have a more contagious variant where you get high viral loads early in the course of the infection. so if you have declining circulating antibodies in your blood, the delta variant can overwhelm those anti bodies. people vaccinated recently and certainly now, i think they're going to have a durable immunity through the delta season, i don't think they need to be concerned about declining

efficacy of their vaccine. it's people vaccinated a while ago. >> the next question we're seeing -- it's all anecdotal, probably too early for any meaningful studies but evidence that children are being more impacted by delta than alpha. a story every day of a child who died here or who died there, all very tragic stories. i'm wondering, though, if those tragic stories are adding up to a belief in the medical community and the science community that children are more vulnerable to delta than alpha? >> yeah it's very hard to determine that. we haven't seen evidence in other countries that the delta variant has been more pathogenic, more dangerous in children or adults for that matter. there's some suggestion given to "the washington post," the cdc thinks it could be more pathogenic but it's hard to tell because we don't know how many people are being infected.

i suspect there's more far more infection in the united states than what we're picking up. so the question is are the hospitalizations that we're seeing, the tragic hospitalizations we're seeing among children representative of the fact that this virus is more pathogenic in kids or is it the type of a large iceberg and a lot of kids are getting infected, a small percentage being hospitalized but what we're e missing, we don't understand is how many kids are being infected. i think it's the latter, i think there's more delta infection around the country than we're picking up. it's happening in young people not presenting for testing, or it's happening in vaccinated people who are also developing mild disease and don't suspect covid because they've been vaccinated. but to the extent the situations is happening with people getting milder symptoms and not presented for testing, we might not be picking it up.

and a lot of testing done is home tests and not getting reported. >> we have a very good friend, actually, who was not vaccinated, but whose son came home, was vaccinated, mild conditions, passed it on to her and she was hospitalized. a very difficult situation that seems to be happening a lot. mike barnicle is with us and has a question. >> doctor, in talking about children as we have been the last couple of minutes. is there a hesitancy or obstruction in terms of getting the vaccine for children under the age of 12 in where are we on getting a vaccine safe for school children under the age of 12? >> i'm more familiar with the development program that pfizer is doing. obviously being on their board. they're developing a vaccine for 5 to 11, it's a 10 micro gram dose compared to the vaccine

being given to adults, a 30 micro gram dose. the public reports have been that fda has asked for a larger trial to evaluate that vaccine they want more data and longer-term follow-up. so that has pushed up the perception of how long it's going to take to get that vaccine fully developed and onto the market, assuming it's proven to be safe and effective, to the mid winter time frame. that said i think if the agency feels they need to make that vaccine available earlier because we're having a situation in the fall where kids are getting infected and maybe there's evidence that the delta variant is affecting kids more dramatically than what we perceive right now, then the agency will be in a position to make an earlier authorization of that vaccine based on evidence from that trial. i think the agency is trying to balance the best of both opportunities here, get more data, longer-term data, but also be in a position to make an early authorization if the

public health need perts that. i think they'll be in a position to do that but the base case, if things go well and kids don't get in trouble this fall and we can protect children in the classroom. i think base case the vaccine probably will be available sometime in mid winter if i's demonstrated to be safe in the trials. >> it's jonathan lemire, hoping to look beyond our own shores for a minute. we know the uk, country with a good vaccination rate, battled the delta variant, it burned through there fairly quickly. what lessons can we learn? also give us a tour around the globe in terms of what other countries right now are really struggling with this virus? what are the other hot spots we should be concerned about? >> the hot spots we should be concerned about right now, the countries having a difficult time, a lot in asia, indonesia, thailand, vietnam is having a hard time. in terms of the uk experience and the experience in israel, you had a population that was

more heavily vaccinated in both of the countries. and you have a situation in the uk, the epidemic really is london. so what happens in the uk is really determined by what happens in listen dop and the greater metropolitan area around london. here in the united states we have a large country, as you know, and this virus has affected us on a regionalized basis. at one point we had a national epidemic that was the winter time frame. other times it's regional. so to the extent the south is engulfed in virus and not as much in the northeast and the pacific northwest and northern states, the question is, as the south starts to recede, and i think there is evidence that they're starting to peak, do you then start to see a pick up in cases in the northeast and the northwest and the great lakes region? that's the question we don't know the answer to. you have higher vaccination

rates in those parts of the country, probably higher exposure in places like the new york metropolitan region. so it could be the case those parts of the country are more impervious to the spread you're seeing in the south but i don't think they're immune to some form of an outbreak. as people go back to school, back to work in the fall, you'll see some pick up in delta cases in those parts of the country. certainly not on the scale of what we see in the south but some pickup. >> dr. scott gottlieb covering a lot of ground for us. thank you, dr. gottlieb. more now on how europe is faring in the pandemic. let's bring in the regional director for europe from the world health organization. let's pick up on the conversation we just had. we in america looked at europe as a preview of what's headed

our way. how are things in europe right now? >> i think it's a very bright picture. we see the situation is stabilizing in the west of the region, but usually it's four to five weeks that the east is following. so we're not out of the woods. but we're looking to a situation to stabilize. a sustained control of transmission. things to do, one is equal out of vaccines. number two is still keep pressure on the virus and mask mandates, we believe, are very important here, but also sharing of data, testing capacity, sequencing, and the third one we have to look at new approaches, including as i just heard at the channel, boosters for people with compromised systems. but also invest much more -- >> another step being taken in france is a national health pass where if you want to go into a restaurant, indoors to a public

place you have to prove that you've been vaccinated. >> yeah. i was in france when that was being introduced, willie. a huge controversial even in france with a lot of vaccine hesitancy like the u.s. did. and you did see demonstrations in cities around the country. but doctor, let me ask you this question. if we're looking at the uk, which seems to be a similar model to the u.s. because vaccination rates are high in the uk and you have vaccination rates high in most of the u.s. we haven't seen a huge amount of hospitalizations, not a big pick up in deaths because of delta, fortunately. duj the u.s. is going to go the way of the uk or because you have bigger pockets of the community refusing to take the vaccine it won't go the way of the uk? what's the trajectory there? >> we have to be careful with projections. the reason i'm in the united

states, i would like to thank the office of global affairs, is to have a transatlantic partnership because no one is safe until everyone is safe. the key, whether it's in the european region or the united states of america, is to increase the vaccination coverage because we see that it -- particularly, the people not vaccinated yet that are being hit and their vaccine hesitancy is still a big issue at both sides of the ocean. >> absolutely. i know you're starting a fight against misinformation, which we've confronted here in america as well. the world health organization's regional director for europe, thank you for your time. >> my pleasure. the latest on the fall out over the resignation of governor andrew cuomo. and how the incoming governor is distancing herself from governor andrew cuomo. plus alexei navalny now could face more jail time. the kremlin has announced new criminal charges against

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we will help get you the best result possible. ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ we spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years. we trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 afghan forces. and afghan leaders have to come together. we lost, death and injury, thousands of american personnel. they have to fight for themselves. fight for their nation. >> president biden standing by his decision to pull u.s. troops from afghanistan by the end of this month. but the taliban is taking over the country much faster than most officials expected and many fear even the capital of kabul

soon could fall. >> reporter: the taliban claims hundreds of prisoners in kandahar are free after they say they overwhelmed the jail holding the insurgents and plunge open the gates. this after a devastating set back in the north, hundreds of soldiers reportedly surrendered. video purports to show vehicles, weapons and an attack helicopter in their hands. by some estimates the taliban controls 65% of afghanistan. more families are fleeing to the capital kabul every day. this woman says that the taliban are not allowing girls and women to go to the market. girls were banned from school and women from work under the taliban. many here are terrified those dark days are going to return. >> do you worry about the girls' safety today? >> yes.

the principal says they tell us you all might die. >> it upsets you? >> reporter: yes, she says. i tried to help the women, i'm very sad when i see all these girls i get really upset now. >> jonathan lemire, people in the white house are acting shocked that the united states announcing its withdrawal and getting out of there that the taliban is overrunning afghanistan. those of us who said we shouldn't leave are not surprised at all. this is what the taliban should have been expected to do. are there second thoughts -- i doubt there are, but are there second thoughts by the white house about keeping troops in there? is joe biden prepared and is the administration prepared to own this. to own an afghanistan that is run completely by the taliban? >> it is not a surprise the taliban advanced as the u.s.

troops began the withdrawal. it is a surprise, per u.s. officials, how quickly it happened. we heard from the president this week, he's been consistent on this for quite some time that he believed that the american mission in afghanistan was over and american troops would come home. he was asked this week as we see the taliban take regional capital after capital, if he had any regrets. he said no, i have no regrets. which some in the white house fear is a sound bite he'll live to regret. he has to own this, he's commander in chief, he's aware that. but at least to this point no, there are no second thoughts in terms of the decision to withdrawal. we are seeing debate within the pentagon and white house, as far as drone strikes, air strikes, they may keep more of a capability nearby to target areas if needed. right now the public threat from

this administration is to withhold international recognition of the taliban. and we had richard haas in the 5:00 a.m. hour today and he basically scoffed at that and said that's not something the taliban cares about, it holds near threat to them. it's unclear what the u.s. can do short of reversing the president's decision and e had seems not inclined to do that and it seems the neighboring countries of afghanistan are also taking a hands off approach. so expect this only to pick up and i think there's real fears of what will happen to the capitol of kabul in the weeks ahead. >> right. and yeah, i agree with richard haass, the taliban doesn't care if the united states recognizes them or not. they, like richard, would be scoffing at that concept that would hurt them.

so mike barnicle, let's just to be fair, donald trump supported this policy as well, tried time and again to get out of afghanistan, invited the taliban to camp david, that got cancelled after the taliban continued to behave abhorrently. even though donald trump wanted to do this, he was talked out of doing it. joe biden was not going to be talked out of it, even leaving 4,000 troops there which would have made a big difference. can you give us insight into why joe biden took an absolutist view on afghanistan? >> he's had it if for some time, joe. he's had it since certainly he was vice president of the united states, when he opposed and fought against a big troop reinduction into afghanistan and

he knows the history of the country quite well. and the history of our involvementment in afghanistan is a sad but simple one. we went to afghanistan with courage, with commitment, with resources and we were met, in the end and continually, by the series of afghan governments both corrupt and incompetent. this is not our country. in order to stave off the taliban taking kabul, the capital of afghanistan, would require the reintroduction of american troops. and for what? nothing is going to change perceptively in afghanistan. we have changed the culture to a certain extent and sadly that will be diminished and threatened greetly by the arrival of the taliban in most of the country. but what more can we do? we have given up our lives, our treasure, we have been there for 20 years. if we go back in for another year, another two, it's not going to change anything.

and the idea that drones and missiles and bombing runs are going to change things, that's not going to happen either. you're talking about a six-hour bombing run in order to help the afghan troops on the ground. talking about drones flown from god knows where, five and six hours in the air, the drone strikes. it's going to be expensive to do something that we haven't been able to do in 20 years. and i think joe biden knows that. he feels it, he's lived it. it's time to go and we're going. >> jonathan's colleagues at the associated press are reporting this morning that ghazni fell to the taliban today. let's turn to the latest in new york state where yesterday we heard from incoming governor kathy hochul a day after governor andrew cuomo announced his resignation amid allegations

of sexual harassment. ann thompson has more. >> reporter: kathy hochul stepping out of the shadow. >> i'm ready for this. >> reporter: she'll replace cuomo on august 24th, hochul promising she'll be a different kind of leader. >> no one will describe my administration as a toxic work environment. >> reporter: the state attorney general's report on cuomo detailed the allegations of 11 women who say the governor sexually harassed them. >> in my mind, i've never crossed the line with anyone. >> reporter: though he faces potential civil and criminal action, cuomo has not been charged with a crime and denied any wrong doing. >> have you made any deal with governor andrew cuomo to pardon him should he be charged criminally? >> absolutely not. >> reporter: raised in buffalo, hochul has served at all levels of government but was never part of cuomo's inner circle. >> it's clear and no secret that

we have not been close. >> reporter: cuomo's resignation has not stopped the impeachment process. if convicted he could be barred from seeking statewide office again. >> so let me ask you, katty, what you think about the incoming acting governor, kathy hochul. she'll have an election ahead of her if she decides to run next year but distancing herself obviously trying to turn the page from governor cuomo. >> she's savvy enough to say the first thing is she's not governor andrew cuomo. whether or not she wants to run again herself next year, she's shown that she reliezs what she needs to do right now. the question for the women who have accusedd andrew cuomo is what happens to him now and do they feel they will get some kind of justice given the things that he said in his exit speech

were blaming the politics of this, saying times had changed he hadn't realized that times had changed is no apology at all. that's what we heard in the 1980s and 1990s. we thought that politicians had gotten wiser, they clearly haven't. but having a woman at the top makes a difference to the culture of the organization and will make a difference in albany as well. especially where it was governor andrew cuomo with a strong, powerful personality and he ruled by this fear tactics amongst his staff. it doesn't sound like that's the way she's going to rule and the fact that she's a woman should make the situation for women working in albany better in itself. >> there's a lot we don't know about governor cuomo, what's next. he could face prosecution, questions to be raised about

whether or not the new york state legislature will go through with impeachment proceedings. i think, obviously, if they do and he is impeached and removed from office, convicted. he will be barred from holding office in new york state again because his resignation speech the other day seemed to hold notes of a comeback down the road. advisers to cuomo say they wanted to keep that door open for that. it's interesting now for soon to be governor kathy hochul who will have a decision to make whether she will run for office again, seek the term. she'll have her own choice to make soon about who lieutenant governor will be. and we were talking with reverend sharpton about the die -- dynamic this will have the new york state. albany holds so much power over the city and we saw usually the mayor is beholden to the governor.

we saw it with mayor de blasio and the governor. but this is a moment when hochul will come into office, we assume adams will be elected mayor this fall. she may be seeking his support, and that could change the die m naik for a little white. >> she will be seeking his support. she's an upstate politician not well known down here in new york city. she'll need to do what he says. coming up, ole miss head football coach lane kiffin in a state with a low vaccination rate got 100% of his players to take the vaccination. we'll ask him how he did it. plus talk about the day he has circled on the calendar, a trip to nashville to take on the come mow dores. >> did you say on wednesday? >> november. >> that date in november. you go in and -- what's your -- >> the dud.

dudley field. >> you go into the dud on a saturday night, baby, you better have your helmet. now la lane lanky fin, litt know fact i have one bobble head in my house, it is lane kiffin. >> nick saban would like to know why that is the only bobble head you have in your house. more on that coming up next. ♪♪ ♪

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you know, that sound, that is the sound of the kinks, you

really got me, 1964. it's the sound that forever changed the history of rock music. and it really was a big -- hard rock, by 1964 standards. anyway, i bring that up for a reason. first, willie, you remember the great luis bergdorf when he was on our show. >> oh, yeah. >> we love sweet lu, he is family forever but he would say when he was rooming with the barnacle boys, he loved the barnacle boys, but sometimes they fought each other. mike, sometimes the kids liked punching each other really hard. this would disturb sweet lou and lou would make the mistake getting in the middle of him, saying we're friends here. then the barnacles brothers would turn and bound sweet lou in the head.

i bring this up for a good reason with nothing to do with saint peter. this morning i got in the middle of a brothers' fight, ray and day davies of the kinks. yesterday i tweeted out they created the sound that changed rock and roll by jamming knitting needles inside their amps when they did you got me. and dave davies tweeted at me, sounded like an old soviet communique, why are you spreading deliberate untruths or something like that. it appears that ray has used the needle story for years and dave davies claimed he created the future of rock and roll by taking a razor blade to the amps. either way i find myself being in the position of getting in between two brothers here,

willie on who really changed the future of rock and roll. >> if you get between the barnacle brothers, you're getting one in the chin. what would putting either a knitting needle or razor blade in the amp do? distort it? >> distort it. again it's 1964 and i think the grammy in 1964 when to the beatles. the year they came to america but guitar amps didn't sound that way. so the idea was, ray davies keeps saying, he jammed knit needles into the amp and dave is saying they got razor blades. either way, knitting needles, razor blades, the kinks' sound

was unique in 1964. >> you have to take the kinks and everything from 1964 to 1969, there was a five year period in terms of music not only in this country but around the globe that changed everything. that changed everything forever. and you have to put the beatles up on a pedestal because they were different, they were unique. but you think of the other groups that came over to america, the rolling stones, they are still performing. they have a concert tour beginning in september. a tour of the united states. the average age of that band is about 76. i mean, charlie watts, the drummer is 80 years of age. he can't make the tour because he underwent surgery. but it's astounding to think the rolling stones who first came to america in 1964, '65 are still there, still performing, still resonating with their music. it was an astounding period of time in music.

>> nobody would have ever guessed that the rolling stones would still be alive in 1980 -- or in 20 21 back in 1980. i remember, willie, after some girls came out, which is how bizarre that some girls i think is probably the greatest album 1970, the greatest new york city album for these guys from london, but lester bangs after some girls wrote who would have believed it, but i think we're going to grow old with the rolling stones and here we are all these years later and they're going on tour again. >> ever time i see them on tour you're waiting for the moment where you feel time to hang it up. sure enough, mick is in shape, sprinting all over the stage. keith is back doing his things, having a drink in between every song. they still got it. i'll see them on tour.

let's turn back to the news as we try to get more people vaccinated against covid. we heard stories of anti-vaxers. but our next guest said we're focussing on the wrong people. we should focus on the minds we can change. joining us now, contributing writer for the atlantic. good morning, it's great to have you with us. let's read from the latest piece. in it you write this, this is a pretty straightforward example of how the current public sphere, shaped by human tendencies, politics, financial incentives and platform and algo rhythmic design is hampering us. villains make for bet erstories and we like stories with clear

individual villains. the ones that resemble the caricature better. so the newspapers publish them, we click on them and produce the consent. i see people around me spending mental energy getting mad at coe is nothing to be done but to get mad at them in despair. meanwhile, in reality, there are a substantial number of people who remain unvaccinated who can be convinced or pressured via mandates. not all are dislikable, misinformation spouting die hard anti-vacciners with strong ideological agendas. so, walk us through your oorth a little more here, if you could. obviously, there are people in this country who are never going to get the vaccine. what is your sense of the persuadables as so many public health officials call them? >> so, if you look at the polls, there is still 10 to 15% of the country that's not ideologically opposed in the sense that they will never, ever get it.

but some of whom still have questions. some of them are afraid of the side effects. this was especially true for people that don't have time to work. they are worried like you find having side effects for a couple of days, believe it or not, there are people who are just afraid of needles and who haven't been provided with the support. there are people in this country, about a third of the country, doesn't have a primary care provider and a lot of these people could have been persuaded if they had access to a healthcare professional who would just sit with them. i'm not saying it would be an immediate thing. but by focusing on people who seem so stumped for an ideological beyond rhyme or reason, we're missing the fact that if we had a mixture of mandates, pop-up clinics, healthcare professionals, ask people what you need to get vaccinated. what is holding you back? we'd make a lot of progress him there is like 6/7% of the country that is say figure they

need to, they have to because of work or some other requirement, they would get vaccinated. so we could move on that. and fda approval, the full approval would really help, because there is a lot of people who mistakenly think that this the an experimental vaccine even though people have gotten it and the safety profile. but they think the emergency approval means it's accidental and anti-vaccine, are walking away with these talking points. so i feel we are focusing on the caricatures most stubborn, unconvincible. i'm not sure there is many of them. maybe there is a big enough number. they're enough to hold -- they don't represent everyone who has been unvaccinated. we're getting angry and despair, how do we get the next 5%, the next 10%, how do we go to workplaces? what do we need to do? that seems not more productive to me.

>> so you know i loved your article and i thought one of the most persuadable parts of the article that necessity will often drive those to get vaccinated that you might not think would want to get vaccinated. your statistics on senior citizens who may be on facebook more, may watch programs and networks that are more hostile towards, towards the vaccine, more hostile towards the appropriate that, let's say, public health officials are pushing. you just talk about senior citizens how overwhelmingly because they realized they had to do it to save their lives. how high their vaccination rates were, can you get into that a little bit? >> yes. as of today, 90% of people over 65 in this country have received at least one dose of the vaccine. now, that population has been

bombarded with misinformation. from research we know they're very prone to it. they have always a savvy, if you want to blame you know outlets like fox who certainly play a role, they are the base for that. but still,ing 90% of them have at least one shot. which is a way of saying, you know what, at some point, reality cuts through. and that's what we have to do. because with the delta wave, we now have more people thinking, you know what, i didn't think i needed it, because you see this in polls, because they thought the numbers were going down, they realize, oh, no, i am susceptible. it's around me now. we need to make it easier for those people just to get that jab, whatever the, if it's paid time off, is ask for the vaccinations, a lot of employees do. a lot of people are working in part-time gig jobs, people arrange for a payment that allows them to take that day off. a lot of people have child care

issues. some people have never talked to a doctor or a nurse for years and we feed to go to them and say, what can we answer for you? rather than spending our energy, getting mad at people, who annoy me, too, but we're not going to convince them. we're spending energy with that small group instead of trying to reach to so many people who are just stuck, sometimes for really trivial reasons, not everything people do the a part of this big ideological historic you know cause they're stuck on. sometimes they didn't get around to it. i have a story of someone who is just afraid of needles and this person's friend said, all right. we will hold your hand. their doctor prescribed a small dose of anti-variety medicine. they held that person's behind and went to the clinic. it was as simple as that. we should focus less on as i said, it's really easy.

i like the villain story, too, this is real life. we should try to say, how do we get that mandate into workplace story? how do we convince these people? how do we tell them, here are some freedoms will you lose, for example. places you won't be able to go, though. a lot of people will come over. i think just cross that line if we push in that direction. maybe not 100%, but every person we push over is alife that we potentially save and get over the potential for this country as well. >> we will see as these mandates came in place. in california in schools. thanks so much, great to hear from you on your piece this morning. still ahead, the cdc updates its guidance for pregnant women and the covid vaccine. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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delta airlines will not require employees to be vaccinated. oh, a twist, frontier is now the classy airline. i didn't see that one coming. i prefer the 3m duct tape, please, thank you. good morning, welcome to "morning joe", it is thursday, august 12th, joe, you had duct tape that time they ran out of mr. pib. >> i did. no mr. pib. no rc cola. they didn't have goodies headache tablets, what am i doing here? you talk about duct tape, of course, everybody remembers early years of "morning joe" when you and mika at times had to duct tape me to the chair. >> we did. >> on an occasion or two. everything worked out okay. >> it didn't interrupt, while we were duct taping. up continued on your rant. very impressive, it's getting

ugly in the skies. the white house reporter jonathan lemire at aussie media, katty kay. great to see you both. the fda expected to approve covid-19 booster shots for people with weaker immune systems as covid surges across the country, including with a growing number of pediatric patients. morgan chesky has the latest. >> reporter: as covid cases surge yet again, the fda looks to speed up its time line for booster shots. they will authorize a third dose for the immuno-compromised. the agency fueled by the delta variant as a two-fold covid fight continues nationwide, unvaccinated patients filling up hospitals as schools face pushback over mask mandates. >> i'm not willing to play russian roulette with somebody's life like that. i'm not going to do that. ro the delta-driven surge setting new records. in pennsylvania infections up

186%, tennessee, 170%. nationwide, children make up a fraction of the covid cases. in hot spots like memphis, almost one in four new cases are kids under 17. >> now we're seeing more kids who are symptomatic and more kids who are being hospitalized due to the delta variant. >> reporter: cities and states reissuing indoor mask mandates, including philadelphia and oregon. while hawaii's governor now limiting social gatherings and california asking school staff to show proof of vaccination or submit to weekly testing. meanwhile, governors in seven states banning mask mandates in schools, including texas and florida. >> we believe that the parent rather than the government should be ultimately be able to make that decision. >> in texas facing the same battle, facing threats of fines. >> our goal is to keep schools opened. >> reporter: the deputy superintendent of dallas school district says when it ka ipg to the more than 140,000 kids filling classrooms, masking up

made the most sense. with the governor's executive order in place, was there any hesitation here? >> we, obviously, want to make sure that we're following the law. we have been really clear that the most important consequence that we are looking at is how we keep people safe. >> i think it's starting to break through. not just to demographics to people in media also to republicans how crazy it is that these governors in huge southern states and texas and in florida are passing bans on mask mandates for these states that are massive, that have different demographic breakdowns, have a different sort of regions that will be responding to the covid crisis differently. and what you are seeing time and time again in the state of florida, also in the state of texas is you are seeing counties, local school districts, schools completely ignoring the governor's advice

in both of those states. can i tell you the state of florida, a lot of places, a lot of areas have voted for donald trump, still moving forward in their school with mask mandates. why? because they want to keep the schools opened. they want kids in school and they believe right now with the delta variant running wild, it's just a safe, smart thing to do. >> we're seeing that in from school superintendents, also from mayors of major cities. we will talk to the mayor of san antonio in just a few minutes who says i hear your threat, governor abbott. i see the legal brief you filed yesterday, which said, we'll see you in court, if you put in a mask ban. but i'm doing it anyway because i want to protect our people. we'll hear his argument in a minute. the cdc official upgaethje dated its guidance to recommend pregnant women get vaccinated. they previously had a stance on whether they get pregnant. now the agency says there is no increased risk of miscarriage

among those who have been vaccinated. the cdc has found pregnant women are more likely to get severely ill from covid than non-pregnant ones. one tragic story out of florida, a 30-year-old woman died days after giving birth to her daughter via emergency c-section on july 27th. she cradled her newborn long enough to take two photographs before being taken to the icu. let's bring in physician fellow as the brookeing's institute, a former obama health policy director and msnbc medical contributor. dr. patel, let's start with the presence and the recommendation from the cdc. do you think they made the right call for women here? >> oh, yeah, absolutely, willie. we have been speaking for months now this is safe. now we got more data from a cdc registry of pregnant women, women breast-feeding, who want to get grant.

it reaffirms a vaccine, at any stage of pregnancy is beneficial. to the mom and we're already confirming research that we have seen also that it can help the newborn and the baby. >> katty kay. >> yeah. the on the pregnant woman side of things, why did it take the cdc this long? i remember speaking to pregnant friends of mine back in march/april when the vaccine first became available. doctors had been telling me that pregnant women should be getting them. that's a long time. that's three or four months be every the cdc has waited with this guideline. shouldn't they have moved earlier on this? >> yeah, catty, look, i think that all of us would like to see the cdc move earlier. but what they did was really try to make sure when they put out a statement has the same chance of miscarriage with or without the vaccine that your pregnancy is actually safer with the vaccine, that does take time for them to

accumulate that data. i think your point is actually well taken and could even applied to the design of trials, because that's really what we are talking about. we didn't have enough pregnant women with issues of safety, including pregnant women in trials. clearly this pandemic has illustrated we need to do a better job with that we also need to do a better job of thinking how we are including populations immunocompromised. >> dr. patel, i want to ask about this masking in schools question. there is a big argument, a loud argument, if you watch other media outlets, if you listen to people against masking children in schools. there is no scientific evidence that masks on kids are beneficial enough to outweigh the downside, which is to say, you know, the trouble that they might have communicating, the things that happen in school. kids coming out of school. what do you say to that? where is the medical evidence in terms of masking in school and preventing transmission? the other argument is, kids, we

know, don't get as sick as adults. they're less likely to have severe illness or hospitalization. what do you stay to that argument? >> yeah, willie, this has been a conversation aen in of us have been having with school superintendent, school boards, by the way, the conversations are getting pretty ugly and heated and people are being incredibly emotional. so put the facts in front. football one, we do have incredible evidence that when you do masks combined with ventilation and distancing, that you can reduce the chances of getting or giving covid as much as 83%. so that's incredible. especially when have you an unvaccinated population. we also know the quality of the masks matter so that if you cover your mouth and nose with a high quality mask on a child or an adult, that you, too, can reduce up to 90% transmission if someone is symptomatic. i think the second thing that's been amazing to me is exactly what you say, people say, children don't get that sick. first of all, this is not like

the flu or the common cold, it's much more infectious. up to 8-to-10 times more infectious than the coronavirus that we had a year ago, which was already a threat and then number two, willie, we're still trying to unpack even if 1% of children get hospitalized, why would we want to inflict that? we are seeing already thousands of cases, we're talking about life flighting children out of state. we don't have enough pediatric icu beds. we have been talking about that all week. the third point i have been trying to get across the schools is this concept that children somehow are harmed or abused by wearing masks is not founded in any science and, furthermore, willie, i don't think we are talking to the children. when we talk to classrooms of children, they are happy to wear masks especially if they can protect their families. they all seem to know more than the adults do in the room. so this concept that there is no scientific base for any of it and i would say, furthermore, when we have talked about

schools that were opened this last year, willie, all i have to do is point to the schools that were able to stay open. all of us know them. they were able to do so by putting these strict policies in place. not just masks but contact tracing. the state of texas, my home state, has not allowed or given guidance for contact tracing. so you can't really help protect households about those procedures in place. and i am glad you got the mayor, i am glad there are people speaking up. imagine how much energy is being expended on fating what is supported by science and common sense and how much energy that could go to actually protecting the kids and keeping them safe and dealing with their mental health issues after this tragic year that takes them out of school. >> dr. patel, thank you very much. coming up next, the mayor of san antonio joins the conversation on his efforts to push back against the governor's executive order barring local governments from imposing masks and vaccine

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. california became the first state to require all teachers and school staff to either get vaccinated or take a weekly covid test. the policy applies to staff members working with students if kindergarten through 12th grade. >> we think this is the right thing to do. we think this is a sustainable way to keeping our schools opened and to address the number one anxiety that parents like myself have. i have four young children. that is knowing that the schools are doing everything in their

power to keep our kids safe. >> this week on "morning joe", dr. fauci told us he supports vaccine mandates for teachers. meanwhile in texas where like florida republican governor greg abbott issued a ban on school mask mandates. in texas, attorney general ken paxton filed a court action to strike down mask mandates. the two announced any school or local official defying the order will quote be taken to court. schools and officials who enact mask mandates risk a $1,000 fine. joining us now, the mayor of san antonio, texas, ron nuremburg who is challenging texas governor greg abbott's authority to suspend local emergency orders during the pandemic. mr. mayor, thanks for being with us this morning. why did you take this action? >> well, good morning. we took the action because we have now thousands of students who are under 12 and families

around them that are now being forced into closed quarters, going back to school, which they should be doing. but they aren't eligible for vaccines. so we're trying to do everything we can to protect them and to do as the other communities are trying to do and keep their schools opened. we want to make sure schools are healthy, af safe environments so we can get back to a strong opening and get this delta variant under control where it is surging through our communities right now. our hospitals are simply overwhelmed, stretched past their limits, not just in san antonio, but across the state of texas. so we wanted to again challenge the governor's authority or purported authority using his emergency powers to prevent local officials, public health authorities, from dealing with the actual emergency. >> mr. mayor, just over here, lowry dig lus is it that the

governor of your state is seeking outside help for the covid-19 crisis that your state is now undergoing. and yet, he's banning local mask mandates and other healthcare mandates that local government officials are trying to implement to actually alleviate it and as far as mask mandates go, we heard from dr. patel, scientific studies show maybe 80, 81, 82, 83% less of a chance of passing around covid if you are wearing masks. >> well, it is. and it's tragically ironic again that the governor would use emergency powers to prevent us at the local level from actually dealing with that emergency, which we are responsible for statutorily. so the fact that this delta variant now has grown out of control to the point where it's stretching every bit of medical

capacity that we have here in texas, we have been asking for help with regard to bringing nurses in as they did in previous surges and the governor has not done that up until now. and so, you know, the challenge is, this is a raging fire across texas he is asking for outside help. it is the governor's actions that contributed to setting this course in motion with how difficult it's been on all of our medical community, our entire system of education. we need intervention. we need local mitigation. most importantly, we need to listen to the public health authorities, which have helped us throughout this pandemic. >> katty kay is with us and has a question. >> mayor, we've seen around the country isolated incidents of medical professionals getting harassed bid parent communities when they've tried to propose

mask mandates for schools. do you have a sense in san antonio when you speak to parents of children in the community how they feel? could you give us a kind of broad sense of where parents in your community stand? are they in favor of mandating masks or do they have some ambivalence about it? smr i have been overwhelmed and so have my colleagues by messages, by calls, by visits from parents in tears after we had the court ruling granting our temporary restraining order, which then allowed us to put in a mask mandate. in tears, because they finally felt safe sending their children to school. i had someone tell me yesterday that their 7-year-old daughter cried because when she heard the ruling, she felt like finally somebody was caring about them and their health.

so the overwhelming response has been approval for mask mandates simply because of this. children do not have the choice. we have tens of thousands of public school children and their families depending on our public school system. if you are in a public school, you have a responsibility to the public health. we should be guided by the public health authorities. that's what this is about. we are not infringing on anyone's rights or choices, if you choose to be in a public school, you have responsibility to the public around you. that includes many of those 12 and under, the children, the teachers. the parents, the community around those schools that deserve to be provoked and safe from an infectious disease, not by decisions made by politicians but by public health officials. this emergency action what we're trying to do from the very begining is simply to adhere to

the cdc guidance from the very start, it helps us keep our communities safe. >> mr. mayor, jonathan lemire, the other piece keeping safety on masks or vaccines. you can give us an update on the percentage of those vaccinated among students 12 and up and those eligible but also teachers, in terms of teachers in these schools. how many are being vaccinated. what is being done to require them to do so? >> well, one of the challenges here in san antonio that is unique is we have roughly 17 area school districts that are all quite large. all of them, of course, answer to their own school boards. so the importance of a public health authority is to provide some guidance to all of them, to helped a here to the public health authority's advice and fact dated to keep our children safe. with regard to the vaccines, there has been a lot of work with those school districts to

make vaccines available to staff and to teachers and even to the communities around them are going to continue to do that work. there has been good adoption, a good penetration of the vaccine. we have exceeded the biden administration goal quite a while ago. but we do have pa lot of work to do yet. in reaching that last 20-25% of people. that work continues. in the meantime, we have to use the tools that are available to us to keep folks safe. and we know also that regardless of vaccine status, this delta variant is infecting people with who have already been vaccinated. fully vaccinated or with a single dose. so we've got to make sure that we slow down the surge that's already been accelerating and overwhelming our hospital system. we know from the data already that those who are vaccinated and who get infected are not seeing the severest illness. what the vaccine does is prevent severe illness and death.

but it doesn't necessarily stop transmission. >> before we let you go, you heard the joint statement from the governor and attorney general saying anyone violating their order will be taken to court. what do you take that to mean? what happens next? >> well, we're quite confident again that communities around texas, republican, democrat, all shades, will see it in their best interests to protect the lives of their community. this is really about making sure that our schools are safe environments, that we can begin to, you know, see our economy back open again, which is not going to be possible if people aren't able to go to school if a helpful way. so we're going to continue to fight on the side of public health authorities. again, i will say, over and over, it is tragically ironic that the governor would use his emergency powers to prevent local officials and public health authorities from dealing with the actual emergency. >> san antonio mayor ron

nuremburg, thank you very much. coming up, how the misinformation surrounding vaccines is creating a new threat and not just from the virus, itself. the growing hostility aimed at officials who support masks in schools. that story just ahead on "morning joe." "morning joe." hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee... yeah i should've just led with that... with at&t business... you can pick the best plan for each employee and only pay for the features they need.

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the number of new positives that we are seeing, the rate of the testing positives and the rate of hospitalizations, based on what we are seeing, if we continue that trajectory within the next five-to-seven to ten days, i think we're going to see failure of the hospital system in mississippi. >> a dire warning from one of the top doctors at the university of mississippi medical center about what covid is doing to the state's hospital system. earlier this week, state health officials said there were no icu beds available and the state's only pediatric hospital is full with several children on ventilators. mississippi now is setting up a 50-bed field hospital to help treat patients with covid. the state has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. but at mississippi's largest university ole miss everyone,

everyone in the football program all 240 players, coaches and staff are fully vaccinated. joining us the man that got that done, ole miss rebel's head football coach. i'm sorry to interrupt you from your preparation from your november 20th matchup with my vanderbilt commodores. we appreciate you taking some time with you. tell me how you got this done. 240 people in your program vaccinated. how'd you do it? >> well, i didn't get it done. you know, we have a great medical staff here. just gave all our players, coaches and all our employees education. and brought an outside doctors to come in and we did not make anyone do anything but was really proud of our team, starting with our coaches. our entire staff did it. our players knew how important it was, we weren't going to tell them, advise them the best thing to do if we're not doing it, ourselves.

it was a neat reaction to see it happen and i think and hope it's motivated our state as you referred to one of the bottom i think was last in vaccination rates. so our hospitals are having an issue with that. so hopefully we're leading the charge to help that. >> it's so interesting because you didn't put a mandate in your program. you just led, you said we coaches are doing it. here's why we are dock it. we encourage you to do it. what does that look like inside your locker room led maybe by your quarterback matt quarrel, how did you get the whole team to follow you? >> i think the leaders did that. we're not close as of a few weeks ago. we were down near 60% three or four weeks ago. so just to see the players come together. they decided to protect their team f. they are doing all this work in the weight room, play books, training camp, all that

and then have other players, other staff come 5r7d and potentially bring it to them. now they miss games. also there is close contact rules. so, you know, if you are not vaccinated and someone comes in, a student in class or in our football program, you can be shut down for a number of days right before game and not be able to play because you weren't vaccinated or there is no close contact rule of vaccination. so, i'm sure that helped motivate them as well. >> it says how close your players are and how much they trust you and you run the program. joe, obviously, there are concerns across the sec. obviously, you and i are huge sec football plans, those are the very states that have vaccination rates so low. yet we fully expect the stadiums to be full in a couple of weeks. >> yeah. the timing is pretty bad right now. coach kiffin, it's great to have you on. i went to the university of alabama. my son and i were massive fans

of yours from the beginning there. we thank you for everything you did at alabama. but my first football hero is archie manning. so it's so awesome. actually somebody sent me a lane kiffin bobblehead. the only sports bobblehead i have in my house is lane kiffin because they knew ole miss is a great combination. i remember being proud last summer during black lives matters marches that you got your team going through oxford together and just knowing howdy vicive that was in some parts of the country. but, once again, you got your team united together at a critical moment in a way that was best for your program. can you talk about leadership? can you talk about how you did it with vaccines? how you also did it on racial reconciliation? >> well, i would like to take credit for that, but a lot o of

that leadership is amongst our players. i think even though we did it early as a staff. they saw it. that increased our percentages, at the end of the day the leaders on the team and the players bringing everyone together show them how important it was. again, like i referred to before, you know, it got to the point where it was, you know, are we going to let other players, you know, this is the players saying this, potentially be out, being if school, you know, be out at dinner, then bring this virus in you know a few days before a game. and so, everybody obviously was not, you know, 100% on board initially and there were questions. we had to talk to a lot of family members, too, these are still kids. or concerns and lead them to doctors and not just their own the but other doctors. and it was just neat to see. i think somebody said, we're the only nfl college team to be 100%. so hopefully that inspires other ones, too. but we were really, once it got

close to that. it was about motivating our state also when those numbers came to us, how low they were. some of the issues of running out of the hospital beds so as you mentioned the sec lands, a lot of times the fans and the people follow the football team. so this may be one time you know where we can lead in a different way besides football that is a lot more important. >> yeah. speaking of the season, how are you feeling about the upcoming season? >> we're feeling good. we just started training camp a few days in. so we got a lot of new players that we're trying to incorporate in and improve on last season and it's our championship run here. >> did you have any hopeful word for willie geist along suffering and havy fan? anything you see in that program that suggests that they may give sec a run for the money in the next ten years or so? >> i don't know if they have a lot of help. they have a new coach.

sow never know. >> yep. >> c'mon down here to objection formed for a game next year. >> we'll be down there at the grove. yes. coach clark league came over from notre dame. so we are hopeful they are putting a lot of money in the athletics programs at vanderbilt as well. coach, you mentioned inspiring your state. that's a tough thing to do. nick saban has been out a long time doing psas about the masks and the vaccines, you as the head football coaches in the sec are among the most influential people in those states. it hasn't had a big impact in alabama. do you think it might be different here in miss nice? >> i do. i think you know going out and talking about it as coach has done as i've done is one thing. but when a team and an entire organization, not just the players, you know, decides to do this at 100%, i would like to think that tretty eye opening for a lot of pre, as

mentioned, there has been a stage packed. walk us through if you what you want to see from fans? it seems like you'd like them to be vaccine feinted.n would you like them to be in masks? we have been talking about the low vaccination rate in mississippi, one we hope climbs. as you are having these conversations, we know that vaccines have become such sa polarizing issue in this country. are you expressing hostility from fans or from the families of players who are saying, no, i don't want to take this vaccine, kind of get in your face about it? >> i thought we would have that more. we did not. i thought it would be, you know, i don't know, maybe 80/20 or something. and at the end it wasn't. like i said, there were kids and parents with a lot of questions and we used a lot of doctors, not just our own to help them. at the end of the day, it was everyone's individual decision. we didn't make anybody do

anything and i don't know where we'll be with the masks in the stands. i know our university is still pan dating them indoors. but not outdoors. so, i'm not sure where we'll be on in the stands. but, obviously, we would love for everybody to be vaccine natd, come see games. i know it's a controversy thing to say. it's the right thing to do. >> it shouldn't be controversial at all. you are setting a good example. all 240 people completely vaccinated. coach, good luck this season. are you ranked pre season. high hopes down there oxford. we'll see you down there in november when the come doors come calling. >> all right. guy, have a good rest of the week. thank you. >> thanks so much. >> willie, we need to go down to the grove. >> yes. >> i think we went down for an alabama game. >> yep. >> i think we need to get back down there.

we'll go down for the vandy game. it should be excited. for people that didn't grow up in the south like me or didn't go to school in the south like you, it's hard to explain just what a powerful message that is coming from the head football coach, whether you are talking about nick saban at alabama or lane kiffin at ole miss, whether you are talking tommy tupperville. >> yeah. >> who is a senator now but a real legend at auburn. he beat alabama six years in a row. when a guy like that goes out there, you just hope it can inspire others in the state, their follow-up and get that vaccination. but that, is i mean, 100% no mandate, ole miss, the first team, in college or professional football to be 100% fully vaccinated. that really is something. >> yeah. what they've said is coach kitchen has said, coach saban said, they're at 90% i believe

alabama's football program hoping to get to 100% vehicles -- vaccination. we want to get back to the way we have our saturdays down south. i think that's the larger message for the country. the only reason people are pushing vaccines they don't want people to get sick and get back to our lives. hopefully, these prominent figures in the south set will inspire some more people to get that done. we certainly hope is. >> it's the right thing to do. leak you said, it's the right thing to do. lane kiffin said, also, if you just look at it, strategically. >> yeah. >> it's the smart thing to do. we've seen with the yankees, with the red sox with baseball teams. somebody goes on that covid list, you lose them for a couple of weeks. if you lose a star player alt ole miss whether it's a quarterback or whether it's an outside tackle or whoever it is and they're gone tore two of your biggest games of the year, man, that has a massive

you can't lose one or two games say get the vaccine, if you don't want to do it for yourself. if you don't want to do it for your loved so you can get back to business and so you can help these small business owners grow the economy and help your town come back to life economic ally. >> that's always been the point from the begin fork a year-and-a-half of these masks and these vaccines more recently, despite the criticism, these are people who just want to get back to life. that's all of us, we don't want our kids to wear masks in schools. we're all parents, none of us wants our kids in masks in schools. if it gets us back in place where they don't have to do it again. let's do it.

a closer look at florida why hospitals are filled with so many covid patients, first responders have asked residents to think twice before calling 911 because they're too busy. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." [ music playing ] ack with more "morning joe." [ music playing discover card i just got my cashback match

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there is a virus here. it kills people and the only way we pre ven it is get vaccinated. wear masks do social distancing, washing your hands and not think about my freedom is being kind of disturbed here. no, screw your freedom because with freedom comes obligations and responsibilities.

you cannot just say i have the right to do x, y, z. when you infect other people. >> arnold schwarzenegger with a subtle reminder, to americans with freedom comes personal responsibility. as covid-19 cases surge and hospitals near capacity in some parts of pittsburgh. governor greg abbott announced he will bring in out of state medical personnel to help. they arrange for the deployment of more than 2500 medical personnel to assist hospitals across texas. the first deployment will be fully funded by the state through september 30th. in florida, hospitals are filled with so many covid patients, ambulance services and fire departments are straining to respond to emergencies, in brevard county along the space coast, first responders ask residents to think twice before calling 911 as covid cases surge in the area. officials are trying to avoid taking beds from the emergency department from people who feed them desperately. in st. petersburg, some patients

are waiting inside ambulances for up to an hour before hospitals can admit them a. process that takes 15 minutes. the pinellas administrator says ambulances are not able to take another call, which forces the fire department on the scene of an accident to take that transport, creating backlog in the system. in tennessee tuesday night, it was a chaotic scene outside one school board meeting. >> we know who you are. we know who you are. we will find you. >> we will find you, anti-mask demonstrators gathered outside that school board meeting tuesday night in williamson county after a vote passed in favor of requiring masks in elementary school classrooms. parents shouted they will not comply. some said child abusers as a board member walked to his car,

joe. >> well, we know who you are and we will find you i think the police officer is there and the police department there needs to find out who is making those threats on camera and need to question them by asking them exactly what that means. it is a shame that you have people, you have parents who despite the fact we are seeing news of children dieing from the delta variant, despite the fact that we're seeing news that this delta variant is spreading i think it spreads ten times easier than covid did last year. we still see these scenes, because there are a lot of people that just get bad information from facebook and other social media and other talk show hosts. its unfortunate. but, you know, the tip of the hat to the school board members who acted like adults. and by the way, we've always had

people that have followed disinformation and we've always needed leaders that looked past some of those people even though shouting threats like you saw right there and moved forward and did the right thing. that's what we need. adults, the adults leading this country and i'm glad the school board did what they thought was best to protect children. let's bring in right now state attorney for palm beach county safe erinberg, a side note, you got that guy on camera pointing at a public official after a vote saying, we know who you are, we will find you or something along those lines. is that something that the sheriffs department should follow up on? >> yeah, that looks like that can be construed as a physical threat. they should, they have to hold

people accountable. this is our political culture people feel emboldened to say these things to healthcare workers and school board members, they're trying to do the good for society. it's gross, they should be investigated from potential assault charges. >> let's talk about our state of florida. i am finding from north florida to south florida, i am finding one example after another of local schools and even in the most pro-trump areas, ignoring ron desantis' dictate from the capital from the governor's mansion and deciding to do what they think is best for their own individual school. from pensacola, down, you know, to palm beach. what are you finding as far as pushback to desantis' dictates

from again the governor's mansion from the entire state of florida? >> well, you are seeing it, joe, in the polls, the governor is singularly motivated by running for president in 2024. he seems to overlook he needs to get re-elected as governor in 2022. his poll numbers have been dropping. who knew threatening to de-fund schools is unpopular. it's about as unpopular as befunding police. she back tracking, i didn't mean de-fund schools, the salaries of the school superintendents and the school board members who vote to require max in schools. but you can't do too, there is labor and employment law and contract law. now they're back tracking saying they will deduct the salaries from the everio all school buthsz. to put it in perspective, palm beach county where i live. we have a $3.8 billion school budget. so it would be a deduction of $625,000. not cool. but still less than a rounding error.

so it shows the governor's bark is worse tan his bite. that's why people are starting to sue him to overturn his executive orders. that can be an uphill battle. onening on that, it is ironic republicans like desan es that controlled on local control and love for governments are the first ones to run over local officials once they get the keys to the state car. >> jonathan lemire. walk us through the next steps in this battle. certainly you say governor desantis had to back down on this, his political future may depend on it bs, he certainly staked out this terrain. what other steps can they use to use levers of government to push these mandates, refusal to work, bank mandates on masks i should say, where else are we seeing the local communities go? what other refuge do tie have? what is lost here? >> good morning, jonathan. we have seen lawsuits by parents

who are upset at these orders, which override local governments and i think those lawsuits are an uphill battle. we have seen local governments defy the governor's ban on mask orders. i think that, too, is an uphill battle. this is why. because the state legislature is very compliant. it's a heavily republican legislature. this year they passed sweeping powers to invalidate local emergency measures when the governor says so. and so it gives the governor a lot of power here to do what he is doing. also, there is a new law the parents bill of rights which gives the governor i go es the ability to say that parents and not school districts get to decide issues of mask mandates and on the other side, the florida constitution does guarantee a safe school environment and also it has provisions for home rule and so you are going to see a battle in the court. but even if the plaintiffs win initially, the governor is going to appeal. by the time this gets through in

the courts, the surge in the delta variant will be hopefully long gone. one thing, jonathan, to know is the plaintiffs are emboldened by recent federal court decisions that have repudiated the governor's worse passport law that says that private cruise companies cannot ask passengers for proof of vaccinations. how stupid a law can you get in the middle of a pandemic. that was blocked. also the social media law that says that baseball can't ban donald trump and other right wingers. that was belonged. so it shows one thing the maga leaders across the country seem to have one thing in common a unique talent for losing in court. we'll see if that continues. >> katty kay is with us. catty. >> you are suggesting legally the governor can ride this out initially and win it in the long run, so it goes book then to the court of public opinion and if

delta goes fast through schools and yes a lot of children get infected but perhaps not very many end up we hope in hospitals, then does he write that in the public opinion court too? how do you see this playing out over the next few months? >> i think he's hoping for that he's hoping by the time november 2022 comes around, catty that he will be in the clear. the delta variant will be a memory and he will campaign on such pressing issues as socialism. right now, though, three-quarters of the public oppose his anti-vaccineing passport laws, the cruise lines can't ask for proof of vaccinations. so here is a guy bending over backwards to play to the maga base. it is starting to hurt him. whether it continues to hurt him in 2022 is yet to be decided. >> all right. state attorney for palm beach county, dave erinberg as always thank you so much for being on the show and what you do.

we appreciate it so much. now as we wrap things up this morning, i know it seems like we've covered a lot of ground, like 14, 15 hours worth of ground. but here's a quick recap of this morning's show that i think illustrates what happens when mika has the day off. >> willie, what was your favorite scene in "field of dreams?" burt lancaster's moonlight ground. is it just me? does everybody have chills? no mr. pib. i'm going to guarantee. you want to go watt yankees will win the world series. i know it seems this show has lasted 14 hours. no rc cola. c'mon, we're in the middle of our gospel lesson this morning. you go into the -- on a saturday night, baby, you bet ver your helmet. they didn't have goodies headache tablets. i love watching corey booker.

substituted spartacus with sache. what are we doing here? confirmation we have been saying on twitter for 14 years now, i am not well. that does it for us this morning, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. when i say coverage, i mean news. actual news. mia walked down to tell me to stop it. she got back from the south of france all tan. she's got the big sunglasses, i don't think doris day ever went to the south of france, maybe it's natalie wood. okay. i'm coming. that does it for us this morning. here's steph new ruehl with "something different." [ music playing ] it's a double. do i have news and i did sache my way onto the set. hi there i am steph new ruehl.

it is thursday, august 12th. we have a lot to get to. we start specifically with covid and vaccines. right now the u.s. is averaging more than 700,000 doses being given out every single day. that's good news. the highest we have seen in a month. and new government announcements will push that number even higher. on wednesday, the cdc adjusted its guidance for pregnant women and is now recommending they do get vaccinated. new research shows there is no increased risk of miscarriage from the vaccine. but pregnant women are at higher risk of severe disease if they catch covid. and big news for booster shots. today the fda is expected to authorize a third dose of vaccine for people who compromised immune systems. but there is new research out that raises serious questions about whether the rest of us are going to need that booster sought as well. the mayo clinic studied vaccine effectiveness over a six-month period and found that by the end the