one with a member of congress who served in afghanistan, plus plenty on the pandemic front. the cdc's vaccine advisory committee getting ready to meet this morning on a potential third dose for millions of immunocompromised americans as the fda is already giving another shot its stamp of approval. a lot of headlines for you on this friday morning. i'm hallie jackson with you in washington and we start with msnbc's kelly cobiella in kabul, afghanistan. josh lederman is traveling with the president in delaware and courtney kube live at the pentagon. thank you for being here. kelly, you are inside kabul as we wait for evacuations, as we wait to see what happens at the embassy. more afghans are headed north basically. talk about what you're seeing and how you think frankly the next two, three days are going to go? >> reporter: yes, we are seeing more people arriving in kabul. in fact today, we are at a park at a demonstration organized by

nato workers, local afghans who either worked for nato as interpreters or some sort of support staff role, and one of the men we met there was from kandahar. he said he arrived today and he talked about how the taliban militants were going door to door essentially looking for people who either worked for the afghan government or are working for the afghan government or worked with u.s. or nato forces, and these are the kinds of stories we've been hearing over and over again, and this is the reason why so many people have ended up here from other provinces, as these towns and cities are taken over by the taliban. we did learn and confirm just in the past overnight hours, the past 12 hours or so that kandahar, the second largest city in the country also the birth place of the taliban, very symbolic city in that sense also the hub for american forces over

the past 20 years has, in fact, fallen into the hands of the taliban to key victory for them. we also understand that lashkar gah and helmand. herat in the west is also confirmed to be in the hands of the taliban today. you're looking at an arc of major cities around the country that are controlled by the taliban not to mention ghazni, we talked about yesterday, 80 miles from the capital kabul, and along that key supply route, that key highway running from kabul to kandahar. as you mentioned, the u.s. very concerned about the rapid fall of all of these cities, and sending in those troops to help evacuate people from the u.s. embassy. we haven't seen any sign of that on the ground yet. i'm sure courtney, my colleague, can talk more about the progress

of that operation. but we are hearing a lot of anxiety here on the ground from people who are, have the ability to leave, and still waiting to see whether or not kabul will be at risk, and also people, frankly, who can't get out of the country. there have been warnings for the past several days now that this could be an impending humanitarian disaster if, in fact, there is an attempt to take kabul militarily. hallie? >> kelly, it's great reporting. courtney, your name was invoked, i want to get to it in a second. i want josh to provide context here on the new reporting from nbc news sources about the behind the scenes -- josh, i don't know if we want to call it a scramble. it's certainly fair to call it a discussion on the white house on the decision to send troops back. talk through what you are hearing from officials privately here. >> reporter: yes, we are learning new details, hallie,

how president biden made this fairly abrupt decision to send in some 3,000 troops to kabul temporarily to do this draw-down of u.s. civilians who are there. the president according to a source he spoke to peter alexander met wednesday evening in the situation room with his top national security advisers to discuss drawing down u.s. personnel and the deteriorating situation as one provincial capital after another was falling. the president had questions and picked it back up thursday morning with top advisers at 7:30 in the morning in which jake sullivan, the national security adviser as well as the defense secretary were both recommending that the president send in several thousand troops to try to make sure that they could protect the embassy, protect the airport, as well as do this orderly draw-down of u.s. personnel. president biden ultimately did sign off on that decision. so that's how we end up with these new troops who are heading to the region. the white house, they are still

pushing this line that they are hoping for some type of a negotiated settlement between the taliban and the afghan government. they are pushing this notion that the taliban will not be able to enjoy any kind of international legitimacy, if they take the country by force, and future potential u.s. assistance to the country could be threatened by that, but there is not a lot of optimism that the taliban are going to heed that message at this point in time. we do expect to see president biden just a couple of hours as he heads to camp david likely to face some questions from reporters as he makes that journey. we're also hearing in the last hour or so from jen psaki, the white house spokeswoman who says president biden is firmly focused on the mission on the orderly draw-down of u.s. civilians from kabul. as far as whether he changed his mind, sackie said the president stands by his decision and has no regrets. >> courtney, let me go to you and show this map showing the

taliban's areas of control as of really this morning. this is operative as of i think within the last hour or so. it's happening at a speed that we know and you know based on your reporting has surprised even some of the people on the ground there themselves. talk us through what you're hearing from your sources. you know everything there is to know at the pentagon and the region, courtney. what editorial lines you're looking for over the next 72 hours. >> okay and the "long war journal" they have done phenomenal work keeping track of the prove ins and bill roggio does a lot of the work and i give them credit for how on top of it they've been. what's critical here, we saw a map when kelly, that kelly pointed out some major cities. kandahar, herat and kabul. they are strategic, with a large population and what's striking

in the past week or ten days is how quickly the taliban has been able to threaten and in some cases take over those cities with large populations of afghan civilians in them, and the taliban from a military perspective, they have actually been, it has been a very effective and efficient military campaign. they started in the north. they were able to cut off the north from kabul, and then they have able to very quickly isolate the capital of kabul from all sides. they also took the border crossings which was also a very smart strategic tactic, strategic move because they were able to control the flow of people in and out of the country. now, as they have moved through these cities, they've been taking, rolling up afghan military equipment as they go. they've been recruiting new fighters both by emptying the prisons and by forcing people to join them. so as they move through these cities, the taliban grows stronger and stronger, militarily, and in number, while the afghan military gets simply

in a word, weaker. so it's been a very effective military campaign. they have now isolated kabul much faster than military assessments were just several weeks ago. they are truly on the doorstep of kabul in ghazni as kelly pointed out and threatening logar province next door to kabul. the big concern is if they threaten kabul, how strong will the afghan military be? will they be able to defend the city, and the real serious, the worst case scenario at this point is that if they move into kabul, they will move straight to the airport, they will take the airport and then there's really not a lot that the international community can do, that will be the worst case scenario. >> a huge game changer on that front. courtney kube, kelly cobiella, josh lederman you'll be watching closely in the coming hours on "msnbc reports." we're talking more about this later in the show with a member of congress who served there. we want to turn to other big

headlines this morning on the covid front. what happens in an hour or so from now. the cdc is getting ready for this big meeting on a third dose for americans, not all americans, right? they're looking specifically at people who have weaker immune systems. this green light for that third shot could come maybe within a matter of hours, maybe today, as you got more surge response teams sent to areas where cases are soaring. more hospitals hitting their breaking points yet again. listen to this statistic. florida and texas alone, just those two states alone account for nearly 40% of new hospitalizations across the country. nbc's morgan chesky is in texas for us. he's in dallas outside a hospital there. morgan, talk about, too, some of these, what you're hearing about people who would be eligible for the third dose, why there's so much urgency around getting this approved. you have key contexts here. >> reporter: yes, hallie, it's interesting. you look at the specific group that would be helped by this booster shot, this third dose of

either pfizer or moderna's vaccine, the cdc saying this is specifically keying in on about 3% of american adults nationwide, but this is what stood out to me, that 3% make up more than 40% of these breakthrough infections that we've been seeing all across the country. that's when you're reinfected with covid after getting the first or second dose of the vaccine, and those are the people, those cancer patients, those living with organ transplants, some living with hiv that doctors say are in desperate need of antibody reinforcements because studies have shown after the first shots, their bodies produce little to know antibodies. coupled with that information, i had a chance to speak with the chief medical officer here in parkland hospital in dallas who made a very good point as well. he says this will obviously be a huge benefit to the people who are most vulnerable within our population, but he says what could really help this booster dose that they're now going to hopefully qualify for sooner than later is herd immunity.

he says that we can better protect those people who are at higher risk if more people than the general population get vaccinated themselves. he says without that, without reaching that 80% to 90% number, they can take that vaccine and it can certainly help them, but down the road, they're likely going to have to get another booster shot. and so he says that we can all do our part not necessarily just the immunocompromised to help everyone out here. that was his hope, because he says that the overwhelming majority of patients filling up this hospital are unvaccinated. he says that he looked at hospitalizations here since january, only about 20 of those cases, out of 1,200 that's seen here were people who were vaccinated. and so that's why you hear this across the country, please get vaccinated and here in texas, it's especially disconverting, because about 44% of the state population last check is vaccinated, that's why you're seeing such frustration from front line health care workers

who tell me as of right now, at this one hospital, he's 500 nurses short of operating at full capacity. hallie? >> you said 500, not five, right? just to be clear. >> one hospital, right here, 500. yep. >> morgan chesky doing excellent reporting for us there in dallas, morgan, thank you. i bring in former fda commissioner dr. margaret hamburg. good morning and thank you for being on the show. >> thank you. >> two buckets of things i want to talk to you about here. let me start and move to the fda. i want to start with the cdc meeting coming up in a bit. is it your expectation do you think that this recommending will be made? >> i think it will be. it remains to be seen whether cdc adds more specificity to what fda issued last night, which was adding an amendment to the emergency use authorization to allow a third booster vaccine for immune compromised

individuals. the cdc advisory committee may spell out in more detail some of those individual categories of disease or treatment that might put you into that group for a third vaccination because of immune compromise. >> you talk about the fda wording. i want to ask you about the way that they phrased this approval, they said it would be for people who had organ transplants or equivalent levels of immunocompromise. do you think that was intended to leave some room for interpretation? >> well, i do. clearly the issue here is that there's a subset of the population who have immune compromising conditions for various reasons, which means their body did not mount the same immune response to vaccination with two shots, that they did not get the equivalent level of protection that others did from two shots. so they have been more

vulnerable, and especially in the context of the new delta variant, and its increased transmissibility, and the serious burden of disease we're seeing related to it, this is an appropriate time to give better protection to those with immune compromising disease. >> what about people not immunocompromised. in my own life at work and frankly outside of work, talking to folks who say wait a second, i got my full vaccination coming up maybe six months ago, right, this discussion of after six, seven, eight months, do you maybe need a booster. should people be thinking about that, if people are thinking wait a second, it was back in march that i got vaccinated, should i this fall be thinking about going to my doctor, trying to get another shot, just to protect myself? what would you say to those folks, based on the evidence and the research we've seen so far? >> yes, well i think we have to follow the evidence, and we need to be monitoring to better understand the level of

protection and durability of that protection. clearly that protection does decline over time, with covid-19 and you know, we see that in many other disease conditions and vaccination. but right now, i think we can have considerable confidence that the american people who receive two vaccinations with these mrna vaccines are experiencing a very effective vaccine, the level of efficacy really has been extraordinary, exceeding what any of us hoped for or expected early on, and when the fda remember first put forward the guidelines for emergency use authorization and ultimately approval, they were hoping for an efficacy level that would be above 50%. we're talking 90%-plus, and diminishing now over time but still very, very high, so we

need to continue to monitor it. at the same time, as was noted in your earlier segment, we have to do a huge push to extend vaccination to unvaccinated americans that are unfortunately helping to enable ongoing spread of disease, and we have to think about the rest of the world, because it really is true, this is a global pandemic, and none of us will be truly safe until we address the infections and spread all around the world, and it's the ongoing spread of this sars-coronavirus-2 that enables the development of new variants and we want to control disease, reduce the impacts of disease and we want to help limit ongoing spread and the emergence of new variants of concern. >> dr. margaret hamburg, well said as always. thank you so much for being on the show and for providing your expertise and perspective. we appreciate it. >> thank you.

the house may be on recess but that doesn't mean there's no action on the hill. nine moderate democrats sent a letter to house speaker nancy pelosi, what they're saying they will not vote for, and why it might be jamming the speaker up. that's next. can trust? with subaru, you get kelley blue book's most trusted brand winner, seven years in a row. in fact, subaru has won most trusted brand for more consecutive years than any other brand. no wonder kelley blue book also picked subaru as their best overall brand. once again. it's easy to love a brand you can trust. it's easy to love a subaru.

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if the never-ending infrastructure week has been full of roads, there is a road block now to this carefully laid out two-pronged plan the democrats want to push on infrastructure and a budget on the hill. this morning, you have nine moderate house democrats telling house speaker nancy pelosi "we will not consider voting for a budget resolution until the bipartisan infrastructure investment and jobs act" that being the infrastructure bill" passes the house and signed into law." joining me is leigh ann caldwell. this has implications to the process. tell us what they are and give us the reality check whether pelosi is at risk of being somewhat derailed here.

>> reporter: hey, hallie. there is a big risk here. we always knew that it was going to be a difficult task for speaker pelosi to keep all of her members united, because remember, she can only lose three democrats for anything to pass the house of representatives. so when nine members sign a letter saying they are not going to vote for something, that matters and she has to pay attention. now, what these nine moderate democrats are saying is that when the house comes back into session in a couple weeks to vote on that $3.5 trillion budget framework on their big human infrastructure bill, they say they they aren't going to vote for it. they want the bipartisan traditional infrastructure bill to be signed into law first. this puts pelosi in a difficult position because there are moderates, three of whom on their front line districts, meaning they are at risk of losing their re-elections and so

that is the stakes they have. they can say we need these shovel projects on transportation to start immediately. this helps in re-election. on the other hand you have the progressives, a lot more than nine who say that they don't want this process to go down. they want to see this $3.5 trillion infrom structure bill passed before they're willing to support the bipartisan one. so pelosi has a difficult challenge on her hands how she keeps her party united. >> we're tracking that, every twist and turn. leigh ann caldwell, thank you. a decision by the supreme court means indiana university can now require its students to get the covid shot before they come back to campus. the controversy on that, what it means, next.

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mandate, any kind of vaccine mandate, and you've got some leaders taking this fight all the way to the supreme court and losing. the court has now declined to block indiana university's requirement that on campus students be vaccinated. they're letting this requirement stand as students get ready for the start of classes soon. several other schools put in place similar rules, also facing lawsuits. i want to bring in justice correspondent pete williams on what this means. let me make sure i'm understanding this and see if you can help us explain this. this decision is made by the full court and by one justice who dismissed this challenge on behalf of the court that justice was amy coney barrett, looks at cases, the challenges coming in from that region. given the politicization of vaccine mandates shall the fact she was appointed by donald trump, some conservatives were surprised by what she did. should they have so shocked? >> no, i don't think so. for a couple of reasons. first of all, the supreme court's only decision about mandatory vaccination goes back to 1905, when cambridge, massachusetts, said every adult

had to get a smallpox vaccine. that was challenged in the supreme court upheld it. what the lower court said is look at what indiana is doing. it's not anywhere near as strict as something the supreme court has already upheld for a couple of reasons. number one, students can opt out of the vaccine if they can cite religious or medical reasons, justifications, and if they do, then they have to submit to regular testing, and secondly, the lower court said you know what? you don't have to go to indiana university. you can always go someplace else if you want a higher education. for all those reasons, the lower courts, and by the way, the appeals court decision from the seventh circuit court of appeals was written by frank easterbrook, one of the most respected conservative judges on the appeals court. i don't think it was any surprise and by the way, hallie, there was sort of an early indication that the court was not going to take this case or give the challengers any kind of relief, because normally when you file one of these emergency applications, you go to the circuit justice, in this case

amy coney barrett and usually if there's any chance at all that this thing is any traction, they ask for a response. the court didn't even ask for a response. she didn't refer it to the full court. she did it by herself probably after discussing it with the other justices, so no, for all those reasons, i'd say it shouldn't be a surprise. >> pete williams, wonderful to have you on with your brilliant analysis as always, thank you. we are answering your back to school covid pandemic questions, speaking of vaccine mandates. big show next hour. get your questions and email, talk@msnbc.com or tweet #msnbcanswers, answering a ton of questions with our experts after this show 11:00 eastern on msnbc. today in texas some moves going down there. set to see this hearing about these democratic lawmakers, that's the next big step in this legal ping-pong over a controversial voting law. you remember the deal here. the state supreme court blocked an order that kept democrats in the state house from getting arrested. that paved the way for republicans to send law

enforcement after their colleagues. nbc news correspondent priscilla thompson is live in texas. talk about the significance of the ins and outs of the developments. are we going to see dem lawmakers in handcuffs at the state capitol? >> reporter: hallie, it's like playing whac-a-mole here with all of the legal back and forth. this is the second time this week that democratic lawmakers have gotten some protection in the district courts, only for the supreme court, the texas supreme court to block that protection, and we just got off the phone with the lead attorney for the democrats. he says they are still going to let this play out in district court and that those democratic lawmakers, that procedural hearing is still going to take place, most of it will probably be via zoom. however, and they're also going to be filing their response to the texas supreme courts. the lead attorney saying they are arguing this is a violation of these lawmakers' fundamentally constitutional right and the supreme court thus

far hasn't ruled on the merits of this case, and so that is what they're hoping to get in front of a judge. as that is continuing to play out in the courts, what is happening here on the ground at the capital is that the speakers' office tells us yesterday the sergeant at arms did move forward with deputizing other texas law enforcement to compel that quorum, even if it means by arrest, but as a reminder, this was a vote that they took on tuesday. it is now friday, and they still have not gotten a quorum. they will gavel in later this afternoon, but it remains to be seen how aggressively they are going to pursue these lawmakers and actually bringing them in, in handcuffs, as you said. hallie? >> priscilla thompson live on the ground in austin. thank you. u.s. keeps up with the withdrawal from the afghanistan, the taliban making gains, taking control of the country's second biggest city, after the break, afghanistan veteran and congressman from massachusetts,

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brand new just this morning, you know how senator rand paul made headlines this week for disclosing his wife bought stock in the drug company gilead in early 2020? he was supposed to have reported this 16 months ago, but he did not until wednesday. the stock purchase came a few weeks before covid was declared a pandemic, and according to our friends at cnbc, one day after the first u.s. trial started for gilead's remdesivir as a treatment for covid. senator sits on the health committee. he filled out a disclosure form but it wasn't transmitted to the proper office. for the first time today paul is talking about this, the senator and his wife on camera. i want to bring in ben with the political unit making your debut on our broadcast. welcome. his wife bought or sold stock for a decade before this.

tell us what they're saying this morning and why this matter. >> definitely. so senator paul and his wife are stressing they need this, his wife made the sale with only public information, nothing outside of the public domain, which is obviously important when you come into a question of insider trading laws. we have a clip on that, we could play that. >> we're proud of being, try to be part of a cure. the company we invest lost money so we weren't exactly right on what the cure would be but i don't understand where there would be a problem in investing for a cure but losing money. >> two days before i bought it, the head of the world health organization pointed to remdesivir as a possible treatment for covid. everything that i knew about it was in the public domain, in the news from the world health organization. >> senator paul is not the first lawmaker by any stretch to get into some pandemic-related stock hot water. we've seen lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the house

and the senate either be late with their filings, days or weeks, things like that and frankly, it's a small amount of money for members of congress, up to $50,000 is no small chunk of change, but you regularly do see lawmakers trading in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, but as you said, the unique thing here is that it may be the only individual stock that paul has reported selling or buying since 2012 and obviously it comes amid remdesivir starting its first clinical trial. the request he is what is the reservation here, for stock act violations, the lack of disclosure? pretty small. certainly maybe someone wants to kick the tires and see if there is any insider trading implications. as long as he wasn't trading or wife wasn't trading on outside knowledge, that's basically is. >> ben kamisar, thank you, appreciate you being on. breaking news overseas, leading every big newspaper this morning, check it out, check out the headlines. what's happening in afghanistan

and the deteriorating situation there. the taliban sweeping across a lot of the country faster and really more ruthlessly than expected. the political pressure back here in washington building on president biden this morning. we have top republicans slamming him and the administration, mitch mcconnell calling president biden's policy reckless, comparing the situation in afghanistan to the fall of saigon in 1975. i'm joined by democratic congressman jake auchincloss who served in afghanistan. good morning and thank you for being on the show. >> good morning. >> lots to talk about here. new information from speaker pelosi who said there will be a briefing, she wants a briefing on the situation in afghanistan asap when house members get back from recess. is that on the calendar? what are your top concerns for the administration when it happens? >> when i was a platoon commander in helmand province in 2012, the taliban had a maxim, you have the watches but we have the time. we could be in of azban tan for

another century winning every battle but still lose the war. this president is telling the american people a hard truth, that counter-insurgency cannot succeed without a political solution and the afghans must build that political solution. >> i need your action, somebody who has been on the ground and the developments over the last few hours. how significant symbolically and strategically is the fall of kandahar? >> kandahar is the second city of afghanistan and adds to the roster of provincial capitals the taliban are taking. the american focus needs to be narrow in scope. we have to secure american personnel in the country. we need to continue evacuating allied interpreters, and we need to sustain our counterterrorism mission throughout central asia so no terrorists with imminent camability to strike the united states can have safe harbor. >> can i follow up for one second? when do you expect that to happen? >> we'll have that briefing the

week that we are back to vote on voting rights and the infrastructure packages, and in that meeting, i'm really going to be focused on two things. one is the security of kabul. that is really going to be a linchpin for the potential phav declassification and investigation strategy to hold to account the last 20 years' worth of national security officials who knew more than they told the american people about the viability of this mission in afghanistan. >> last month, you talked about how important, as you talk about kabul that city is to afghanistan, if the central government can hold onto the capital and retain solid governance in the periphery, you said "i think they can push back on the taliban over the course of its next year." do you still believe afghan forces can hold onto the capital thatening lo, given what we've seen and heard from our team doing the reporting on this on the ground at the pentagon, the worst case scenario kabul could fall far sooner than that, maybe

within days rather than weeks? >> the united states and its allies helped build afghanistan an army, an air force, an intelligence apparatus as well as many organs of state and they have the tools they need to hold kabul, whether they successfully hold their capital is really now up to the afghan people. >> do you think they can hold it for a year? >> i think that's going to be what i am asking about in the security briefing in the coming weeks. i want to understand the prognosis for the capital. as you said, as i've said in the past, the ability for the central government to hold the capital city really is critical in brokering a power sharing agreement, because right now the talks in dohar are ground to a halt because the taliban of making military advances and one of the maxims of negotiating an end to a military conflict is each side wants the facts on the ground to be as advantageous as possible to the negotiating

table. every day there's delay, the taliban's facts on the ground look better and better, so the ability to hold the line in kabul finally gives the central government some more negotiating leverage in doha, and that's why it's a question. >> congressman, thank you for being on and talking with us about the developments overseas. we appreciate that. come up on the show, "nbc nightly news" lester holt talks about the latest installment in the "justice for all" series we've been doing. an exclusive interview with the man on track to take over the next manhattan district attorney and you know what investigation that office is heading, that's right, the one involving donald trump. gold. your strategic advantage. if you're 55 and up, t-mobile has plans built just for you. switch now and get 2 unlimited lines and 2 free smartphones.

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now to an exclusive interview you will only see here on nbc news. with the man on track to replace cy advance as the next manhattan district attorney. if he wins in november, alvin brad would become the first black man elected to the top job and inheriting one of the most closely watched and politically fraught cases, the criminal investigation into former president trump's business dealing. lester holt got the exclusive interview, graciously up early for us to talk to us.

can you talk to us about what you heard from mr. brad, the future of that investigation if he wins, come november? >> yes, we talked about obviously it's the question that his office he will inherit an office in the middle of this investigation in this case. he's been asked about it. i asked him about it and each time he chooses his words very carefully, suggesting that no matter what the size of the case, he will approach it in the same way. here's what he told me. >> i've done a number of high-profile cases involving people in or near the seat of power, if they take to you a business person, if they take you to a former president, you follow the facts. >> he's not talking anything about how he would handle that case beyond the fact that it would be business as usual. a lot of eyes however will be on him, if he wins in november, and of course, he'll be heading this case. >> that is for sure. lester, viewers of this show will know we have been closely delivering on reporting in our "justice for all" series, on

"nightly news" another district attorney's office in philadelphia as part of that series. can you tell us about it? >> it's another d.a., another reformer in the model of what mr. bragg wants to talks oftenr wrongful convictions. philadelphia established a wrongful conviction unit. tonight we focus on one of those that is a story decades long. a cold murder case that is really opening some new concerns about the justice system in philadelphia. here is a little bit of it. >> you're wanted for the murder of a little girl. >> four years after an unthinkable murder, police found a killer who confessed.

he was a truck driver that one lived a cross the street from a 4-year-old. >> if that's not intent to kill, then i haven't seen it yet. >> prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. he claimed he was innocent and this a that forced a confession out of him. >> how did you feel to hear that story? >> i wanted him dead. >> did you kill barbara jean? >> i did not. >> the jury didn't believe him. he was found guilty and sentenced to die. >> did you look at the jury? >> yeah, they were stonefaced. >> he wrote a letter to journalist tom lowenstein. he was stunned by what he discovered. >> i thought i was plucking a

little weed and the more i pulled the more of a tree kept coming up and up. >> there is a pattern of unbrid -- bridled misconduct. >> the city's corrupt general justice system ensnared walter and countless others. >> i found another case from the exact same time period where another man is claiming that he is claiming he is didn't. so then can you find another one. >> the newly elected district attorney hired patricia cummings to lead an integrity unit. they found police and prosecutors lied. when i toke with cummins she made a claim you rarely hear.

>> we're asking to reverse the conviction. >> you can't over emphasize how unusual it is to hear a prosecutor say we got it wrong and we want this person free. >> you're so right about that. we're really looking forward to what you're reporting. we have to let viewers know, too, for more on this lester has a one-hour dateline special. do not miss it. coming up, the 2020 census shows that we're more diverse than ever before, but who might redistricting hurt the most? steve kornacki will be back, next. kornacki will be back, next we can explore uncharted waters, and not only make new discoveries,

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>> this one is a little more straightforward than the gymnastics scoring system. the headline is you mentioned the 2020 census numbers, the white population of the united states came around 60%. rising hispanic population now getting close to 20%. the asian population up to nearly 60%. redistricting, that is the big question. next years congressional elections, the house is so gnash royly divided right now, getting the majority allowed what do the numbers have to say about this? first of all, these are the states gaining the most population. they are gaining congressional

seats. second will gain two of them. florida will gain a seat. so republicans can get some advantaged because a lot of red states are gening seats. a lot of blue states losing seats. california is going to play out all of this data. the states will use to redraw their congressional maps. what you see here, if you see red, red states are where republicans have control over the map drawing process. how the lines are drawn. if the republicans are trying to get the majority, they can get a

lot of the way there just by getting through there. florida, carolina, georgia, if democrats want to do the same thing and try to off set that have ways to draw their own favorable lines. they could tip things if favor of republicans. >> thank you for watching this hour. much more ahead of our special coverage with craig melvin is right now. >> good friday morning to you. craig melvin here. we have a very special hour for you. the entire show, the entire show this morning is dedicated to answering your questions about covid-19, the delta variant, masks, and what it all means for getting our kids safely