passage of people to the airport. the taliban have informed us they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment. >> a remarkable turn of events 20 years in the making. there are fast moving developments this morning on the situation in afghanistan, and the many thousands of americans still there. we're joined by a pulitzer prize winning reporter who was once held captive by the taliban before escaping. plus, will a third vaccine shot help ward off the delta. the biden administration is betting on boosters to help beat back the surge in covid. plus, what about all of those americans who haven't even had their first shot yet. we're going to talk about that and show you what's happening to children inside the icu. and the devastation in haiti

grows only worse with the severe weather there. new reporting on the after math of saturday's deadly earthquake. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, august 18th. it's good to have us all together, joe. >> yeah, great to be together. we have a lot to talk about today. willie, though, let's just start by talking about and you and i maybe we shouldn't reveal this to everybody, but, you know, i'm frighteningly good in two things, and we don't talk about it a lot. one is parcheesi, the second is fortune telling. i'm a great fortune teller. i have been predicting the rise of a team out of the east for quite some time now. you laughed, you mocked me. lemere mocked me.

the yankees were coming, what happened, of course, willie, call me dom if you would like. it did help, the trade deadline. you guys set up murderers row, and our front office decided to get a one eyed goat and a six-week subscription to popular mechanics and that was just online. it wasn't even like the magazine himself. i'm not sure why they did that. i don't know how they thought that was going to help us, but obviously we have a one in 47 record since they made that decision, but last night, willie, a big, big night in the bronx. >> first of all, popular mechanics is doing some great things with digital these days. i totally get that piece of it. yeah, the yankees swept a two-game double header yesterday on the arm of that guy right there, louie heel, and there's a bloop single in the first game of the double header. yankees won that one, but the

yankees were six weeks ago, ten and a half games behind the red sox, six weeks ago, and last night they pulled into a tie. they have one more today. they also are in a tie for the lead, the yankees for the wild card which seems frankly inconceivable to most people a couple of months ago, the way they were playing, the number of guys on the covid list. they made deadline moves which seems to energize the team. the key is the wild card, they're tied with both the red sox and the a's who also lost last night. i guess, joe, we have to call you dom, which also incidentally is your screen name for your online parcheesi league. >> it is. it is. there's a reason. i can always see around corners, especially when i'm playing parcheesi, you mocked me, ridiculed me when i said we were going to be fighting the blue jays for fourth place. i don't think it's a fight now.

blue jays are going to sweep past us next. >> now, joe, that's not quite how i remember it. i shared your pessimism about this red sox team. i should note i'm standing here so i can make a quick get away from willie before he starts taunting me further about the sweep yesterday, and the two games we saw yesterday encapsulated the flaws with the red sox team. in the first game, a bull pen melt down to cough up a lead, load the bases in a 7th. 7 inning game in double headers, punchless, they get nothing. second game, no offense at all, no runs for a lineup that has been struggling for weeks, and it's a pitching staff that didn't get any reinforcements at the deadlines. thankfully, forget the blue jays, let's try and stay ahead of the orioles. >> it's going to be close. it's so ridiculous how much help we needed at the deadline, we didn't get it. this is a gutsy game fought

hard. that he remind me a lot of the 2013 team, did the first half of the season but got no support from the front office, and this is what happens when your front office doesn't give you a vote of confidence. anyway, we'll see what happens. willie, we hand it to you. congratulations, and as i said a couple of weeks ago, get ready for that 28th world series for the new york yankees. >> i like the way you light a fire under your ball club. you're still there tied for the wild card. today right no you're in the playoffs, hang on to that for another 12 hours until tonight's game. >> i said it was great we were all together. okay. let's turn to the news. we begin with the race to evacuate thousands of americans and allies in afghanistan following the taliban's takeover of the country. a biden administration official told senate staffers yesterday that as many as 15,000 americans

are still in afghanistan. about 1,100 american citizens, permanent residents and their families have been evacuated so far. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has the latest from kabul. >> reporter: we made it on to the military side of kabul airport. this is where the u.s. is carrying out its final withdrawal from afghanistan. the american flag still flies here. this side of the airport has long been an american and nato base, and it's full with extra troops brought in to protect the evacuation. this has become effectively the last u.s. military base in afghanistan. the last presence of american troops in this country after 20 years. and they're only focused on one thing, wrapping it up. >> the evacuations are mainly bringing out americans and other foreign nationals. along with afghans who manage to get visas and who are happy to be leaving. hundreds packed into one

american cargo jet. the biden administration has promised to expedite visas for afghans who work for the u.s. military. tens of thousands are waiting. i spoke to a group of afghans, they have all worked on this base for over five years, not one has a visa. what did you do on this base? what was your job. >> i worked in the building office. >> finding people, placing people. >> if you go back home, are you worried? >> of course. they will kill us. >> you're here, you all have badges, you're on this base, and you can't get out. that seems like a total collapse of bureaucracy or it seems like they just don't care. >> they don't care, i think. >> what is it like for all of you to watch these planes take off in front of you and know that you can't get on one? >> we're trying. >> do you feel betrayed? >> yeah. >> even worse than the lack of

action, they say, is the lack of concern. >> somebody ask of our lives. nobody ask, what your problem, nobody. >> so this us. >> this is the first time. >> reporter: outside the airport, there's utter desperation, afghans pushing and pleading to get in and board a flight away from taliban rule. they don't believe the taliban which promised to be different, that women will have rights, free press and a general amnesty for translators who helped the u.s. military. men time tom, which is what u.s. troops called him. we have been following his story for months. he went on combat missions and helped american troops find and kill taliban fighters. he's been waiting for his visa for four years and asked us to blur his face because today he's in hiding. >> they will kill us.

>> reporter: afghans were spoke to say they were wrong to trust american promises, as the u.s. is leaving afghanistan in the hands of extremists and leaving so many allies behind. >> our thanks to richard engel for that report. national security agencies within the biden administration are finger pointing as officials seek to explain why america's longest war has ended in chaos. multiple officials tell nbc news that top military leaders are furious with president biden's national security team because they wanted to start evacuating vulnerable afghans as early as may but were not allowed to do so. many officials expressing annoyance at the state department saying leaders there have been extremely slow in processing the paperwork needed to deal with afghan translators and others eligible for resettlement.

but at the state department, officials are pointing the finger at congress, which created a tedious 14-step process for the special visa program that diplomats by law must complete before they can issue the visas. congress ultimately passed legislation to streamline the program but not until the end of july, willie. >> need a flow chart to follow that finger pointing. in recent weeks, cia intelligence assessments began to warn in stark terms about the potential for a rapid and total collapse of the afghan military and government. according to "the new york times," just last month, intelligence reports were questioning whether any afghan security forces would muster serious resistance to the taliban and whether the government could hold on to kabul. the "times" notes, should the taliban begin seize cities,

let's bring in nbc news, and nbc national affairs, host of show times the circus, and hell and high water podcast, john heilemann. this was foreseeable by a lot of people and preventable, many assessments have it. if bagram air base had remained open, get translators, allies, americans out of the country, and then you leave, as the argument goes but as mika walked through for us, you've got military pointing at state, state pointing at congress and the circle just going back around. nobody wants any responsibility for what we're seeing in afghanistan right now. >> i think the finger pointing is naturally going to happen between capitol hill and the white house if the white house is going to claim that the reason that this evacuation didn't start earlier is that

it's in congressional hands. we have heard seth molten saying he was banging the drum for months, on the number of people that needed to be evacuated from afghanistan, what the draw down date was going to be. the evacuation needed to start months ago. he has been trying to call directly to the administration along with colleagues who are veterans on the democratic side, allies of the white house saying we got to get going earlier, this is obvious and they couldn't get action from the white house. the white house saying it's congress's fault because this visa mess you described in your read. we're going to have a fight between the white house and congress. it's not going to be a fight between republicans, necessarily just republicans and the white house, it's going to be also democrats, many of whom on capitol hill are furious with the white house so you're going to see administration officials holed up before congressional committees.

congressman meeks said yesterday he wanted to bring up biden administration officials to testify. that's going to be another step in this. and you've got the internal finger pointing, another thing you alluded to earlier which is within the administration, where you've got intelligence agencies pointing the finger at the white house, the military pointing the finger at the white house. whatever you think of it, there are people saying that wars end messy, but the reality for this white house right now is that aside from republicans and donald trump and others who are going to pound them over their competence on this question, you have a lot of internal democratic finger pointing recriminations, accusations, in fighting that are going to plague the biden administration, the biden white house for weeks, at least weeks to come, and maybe longer. >> john, we've seen snap poles, a few snap poles over the past

several days showing joe biden's approval rating dropping 7 points to its lowest percentage yet, he's at 46%. of course they're just snap poles. we'll see what it looks like in a month from now, two months from now, but what are you expecting the political fallout to be. what are you hearing from democrats, what they expect the political fallout to be from this chaos? >> the question you just raised about the duration of the impact, what is the impact, first of all, on biden's numbers, and then secondly, what's the duration of that impact, super important, right, because, you know, you think about the administration's domestic legislative ambitions, which are vast, and we were all looking at what was going to be an extraordinarily complicated and high stakes game of legislative maneuvering over the course of the next several months to get the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package through congress, right, we know that that's mostly now a

democratic drama where you have, you know, moderate democrats pulling one direction, progressive democrats pulling another direction. to take two bills of historic scope, giant bills, two of the biggest bills in the history of congress, right, and then the complexity of trying to get them done inside simultaneously as nancy pelosi is having to deal with given the factual infighting, that was going to be really hard even if the president was in an incredibly strong position, a president with a 56% approval rating where every democrat wanted to give na that president a win, wanted to call themselves a biden democrat, was looking forward to the midterm elections, campaigning as a biden democrat. if that calculus starts to change, if biden's numbers fall, and they stay, and they don't just fall momentarily, but they stay, they fall in a durable way, that's going to make things much more complicated on capitol hill. i know people will say these are

unconnected issues. you know a strong president with potent numbers, that's the kind of president who can pull off something of this size and complexity, a president who's weakened, who seemed to be wounded. a president where democrats are worried now about running as a biden democrat if you're in a swing district. that's where it becomes much harder to pull off something as ambitious as biden is trying to pull off on the domestic legislative front. >> john, what's your thought on the back and forth we're hearing among democrats. they're in a position now, a position they haven't been in in quite a while politically where they don't need a republican vote to pass legislation, this legislation moving forward. they could actually, they get past the $1 trillion hard infrastructure bill, past the $3.5 trillion sort of human infrastructure bill that they're talking about passing, which would be a progressive's dream. would set joe biden apart among

progressives as one of the more successful presidents in recent american history. and again, they don't need a republican vote to do that. i'm just curious how much of this back and forth, how much of these protests we're hearing from moderates on one side and progressives on the other is nothing more than just noise, just people circling each other and trying to negotiate for the best deal. i guess what i'm saying is i find it hard to believe that now they're in a position where they can run over republicans and do whatever they want to do and swing for the fence and reach it. i find it hard to believe that democrats are going to stop democrats from achieving that historic gain. >> i agree with you joe, and if logic prevails, and the argument with pelosi, there's going to be action on the senate side. they passed budget resolution, but haven't put together the legislation on the senate side

for social spending. you have problems with manchin and sinema, they've got the authorization to spend it but they don't have what the bill looks like. you have problems on the senate side over there. i think in a world as i said a second ago, a world where all democrats, all factions could be told, look, guys, listen to joe scarborough over here, our fate is in our hands now. you have a world where you're going to give your president a giant win and there are going to be complexities but we're going to march forward having done something we haven't been able to do in a long time. you're all going to have to deal with some parts of the bill you don't like. the alternative is failure for joe biden. how is that better for you? how is that better for your politics? i think that argument would have been highly persuasive for joe biden about three months ago. if biden is in some kind of a long-term slide now, if some combination of republican messaging and facts on the

ground, not just afghanistan but covid, the economy, if inflation starts to tick up, that's one of the great fears of moderates in the house and senate is that pumping this much money into the economy is going to send inflation out of control. a lot of people look at biden's future and their future in 2022 and 2024, their real fear is the fear of inflation. that's where i think the biggest set of issues, we thought for a while progressives were the problem nancy pelosi had. you rightly pointed out she seems to have corralled the progressives, there was a dance, we keep them happy and keep them on board, the moderates at the last month realizing how much leverage they had, they are a bigger challenge for pelosi than progressives are, and they potentially are more of a problem because their politics are more affected. the moderates, if biden starts to falter, they might see a

political advantage in putting distance themselves between themselves and biden. that's the politics you have to worry about if you're joe biden and nancy pelosi going forward as we try to get all of this done. >> we're going to talk to a few of those lawmakers coming up on "morning joe." the other big story we're following is the alarming surge in coronavirus cases across the country. with the number of confirmed cases now surpassing 37 million just eight days after the nation topped 36 million infections. the covid death toll now exceeds 626,000. globally, nearly 209 million cases have been confirmed with that number rising due to the spread of the delta variant. willie. meanwhile, the delta variant is causing huge strain on some hospitals across the country. in alabama, nbc affiliate wsfa in montgomery reports hospitals

statewide are out of icu beds. as a result, some patients are being treated on gurneys and hallways or in emergency rooms. data shows only 12% of those hospitalized for covid-19 are fully vaccinated. 12%. the president of the alabama hospital association warns the state's 23% positive test rate, which is among the highest in the nation means alabama has not yet reached its pandemic surge peek, mika. >> and it's impacting kids, children in a serious way with covid cases climbing in every state, and the nation topping 37 million cases since the start of the pandemic, more children are getting sick across the country. nbc news correspondent miguel almaguer spent time inside a pediatric covid unit. >> there is, perhaps, no rise more troubling than the spike in covid cases among children. inside some pediatric units,

beds are nearly full and kids are sicker than ever. in the past week, there have been 121,000 new child cases. the stunning explosion in hospital admissions spiking some 300%. >> i have seen some of the sickest patients i have ever cared for in the unit over the last couple of weeks, critically ill children. >> reporter: at arkansas children's hospital, every number is a name, the tenfold increase in weekly cases nationally is measured one family at a time. doctors say low vaccination rates, the delta variant, and loosening restrictions as kids return to school could turn their cries is into a catastrophe. >> it's not one of those things where you can say my kid is healthy so we're going to be fine. we can't predict which kids are going to end up in the icu with us. >> reporter: with less than 13% of children fully vaccinated, it could be months before those under 12 have a vaccine.

in nashville, some 1,000 students are in quarantine or isolation after an outpress secretary -- outbreak infections. in florida, one school district has 8,000 students in quarantine or isolation. children are far less likely to be infected with covid, and dying with covid, the numbers are trending in the wrong direction. doctors say most kids never get seriously sick but many of those that do are fighting for their lives, protecting the youngest americans as far too many fall ill every day. let's bring in physician and fellow at the brookings institution, dr. kavita patel, a former obama white house policy director and msnbc medical contributor. thanks for being on. out of miguel's piece, you see children, and you see children in pediatric intensive care units with covid in very bad shape but you hear that children

don't get it as much. which one is it, and what direction are we going in as kids head back to school. >> the right questions to ask, and unfortunately some unsettling answers. we're going in the wrong direction, and we're especially going in the wrong direction in states where we have seen a thousand percent increase of covid cases of all ages, but particularly younger as miguel covered, younger children in larger numbers. the unsettling news goes further. the majority of children compared to the adults, the context of comparing it to other adults but if we have a 2% hospitalization rate which i'm watching closely. it's ticking up ever so slightly, we have a 2% pediatric hospitalization rate that truly could have been prevented.

there's no reason for any of those children to go to the hospital or end up in the icu. shouldn't we have the obligation to do everything possible to make that happen. that's unsettling with this population that had no choice. i have said to pediatric colleagues, under 12, we have limited treatment options. many of the authorized agents or fda agents are for 12 and above or 18 and above. so our tool box that we use when we see children is incredibly limited, compared, again, to adults. we're sacrificing children's health for the sake of what, resistance because of misinformation and lies. that's why we're troubled by this. >> what's the distinction between what you're seeing in the delta variant with kids and what we saw a year ago whereas mika said the conventional wisdom was that kids are less likely to get it, and when they get it, they handle it pretty well, why is delta seeming right now at least to be so much different than what we saw last

year? >> willie, a key turning point for not just myself but all of us in medicine has been that a year ago we really did see more of the kind of child to adult or child-to-child spread primarily at the ages of 12 and older. 12 sounds like a demarcation point but there's a reason for that. under the age of 12, we had studies that illustrated that children at that age were not as efficient at holding that much virus in their nasal passages, and respiratory tract to give to other people. we're seeing quite the opposite. we're seeing many cases of even toddlers, the journal of the american medical association put out important research that showed that even toddlers can carry a high degree of viral load from the delta variant. they may not get, again, we're saying they may not get as sick as adults but keep in mind, i argue any illness in a child

that can be prevented should be but we are seeing much more infegss down to the age of toddlers, which is disturbing. >> and the numbers we're seeing are unvaccinated americans, and children that can't get the vaccine. dr. kavita patel, thank you very much. the u.s. exit from afghanistan is leaving the door open for other countries to extend influence in the region. we'll look at china's approach to the taliban, plus, pro football hall of fame quarterback brett favre issues a new warning to parents about keeping kids out of tackle football. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ing "mornin" we'll be right back.

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a new psa featuring hall of fame quarterback brett favre is urging parents not to allow parents to let their children play tackle football until their 14 years old. >> mom, dad, let's talk about tackle football. i just learned about cte, the brain disease caused by repeated hits to the head. the more years i play, the more i'm at risk. if you put me in tackle today. >> by the time i'm a senior in high school, i'll have played 13 years of tackle football. i could already have cte and it will continue to destroy my brain even after i stop playing, so by the time i'm your age. >> i could be fighting depression, struggling to keep my thoughts straight. i could become violent, even

towards my own children. when i'm your age, what will matter to me is not my youth football career but that like you, i'm a great parent, and i can provide for my family. >> so please, keep me out of tackle football until i'm 14. >> favre telling the "today" show yesterday research is just beginning to reveal how serious concussions are. new data shows 25% of high school football players had cte. joe, you and i both played high school football. this obviously was not in the conversation when you and i played. it was called getting your bell rung, you would see stars and go back to the sideline and get in on the next play. to have someone as legendary, and respected, saying draw the line at 14, i would be interested to see how they

choose that, starting in high school. that has a huge impact on parents and young players! and the guy as tough as favre saying that makes the message even stronger. you know, i started playing tackle football when i was 8. i mean, it was, you know, fall football was the center of our life. did it every year. played through high school, and you're right, in high school, we'd get, you know, bull in the ring, we'd get in circles and two guys would run towards the center of the circles, and you know, slam into each other, and it's hard to say how many concussions you and i and other people had that played competitive tackle football for ten years. again, imagine from 8 to 18. i had somebody come up and suggest that jack play football. he's 13. tall guy, and i said not for a while. again, flag football is good for now. at some point, you know, if you

know the basics and the foundation, you know, of football, that's great, but yeah, everything we've learned, willie, obviously scared the lot of parents, rightfully so and terrified a lot of medical providers and how many of our heroes that we had growing up in football have just suffered just torturous injuries and mental problems because of football. >> we just didn't have the language to describe what it was. again, we called it getting your bell rung and you go shake your head a little bit, and get back in the game. the good news as you say is flag football has exploded among young kids in this country. you can take away at a young age, all the things we loved about the sport, camaraderie and being with your buddies, and team work, and fair play and will all of those things at a young age, if you like the game enough. you get into high school, and put on a helmet and pads, and

that comes with risks in high school, and a lot of parents like you and me who loved football, ask themselves hard questions about whether or not they want their own kids to step out on the field. >> you also, look, and we've talked about the nfl for some time, i've told this story time and again, where jim was a radio guy in dallas, texas, went out to interview tom landry one of the last few years he was with the dallas cowboys, the legendary coach of the nfl at the time, and he saw these players going 100 miles an hour crashing into each other. landry turned to mick and said this isn't the game that i grew up with. this is just far too dangerous, and you know, that's at the nfl level. i think you've said before that collision between two players is like an auto accident, hitting head on, but that's also in high school, you look at the conditioning, the weight training programs, the kids, 16,

17, 18-year-old kids, mika, running faster than ever, they're stronger than ever, they're more built than ever, and the impact of two high school players going head to head against each other greater than ever, far greater than when i was playing football back in the 1920s with the leather helmet with no face mask. >> i think it raises questions all throughout the sport that we'll be seeing and reading a lot more about. coming up, we're going to continue our coverage out of afghanistan as they work to evacuate people from the country. we're going to be joined by two people who know afghanistan very well and are working hard to get people out of the country following the taliban's takeover. "morning joe" is coming right back. takeover "morning joe" is coming right back discover card i just got my cashback match is this for real? yup! we match all the cash back new card members earn at the end of their first year automatically

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one of the things that i wanted to give you is a copy of a letter about your experience that i put in the congressional record so it will be part of american history forever that you were able to overcome the challenges with your visas, that you were able to get here and you were so successful. >> that was senator jean shaheed meeting in washington with a member of all girls robotics team from afghanistan. the girls who ranged in age from 12 to 18 overcame war, terrorism, and gender discrimination to emerge as a symbol of a new afghanistan. as our next guest explains, those girls are among the thousands of afghans stuck in kabul, desperately trying to

flee the taliban. joining us now is adjunct senior fellow at the council on foreign relations, also with us pulitzer prize winning reporter, and executive editor of new yorker.com david rode. he too is highlighting the plight of afghans trying to leave including one journalist who along with david was kidnapped and held captive by the taliban before they both escaped. that journalist is now an american citizen working to get his family to safety. meeghan and david thank you both for joining us. let's get into your stories. you write about the famous afghan all girls robotics team in your latest piece for the "washington post" entitled the all girls afghan robotics team

inspired the world. now they're trapped, waiting to be rescued, and you write in part this, in recent years, everyone from senators and trump administration leaders to the council on foreign relations has hosted them and celebrated their achievements. the girls' faces were even painted on the walls of the u.s. embassy gates in kabul. but that very visibility and celebration by u.s. aid and diplomatic agencies is what puts many members of the team in danger today, and why u.s. leaders must urgently take action to help them leave afghanistan. what kind of danger are they in? what have you heard about their status at this point? >> thank you so much for having me to talk about this issue. right now on the ground there's not a system that is working to help girls and women who are activists or advocates get out of afghanistan. you know, i want to commend the biden administration for extending this at risk afghan

status to cover women and girls, like those on the teams and their mentors and teachers, but right now, the process is simply not working on the ground. you know, many of us who care about and have deep relationships in afghanistan have been on whatsapp, on the phone, on signal, trying to find ways to help people get to the airport and it's proving almost impossible. women are having to move between different safe houses. they're going to the gates on the military side of the airport, and despite being cleared by security to get in and on a list with the military, can't get through the gate. i got a call last night about 140 women who are women's rights activists who are in grave danger. they can't get through the gate despite being approved. there's a real break down on the ground, and i think the biden administration needs to elevate this issue and appoint someone to coordinate amongst the girls and women trying to make this tough decision to leave their home country. >> for this team of girls specifically, they have been turned away from ticketed

flights. what have we heard from them? do we know exactly what their status is? >> we all saw the scenes coming out of kabul airport that were just anguished and tragic, and the girls were turned away when they had ticketed flights, you know, and all commercial flights stopped. some of the girls are making tough decisions to stay with their families because they're young. others are really wanting to pursue education overseas. they want to continue their ability to learn. they have been offered scholarships, you know, and they're working hard to be able to access that opportunity so it's really fluid on the ground, and i know it's important for the team for everyone listening to understand this is happening to girls and women across afghanistan. you know, they're a very visible example but it's important gnat biden administration improves this process to help the very people they said they're willing to help actually get out of afghanistan, and i think they could elevate this and put more staffing against it, and at least have a clear process. it should not come down to a

cell phone and whatsapp to help these women get out that we have partnered with as a country. >> david, in november 2008, you were captured and held for eight months. as you watch the scenes, and talking to people you know around the country who can't even get into kabul, what are your thoughts? . >> i'm having the same experience as meigan just described, i'm on my phone con -- my friend who saved my life, his wife and children are trapped in kabul. if his neighbors find out that this is the family of the afghan journalist who humiliated the taliban by helping me escape, they could be killed. it's chaos at the airport. he has gotten a couple of messages from the embassy, a new

one telling him to go. he's afraid of sending his wife and children through check points. there's word the check points are stopping more people, and i do fault the biden administration. i think announcing in april that you're going to leave on september 11th, getting a political point was too quick. i have spent three months trying to get his family out. we were all warning the administration they weren't preparing for this, and yesterday, i believe the u.s. evacuated 3,000 people. the estimate is that the total number of afghans, women, young journalists like tahir that worked with u.s. forces and backed the american project is 300,000 afghans, 300,000 who the taliban now see as enemies, and we decided we were just going to leave in a few months and the planning that was done was frankly a joke as far as what i'm seeing right now. >> so david, what are your thoughts about the taliban spokesperson coming out and

saying 20 years is a world of difference, they're going to be a different taliban than they were 20 years ago. still going to follow islamic law, but women are invited to participate in the government. girls are invited to go to school. and there's going to be a blanket amnesty for everyone, even those who fought against them. your thoughts? >> you know, what is it trust but verify. i hope they have changed and this is a good thing they're saying. that's not what i saw in captivity. in seven months in captivity, i never saw a single woman. they were only allowed to walk outside burkas at all times. the entire airport should have been secured immediately. the afghan security forces failed but we should have known this was coming.

another friend from the "new york times," a young reporter went to the airport, spent 20 hours at the airport. he didn't see 5,000 u.s. troops. i'm not sure, you know, i think there's more to come out here about how many troops are actually at that airport. he saw a few hundred on the first day, and so we have not planned this properly. and the airport must remain open until we see that the taliban have changed, and it's a mixed thing i'm hearing about what they're doing in different parts of the country. >> david and meigan thank you both, stay in touch and let us know what you hear. still ahead, after banning mask and vaccine mandates, texas governor greg abbott has tested positive for the coronavirus despite being fully vaccinated. the news comes as early data hints at a rise in breakthrough infections in a handful of states. "morning joe" is coming right back. states "morning joe" is coming right back

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texas governor greg abbott tested positive for covid-19. the governor is fully vaccinated in good health, and currently experiencing no symptoms. that's good news. this comes after the republican issued an executive order late last month banning vaccination and mask mandates as case numbers surged in the state, and despite the push back from local leaders and school districts as children prepare to return to the classroom. sources now telling nbc news governor abbott has told others he received a third dose of the vaccine. the governor's office did not respond to requests for comment about a booster shot. so joe, good news that he's in good health and feeling no symptoms, and also another case for the vaccine. he said he got vaccinated and that is likely why he is feeling

well this morning. >> that's really good. it is a reminder, though, because right now the number of breakout cases keep going up. as we move further away from when people were getting the shots and having the delta variant spread more. it's just so important even if you've been vaccinated if you're the governor, i'm sure, was in events with a lot of people around him. that's why even if you've been vaccinated, if you're inside a tight room, if there are a lot of people around you masking up is a pretty smart thing to do. more than that, it's a considerate thing to do if you're in tight spaces, if you're in big crowds. that's something that certainly we just can't urge people enough to not only take care of themselves but if they've been vaccinated, take care of others

as well if you're in tight spaces inside a room. >> and that's clearly, joe, a breakthrough infection since he is vaccinated and potentially even had a third booster shot. so his staff and the people who worked closely with him will have to be watching carefully to make sure they don't have it, so that's a big story coming out of texas where they're also having a lot of cases of covid and people in the hospitals and emergency rooms pretty much overwhelmed. coming up, a look at david ignatius's latest piece entitled the afghan government has been crumbling for 20 years, and u.s. leaders have known it. "morning joe" is coming right back. it. "morning joe" is coming right back 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

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and welcome back to "morning joe." it's wednesday, august 18th. that is the ominous sky behind the comcast building. so we were talking before about greg abbott, the governor of texas, and you know, i was saying, oh, you know, if you're inside, and even if you have the vaccine, you should wear a mask, and just a warning also, just to people who haven't gotten the vaccine yet. i know there are a lot of reasons people haven't gotten the vaccine. we have been talking every day about the need to get a vaccine. somebody very close to me had not gotten the vaccine, had a family member come to their house. he had gotten the vaccine. and he had sniffles, he had covid. sadly she ended up in the hospital for a very long time,

and really, we weren't sure whether she was going to make it through or not. thank god, she did. but i'm just saying, there are all of these reasons while people in the past, pre-delta, lure themselves into a false sense of security thinking, well, if somebody else has gotten the vaccine, i don't need to worry about it, if i've gotten the vaccine, i don't need to worry about passing it along to other people. i just, again, i just hope that we can start using common sense. when does this all end? when do we stop having more violent variants coming into this country? of course when people get vaccinated. 85, 90% of people get vaccinated and they stop believing the lies and the bs that they read every day that friends text to them, that family members send to them, the garbage facebook

pages. the big lie now seems to be, they have moved on from the plandemic to attacking the vaccine and the garbage i hear about the vaccine is crazy. and now it's masking. mika, people just need to take care of themselves. they need to talk to their doctors. i know they have said this a billion times. but if somebody shares something on facebook with you that says you shouldn't take the vaccine, you shouldn't wear a mask if you're inside with a lot of people around right now with the delta variant flying around, you shouldn't take basic precautions that you're hearing from health officials on tv, don't listen to cable news hosts and don't, for god's sake, read facebook. go to your own doctor, the doctor that you have trusted and ask him or her. it could save your life, and more importantly, it could save

the life of people that are near you that you love so much. >> yeah, and if you're a leader, i mean, i really hope in texas, alabama, mississippi, and florida they get smart on masks, and they push for vaccines. it's the bottom line. it's our way out. and we're not choosing it right now in certain states. so joining the conversation this hour, we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire, white house correspondent for pbs news hour, yamiche el sin dor, and donny deutsch. it's good to have you all with us. >> mika, i wanted to pass along to willie, we talked about the state of alabama, the low vaccination rate. we showed coach nick saban months ago doing psas talking about vaccines, we showed

senator tommy tuberville who is a legend among auburn fans, willie, he got on there, urging vaccinations. i mean, if i could start with two people in the state of alabama to do those psas, those would be two great ones to start with. we had the governor of the great state of alabama saying the same thing, don't be dumb. don't be stupid. get vaccinated, and still, there's this real resistance, and man, everybody you talk to, they say it's because, i hate to keep coming back to it, but it's just the truth, they come back to facebook. flooded with people sharing lies and conspiracy theories from facebook, and other internet sites. and they won't get the vaccine, and sadly, that's why in some of these states where people won't talk to their doctors, and they won't listen to public health officials, they see what their

friends send to them, and they read the lies, they believe the lies, and sometimes bad things happen. >> yeah, many of the leaders in our beloved s.e.c. states, not all of them, but many of them have been very explicit in saying you need to get the vaccine to keep us safe, and we're not just talking about governors, we're talking about lsu, louisiana state university saying you've got to have a vaccine to come to school here, on our show a week ago to announce his program is 100% vaccinated. i'm not telling anyone what to do. i don't want to force people to get a vaccine but they ought to do their homework, and know that all of us, coaches and every player are vaccinated because we want to go back to normal life, we want to play football, we don't have to forfeit games, we want to fill our stadium with all of you. please join us, but one of the interviews on the show, a month or so ago that stayed with me and haunts me is a doctor at the

university of mississippi who said the people that have trusted us for their entire lives with every medical decision, delivering their children, taking care of their children, taking care of them when they get sick suddenly are coming into our offices and explaining to us why we're wrong about vaccines. and that is the power of that misinformation that you just talked about. >> yeah, and donny deutsch, man, this a whole new world. you sold your ad agency. i know you still do some work, but man, in just the past five, six, seven years, the world has changed so radically about how people get their news, over 50% of americans get their news on facebook, the lies that are spread on facebook. everybody i talk to, my friend, my loved ones, my family members, people i have gone to church with for years, you know, they believe the craziest things because, you know, they read it on facebook. i'll be reading the "wall street

journal" or the "new york times" or "the financial times" or "the associated press", and i'll be getting this information. i'll be looking at it and reading it and say this is just so clear, maybe this will help them turn the corner. maybe this will convince them. they never see it. they have somebody instead of the "wall street journal," you know, which has been around for so long. has hundreds of editors, they fire people who write articles that are knowingly false instead of going through like the "wall street journal" and all the safeguards that are set up there, some guy will set up a web site in china or a chinese religious cult will set up a web site to try and gain traction in the united states, and they'll read chinese religious web site

and put more faith in that than in the "wall street journal" or the associated press or reuters. how, donny, do you compete with that? >> in all of my years of business, i have never seen a more obvious problem and obvious solution. that just doesn't happen, and you said it, joe, 50% of people get their news from facebook. i think 65 percent of the misinformation has come from 12 different sources. i have said it on the show before. if someone wants to run an ad on "morning joe" for laundry detergent, and it gets your underwear three times whiter, we have to go through clearance. we could not put that on if it was only one time whiter or three times whiter. it's absolute insanity, and facebook sells ads, "wall street journal" sells ads for them to not be under the same rules and regulations is absolute insanity.

>> it is insanity. >> there's a simple solution, and i have said this on the show many times, this is a $1 trillion company, and it's run by two people, and i want to call them out, sheryl sandberg, mark zuckerberg, haul them in front of congress every single day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year and make them. you have the ability to basically say, look if you don't put $50 billion against this, we are going to break you up. it's that simple, it's dollars and cents. they can do it. they went on and they said we have 12 people working in security. you should have 5,000 people working in security. this is killing people. they have blood on their hands. in all of my years, if you put five of us together in the a room, five ceos, this is a simple one, and it doesn't get done, and facebook right now is an enemy of the state. i want to say this again, is an enemy of the state. >> you know, thank you for your, as always, your understated approach to the news.

>> i'm here. >> but facebook, we know what the problem is, and we know that they actually make their billions and billions and billions of dollars by having algorithms that actually encourage false information, that shock readers, that make readers share things that are -- so if you want to get on facebook, you could present the news, you could tell the truth, the reality, just the facts, ma'am, as they said on dragnet, or you could just create these extraordinary lies, which of course they have done about vaccines, they have done about the election, they have done about all of these different things, so with kids, and then those explode, of course. but what gets me is this,

willie, or donny, what gets me is this, right now, republicans see this misinformation for whatever reason as aiding their cause. lies about american democracy. spread by facebook. riots started about american democracy, promoted in large part by facebook. lies about masks and saving lives, promoted by facebook. lies about the vaccine, promoted by facebook. lies about covid, plandemic, remember that, promoted in large part by facebook. and right now, republicans because, well, let's just face it, a lot of them don't mind those lies being spread about american democracy. and faith in american democracy being undermined. they can it's going to help them next year in elections. they're fine with it. same thing with the lies about

covid, the same thing about masks because they're based, like i said, but can you imagine a group of people so shortsighted that they don't understand that this weapon being used for them will be used against them at some point? and the lies will be directed towards them and the issues that they agree with or that they support the most? i mean, this is a weapon that's going to be used against all sites, and it may be a demagogue who's not a republican or a democrat, an independent that uses facebook to blow everything apart. and yet they just sit back quietly and are fine with it, and just share the lies and are glad the lies are being spread. >> yeah shortsighted is the right word for them, and look, they will, as we know it, as you've talked many times on the show in different iterations,

the numbers don't add up. the latest census bureau points to where they have gone demographically, voter suppression laws, voter rights laws, taking advantage of the mistruths, they're going to do anything they can to rig the game. i believe in time and i'm going to point to governor desantis, i'm going to go off course a little bit and come back here as an example of somebody taking advantage of the situation. it's interesting, he won the election by 35,000 votes and i think more than that, 39,000 people in florida have died now. it is the hot spot in the country. and here's an example of a guy that is a product of a lot of misinformation as he tries to send children back to school in an unsafe environment. actually trying to arrest people because they're getting kids to wear masks, and eventually this will come back to haunt them, and shortsighted is the word. >> but it already is. it already is, donny. i mean, you talk about desantis,

and i'll go back to gregand, you know, all of them look to be over 60, a lot of close quarters, no masks. are we kidding? so now all of these people have to worry about h having the del. i hope they're vaccinated. joining us now, practicing internist dr. lucy mcbride. lucy, let's start right there. when a governor doesn't get it, gets covid, but doesn't get it in terms of masks and vaccines ultimately because he should be caring about that so so preciously, asking his constituents to get vaccinated and he's vaccinated, which is good.

he still got it. they're not getting it. what is the information that they are missing to make the connection that this is serious? >> you know, i don't know what else it's going to take. i talk to patients every day about the vaccine and how extraordinarily safe it is and effective against hospitalization and severe disease. you know, we know these vaccines, mika, aren't perfect, but we also need to make sure perfect is not the enemy of the great. much misinformation out there as we have been talking about that is, you know, unfortunately hurting people's trust in science. when, again, these vaccines that are available right now are extraordinarily effective against severe consequences. they not only protect you from disease, they protect other people, so what you have been vaccinated, you're not likely to

get covid at all, you're not likely to go to the hospital or die, you're also not likely to transmit the virus to other people. particularly right now as schools are opening around the country, it's essential to be vaccinated to protect our most vulnerable people including children, who are entering schools and are vulnerable. >> yeah, so at this point where this country is at and i'll hit both sides here because i was talking about the texas governor going to a republican event, and we have video of that where people are squashed together in an area where the delta is raging, is just as bad, i think, but i'll have the doctor confirm, to have a party on martha's vineyard where people are flying in from around the country. should people be having gatherings right now or are we past, you know, the curve on covid, and it's safe to party?

>> well, listen, it really depends on where you live. but it doesn't matter whether you're a republican, democrat or an independent, the virus doesn't care about politics. you are protected much more if you're vaccinated, right, if you're vaccinated, your chances of getting covid or transmitting it to other people is reduced, but as we know, the delta is a beast. it is highly contagious. we're seeing breakthrough cases that we originally were saying were rare, and they're no longer rare. they're not common but they're also not rare. sadly we're seeing people who have been vaccinated, a very tiny percentage of people who have been vaccinated get breakthrough cases and land in the hospital. those are our high risk patients. those are immune compromised patients who think we are going to get boosters soon. the point is even if you have been vaccinated, we need to exercise caution. we need to avoid crowded indoor

spaces, and we need to be thoughtful about, you know, our behaviors because they affect other people as well as ourselves. >> all right. doctor lucy mcbride, thank you, you have a piece in the atlantic, fear of covid-19 in kids is getting ahead of the data. check it out. we appreciate you being on with us this morning. now we're going to turn to afghanistan and the latest column from david in "the washington post." david writes in part, the structure of the kabul government has been rotting from within for all 20 years of the united states war, and every u.s. commander knew its weakness. hope is not a strategy as every commander knows. in this case, though, it was. the weird part is that military victory was never really the united states' goal. we were playing for a tie.

a stalemate that weakened the taliban enough that it would accept a diplomatic solution. the hard truth is that this failure is shared by a generation of military commanders and policy makers who let occasional tactical successes and a counter terrorism mission become a proxy for a strategy that never was. and looking at it this way -- >> jonathan lemire. >> i'm sorry, mika. >> i was just saying, looking at it this way, joe, you can see how biden actually is doing something that others over the past 20 years haven't, which is just saying forget it, we're not going it anymore. i'm not sure i agree. i still wonder why we can't keep 3,500 troops there, but the white house contends that we would have had to increase the troops again, and biden is now the first leader in this entire saga to say we're not doing it. >> and we'll see how that plays

out. perhaps the americans, overwhelming number had wanted u.s. troops to get out, 75%, and perhaps that will play out well, jonathan lemire, though, we're still trying to sort through the chaos that's been happening there over the past two, three days. every guest we have on here is critical of the administration for their lack of planning, their lack of planning to get interpreters out, their lack of planning to end this operation cleanly. if in fact all wars have to come to an end as some have written and some have said, if this war was destined to come an end. if the last three presidents wanted this war to come to an end, there are ways to get out that don't look quite as chaotic as what we saw the past couple of days, especially if you have in the taliban, it appears right now, an organization, now a government that is willing to

stand to the side to let the united states get their people out in a way that will not provoke the united states to come back in because they've issued, of course, a very stern warning to the taliban. let us get out, and if you don't, we are going to come back in with great force. so for now, at least, there is a stalemate, but i'm wondering, here we are three days into this just colossal disaster on the global stage, and i'm wondering if you have anymore information about what happened, why there was such a failure at the upper levels of the administration on a lack of just general basic planning to get our troops and to get our supporters, get our people, get our interpreters out of afghanistan in a more orderly way. >> let's start with the taliban, who you were right, joe, seem to

be willing to more or less stand to the side and not interfere with american operations. there is real terror on the streets of afghanistan and kabul, you helped americans, afghan citizens who helped americans over the last 20 years, fearful of their lives right now. we should not overlook that at all. why risk americans wrath, you know, why let them get in the way of what you want to do. they're leaving on august 31st, and that was one of the messages clear from the white house, and national security adviser jake sullivan. there's not going to be extensions here. the american presence in that country is going to end in two weeks. they're trying to get everyone out they can before then. i think this is clear, and even some of the president's staunchest allies, those who agree with the decision to remove all troops from afghanistan, they all agree, this was handled poorly. you can say you were with the president in his objective to end the american presence in afghanistan and disagree with

how it went down, and there's been a lot of questioning here. this is the very beginning of an internal review process, we heard jake sullivan talking about this yesterday. there's been finger pointing behind the scenes. the cia suggesting the administration was not mindful of the intelligence that a collapse like this could happen, those in the defense department who feel we have betrayed our afghan allies, should have taken more steps sooner. fingers pointed at congress, for the 14-step visa process. a lot of it done in english, which is just not possible for so many in afghanistan which has slowed down the evacuation process, and certainly the administration is taking a lot of blame for telegraphing clearly when the u.s. presence was going to end by the september 11th anniversary, and not doing more to get people out ahead of time. this is absolutely the biggest foreign policy crisis this administration has faced. things are thankfully a little calmer there today, but they've

got a long way to go, and there's increased global scrutiny on what happens next as more and more americans try to hustle them out on planes. >> yamiche, the president was defiant in his remarks, when he said i stand squarely behind my decision. the administration caught flat footed on sunday when all of this was happening, and we saw kabul being overrun by the taliban. does the white house sense how grave this problem is, and the next question is, yes, a lot of people support the pullout from afghanistan but it's a bit of a strong man argument to say well people supported that, and that's what we said. people aren't staying we want to stay, this is not the way to have left, and why didn't we, for example, keep bagram air base, evacuate all the people we need to get out of the country, americans and our afghan ally, and then leave the country. has the white house sensed now the gravity of this moment if they didn't early on? >> i think it's been very clear to me in talking to white house officials that they understood

the gravity. this is a 20-year war spanning multiple presidencies. and president biden didn't take this decision lightly. it's why in the speech he said the buck stops with me. he's not running away from the responsibility. he understands there's a humanitarian crisis. he understands america is going to have to be responsible for people who helped us here and getting out american personnel. he feels that this was a promise he made to the american people. he's a president with a lot of experience in afghanistan, just talking to people around him seems to really have been something that was on his bucket list if he got, like the president, he wants to get out of afghanistan when he was vice president, arguing for a leaner mission there, leaning on former president obama to take some of those steps. now of course you have to deal with the after math of his decision. i think that is the big question jonathan proposed, what happens next. this of course is going to be very very tough for president

biden as we see the taliban saying yes, women will be included in our government, all of these claims, but then you actually see women and girls, already the schools are closing for them. already they are running for their lives. there's a real big issue of whether or not we're going to be able to be involved in this humanitarian crisis. i sense they understand the gravity of it. it's also why you see president biden coming back to the white house. he could do everything he needed to do from camp david. it does make sense for him to be back at the white house as the big crisis continues. >> yeah, donny deutsch, let's talk about the mess right now that i think the democrats are facing. and it's so early. really, we have a year and a half until the election. but if democratsment to know -- democrats want to know what they're going to be facing, let's talk about it now, if i

was a republican running, democrats can't protect us across the world, democrats can't protect our streets, and democrats can't protect us at the border. there is, we don't talk about it enough, there is a massive border crisis on the southern border right now. and if democrats don't want to talk about it, that's fine. it will find them over the next 16 months politically. and then there's this chaos in afghanistan, and we've talked about crime, which of course i had people telling me for a year, oh, it's just an exaggeration, law and order, racist, bigoted, whatever, eric adams runs on protecting streets and police reform. he wins the bronx. he wins queens. he wins staten island. and he wins brooklyn. he wins everything except for the sort of wealthier parts of

manhattan. democrats have to understand this is coming, and i don't know where mission control is on the democratic side. but somebody, donny, needs to get that, and they need to start responding. >> throw in there also, and obviously it's not true to fund the police, which obviously the overwhelming part of the party does not believe in, and that inflation word on top of that. there's left brained, right brained. the right brain is to protect stuff, and the way you framed it on the three different levels of protection is right. the afghanistan thing on top of that suggests a lack of overall competency for the presidency. the one thing the president has going for him is the c word, the competency thing. when you put in the x factor on top of that is inflation, we talked about this in the first hour is that that's the left brain stuff. the right brain stuff is all of this protection and crime and you're not safe, but you put

into that inflation, and all of a sudden prices are going up and the economy is not feeling as warm and fuzzy as it felt. that's a real disaster for democrats. the way you framed it is exactly where they're going to come at you, and the democrats are going to be on the defensive. this afghanistan thing, you talked about snap polls, 49% of people, down from 72% think we shouldn't have gone out of afghanistan. that will change. >> they're going to go back. >> that will come back, and obviously if the taliban stands by their word, and there are not these reprisals going forward, i don't think the afghanistan thing in and of itself will stick, but the overall measure of competency and strength combined with the lack of protection for the border, lack of protection from police, the things you talked about, i'm very concerned for the democrats, i really am. >> yeah, and by the way, this is just, again, much better for people out there going, why are you attacking.

much better for them to hear it now and not see it coming than to get blind sided next year, and i would love to say, well, of course they'll know to respond to this, but actually you look back to 2020, and all i heard leading into the election is oh, no, that argument won't work. all of the arguments worked that people on twitter said we're not going to work. they all worked. they all worked. so democrats need to prepare for this unless they want kevin mccarthy to be the next speaker of the house. you know, mika, i do want to say again 75% of americans wanted us out of afghanistan. i wasn't one of those 75% of americans. but 75% of americans wanted us out of afghanistan. we have seen chaos over the past several days. some order seems to be returning.

if we can continue to get americans, american allies, interpreters out of there in an orderly way in the coming weeks, i think you're going to see that number go back up, and the shock of what we saw a few days ago may not have a lasting political impact because at the end of the day, he did what donald trump supporters wanted donald trump to do, and what joe bidedeutsch alcindor, thank you for being on this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," house speaker nancy pelosi is trying to keep her party united on infrastructure, reconciliation and voting rights. we'll be joined by the cochairs of the house problem solvers

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as the end of the august recess draws closer, house speaker nancy pelosi is making sure all democrats are in line, to pass their legislative priorities. overnight, the speaker sent a letter to the democratic caucus, pushing it to support the passage of both the reconciliation and the bipartisan infrastructure bills. she writes in part, while the bipartisan infrastructure bill offers more important progress, it is not reflective of the totality of democrats vision. we must also deliver the build back better bill, that includes our priorities that meet the needs of american families.

the speaker is trying to balance the wishes of both factions of the democratic party. progressives have said for months that they are not willing to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill until the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package is done. moderates say the opposite. that's a problem. joining us now, democratic congressman josh gottheimer of new jersey, and republican congressman brian fitzpatrick of pennsylvania, cochairs of the house problem solvers caucus, and former senior adviser for the house oversight and government reform committee, curt bordella, he's now an adviser to the dccc. josh, i'll start with you, how do you solve the problem of getting these democrats into line so these both can be passed. >> good morning, thanks for having me. i think the actual solution is pretty simple here. we vote first on this historic

bipartisan infrastructure package, get it done, and as you know, it's out of the senate now, supported by not just 19 republicans but by labor and by the chamber of commerce. it's a great once in a century opportunity to move forward here, and we should do what the senate did, vote first on infrastructure, and then move immediately to begin considering reconciliation, and we could get the votes together for that, what we should do next week and show the great momentum that the country needs that we can govern together, we can address jersey, the worst roads in the country, third of our bridges are unsafe. we have a great ability to fight climate change through the package, let's get it done, move forward, and immediately move to reconciliation. >> there's been so much talk about infrastructure, different pieces of legislation. i think it's fair to say, the american people are lost in this swamp of what might happen, what might not happen. how do you see this playing out and what's the end result for

the people in your district? what's going to happen here? >> yeah, thanks for having us, exactly what josh just said. we have a bipartisan, bicameral bill that's supported by the white house. it got 69 votes in the senate, the afl, cio supports it. the business round table supports it. you don't see this every day, believe me, particularly in the climate. why not accept this win for the country. the country is starving for a bipartisan victory, starving to see some major legislative product, that we can come together on as a country and get it done. what does it mean for our districts, it means broad band, water infrastructure, it means fortifying our ports. fortifying our airports, our increasing money for transit and surface transportation and a whole host of other things. it means jobs. it means national security, when it comes to the electrical grid. it means protecting our environment with the water infrastructure. it means all of these things. it's a victory waiting to be taken, and we should take it.

>> you know, curt, you work -- you advise the dccc. it seems to me we have two competing forces here. we have democrats who can pass legislation and pass what they would consider, what progressives would consider, what many old time democrats would consider historic legislation. and we put joe biden as a transformational president along the lines in many ways of lbj, if you just look at expanding the social safety net. then on the other side of that, if democrats want to win, as you know very well, and the dccc knows very well, they want to maintain a house majority. well, they're about -- there are about 20 to 30 moderates that have to win races. new spending would most likely hurt those moderates, so it's a real balancing act that the

speaker, the dccc, the entire party is going to have to be going through. how do they sort through it all? >> well, you know, joe, i think what it comes down to, and you and i talked about this before is democrats, when they pass this legislation, which is one of the most, if not the most progressive piece of spending legislation in american history, democrats have to pound the pavement. they have got to make sure their voters, their constituencies understand how specifically this massive measure benefits their district, their people, their services, they need to make the case aggressively that this is going to do far more good, and alleviates and balances out the concerns people might have about the price tag. again one of the things that we think republicans have done a good job of, frankly, and it's to our country's detriment is taking the megaphone, labeling things, seizing on opportunities to just completely pillar everything that this administration does, everything that the democratic agenda

represents. they recast it as something radical or something to be afraid of. i think democrats need to get back in their faces, get in their grill and demonstrate that what they're doing isn't to be feared. it's to be lauded. supported, because it's going to do so much more good for the american people and constituencies than anything that's happened in the last 20 years. we have seen nothing but gridlock from washington for so long. one of the real reasons donald trump was able to catch on in 2016 was belief ingrained in the american consciousness that washington stopped working for them. that things weren't getting done. that the special interests and the lobbyists, the big business forces had overtaken their best interests and agenda. democrats have an opportunity with this legislation to show the american people what they can do, what governing looks like. one of the things you talked about was the conundrum that democrats faced heading into the midterms, coming up against misinformation, propaganda, and

democratic forces. the way you can combat that is with legislative force. use the reins of power to deliver for the american people. >> congressman fitzpatrick, good morning, you're on the foreign affairs committee, i wanted to shift gears and talk about afghanistan and get your assessment of where things stand in terms of the evacuation, more specifically what should be done about the afghans, so many of them who helped american forces for nearly two decades in that country, you know, many of whom are trying to get out of afghan, and some push on the right already saying, no, no, they shouldn't be allowed in the united states. what do you think, where should those people go? >> yeah, well, it's a crisis for sure, and our laser focus, 100% of our focus and attention has to be clearing all of our people out, and by our people, i mean the u.s. citizens as well as our afghani partners who have stood side by side for decades doing a lot of the hard work, by the

way, being translators, i was an al qaeda inter gator -- inter gator in iraq. i worry significantly for them. my heart breaks to see the images we're seeing right now. that has to be our focus. we're trying to reach out to our community in pennsylvania to see if anybody has family or loved ones that we can bring back through the state department. i know josh is doing the same. >> all right. cochairs of the problem solvers caucus, congressman josh gottheimer and brian fitzpatrick, thank you both very much for being on with us this morning. >> thanks for having us. coming up, what our next guest calls the corporate america social justice scam and how the mixing of morality with consumerism divides us. it's a good one. "morning joe" is back in a moment. it's a good one. "morning joe" is back in a moment

the thrill of being cruel, deriding them when they are in pain or suffering, when you build a political movement whose emotional core is transgression and cruelty. ultimately no one is safe from that kind of treatment, what kind of governance will that lead to the next time these folks come to power. o the next folks come to power.

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joe." the story made headlines last winter, goldman sachs ceo david solman announced would not take companies public in the united states and europe if those companies did not have at least one diverse board director. our next guest says this and other displays of so-called wokeness are just part of a corporate scam. and joining us is vivek, author of "woke, inc." which pulls back the scale on altruism and diversity. i want to read an essay from the "new york post." you wrote this, woke capitalism is crony capitalism 2.0. big business uses progressive friendly values to deflect

attention from their own monolithic pursuit of profit and power. when amazon issues a challenge to walmart to give workers 15 bucks an hour, we can chuckle that jeff bezos is doing what he does best, undermining their whn they are most vulnerable. as a society we should embrace. the only thing to ask in return is this. keep it naked instead of dressing it up as altruism. this is fascinating. when you talk about organizations. how do you make the distinction between just trying to glom on to a movement in the pursuit of profits and good faith expressions of altruism? we want to do the right thing and move forward with this society? >> yeah. look. i think that we should mostly reserve the good faith expressions in society as citizens why i don't think we can trust companies. the rule of 21st century

entrepreneur. i've been in america for 15 year why is the way it works is pretend like you care about something other than profit and power to gain more of each. it is not just hypocrisy. what this new system says is that a small group of vefrs and ceos get to exercise not just the power in the market for products but ideas and i think that's fostering a crisis of institutional mistrust. >> we were talking a minute ago about china. >> yes. >> companies taking a stance here in this country don't say a peep about china. >> that's exactly right. once corporations become vehicles to advance a progressive agenda they're vehicles to advance any agenda.

they take disney or nike and have them criticize the united states but don't say a word about china and many starting to praise china despite over a million uygurs in concentration camps and lets xi jinping to say that black lives matter shows the united states is no better. you can just listen to the corporations as trojan horses undermining american interest from within. >> i understand it is frustrating. i was frustrated with major league baseball before they read the bill. stacey abrams agrees with me. also frustrated at other corporations by the decisions they make but what the decisions have in common is it is about the bottom line, making money. that's the way it's always been. i remember ten years ago watching a bp ad and young

people on i like, like, flowers and the environment. man, these bp people are really cool. i want bp gas in the car and then the bp oil spill in my backyard off the coast of pensacola. this is nothing new, right? it is about the bottom line. don't they have a right if they think sounding woke makes them more money that's kind of their -- even if it frustrates us that's their right as a private company. >> absolutely. a legal right. what i point out in the book is a deeper cultural failure and where the executives push it on to people and sometimes the consumers demand it. i think that's a deeper symptom where i'm a millennial and hungry for a purpose, cause and identity and mixing morality

with consumer schism the wrong way. we need to fill it with the ideas of shared patriotism and faith and that's what we need. i would say it's a bunch of virginia slims manufacturers teasing teenage girls in the 1990s. we prey on the moral insecurities. we need something more substantial to fill the vacuum at the center of the nation's soul and identity rather than mixing up with morality with the sandwiches or coffee. that's a cheap way to make a profit and worse off as citizens in the end. >> what can be done as the solution? what can be done politically or as consumers? how would you change this? >> i think some of the deepest ways starts with the culture. i talk about weeding civic

service into primary education because that satisfied that shared identity and don't look at getting the ice cream at ben & jerry's with a cup of morality on the side. you can't just inherit this country. you have to play a role in building it and the schools are a place to begin teaching them that. i talk about policy and legal solutions that i think could even the playing field. a mistrust is many people can't express the true beliefs in public including corporate america so i propose that we should add political belief as a protected class. i think that could contribute to solving a problem where 60% of americans say they're afraid of expressing the true beliefs. it's symptomatic therapies but

deeper ideas to go to the cult call core. >> we just scratched the surface of this argument. the new book is "woke, inc." . nice to meet you. >> cool conversation. cia intelligence warned of the rapid collapse of afghanistan's government and military. so how did everything end in such chaos? this morning there is a lot of finger pointing going around. "morning joe" is coming right back. back

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like the athletes competing in tokyo, these entrepreneurs have a fierce work ethic and drive to achieve - to change the game and inspire the team of tomorrow. we are in contact with the taliban to ensure the safe passage of people to the airport. the taliban have informed us thank you're prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport and we intend to hold them to that commitment.

>> a remarkable turn of events. there are fast moving developments this morning on the situation in afghanistan and the many thousands of americans still there. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, august 18th. we begin with the race to evacuate thousands of americans and allies in afghanistan following the taliban's takeover of the country. the biden administration official told senate staffers yesterday as many as 15,000 americans are still in afghanistan. about 1,100 american citizens permanent residents and their families have been evacuated so far. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has the latest from kabul. >> reporter: we made it to the military side of kabul airport. this is where the u.s. is carrying out the final withdrawal from afghanistan. the american flag still flies

here. this side of the airport long been an american and nato base and full with extra troops brought in to protect the evacuation. >> this has become effectively the last u.s. military base in afghanistan. the last presence of american troops in this country after 20 years. only focused on one thing. wrapping it up. the evacuations are mainly bringing out americans and other foreign nationals. along with afghans who managed to get visas and who are happy to be leaving. >> peace. >> reporter: hundreds packed in to one american cargo jet. the biden administration promised to expedite visas. tens of thousands are still waiting. i spoke to a group. they worked on this base over five year just not one has a visa. >> what did you do on this base? what was your job? >> i work in visiting office. >> reporter: finding rooms.

if you go back home? >> go outside of course they will kill us. >> reporter: you're here and all have badged and on this base and you can't get out? seems like a collapse of bureaucracy or don't care. >> they don't care i don't think. >> reporter: what is it like to watch the planes take off in front of you and know that you can't get on one? >> crying. we work. >> reporter: do you feel betrayed? >> yeah. >> reporter: even worse than the lack of action they say is the lack of concern. >> this is the first time that somebody ask about our lives. normally come to us what's your problem? what's your problem of family? nobody. >> reporter: us talking to you? >> first time. >> reporter: afghans pushing and pleading to get in and board a

flight away from taliban rule why they don't believe the taliban which promised to be different, that women will have rights, a free press and an amnesty for translators that helped the u.s. military. men like tom which is what u.s. troops called him. we have been following the story for months. he went on combat missions and helped troops find and kill taliban fiaters. he is waiting for the visa for four years and asked us to blur his face because today he is in hiding. >> they will kill us tomorrow, today. this is my children. what is their future? >> reporter: afghans said they were wrong to trust american promises as the u.s. is leaving afghanistan in the hands of extremists. >> our thanks to richard engel for that report. national security agencies within the biden administration finger point as officials seek

to explain why america's longest war ended in chaos. multiple officials tell nbc news that top military leaders are furious with president biden's national security team because they wanted to start evacuate vulnerable afghans as early as may but were not allowed to do so. many officials expressing annoyance at the state department saying leaders there have been extremely slow to process the paper work to deal with translators and others eligible for resettlement. at the state department officials point the finger at congress which created a tedious 14-step process for the special visa program that diplomats by law must complete before they can issue the visas. congress ultimately passed legislation to streamline the program but not until the end of july. >> need a flowchart.

cia intelligence assessments began to warn of increasingly stark terms of the potential for a rapid and total collapse of the afghan military and government. according to "the new york times" just last month intelligence reports were questioning whether any afghan security force could muster resistance to the taliban and whether the government could hold on to kabul. they note that intelligence agencies predicted should the taliban begin seizing cities a cascading collapse could happen rapidly and the security forces were at high risk of falling apart as they have. let's bring in analyst and host john heilman. this was completely foreseeable by people and preventable. many assessments have it. bagram air base remaining open, get the translators, allies,

americans out of the country as the argument goes from military leaders but you've got military pointing at state, state pointing at congress and the circle going back around. nobody wants any responsibility for what we are seeing in afghanistan right now. >> right. i think the finger pointing is not -- is naturally happening between capitol hill and the white house if the white house is going to claim that the reason that the evacuation didn't start earlier is that it's in congressional hands. josh moulton said he was banging the drum for months. if you do the math on who needs to be evacuate from afghanistan and the date of draw down that the evacuation needed to start months ago. he said he's been trying to call directly to the administration along with the colleagues who

are veterans, allies of the white house, saying we have to get going earlier. they could n't get action from the white house. the white house said it's congress' fault because the visa mess so we have a fight between the white house and congress and not between republicans necessarily just republicans and the white house but democrats. many of whom on capitol hill are furious with the white house so you will see administration officials hauled up before committees. congressman meeks said yesterday that he wanted to bring up biden administration officials to testify. that's another step in this. you have the internal finger pointing. which is within the administration where you have intelligence agencies pointing the finger at the white house for missing the read of the signals. military pointing at the white house. this is whatever you think of it people say and have been saying that wars end messily.

this war was destined to end messily but the reality for the white house is that aside from republicans and donald trump and others to pound them on the competence you have internal finger pointing to plague the biden administration, the biden white house for weeks at least to come and maybe longer. still ahead, the alarming surge of coronavirus cases across the country. a look at what is happening to children inside the icu as pediatric infections grow. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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the start of the pandemic more children are getting sick across the country. nbc news correspondent miguel almaguer spent time in a pediatric covid unit. >> reporter: there are perhaps no rise more troubling than the rise among children. among some units beds are full and kids are sicker than ever. in the past week there's been 121,000 new cases. the stunning explosion spiking 300%. >> i have seen some sickest i have seen. >> reporter: at arkansas' children's hospital every number is a name. tenfold increase is measured one family at a time. doctors say low vaccination rates, the delta variant and loosening restrictions as kids return to school could turn the crisis into a catastrophe.

>> it is not a thing to say my kid is healthy so we'll be fine. we can't predict which kids are going to end up here with us. >> reporter: with less than 13% of children fully vaccinated it could be moths before those under 12 have a vaccine and just as kids return to school in nashville some 1,000 students are in quarantine or isolation after an outbreak in infections. in florida one school district has more than 8,000 students and staff also in quarantine or isolation. while children are far less likely than adulting to be infected with covid and die from covid the numbers are trending in the wrong direction. doctors say most kids never get seriously sick but many of those that do are fighting for their lives. protecting youngest americans as far too many fall ill every day. >> so let's bring in fgsz and

fellow at the brookings institutions, dr. patel. doctor, thank you for being on. just out of miguel's piece you see children and children in pediatric intensive care units with covid in bad shape and don't hear children get it as much. which is it and which direction are we going in as kids head back to school? >> yeah. the right questions to ask. unfortunately some unsettling answers. we are going in the wrong direction and especially in states where we have seen 1,000% increase since june of covid cases of all ages but particularly younger as miguel covered, in larger numbers. the unsettling news goes further that to your point we see more cases in children but the

majority of children compared to adults have a milder case and this is critical. it is in the context of adults but if we have a 2% hospitalization rate which i watch closely ticking up ever so slightly we have a 2% pediatric hospitalization rate that truly could have been prevented. there's no reason for a child to be in the icu. shouldn't we do everything possible? the vulnerable population had no choice and as i said to pediatric colleagues under 12 we have very limited treatment options and many of the fda agents are for 12 and above or 18 and above so our tool box that we use when we see children is incredibly limited compared again to adults. sacrificing the health of children all for what?

resistance because of misinformation and lies why we are all so troubled by this. >> what's the distinction of the delta variant in kids and a year ago where mika said the wisdom is kids are less likely to get it and when they do get it they happened l well. why does delta seem to be different than last year? >> a key kind of turning point for not just myself but all of us in medicine is a year ago we saw the child to adult or child to child spread at the ages of 12 and older. sounds like 12 is an incredible demarcation point but under the able of 12 we had studies to illustrate that children at that age not efficient to hold that much virus to give to other people. the difference now is we see

quite the opposite or seen as many of cases of even toddlers. journal of american medical association shows toddlers can carry a high degree of viral load from the delta variant. may not get as sick as adults but keep in mind i argue any illness in a child that can be prevented should be. we see much more infectious down to toddlers. >> doctor, thank you very much for being opinion the show this morning. the legendary billie jean king is a guest this morning out with a new autobiography encompassing the legendary tennis career and life of activism. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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a new psa featuring hall of

fame quarterback brett favre urges parents not to allow the children to play tackle football until they're is 14 years old. >> mom? dad? let's talk about tackle football. i just learned about cte. the brain disease caused by repeated hits to the head. the more years i play the more i'm at risk. if you put me in tackle today -- >> by the time i'm a senior in high school i will have played 13 years and could already have cte and will continue to destroy my brain so by the time i'm your age i could be struggling to keep the thoughts straight, become violent even toward my own children. when i'm your age what will matter is not the youth football career but like you i'm a great parent and can provide for my family. >> so please -- keep me out of tackle football until i'm 14.

>> favre telling the "today" show yesterday research is revealing how serious concussions are. 25% of high school football players had cte. we both played high school football and not in the conversation when we played. it was called getting the bell rung and probably concussions and see stars and get in on the next play but to have someone as legendary and respecteded in football as brett favre say draw the line at 14 i'm interested to see how they say that. maybe playing in high school. that has an impact on parents and young players. >> the guy as tough as favre saying that i think makes a message stronger. you know, i started playing tackle football when i was 8.

it was fall football was a center of our life. played through high school. you are right. in high school we'd get, you know, get in circles and two guys run toward the center and slam into each other. and it is hard to say how many concussions you and i and other people had that played competitive tackle football for ten years. imagine from 8 to 18. i had somebody come up and suggest that jack play football. he's 13. tall guy. i said, not for a while. >> no. >> flag football is good for now. some point if you know the basics and the foundation of football that's great. but yeah. everything we have learned, willie, obviously scared a lot of parents rightfully so and

terrified medical providers and how many heroes growing up in football have suffered, just torturous injuries and mental problems because of football? >> we didn't have the language to describe what it was. we called it getting the bell rung and shake your head and get back in the game. the good news is flag football exploded among young kids in this country so you can take away at a young age the things we took away and loved about the sport which is comradery and team work and fair play. at a young age if you like the game enough maybe in hit you put on the helmet and pads but again that comes with redskins, too, in high school. and parents who loved football ask themselves some hard questions whether or not they want their kids on the field. >> you also look and talked about the nfl for sometime where

jim mick ski was a radio guy in dallas, texas. went out to interview landrieu, the legendary coach in the nfl and saw the players 100 miles per hour. landry turned to mick and said, this isn't the game that i grew up with. this is just -- it is far too dangerous. and that's something of course -- the nfl level. i think you have said before that collision between two players is like an auto accident. hitting head on. that's also in high school. you look at the conditioning, the weight trauning programs, the kids 16, 17, 18-year-old kids running faster than ever and stronger than ever and more built than ever and the impact of two high school players hebd

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the great resignation prompted by the pandemic millions of americans re-evaluating their lives and moving on. in san antonio clair barnett left a consulting job for more flexibility and time with her kids. >> being home gave me an opportunity to think about it from a family life balance perspective. we can make different decisions. >> reporter: employers report 10.1 million job openings. even in boseman, montana, soaring house prices make it difficult to attract employees so there's on site day care, a cafeteria, fitness programs, physical therapists and flexible working options. >> we see employees that really when they are outside of work don't want to be at work and seeing a significant shift in that where work is something that we do but it is not the only thing we do anymore.

and their lives do matter. >> reporter: that change forces companies big and small to change their return to work approach, even as a new study finds 38% of employees are seeking new jobs right now. >> we are seeing more perks around flexibility, schedules. but of course, in the end, what many people care about is their compensation. higher wages, bonuses. >> reporter: a pandemic forced power shift. employees making lifestyle demands with employers hoping to keep them happy. >> that was nbc's tom costello reporting and for more let's bring in bertha coombs. what you got? >> reporter: concern that the surge dampens consumer activity. we heard from lowe's and target this morning saying they're not

seeing that. both reporting better than expected sales and earnings. ceo saying they're not seeing a slow down and consumers are physically out and shopping for back to school and expecting a strong holiday season which is a big issue. there's so much supply disruption with china shutting down the third busiest port due to covid and could pay to shop early. meantime the markets are coming off a down day after a drop in retail sales last month. july sales fell 1.1%. that caused the dow and the s&p 500 to snap a five day win streak easing back from record highs. this morning looks like a muted open slightly lower overall and tesla meantime is under fire.

autopilot feature is being investigated. they opened that probe into the company's so-called self driving system after nearly a dozen crashes ip colluding some according to agency vehicles crashed into first responder cars. senators blumenthal and markey asking the federal trade commission to look into the company's marketing of that feature complaining that the ceo musk overstated that capability putting tesla and other drivers at risk ahead of tesla's ai day tomorrow unveiling the software features. we'll see if they address this probe. >> all right. cnbc's bertha coombs. turning the more on the pandemic where pope francis is joining the global effort to encourage covid-19 vaccinations. in a public service announcement

that airs today the pope described getting vaccinated as a quote act of love. joining us now is daniel darling, senior vice president of communications at national religious broadcasters. dan has a new piece for "usa today" entitled "why as a christian and an american i got the covid vaccine. you write in part this. we are experiencing a deficit of trust in our institutions. at almost every level we have seen profound and catastrophic failure by those we have asked to lead us. and yet in spite of this cloud of conclusion and era of mistrust i felt it was important for me and my family to get the vaccine. the discovery and technology are one of the most amazing feats

made by dedicated scientists and doctors, many of people are people of deep christian faith. i believe in this vaccine because i don't want to see anyone else die of covid. our family has lost too many close friends and relatives to covid. there are not many things in the world today that are worthy of our truth but i believe the covid-19 vaccine is one of them. as a christian and as an american, i was proud to get it. joe? >> dan, talk about your faith and the role it played in you making that decision. >> i think there's two things to think about. i think one of them is this idea to love our neighbors and getting a vaccine is not only protect ourselves but do our part to keep our part from

spreading the virus. and hurting our neighbors. i secondly also think that the way to persuade people to get a vaccine is not going to come top down and sort of elites but people closest to people. their doctors, pharmacists, pastors. there's a great deficit of trust here in this country. much is earned because the institutions failed us in many ways but this is an area where i think we can be confident that the vaccine works. it had rigorous protocols. uniquely american success story and we have had bipartisan push on it. president trump helped shepherd this vaccine through and president biden is helping to get the vaccine out and so i encourage folks. i don't shame anyone to get it. it is all new but i do encourage

folks to consider it and talk to your doctor because we don't want to see anyone else unnecessarily die of this lethal virus. >> i have asked this question of other evangelicals and what i don't understand are friends and families are the conspiracy theories they seem to be more prone to on facebook. you know? as i say we as evangelicals believe we have the greatest story ever told as the foundation of our lives and don't need a christian -- chinese religious cult sending conspiracy theories toen fluns us. we don't need theories on facebook to wrap our arms around. why is it many fellow brothers and sisters are not listening to the pastors and doctors?

not following the words of just. do unto others as you would have them do unto you. and not listening to family members and clinging to lies spread on facebook. what explains this? it is deeply disturbing to me? people of the favorite especially. >> i think there's good news. vaccine hesitancy among evangelicals dropped significantly and if you follow the sociologist they're not the most hesitant. there's hesitancy with young people with no faith. there's hesitancy among african-american populations. but secondly i do think the reason why there's vaccine hesitancy and a tendency to believe conspiracy theories is there's a deficit of trust in the institutions.

i think many of us are more desipe -- discipled by the people on the left and the right than scripture and need to return to being discipled by our faith. there is good news anecdotally. in my world folks hesitant are getting the vaccine and hearing from pastors that's the case, as well. >> dan, what's caused -- that's great news that there's been an improvement. can you tell me what caused that improvement among evangelicals? >> i think they have seen other people get the vaccine. i think number two they have seen people in the circles get it. i think they're beginning to reckon with how lethal the virus is and everyone i talk to almost

every week has someone that suffered with covid and heard of a pastor in the 40s that died of covid and left a wife and children behind epa people are starting to take seriously and go get the covid-19 vaccine. >> dan, i think you said something important when you said you don't want to shame people. you don't want to condescend to people. calling someone an idiot never persuaded anyone ever. we had a doctor on who walked us through about how he had many employees including nurses reluctant and took them out to lunch and sat with them and walked them through in a respectful, friendly conversation why he believed the vaccine is safe. can you describe the conversations you have had or might still have with people who trust you, people you know and

go to church with about this vaccine? >> that's exactly right. i think shaming from whether it's celebrities or media members or politicians is counterproductive and i think starting with real fears and concerns say i get why you're skeptical and don't trust some public health officials who have been inconsistent and let me walk you through how the vaccine was made and through some of the protocols that have taken place to ensure it is rigorous and safe and if i that you can to conservatives i say president trump championed this who put government investment behind it and got the vaccine himself. he not someone that's given to conventional wisdom to go along with things and if he thinks it

is safe then i think if you're a conservative who voted for him then obviously you're safe to consider it, as well. >> dan, finally, just one final thing. i have seen some things unfortunately out there on twitter sort of against those who have gotten really sick from covid. who weren't vaccinated. can you just for people of faith can you just talk about the importance of praying for those who are unvaccinated, praying for their health, praying hopefully for their wisdom moving forward, praying they will do what they need to do to protech themselves and their children but mainly looking at them as people who need our prayers, who need assistance and

love and are hopefully our guidance? >> that's exactly right. i have seen people dunking on line of someone that got covid and didn't get the vaccine. when someone gets sick, when someone is in bad shape, in the hospital and dying this is a moment to remember their humanity and remember people made in the image of god. people are not the sum total of the politics and opinions and republican, democrat, independent we don't want to see anybody suffer from covid-19. we need to stop politicizing this. this is a very real virus and tragedy that people die around the world and we don't withhold care and concern for someone's health based on some choices we have made. we don't do that for smokers who get cancer. we don't do that for any other kind of malady so i think that

the impulse to prove a point in the moment as someone suffers on the opposite side of the aisle is not a christian instinct and should cause us to say hold on a second. i have gotten too deep in my politics here. >> final question. this is a much bigger question than anything related to covid or the last presidential election or the next election but i'm sure you like me you have seen in our evangelical church and i have seen in evangelical churches this elevation of politics above the faith. jesus asked about paying taxes was dismissive saying render unto cesar that which is cesar and to god what is god's. and dismissive of government

throughout his life. do you see any hope that evangelicals and other people of faith will one day move back more towards actually following the word of god and focusing on the word of god than what's on facebook or cable news shows or the latest sort of shock and awe website that they visit day in and day out? seems to eclipse so much that actually the gospels talk about. >> i do think all of us are tempted to let the politics shape the faith instead of faith shape the politics. however, i must say that most of the evangelicals i'm with and around the country in churches

are not that clued into politics. you have a few extreme voices that take up the oxygen in the room but most are busy trying to live out the faith, trying to help the neighbors, sponsoring children overseas, concerned about the communities, trying to raise families in a culture that they feel is increasingly pressed against them and not that obsessed. going to the average e value gel call you would not see the demonstration of politics. there are a few people talk about but evangelicals are trying to raise families like everyone else. >> dan darling, thank you so much for sharing your story with us this morning. >> thank you. let's turn to an icon tying

to this moment from andy murray in 2017 correcting a reporter who overlooked the incredible accomplishments of women by focusing on male players in tennis. >> abedi, the first u.s. player to reach on male players in tennis. >> the first u.s. player to reach a semifinal since 2 howe 9, how would you describe -- >> to. >> a beg your pardon? >> male player. >> yes, first male player. that's for sure. >> so that moment and many others may never have happened without the trail blazing leadership of our next guest, billie jean king, won 39 fwlam titles in her stories career. that is part of hearse legacy. she's emerged as a leading voice for fairness, equality and social justice in sports and beyond and the champion joins us now, author of "all in" also

with us editor at large for the 19th and msnbc contributor, erin haynes. good morning to you both. billie jean, great to have you back on the show. >> hi, everyone. >> great to see you. >> so many people. you have a team there. i like it. >> we have the full squad, billie jean. >> okay. >> we'll sit down and capture your life and your career and now your legacy. >> whoa. it took over 40 years. it was a lot of work. i had a lot of help, obviously, and had researchers, because you think you remember things and then they go well there's a new paper clipping from 1960. i go, whoa, not even close so i had to go back and dig deep. some of it was very painful to relive especially when i had to go in studio and read it for the audible edition, and had to stop a few times and other time it

was great to reflect on friendships and why things happened the way they did and because the players, you know, stayed together, we're able to change things for the positive. this is fantastic. so it's been a roller coaster, it's been hard but i thought you know what? everyone's been bugging me to do it for a loong time. the last time i really did this type of book was in the '70s, i had a lot of life since then and i just hope that maybe, i talk about sexuality, i talk about my eating disorder, i talk about all these things that i hope will make a difference maybe in somebody's life, maybe it will help them become their authentic self or just look at life a little differently for themselves and maybe be positive. >> billie jean king, good morning, thanks for being here. it's jonathan lemiere. we're showing you with the superstars the williams sisters and naomi osaka. what is your thought on the state of the game now not just on the court but off.

miss osaka's headlines with mental health and we saw it in the olympics with simone biles and people credit people being open about it, like yourself, to be free to talk about those things. talk to us about the progress you've seen on issues like that since you were playing. >> first of all, as a 12-year-old, when i had my epiphany, i wanted it to be a platform. i love the young players today, the players that are playing, they're using tennis in a positive way to make this world a better place to talk about issues that matter like black lives matter or in this case, mental health, and you know, in a naomi is fantastic and a great champion and simone biles can't say enough. i think it's great. now that we have social media in the old days we didn't have this. there is a way to communicate faster, sometimes better, sometimes not so good. that's a double edged sword, as we all know, but i think it's good. we are all talking about it.

that's what's always helpful and maybe it will help them get some help. i'm big on therapy and had a lot of therapy and helped me a lot. i think we need better rookie schools. when you want to become a professional athlete or top athlete or olympic athlete, there's a lot that comes with that. it's not just playing tennis or if you're a gymnast, do what you do, there's a lot more to it and the media say huge part of why we make the money we make today and i don't know if they have that connection but we all feel money is not everything. your personal health is the most important thing. health is wealth and so i just hope that everyone takes a break and if it's too much, if it's too much, don't play. take good care of yourself. >> right. >> i've always thought about privilege, i mean i always thought about pressure as a privilege. i have this saying, pressure is a privilege but i also think about pressure as you can, you

can be a friend or a foe of it, and i try to welcome it. >> it's mika here. >> hi, mika. >> hi! money is not everything, at the same time for women, talk about equal pay, because back in our day, it was untoward to ask for equal pay or even ask for a raise. >> i know, but i keep encouraging women to follow the money because boys are taught to follow the money and girls are not. i want girls to follow the money. money equals power, choice, freedom, mobility, all these things so it's important. so that was one of our fights in our sport, in 1970, nine of us all together signed a $1 contract the first in women's professional tennis. without us, they wouldn't be making the money and without all the businesses that have gotten behind it, and believe in us, 2007, we finally got equal prize

money in all the majors. the men and women get equal prize money today in tennis, and that's why we are the leaders in women's sports. >> new autobiography is "all in." billie jean king, thank you so much. so tight on time today. we'll have erin haynes on tomorrow. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruehl picks up the coverage after a short break. it was devastating. one of my medications is three thousand dollars per month. prescription drugs do not work if you cannot afford them. aarp is fighting for americans like larry, and we won't stop. that's why we're calling on congress to let medicare negotiate lower prescription drug prices.

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