over the course of this hour we are going to be talking about the latest of afghanistan of course. where the u.s. evacuation effort is both, at its highest capacity yachts, and it is also now starting to head toward an off ramp. last week, we airport climb from fewer than a thousand people per day at the beginning of the week to over 5,000 per day at the end of the week. last night, we reported that they had evacuated a gigantic number. nearly 11,000 people in one day in the 24 hours from sunday to monday. today the pentagon says the latest number in the latest 24-hour period is they got more than 21,000 people out. 21,000 people evacuated in one day. that means the u.s. air lift out of kabul overall has removed more than 70,000 people from kabul since they started ten days ago which is an astonishing number.

but with the president planning to get u.s. troops out entirely by the initial deadline he set which is next week, august 31st, the evacuation effort will necessarily have to start to ramp down. troops will have to start to leave. it takes time to get them out safely. as of today u.s. troop numbers are already dropping at the kabul airport. what will that mean in terms of the pace of evacuations and the orderliness of evacuations and the commitment to get every american and every afghan ally of american troops and the american people out of there, we're going to have a live report on that situation coming up including the news today about the reported meeting between the director of the cia, william burns, and a senior taliban official. this is the taliban co-founder who the trump administration got sprung from prison in 2018. they arranged for his release from prison in 2018. this is the guy who trump had

his secretary of state mike pompeo meet with in person last year. today we learned that president biden's cia director met with him as well. it's almost impossible to imagine and news about the republican and democratic members of congress, a bipartisan duo who unexpectedly caught flights and turned up in afghanistan outside sort of official channels in a way that seems to have very much angered people involved in evacuation efforts who say that their unexpected presence in the evacuation zone led to a huge distraction and divergence of we'll have more on that coming up. here at home national guard

troops are being dispatched domestically by two more governors in tennessee and georgia as the unrelenting rise of sick covid patients continues to swamp more hospitals particularly in the american south. today at the white house dr. anthony fauci gave a brief scientific briefing on monoclonal antibody treatment. this treatment for people who have covid and if you can get this treatment to people in time, it can reduce their chances of having to be hospitalized by 70 to 85%. it's an astonishingly effective treatment approved for use by the nih. this is not one of those snake oil cures, not one of those quack cures that you read about on facebook. this is actually an nih approved treatment. even in states where vaccine uptake has been terrible, the distribution of monoclonal antibody treatment has ramped up.

the federal government is pushing out more of this and it's turning out to be a safety net option to try to save the hospitals. not only to save lives but to save the hospitals to try to keep infected people from getting sick and having to be hospitalized. we are seeing big increases in the use of these monoclonal antibody treatments in states like alabama, mississippi and florida, so many of these deep red states where politics and conservative politicians have played a part in why people don't want the vaccine. even in those places when monoclonal antibody treatment is being made available it's helping. dr. fauci's briefing on that in the white house may further accelerate the uptake of that treatment which could be a silver lining. we're watching that continued development. the covid news continues spiraling. the nra announced they are canceling their annual meeting which was planned for next weekend in houston, texas. you might have seen the headlines that houston just shut down three emergency rooms in the city because they can no longer handle the influx of sick covid patients into the hospital

system through the ers. they're literally shutting down ers to try and stem the flow of covid patients into over burdened hospitals. maybe not a great time for a big, undoubtedly unmasked indoor confab in the city of houston. nowhere to take people if anyone falls ill. the nra canceling that major meeting. something else going on today we've been watching very closely playing out over the last 24 hours or so. drama was unfolding biden today was running very, very late. remarks, scheduled to deliver the remarks around noon. he did not give those remarks at noon. then the white house said it will be at 2:00 the president will give his remarks. then it was almost 3:00 and there was still no sign of president biden. then the white house said, okay, we're expecting now maybe more

like 4:30 for those remarks. now in stepping back from this for a second. people who cover president biden and frankly people who cover almost every president grow accustomed to the fact that presidential speeches often start 20 or 30 minutes late, sometimes even an hour late. it happens. almost no presidents are perfectly punctual but even for this president, which is late like all of them, 4 1/2 hours was an impressive delay for a presidential speech. what's going on? and with all of the moving parts around afghanistan and all of the human drama, necessity, urgency, all of the you know sort of unexpected breaking news out of afghanistan, it was considered possible that it was just news -- it was circumstances on the ground delaying things. as it turned out, at least according to the white house press secretary, the reason president biden's speech on afghanistan kept getting pushed

back and pushed back and pushed back was not about new developments in afghanistan. at all. in fact, when he finally gave his remarks, they didn't necessarily reflect that he had been waiting for last minute developments out of afghanistan. turns out what he was waiting for was a vote in the house. when president biden did finally take to the podium at the white house at the end of the day today his first remarks were not about afghanistan at all. instead, he spoke about what just happened on the house on the floor including this emphatic shoutout. >> i want to thank speaker pelosi who was masterful in her leadership on this. >> emphasize that word there. speaker pelosi was masterful in her leadership. today did end up being yet another lesson in one of the iron rules of today's washington, whether you agree with her or not. whether you are rooting for her or not. whether you want her to win or you want her to lose, no matter what, do not under estimate nancy pelosi. here's what went down.

the centerpiece of president biden's agenda is the infrastructure. right? and it has two separate bills in congress. there is a smaller bill, bipartisan bill whittled down to a few hundred billion dollars in order to get republicans on board as long as democrats. many people, myself included, thought that republican senators were just stringing democrats along, stringing president biden along just wasting time and ultimately they'd kill even that small bill. i was wrong. the other snicks were wrong lo and behold, earlier this month, that smaller bill did pass the senate. it didn't get the bare minimum of 10 republican votes, it got 19 republican votes. i was totally wrong. there is a smallish bipartisan infrastructure bill that did pass the senate. even mitch mcconnell voted for it. that's one bill. for all the other things president biden and other

democrats want to do including big investments in education, climate, health care, all sorts of other priorities, there's a second bill. that bill is much bigger. that billion is going to be in the trillions. that's like a transformative great society size bill. democrats can't pass that through the senate even if they get no republican votes but in order to do that they have to have all 50 senate democrats have to hang together and vote for it. in the house the margin isn't that much broader. in the house they only have a handful of votes to spare. from the beginning the democrats' plan for keeping their caucus together uniting what is a fairly diverse caucus, includes moderates, progressives and lots of people in between. the plan has been in the senate that the house would do bill one and bill two at the same time. the house said from the outset explicitly and repeatedly they were not going to pass that smaller bipartisan bill that had all the republican support until senate republicans followed through and passed the bigger

more progressive bill as well. you cannot get the smaller bill unless you get the big bill, too. that has been the plan for months. it's been the deal, overt and explicit from president biden, speaker nancy pelosi and senator chuck schumer, everybody has been explicit about this and everybody has said they're on board. but then a few days ago a handful of conservative democrats in the house decided they would try to blow up the whole plan. it's nine house democrats who decided they would give nancy pelosi an ultimatum, and they would do it their way, instead of her way. and because the democratic margin in the house is so small, i guess they really felt like they had the power to do it. they were going to block the big bill unless speaker pelosi and all the rest of the house democrats passed the senate small bipartisan bill right now. cleanly with no link to the larger bill.

it is genuinely unclear why this handful of democrats, 4% of the house of democratic party. there's nine of them. it's unclear exactly why they wanted to do this. they couldn't really give a coherence policy-based answer of why it was important to blow up this larger plan and pass the smaller thing. why, i don't know. they did get a lot of free media out of it and they got their names in the paper, maybe that was it. their plan did seem like it was mutually assured distraction. if they had blocked the larger bill, the big progressive bill, multi-trillion dollar bill, much larger group of democrats in the house, the house progressives, weren't going to vote for the smaller bill, and that would mean nobody would get anything. neither the small bill would pass nor the big bill would pass and the democratic president's

whole economic agenda would go down in flames with nothing passed. great plan, right? what a strategy for the midterms. look at us. democrats control the house and the senate and the white house and we can do nothing because we stood up and insisted that nothing be done. vote for me. tough district. that was apparently the plan. so last night the time for the first scheduled house vote arrived on the big bill, the big democrats only infrastructure bill. the time for that vote came and went and there was no vote. and there was no vote because house speaker nancy pelosi knows what she's doing. and she does not calm a vote until she assures she has the votes to win. just after 9:00 p.m. last night, jake punch tweeted this, a mostly empty capitol holloway reporting that members of congress were being asked to hang around just in case speaker pelosi called a vote. some members are congress are enjoying watering holes around

the capitol while sitting around drinking waiting to find out whether or not they'd be called upon to vote. ultimately the house went home last night without voting. they came back today to try again and nobody knew it was going to happen and, frankly, not all that many people were focused on it. there's a lot going on in the world and the news today. you can be forgiven for not even knowing this was happening today but this is actually the whole biden legislative agenda or a very large portion of it for his first term as president. so we're watching capitol hill all day as the president delays his speech by two hours, then four hours, then five hours. we're wondering if we're about to watch joe biden's agenda, his legislative agenda for his presidency, we're wondering whether it is going to collapse. will nancy pelosi be able to do it? and then finally this afternoon speaker pelosi did call for a vote on the big bill, giant infrastructure bill, the multitrillion dollar bill, this huge priority for president

biden that president biden wants to be his legacy. and she called for that vote this afternoon and every single house democrat voted for it. yes. even the ones who spent the last week saying they were going to kill it. and for all their protests and their red lines and their insistence that they would block this bill if they did not get exactly what they wanted, those nine conservative democrats in the end got nothing. >> i want to thank speaker pelosi who was masterful in her leadership on this. >> when speaker pelosi walked off the house floor this evening, a cnn reporter caught up with her and asked her about the deal she reached with the nine conservative democrats to get them to vote for the bill. speaker pelosi wrote, what deal? they wanted clarification about how we go forward and that's what we did. oh. you think i had to do a deal with them? oh, that's cute. you would think people in washington, d.c., would have learned this by now.

do not underestimate house speaker nancy pelosi. whether you agree with her, disagree with her. whether you are rooting for her or against her, do not underestimate her. when she is determined to get a piece of legislation in the house she will determine whether or not it can be done. oh, you would like some kind of deal? let me give you a clarification. some day let us all be able to operate in some part of our worlds with that kind of efficacy. and, look, this is still early in what is going to be a long process of negotiation among and between democrats and republicans. democrats have to hold together through a lot of these ups and downs before these bills become law, before, again, this legislation that president biden wants to be his legacy as president, before it can get to his desk there is going to be a

lot of ups and downs. but in the midst of everything else going on today, president biden was able to announce from the white house that his economic agenda, his giant plan, his great society-sized plan to invest trillions of dollars into american people, into american infrastructure. into american education, into fighting climate change, it is one big step closer to getting things done. house democrats moved onto the other major plank of their legislative agenda. without which in the long run they can do nothing. and that is voting rights. just within the past couple of hours, the house passed the john lewis voting rights advancement act which would provide more tools to provide state level voting restrictions that are being enacted hand over fist right now. but just like with the for the people act, the thing standing in the way of the john lewis act is the senate.

the for the people act, the thing standing in the way of the john lewis act is the senate. republicans in the senate filibustered the before the people act. they will certainly filibuster the john lewis act, too. the only way forward in terms of protecting the right to vote is what it remains. senate democrats not only have to agree to support and defend voting rights, they have to agree to do something about it. and because republicans will not support them on voting rights, in order to do something about it, they will have to at least carve an exception out of that filibuster rule. at minimum, they'll have to make a carveoutfilibuster for the voting rights. for all that is going on, the time-sensitive on this administration, if voting rights is a top priority for this white

house and the white house's democratic allies in congress, they either get this done or they don't. if they don't get this done, they will continue to put more severe restrictions on voting rights than we have seen in more than a generation. so, democrats are either going to not fight back and let republicans run the table on voting rights, or they're going to get it together. and the pressure is on in terms of trying to get them to get it together. to commit to do what's necessary to move ahead on it. we've covered this intensively. all of these arrests including members of congress, these dignified acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, like members of congress like joyce beattie, hank johnson and sheila jackson lee, all three members of congress arrested at these very powerful, peaceful, civil owe

beadence demonstrations. senate office buildings. we've seen democrats flee their state. they're passing draconian new voting restrictions. where did they go? they went to washington. they begged for federal help and the united states to act because they didn't do this on their own. they can't do this without help and only senate democrats can do it, only senate democrats have the power to actually do what's necessary to fix it and pass voting rights. and get it done. we saw activists embark on a multiday 27-mile march in the summer heat to the texas state capitol. this is modeled on the selma to montgomery march of 1965. again, to try to move the united states senate to act on voting rights. this week and upcoming weekend, we're expecting to see a whole bunch of marches in washington and cities across the country

all aimed at ratcheting up the pressure on the white house and senate to get this done. the john lewis voting bill passed the house tonight. it's in the hands of the senate. today outside the white house was this, a protest just outside the white house from two big well known advocacy groups targeting president biden specifically asking him to do even more to make the senate do the right thing, to use every power he has to persuade the senate to do what they can do and what they so far lacked the will and gumption to effectuate. under the banner of no more excuses voting rights now, activists ordered by the american way and league of women women voters were there to call out president biden to ask him to do more. to do more, to do more, to do everything he can to change the filibuster rules so that democrats have protect voting rights. at the white house fence people

for the american white president ben jealous called it's time to step up. it's time to step up. he led them, hey, joe, the filibuster's got to go. joining us is ben jealous. president of the progressive group, people for the american way which is one of the groups leading the protests outside the white house. mr. jealous, ben, it's really nice to see you, my friend. thank you for being here tonight. >> it's great to see you, rachel. >> tell me about today and tell me about your strategic thinking behind trying to -- behind what you did today and how this demonstration was targeted. petitioned, we've protested the senate, the congress. what's become clear is that the senate is not going to pass a bill unless the president of these united states himself demands that they do whatever they have to do to pass it. we saw president trump demand that the senate change the rules so that he could pack the supreme court. joe biden can certainly do the

same thing to make sure that we save our democracy. demand that they change the rules. it shouldn't be easier to fix roads and bridges than it is to ensure that our democracy works. >> what would it look like to you if president biden was doing everything that could be done on this score? you're asking him to step up, to do more, to make this priority one, to bring all the powers of the presidency and all his personal powers of persuasion to bear on this. tell me what that would look like, the signs -- if this effort was successful, how you'd know, what you would see from the president that would convince you he was there. >> you would see the president publicly call on the senate to remove the filibuster as an obstacle to passing the voting rights bills that must be passed if we're going to stop our elections from being stolen. right now georgia, texas and arizona have all empowered their politicians to overturn the decision of the people of that

state. if they don't like the way the next election goes, they've actually said their state legislature can install a different governor. it's insane. the only way we can stop this is to actually ensure that this bill passes, that the for the people act passes, that the john lewis voting rights act passes the senate and what that requires is you've got to get the filibuster out of the way. we've done that for roads and bridges. trump did it to pack the supreme court. joe biden can do it to ensure that our democracy is preserved. >> ben, one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you about this is that the struggle for social justice and the struggle for civil rights is a lifelong commitment of yours, both in your scholarship, in your life, in your activism and i feel like you think deeply about how tactics fit into overall strategies here. you know, the easy way to think about this is having inside and outside tactics working towards

the same direction. i feel like there's been a lot of -- a lot of wind and a lot of ink expended talking about what the options are for voting rights proponents in terms of getting this done and it just doesn't seem like anything is budging. do you think that direct action is the key to unlocking this? do you think it's -- >> absolutely. >> -- one of a multiplicity of strategies? how do you see that working? >> my fear is that joe biden thinks that he's called to be the fdr of this moment when he's actually called to be the lbj of this moment. yes, you have to lead on the economy and wars overseas. but you also have to step up, president biden, and ensure that the voting rights of your fellow americans are protected. he's a master of the senate like president johnson and he knows what the talk is. call it out, mr. president. tell your former colleagues in the senate they've got to get these bills through and if that means changing the rules, so be

it. he knows they're not written into the constitution. there's nothing sacred about them. there's multiple ways to do it. he needs to make it clear. the end of the day the person who can put the most pressure on joe manchin, on kristin sinema, even encourage senator murkowski is joe biden. >> ben jealous, thanks for joining us. former member of the naacp. i know it's been a day -- an intense day out in the hot sun. thank you for being here tonight to help us understand. >> thank you. always good to see you. >> we have much more to get to here tonight. stay with us. lead story on the front page

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lead story on the front page of "the new york times", this was february 2010. dramatic headline. secret joint raid captures taliban's top commander, right? a1, front page headline in "the times." u.s. says pakistan cooperated to bring in group's second most influential man. this is february 2010. the pakistan service arrested a man mullah abdul ghani baradar. he was a founding member of the taliban. he was a wide angle strategist and a day-to-day commander of taliban fighters. his leadership was so important to the taliban's success on the battlefield that the "times" said at the time of his arrest

that him being captured could cripple the taliban's military operations. they did get him in 2010. of course, that was, you know, only about halfway through america's long war against the taliban and afghanistan but mullah baradar was put in a pakistani prison. it was a joint venture. they picked him up and that means ultimately he was locked up in pakistan essentially at the request of the u.s. government. the cia directly assisted in the raid in pakistan that put him behind bars. which is why ten years later, ten years after his imprisonment at the request of the u.s. government it really did take your breath away to see that very same guy, mullah abdul ghani baradar, co-founder of the taliban standing side by side, with american secretary of state mike pompeo welcomed in that same ceremonial welcome that the

u.s. welcomes its allies. it was a meeting that would have been impossible had it not been for an unusual intervention by the trump administration in 2018. in 2018 the trump white house arranged for baradar to be released in pakistan so he could participate in talks, so he could be at the afghan peace talks between the taliban and the united states government under the trump administration. they're the ones who sprung him from prison and that is how we got the remarkable image standing there shoulder to shoulder. it was also the reason that he was able to re-enter afghanistan last week for the first time in over a decade as the de facto leader of afghanistan. "the washington post" reporting that he was escorted into the country in a fleet of white suvs and was treated to say fireworks display on his road back to

power. the trump administration letting mullah baradar out of prison back to power, william burns held a secret meeting in afghanistan with him yesterday and it was a meeting tynged with irony given that it was the cia that picked him up and helped put baradar in prison 11 years ago. joining us now is john hudson, the reporter from the "washington post" who helped break this story. mr. hudson, thank you for being here. appreciate your time. >> great to be with you, rachel. >> let me ask you if i got any of that wrong. and if sort of tinged with irony is the right way to explain it. this must be sort of a -- an unsettling moment for the cia. and its leadership. >> that is a perfect way to characterize what was an extraordinary situation on monday.

it's hard to imagine more of a full circle event where you have a man who literally spent eight years in a pakistani prison because of the cia, the spy agency that worked with the pakistanis to arrest him, as you said, sitting -- standing next to the top director of the cia as equals, meeting and hashing out the future of afghanistan. it's important to remember there were many times with which the united states had negotiated with the taliban over 20 years of war in afghanistan, but in this meeting this was not a place where the u.s. could have leverage. it was after the taliban came in and took over the country with maximum leverage. so that is an incredible full circle event where you go from being locked in a pakistani prison to then meeting the director of the cia as you are equal in a diplomatic meeting.

>> yeah, it is remarkable. and of course it happens at this moment where time is very short for u.s. forces and the united states is trying to do -- trying to accomplish huge things in a very short remaining period of time at the end of this air lift and evacuation effort. i mean, bill burns is a very, very, very seasoned foreign service officer and diplomat. should we see this meeting today as a means of trying to keep open a high level channel of communication, in part to facilitate the next few days in afghanistan with what the u.s. is trying to do in its evacuation efforts? >> yes, i think you should see it that way. i think we should see this as a sense of the urgency and importance with which president biden is taking the issue of getting americans and getting afghan allies out of afghanistan. he is relying on the one individual in his cabinet who has the most decorated foreign

service officer veteran experienced diplomat in generations. before he became confirmed as director of cia he was deputy secretary of state, u.s. ambassador to russia. he served over multiple administrations for public and democrat and is almost universally well liked in washington, not because he is -- plays the game and is overly, you know, obsequious with people, but because he's extraordinarily intelligent and extraordinarily competent. and so, it was interesting to see biden reach out to him in this moment because for sure this was actually a diplomatic capacity with which he's talking with him, negotiating on this evacuation. unusual for a cia officer to be in that position and a cia director, but that's what he was using him for. it does really go to his strengths over so many years of service.

>> there aren't many other people who can call on the kind of experience he has for having that kind of bizarre sort of a suhey generous meeting. john, let me also just ask you about some reporting you and your colleagues published in the last hour or so. a democrat, congressman seth moulton and peter myer made an unauthorized trip to afghanistan. now, both of these congressmen are combat veterans. a spokesman for them says the point of the trip was to gather information about the withdrawal efforts to increase their ability to provide oversight as members of congress, but the criticism of them is just damning. i have to put this quote to you. one senior white house official telling you their trip is as moronic as selfish. they're taking seats away from americans and afghans so they can have another moment in front of the cameras. another diplomat telling you,

quote, it's one of the most irresponsible things i've heard a lawmaker do. it absolutely deserves admonishment. okay. both their decision to take this trip and this vitupertive reaction against them, i have to ask you to elaborate and explain. >> yeah, rachel. to put this in context, this is one of the most historic air lifts in american history. this is a logistic call fete they are trying to undertake. in that context with which you have thousands of u.s. military officials, you have diplomats, you have consular officers, you have civil servants working in an airport with the threat of an isis attack, it's already been warned and broadcast by the national security adviser, they're working under an extremely difficult situation on an august 31st deadline trying to get as many people as they

can out of afghanistan into safety. from the perspective of these officials, pentagon officials, state department officials, white house officials, people that i talked to today were absolute irate anger. from their perspective, they're doing everything they can to try to fill every seat they can, to use every resource they have on the ground to get them out. with having lawmakers who, you know, come with their own sort of baggage. you know, there's a concern about their safety, them being a target, them creating targets for people around them in this airport. it caused incredible amount of heartburn and anger. lawmakers they say, you know, they didn't take up any seats. they were doing their working in their oversight capacity. but the reality is, this was an uth authorized codel, that's the

washington term for congressional visits abroad by a lawmaker. many people didn't want it to happen and they have really expressed their fury at having to spend any resources on lawmakers and taking them away from their mission which is an absolutely sizeable air lift that hasn't really been carried out in u.s. history. >> yeah. ever in history. i mean, that quote alone, as moronic as it is selfish. i've never seen a quote like that from an administration official about an identified target at least in living memory. john hudson, national security reporter for "the washington post." breaking news on both of these stories today and tonight. thanks, john. appreciate it. >> good to be with you. >> we have more ahead tonight. stay with us. crepe corrector lotion... only from gold bond.

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satisfying? or at least tidy? maybe just is the word i'm looking for. i don't know. what do you think? october last year just before the presidential election we reported in quite a bit of detail on one of the worst instances we know of in modern times of what appeared to be really blunt, really obvious, really, really racially targeted voter intimidation efforts directed at black voters on a very large scale. they were robo calls and we first learned about these robocalls going out ahead of the election targeting voters in detroit, michigan. we would soon learn they didn't just go out to black voters in detroit, they went out to thousands of black voters, tens of thousands of black voters in multiple swing states. i'm going to play the call in question for you because you should know how bad this was. i will also just say for the record in case it's not obvious that everything you are about to hear in this call is total bull pucky. none of it is true. this is made up stuff just designed to scare african-american voters into not voting but here it is.

>> hi. this is tameka taylor from project 1599 the civil rights organization founded by jack burkman and jacob wohl. mail in voting sounds great but did you know that if you vote by mail, your personal information will be part of public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts? the cdc is even pushing to use records for mail in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines. don't be finessed into giving your private information to the man, stay safe and don't vote by beware of vote by mail. >> don't give your information to the man. beware of voting. yeah. that call, all of the claims made in that call are total horse hockey. that call we learned a few weeks have gone out to thousands of registered voters in detroit, michigan.

that's the first place we found out about it. the michigan state attorney general actually came on the show right after her office filed felony charges against the two men named at the top of the call, two trump supporter conservative activists who are alleged to be behind that voter intimidation effort. attorney general told us on the show that night her office had worked cooperatively with attorneys general from a number of different states to track down the perpetrators and how it was carried out. this thing went out to thousands of black voters in detroit. it turns out they went out to tens of thousands of voters in multiple swing states. same call all of these places telling them all of these lies if you vote, the police will come for you and credit card companies will come for you and authorities will come to your door and force you to take unapproved vaccines if you vote by mail so make sure you don't vote. don't be tricked. we're a civil rights organization warning you not to vote. yeah. just disgusting stuff. in the end, it was not just michigan but also the state of ohio that filed felony criminal charges against these two men

jacob wohl and jack burkman for allegedly making those calls. the two were also sued in federal court by real civil rights groups. a group called the lawyers committee for civil rights under law then asked the fcc, the federal communications commission, to please investigate this matter since they regulate telecoms. now, i don't know if the name of that particular group rings a bell for you but the lawyers committee for civil rights under law is an esteemed, really accomplished civil rights group and until not long ago they were led by a cracker jack attorney with an incredible resume, incredible record who has like gravitas from here up to the ceiling. they were led until recently by a lawyer named kristin clark. you might recognize kristen clarke from having been a guest on this show. well, kristen clarke ran the civil rates until the end of this year.

she ended up giving up leadership of that organization when she became president biden's nominee to run the civil rights division at the united states department of justice which is the position she now holds. but her group's request from back in the day to the fcc to please investigate these racially targeted disgusting voter intimidation calls that went out by the tens of thousands, well, that has led somewhere quite spectacular. the fcc ended up taking up that complaint and investigating it. they ended up working interestingly with the attorney general from the state of ohio, one of the attorneys general who pursued this matter and, again, ohio's one of the states where jacob wohl and jack burkman were also facing felony charges related to these calls. but as for the fcc doing anything, nobody had high hopes that anything would come out of an fcc investigation. the fcc is one of those federal agencies that's sort of been deliberately hamstrung by republican politicians and conservative presidents who don't want regulatory agencies to be able to function. it's one of those agencies that's always hopelessly deadlocked. always 2-2 vote on the fcc.

never agree to do anything. two republicans, two democrats cancel each other out. nothing happens, it's like a place where real complaints go to die. but today on this, they agree. all four commissioners came to a unanimous agreement about what to do. the fcc releasing this surprise statement today announcing that in this case, these racist robocalls, they are proposing the largest single fine ever levied by the fcc for a robocall violation of any type. they want a $5 million fine levied against jacob wohl and jack burkman. and that, of course, would be in addition to any penalties those two face if they're convicted of felony charges in the states where they are facing them. the acting chair of the fcc said in a statement tonight, i quote, today we proposed a fine of $5 million for robocalls which clearly violation the protection

act. i appreciate the unanimous support of my colleagues in this effort. unanimous. at a hopelessly deadlocked agency that never does anything because they deadlock on everything. on this they are unanimous, and they are proposing the largest fine ever. this is one of those horrifying stories that sort of, by definition, can't end well, right? those calls did go out. and we will never know the ongoing intimidating effect they did have on voters who received them and on voters who heard about them. but once that damage is done, if there is an outcome to hope for, i guess it's that, number one, the people who did this sort of thing get the book thrown at them. and, number two, i guess what you would hope is for everyone from both parties, i guess you'd hope for everyone to unanimously agree that the book should in fact be thrown at those people. that never happens, but it happened here. pinch me.

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well, we continue to await the report that may or may not ever come from arizona, from the bizarre republican conspiracy theory audit of the presidential election results in arizona where president biden beat former president trump, but republicans refuse to accept that. well, we continue to await whether or not there will ultimately be a report from that month's long audit in arizona. today we learned where that republican road show is traveling next. today the republican leader of the pennsylvania senate, the president protemp of the pennsylvania senate says his state will be next. she starting a, quote, forensic investigation of the presidential vote in pennsylvania. they call it forensic to make it seem like it was a scene of the crime. he said hearings will start this week. it is not an auspicious thing to note that he announced that this investigation will be started

during an interview with a right wing talk radio host. he also made sure to tell that radio host that former president trump has been kept up to speed on the plans to go ahead with this investigation, and trump is good with it. oh, good. there are no credible reports of election fraud in pennsylvania in the presidential election. all counties in the states have had their resulted audited. but sure. why not? gravy train still moving. why not get on before it gets to its final spot. watch this space.

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