viking. exploring the world in comfort. if it's wednesday, the secretary of state blinken prepares to meet reporters following the president's promise that today, we'll get a detailed report about how many americans and american allies are still in afghanistan to be evacuated as the administration scrambles to get everyone out, or as many as they can, ahead of what appears to be a hardening august 31st deadline. all this comes as the president faces fury and frustration from officials at the cia, the pentagon, in congress, and around the world. as thousands of afghans who helped the u.s. and its allies are likely to be left behind. and later, promises, promises.

speaker pelosi strikes a deal with moderates in her caucus to advance the massive reconciliation bill. just how big were the concessions she made to the moderates? progressives are just about to find out. welcome to "meet the press" daily. i'm chuck todd. six days to go until president biden hits that august 31st deadline to fully withdraw all troops from afghanistan. six days from now is also the deadline to evacuate any remaining americans along with the afghan officials who have risked their lives to help us. reporters have been asking the white house for days, how many americans are left in afghanistan and for days, the biden administration has been answering that question with how many people have already been evacuated. but today is the day we do expect to learn at least somewhat of an answer to the question of how many americans remain to be evacuated.

he announced that blinken would provide the numbers today. he was supposed to brief last hour. those has been pushed to later this afternoon. regardless of how long it will take to evacuate, it's becoming increasingly apparent that many afghans who are desperate to flee the taliban will not be able to get out of the country, including thousands who helped the u.s. in the past 20 years. one official told nbc news that he's nauseated at how many afghan allies are likely to be left behind. this morning, they announced 19,000 were evacuated yesterday, bringing the total to more than 82,000 since last weekend. it's been quite the effort in the last week when the capital began to fall to the taliban and this got started. in addition, 10,000 people right now are at the airport waiting for departure, but today's announcement comes less than 24 hours after the president said he's going to stick to this august 31st deadline despite calls from lawmakers and western

allies to extend it due to concerns that the timeline will result in too many people being left behind. >> we are currently on a pace to finish by august the 31st. the sooner we can finish, the better. each day of operations brings added risk to our troops but the completion of august 31st depends upon the taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport for those we're transporting out and no disruptions to our operation. >> now the president held firm even after g-7 allies in a virtual meeting tried to convince him to extend the deadline and after the taliban warned the u.s. not to do this decision. just the latest move by the president to draw scrutiny here and abroad over the withdrawal. we'll know a week from now whether the evacuation deadline was achievable. it's going to take much longer to fully grasp the consequences of the last two weeks. in terms of what it means for biden's presidency and america's

standing in the world. he can politically recover from this but it doesn't mean it doesn't create international problems for the u.s. for years and decades. joining me now is kelly o'donnell, andrea mitchell and ann brown. kelly, let me start with you. we're getting more details about the negotiations that were attempted with the taliban by, we assume, the cia director since he was the one that met with the head of the taliban. they were just looking for four extra days and they didn't get it. is august 31st, hardening or do think still think they can move this? >> well, it's hard to answer that because the definition of what remains in the mission needs to be answered and that's what we'll look to secretary of state blinken for, to know when is the mission complete, you need to know how many americans remain and how many afghans who are in the siv. special immigrant visa category. how many are possible to remove.

so that's one calculation. what we understand from talking with senior officials is that the military advisers to the president were firm in saying the august 31st date was important to them. we know there have been threats presented to the president for potential terror acts against the airport or u.s. forces, civilians that are there, that would disrupt the evacuations potentially if that were to occur. you can only imagine the bag of horribles that would come with that. so these competing forces, so you had a president who had basically not taken the advice of his military commanders about this decision to withdraw. they wanted some footprint of u.s. presence. now needing to take their advice again on how to make this final exit and it appears the president is willing to listen to that august 31st deadline with the important caveat that he has asked for these contingency plans from state and department of defense for what to do if they determine in the

final hours the mission is not yet complete. so defining that is so critical. if it spills into a few extra days, what happens? what happens with the taliban? are there enough u.s. forces? the u.s. has also been relying on turkey for some additional support in securing the airport. they were clear today at the pentagon that once this mission ends, the u.s. is no longer responsible for the airport that has been the scene of air lifts so then who's hands does it fall into presumably, the taliban. presumably, it won't be called hamid karzai airport any longer either. so it is a delicate situation and defining the number of americans believed to be in country wanting to come back to the united states is critical to knowing is this mission close to being complete. chuck? >> and that's a number we have not been able to find, kelly o'donnell. thank you. in fact, andrea, let me just play. here's what president biden almost anticipating all of our

questions yesterday as he was speaking yesterday afternoon. and he made this promise about today and the secretary of state. take a listen. >> and i want to again thank all of our allies and partners around the world who have rallied in support of our shared mission. we are going to stay united, locked at the hip, in terms of what we have to do. we'll get that done. and tomorrow, i've asked secretary blinken to give you an update and a detailed report on exactly how many americans are still in afghanistan. how many are out and what our projection is. >> so, andrea mitchell, i think a week ago was understandable, we didn't know. how long before it's no longer understandable that we don't know how many people we have left to get out? >> there's a difference between understandable or politically viable because they said from

the beginning that they couldn't tell you how many americans were still in afghanistan because many of them left without notifying the state department that they had left or didn't register in the first place as they are requested to do. so they may not have even known what is the original universe of americans. in fact, they said they didn't. so how are they going to come up with a number of every last american that's still there to satisfy the president's performance, i'm going to get every american out by the deadline? because what if something happens to remaining americans? after that deadline? and don't have those contingency plans laid out yet. this is really complicated. and that doesn't even speak to why, to explain to the rest of the world why we're putting the priority on american citizens. we understand that here. that is what he's going to have to have his people explain to congress and hearings yet to come, but we have thousands of

afghan allies who fought beside our soldiers. who died on those battlefields. 75,000 of them by any count. and plus, all of those lawyers and educators and judges and human rights activists and teachers. to say nothing of the you know, non, you know, occupationally defined women and girls. we've all been told for 20 years, this can be your life. you can be, a robotic engineer. you can be on the afghan soccer team. you know, you can do sports. you can be a judge. you can be part of government. in fact, it was constitutionally mandated there be a required quota of women in the parliament there in their first constitution. so we're leaving them behind. there's frantic charter flights and other flights. the military exits for those who can get past the gates. richard engel was just on the phone with us saying there's been problem, a hiccup, at the

gates, if you could call it that, where the taliban was cracking down and not letting afghans through who had decent papers. these are the contingents the president anticipated when he said this is the hard and fast deadline, but we may have to adjust if the taliban don't let them get through. >> so, you know, it was interesting, "the new york times" has tried to answer this question also today. our friend laura jakes had a great piece about it. she had the number of afghan allies, could be as many as 3,000. when we see the white house touting 80,000 had been evacuated then hear about the 300,000 number, is that a realistic number? is that what others in the state department would accept? >> to me, that is realistic from talking to people. to foreign service officers. there were thousands in the u.s. embassy we didn't even tell we were evacuated.

they were u.s. employees. ryan crocker says he's hearing from around the world, from other posts, where we rely on thousands and thousands of these local hires to run our embassies. this is being noted that they were not told and they don't live in the embassy compound so they were out in kabul fighting to get to the barriers, those gates, and not getting through in many cases. >> andrea mitchell, as always, on top of this and we know you'll be at the state department briefing. done a lot of tap dancing this week. we move own to ian bremer. i want to put up something boar boris johnson said. there is some carrots here to negotiate with the taliban. if those huge funds are going to be unfrozen eventually for use by the government and people of

afghanistan, then what we're saying is afghanistan can't lurch back. girls will be educated after the age of 18 and so on. is that a fig leaf to the taliban? is that a premise that it's inevitable that we're going to have to figure out how to live with the taliban and negotiate with them? is this something that we have to do right now in order to guarantee the safety of getting these folks out? >> i think guaranteeing the safety of the remaining americans is much more stick than carrot. that is if if you don't let these americans out, and they're trying to get out even beyond august 31st, you risk being struck directly militarily by the united states and allies. i'm fairy confident that message was delivered directly by the head of the cia, bill burns, to the head of the taliban just a couple of days ago. that's very different from all of these tens or hundreds of

thousands of afghans that have been working with the americans on the coalition forces there. the taliban has very little incentive to let them go. many of them are being stopped even right now while the united states sill controls kabul international airport. they don't want to see the brain drain. they certainly don't want lots of dissidents outside the country on american and western air waves making more problems for the taliban government. the kind of behavior that this taliban government would need to show on the ground that would allow the americans to unfreeze the assets that, the 9 billion in central bank reserves that they no longer have access to. they have only days of operating assets to work with. i don't see that coming, chuck. now i also think there's going to be a difference between the american and european response.

i see the italian prime minister trying to coordinate an emergency g-20. they're much more worried about refugees and drug trade and islamic terrorism. wouldn't surprise me if they're more willing to engage in humanitarian support and have a lower bar with the taliban than the americans will. >> i was just going to say how much of an island do you think the u.s. will be on and will it be all the g-7 or do you think it will splinter? >> i think it's going to splinter. this meeting that happened yesterday was very different than the u.s. back coordination we saw in cornwall a couple of months ago. the joint statement had nothing of substance to offer. the europeans had weak comments after. they're not happy about the biden administration having made this decision and executed the

evacuation on the ground unilaterally. they're not happy about the americans saying august 31st and that's it. but biden, i think, is making a calculated political decision that his, his decline in popularity in the u.s., as long as he gets all the americans out, will be short-term and that no one in the u.s. is going to vote on afghanistan come midterms or come 2024. that's a very different perspective than how the american allies, particularly that fought side by side with the u.s. in the nato coalition, are feeling and reacting. >> and ian, this is what i want to get out because i think there's a lot of nay eve criticism. dmesically, this may not be a big problem, but internationally, what does this introduce in the next three to five years that should concern

the united states when it comes to our dealings with our western allies? >> i think that particularly we're talking about the nato allies. the european allies. canada's fully integrated with the u.s. economically, militarily, you name it. that's not going anywhere. the u.s. is focused much more on china as a principle, as the principle strategic threat and competitor and they're engaged in the quad and they are pivoting to asia. i think the japanese, the south koreans, the australians much more worried about china and the u.s. pullout of afghanistan. i think those relations are strong. i'm not worried about taiwan, particularly, but specifically on europe where you're talking about countries that have really, they were really concerned about four years of america first under trump and they believed, they wanted to believe that biden coming in meant that we could start to rebuild collective values, coordinate the policy and trust. and even though they like biden a lot more than trump with the

exception of say hungary's prime minister, viktor orban, this has really dealt a blow. and angela merkel's likely successor, the next likely chancellor, has referred to this american withdrawal as the biggest debacle since nato's founding. that's a stunning statement from the likely next german chancellor about the biden administration. that, chuck, is damage that's going to take a long time to unwind and if i were advising biden personally right now, i'd say those are the trips you need to make as we start traveling. those are the places you're going to need to engage a lot more because that is going to last a lot longer than the afghan headlines here in the united states. >> right. but ian, when will europeans learn america's never going to be europe? they always seem to be disappointed when we don't act like a european diplomat, right? but anyway. >> they do. i agree. >> yeah.

yeah. all right. kelly o'donnell, andrea mitchell, ian bremer, thank you all for getting us started. coming up, anger inside the intel community over the prospect of leaving afghan allies behind. plus, another possible incident of this mysterious havana syndrome. john brennan joins me on both of those topics, next. and later, another potential shot in the arm as the delta variant surges. johnson & johnson says a second shot of their vaccine will give a big boost to their antibodies. we'll have more on that coming up as well. ntibodies. we'll have more on that coming up as well hey joshie... wrinkles send the wrong message. help prevent them with downy wrinkleguard. feel the difference with downy. we did it again. verizon has been named america's most reliable network by rootmetrics. and our customers rated us #1 for network quality in america according to j.d. power.

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introducing xfinity rewards. so you can go from saving... to living. our very own way of thanking you just for being with us. enjoy rewards like movie night specials. xfinity mobile benefits. ...and exclusive experiences, like the chance to win tickets to see watch what happens live. hey! it's me. the longer you've been with us... the more rewards you can get. like sharpening your cooking skills with a top chef. join for free on the xfinity app and watch all the rewards float in. our thanks. your rewards. it's been more than a week since the taliban overtook kabul as part of a rapid push across afghanistan and with the president's deadline just days away, security officials are facing pressure. we'll explain how they got this so wrong. one official told nbc last week

that no official estimate has been pessimistic enough for just how quickly afghanistan has fallen to the taliban and now with evacuations ramping up and time running out, we have new nbc reporting on the toll this crisis is taking. people are furious and disgusted, said one former intelligence official. one defense official said he grew nauseated as he considered how many afghan allies would be left behind. joining me now is someone who spent more than a decade as a top u.s. security leader, former director of the cia and an nbc news security analyst, john brennan. as always, thank you for being here. i want to get to the havana syndrome situation as well as we had another potential incident in vietnam where the vice president's visiting. i want to start with just your, if you have a sense of how many, when we were all trying to figure out how many people are left to be evacuated, there's americans then this next group

of afghan allies. i'm sure you saw the times story that there could be as many as 300,000. that's your sense of the number and how many do you think we've gotten out? >> well, i think there are many tens of thousands more who certainly are eligible to come in based on the criteria that's been established by the administration. they worked with us. i'm sure the number goes into the hundreds of thousands if not more of afghans who really are quite concerned about what's going to happen to them and their families when the taliban is going to be firmly in control of the country. so i don't think our job is done. it's going to be really difficult to get even those who are eligible to come out, out by the end of this month. but i am concerned that there are going to be too many afghans left behind. those who stood with us, fought with us and who were injured or had family members who died with us, are going to be left wanting at the airport or outside the

airport at kabul when we finally pull out. >> assuming we end up having to stick to this august 31st deadline, what are the realistic ways we can still get afghan allies out? is u.s. just through negotiation with the taliban? is it covert missions? are those too dangerous? what are the plans cs, ds, and es here? >> i think plan a is to stay at kabul airport as long as we can to effect the safe evacuation of the folks we want to get out. and yes, we need to talk with the taliban, but i don't think we should allow the taliban to dictate to us. it's why i was heartened that bill burns went out there and spoke with mula to tell him what our plans are. also i think to send a clear message that the united states is going to hold the taliban responsible for any violence that's perpetrated before the 31st and also i would like to think that if we decide to stay after the 31st, if the taliban decides to take drastic actions

against us, there will be some serious consequences. i think we need to hold on to the airport as long as we can. then afterward, we need to work with humanitarian organizations and others to see who else might be able to get out because i know that the turmoil within afghanistan is not going to end at all once our planes and our military leaves. it's going to continue for months and years ahead. >> is it wise to use the money as leverage here with the taliban or do you think that implies we may recognize them and that's not something we should ever do? >> i think it's wise to use whatever sticks and carrots we have and clearly, the taliban is going to be very interested in having the capability to govern. to take care of afghanistan. and the money flow into the taliban is going to be critically important to them. and so i would say that yes, we should look at those levers and see which ones we need to tap. it doesn't imply there's going to be any type of near term,

democratic recognition of the taliban government, but i think there are some things we can do in this interim period when they are in control, but not the recognized government of afghanistan, and to ensure that what we do is not going to further empower the taliban, hopefully not, but we'll take care of the humanitarian needs of the afghan people. we don't want the afghan people to suffer any more than they already have as a result of staving off or starving off that money flow into afghanistan. so i think we have to find some creative ways to get that money in there. at the same time, extract from the taliban certain concessions and certain understandings about what they will and won't do when they're in control. >> if you were in your old job and the president of the united states asked you for an intelligence briefing that was, what is the ambition of the taliban? what is the ultimate ambitious? what would you say to a president who asked you that question? >> i would say that the taliban

itself is a different organization than it was when it left afghanistan in 2001 or when it was pushed out of power in kabul. although it has demonstrated i think tremendous discipline over the last year or so in terms of taking the fight to the afghan government, it is not a monolith. there are moderates and hard liners and extremists in the organization. now that they are governing, it's going to be much more challenging to them than fighting the afghan government. so i think we're going to have to watch and see whether mullah is going to see that there are certain things he is going to have to do in order to govern effectively and to be able to engage with the international community. so i would say that we need to sort of watch and wait and look at what's going to happen and hold the taliban accountable. not buy its words, but by its actions in the country. how it treats the afghan people. especially afghan women. and i think take it from there.

>> all right. let me pivot to havana syndrome and before i get into the specifics, how would you, if somebody asked you on the street, hey, i keep hearing about havana syndrome. what is it? how would you describe it? >> it's a phenomenon that affects individuals in very serious ways in terms of their health. and it can affect one's vertigo as well as just how they deal with issues and their thinking process. it is unclear exactly, still, as far as i know, what the actual cause is. it could be directed energy purposely going after u.s. officials, diplomats and others, in order to send a message or to just hurt us. the intelligence community i know has now redoubled its efforts, certainly under this administration, to try to find

the cause of the symptoms and what is having this effect on individuals that first started in havana, then was in china. we've had it in russia. now we have it in thailand, vietnam. so i think there's just great concern that there's still a lot that is unknown about it. how we're going to be able to mitigate it and try to keep our diplomats and others safe as they carry out their responsibilities abroad. >> why has this been so difficult to figure out? is it we're not sure of the technology or is it frankly we didn't buy, we weren't 100% sure there was something behind it and now we are, that it took us a while to sort of, okay, this seems to be intentional? >> well, i think there's just a lot of unknowns still. and when it was just first happening in a place like havana, we thought maybe the cubans were involved in this with the assistance of some outside actors. but now that it's happened in so many different places, what they have to do is to identify the

reports that claim that there is that havana syndrome case that exists in different places. and separate out those that might have other health or medical issues involved, but i still think that there's still a lot of questions about the science, the physics. the technologies involved. and i think that the intelligence community is rightly looking in depth at this issue. they're taking care of the people who are affected by this. but it's critically important for us to understand it so we can prevent these attacks in the future. >> yeah. wow. especially many of the people being attacked are fellow colleagues in this world. anyway. former cia director, john brennan, appreciate you coming on. thank you, sir. >> thanks. you can hear a lot more from john brennan by the way about afghanistan. my friday episode of the chuck toddcast. we've got a brand-new episode up today. taking a little bit of a bigger picture of the current political

landscape. trying to lift up a little bit here. not just focus on the day-to-d you get your podcasts. next, democrats make a deal. scoring a deal. it puts joe manchin in the hot seat. we'll explain after the break. nt seat we'll explain after the break. um, she's eating the rocket. ♪♪ lunchables! built to be eaten. as i observe investors balance risk and reward, i see one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold. your strategic advantage.

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♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ after days of back and forth, speaker pelosi did cut a deal with moderates that will

allow the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill to move forward, to begin the process. that's a win for pelosi. but the details of the deal appear to be a bigger win for moderates in both the house and senate than perhaps was first realized. here's why. to get the moderates on board, pelosi committed to voting on the bipartisan infrastructure bill by september 27th. put a date on it. now she also committed that the house will only consider a reconciliation package that can get 51 votes in the senate. translation? house moderates perhaps won't have to vote on something that would be doomed in the 50/50 senate. and it probably means that senators joe manchin and kirsten cinema will have to agree to any deal before it gets to the house. so the price tag that you've been hearing so much about, be prepared. the number's going down. the question is, how much. it's all of this is, you know,

there's no contractual obligation to this. speaker could eventually do whatever she wants here. but it seems quite notable to me, and in fact, she seemed to reiterate it, the big concession is not voting on a bill until it has 51 votes, 50 votes essentially plus one, in the senate. you know, the history of cap and trade in 2010. the btu tax in 1993. there are some house democrats with that memory. this seems to be a big concession by speaker pelosi. >> right. and there are two concessions that moderate house democrats got, chuck. the first is of course that september 27th deadline to vote on the senate passed infrastructure bill. the second one and you point this out, it's very important that pelosi is saying that the house is not going to vote on a document. a reconciliation bill that cannot pass the senate. that means it's got to be prenegotiated with the senate and that the house is going to move first. why is that a win for moderates?

the progressives wanted the house to come up with a bigger reconciliation package. fine. they're making their demands now. progressives have their own demands. house democrat, many of them at least wanted to pass their vision of it and potentially negotiate it with the senate. but ultimately, it look like they're going to need the support of 50 democratic senators to get something in the house. that is not a small concession, but it does, however, chuck, hasten the timeline. progressives may not be ready to vote on for the infrastructure package if the reconciliation bill is not ready for them by then. >> you know, it's interesting. progressives, the congressional progressive caucus put out a statement saying they remain committed to voting on reconciliation before the infrastructure or simultaneously. i get that, but to me, they didn't comment on the other part. did speaker pelosi just exchange

one problem with moderates with now a new problem with progressives? >> yes, she absolutely did. if the reconciliation bill is not ready by then. if it is and progressives are content with it, then it's not going to be a problem for them. they're happy with the senate-passed infrastructure bill, but they don't want to do it at the expense of reconciliation getting shrunk. if it's not done by then, progressives are going to have a very difficult decision to make. they will have to decide on september 27th whether to vote for president biden's bill and give up leverage on reconciliation or block that and deal a humiliating defeat to the president of their party and really the entire party. >> the january 6 select committee announced it first records question today and it is a monster records request. i'm just putting up a partial list of people whose communications on the day of january 6th inside the white

house, in different cabinet agencies. you can see the list there. outsiders like giuliani and bannon. insiders like mark meadows, robert o'brien. this is a monster list. they have until early september to produce it. what is it or else if these folks do not produce all of their communications? >> it is an extraordinary trove of document requests here by this question and it's an opening salvo. they're looking at any and all communications pertaining to then president donald trump and the january 6th demonstrations. they want to kind of create a top to bottom look at his activities, his schedule. they want meetings, calendars, logs. or else is potentially subpoenas down the road. now, that's not specified here. they're requesting things now, but if they don't get what they want, then that could be another weapon they use down the road. >> i believe it was liz cheney

at the hearing said they wanted to know everything that happened that day with the president. every minute. every contact. well, this records request shows that's, if they get all this, they actually can recreate that. sahel, thank you. coming up, it's one of the covid questions i've been asking about for weeks. if you've had the johnson & johnson vaccine, you might want to listen up because you are very likely going to need a booster shot in the near future. and it's not just any booster shot. we'll have the details, next. bo shot we'll have the details, next

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johnson & johnson took a potential call for a second dose. the company stating today a second shot generates quote, a rapid response raising the antibodies nine fold in some.

it's the only single-shot vaccine authorized for distribution in the united states and questions about the need and available for second shots have been growing after the cdc has been recommending them for pfizer and moderna. joining me now to discuss more is msnbc medical contributor, dr. vin gupta. dr. gupta, we've been talking about this for a while, the johnson & johnson situation. it's in comparative to pfizer and moderna recipients, it's a small group of folks, but it feels like everything had been geared toward the pfizer and moderna crowd. this is the company putting this out. how quickly do you expect the fda to take this study and at least recommend an emergency second dose? >> good afternoon, chuck. good to see you. i think it's going to be

important for regulators at the fda to understand the optimal time between dose one and two. this study today separated dose one and two of the johnson & johnson doses. so exact same doses. just got two six months apart. of those people they studied, antibody levels shot through the roof after the second dose six months later. the second study that's being published shortly, in the next few weeks by johnson & johnson, is looking at spacing out the doses by two months. it's going to be really important is it two months between the doses? six? but it appears that interval of dosing is going to be vital as we provide this additional guidance. >> now, we know that there are some people who took it on, took it upon themselves if they got the johnson & johnson, to get maybe one shot of moderna or one shot of pfizer. and i think you and i had talked about it. i've talked about it with other doctors. nobody was technically

recommending it and nobody was not, wasn't sure whether it would be, but didn't think it was going to be an unsafe thing for people to do. what do you tell people that decided to do that? >> i think it's the right decision and now with the pfizer vaccine, the fda coming out saying as much, off label uses of vaccine are now possible versus during the eua, this is all of us speculating, us talking about what we'd like to see. now a doctor can say you know what, we can use the pfizer vaccine off label to boost up a one-shot jnj. that is now possible in a way it wasn't just seven days ago. this is going to be more psychology than science. there are people out there, i've spoken to several this morning, who say you know what, because of the reputation of the johnson & johnson vaccine, all these rare side effects that have been noted with it, now people say i

want a shot of pfizer or moderna as a boost, they should be allowed to get that. i'd like to see a formalized process where people are explained the risks and benefits. they recognize that clinical trial of mixing and matching is still underway, but based on what we're seeing, that they should be able to do that off label. >> dr. gupta, if somebody has gotten the one, say you did the second shot with pfizer. would you then go on a pfizer protocol after that and basically then get a second shot, three to four weeks then a third shot eight months later? >> you know, and chuck, this is me speculating. my medical opinion, not something that has been regulated. to get that third boost, yes, i think what we've realized based on the global experience with mixing and matching is that it's safe and equally effective. so whatever that third shot is,

if you've got one dose jnj, second dose pfizer, it appears based on a global experience, mixing and matching is safe. >> dr. gupta, trying to get a medical opinion on this especially for the johnson & johnson community. dr. gupta, thank you. i'm going to speak with a top medical expert from mississippi in a few minutes who says her state has failed. as the hospital there is become increasingly overwhelmed, icu beds are in extremely short supply. they have a couple. the state next door, alabama, has none. next door, alabama, has none ♪ ♪ i had the nightmare again maxine. the world was out of wonka bars... relax. you just need digital workflows. they help keep everyone supplied and happy, proactively. let's workflow it. then you can stop having those nightmares.

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welcome back. covid cases continue to surge down south, particularly in mississippi and driving the state's covid hospitalization rate to an all-time high. the viral rate is so high, the governor reeves issued an isolation order and it means that it is a felony for people who tested positivity for the virus to break isolation. in the past two week, the university of mississippi medical center, the state's only level i trauma center has had to set up a second field hospital in the parking garage and they have done it twice, and now they have set up the second parking garage. i am now joined by the vice

chancellor of public affairs. and i am sure that you never thought in the planning that a second parking garage would be needed, and what you are experiencing no one here in northeast or the mid-atlantic, we are not seeing that surge, and it appears to be one reason, vaccination rate. >> that's right. so typically mississippians are good about rallying together in a time of need or a time of disaster, but for reasons that really evade me, we have not had a good uptake of the vaccine. there is a resistance in many cases in wearing masks. so what we are seeing now is a result of those actions. we are at a place where we are providing health care in parking garages because we could not rally and get the adequate number of people vaccinated and like i said, people are reluctant to wear a mask.

>> precovid, would you classified mississippi as a state with the higher than usual anti-vaxxer population? >> i would not. you know, i think that just as a part of our history in mississippi is that we like to feel independent, and like to resist people telling us what to do, but despite that we had a high compliance of childhood vaccines and one of the bragging points is that we led the country in childhood vaccination rates, and so that is something that we were really proud of. this has taken me a little bit we are as more and more people are getting sick and individuals are actually, and it is becoming personal, they are knowing

people in their family and having family members dying or getting very sick, we are seeing an increase in uptake in the vaccine, but we are way behind. >> the staffing shortage, and we have been hearing about this all over the southeast these days. paint the picture there. i mean, if i am not mistaken, the governor has classified emts now as emergency nurses? >> not quite that, but we have an approval for emts and paramedics to work in hospitals and to provide some help to nurses, but not exactly as nurses. >> okay. >> technically. but it is actually just awful. it is terrible right now the situation that we are in from the staff shortage, and it is primarily nurse, but it is also respiratory therapists and other types of staff that are the front-line caregivers. the folks that have been working throughout this entire pandemic

and have endured so much are fatigued, frustrated and many, many cases outright angry that we are in this position, and part of it is that even though a few months ago, the covid numbers were lower, we were still really, really busy, and we had not caught up in the health care delivery from the previous surge. people seeking care for things they had put off a year ago. so we were not at a point of feeling like we had caught our breath when this most recent surge hit. it is really kind of knocking the wind out of us. >> quickly on the children. are you seeing an alarming uptick enough that makes you think that we are nervous for the kids in schools are going to be doing with the delta variant? >> absolutely. we have more children in the hospital now, and we are seeing more sick children with covid than at any point in the last 20

months, and they are not only children who have pre-existing conditions. these are the children who are healthy. >> dr. lou ann woodward of the mississippi medical center and important reality check for everyone in america to see what is going on down there. thank you. thank you all for being with us, and we will be back with you tomorrow for "meet the press daily." and we will continue with jeff bennett and more remarks from secretary blinken about getting out of afghanistan. tting out of afghanistan. uh, they are a little tight. like, too tight? might just need to break 'em in a little bit. you don't want 'em too loose. for those who were born to ride there's progressive. with 24/7 roadside assistance. -okay. think i'm gonna wear these home. -excellent choice.

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