effects from the vaccine itself, your risks of what can happen to you or your loved one if you do not get vaccinated are astro no, ma'am higher. >> thank you to our health care workers and thank you for getting up way too early with us on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. we know that our fda has, in many ways, failed us by not allowing for the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. >> i pelted them with questions about 11 and the vaccine and ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as well as other proactive treatments and practices already helping covid-19 patients across the country. >> joe, people listening to that kind of advice, calls to the alabama poison center over

exposure to ivermectin have more than doubled this the year as people continue to use it in an attempt to prevent or treat covid-19. ivermectin has not been approved for treating covid-19 in humans. the fda tweeting the other day this, you are not a horse. you are not a cow. seriously, y'all, stop it. of course some of our nbc reporters have called to stores who sell this stuff, they say they can't keep this stuff, it's flying off the shelves because of what we're hearing there. >> those words lifted straight from my fifth grade teacher, actually, in mississippi. y'all are not a horse. y'all are not a cow. seriously, y'all stop it. unfortunately we're talking about people guiding americans to use deworming treatment for

cows. and for horses. and it's one of the strange things, willie, that again we talk about this a good bit. something we'll never understand is this resistance to the vaccine. the safest vaccine, as we heard yesterday, safer if you look at the numbers than aspirin. and people will -- the last president of the united states was talking about bleach, using bleach and then, of course, poison control and fda said don't use bleach. scam medications that governors will buy tons of. fda, please don't take hydroxychloroquine for covid. it does not work. and here we have, again, now we're talking about deworming medicine for cows. that people are actually trying instead of, let's say it again, probably what will go down as the safest vaccine in history. certainly if you have pfizer,

moderna, even j&j, those numbers though we focused on it a lot, are extraordinarily low as far as negative effects. and historians ten, 20, 30 years from now are going to look back and say, what are these people doing? it's like they're putting on leeches when they were sitting outside the cleveland clinic. it'll just make no sense for people looking back at this time. >> it's truly mystifying but again this is what people are hearing in their information filters, in the media from the people they trust, try this anti-parasitic drug used on live stock instead of the fda approved vaccine that was developed in had miracle time that could put an end to this. officials in two southern alabama counties have moved in morgue trailers in anticipation of a rise in deaths there. one was placed in mobile,

another in folly. this according to a spokesman with the alabama department of public health. hospitals in both counties are struggling with morgue capacity. overall only 34% of residents in both counties are vaccinated. meanwhile, in florida more people are catching covid-19 and dying. yesterday they broke the single day state's total record with 26,000 cases. hospitalizations have tripled in the past month. georgia deployed 100 national guard troops to hospitals across the state to help staff with the rising number of covid cases. governor brian kemp said they'll be going to ten hospitals to assist with the overwhelming number of cases. last week, governor kemp signed

an executive order to prevent local officials from enacting covid relating mandates and other restrictions to limit the spread of the coronavirus. johnson & johnson said it has evidence that people who received a one shot dose could benefit from a booster shot after six months. tom costello has the latest. >> reporter: new protection could be on the way for the 14 million americans who received the one-shot johnson & johnson vaccine. last month j&j reported its single shot still provides protection against covid strong and stable through eight months of immunization. now it reports that an added booster shot increased antibody protection nine times. >> this is a fabulous vaccine. it is. the data out this morning suggests a second j&j shot six months later gives you a huge increase in your antibody

levels. >> reporter: relief for those who received the j&j vaccine. keith alberts admits he's been concerned. >> i feel a whole lot better. i feel like this is what i've been waiting for. i've been waiting to hear this. there was nothing ever mentioned about a booster for johnson. it was all pfizer and moderna. >> reporter: with the delta variant spreading fast, the biden administration is eager to offer boosters, six to eight months after americans are fully vaccinated starting next month. but is it safe to mix boosters? giving a pfizer or moderna booster to someone who got the j&j shot? overseas study suggest yes. >> the data suggests mixing johnson & johnson and say pfizer or moderna would lead to incredibly high effectiveness levels and that's very promising . >> it's not clear how long the protection would last. the boost comes as more government agencies and

employers issue vaccine mandate, now including the pentagon, the city of chicago, disney and delta airlines which said unvaccinated employees will have to pay an extra $200 each month for health benefits. >> so you have delta airlines one of the most prominent businesses in the country saying we will fine employees who don't get the vaccine. we have governors abbott and desantis and governor kemp in georgia threatening businesses saying you cannot put in mask mandates, vaccine mandates, it will be against the law in our states. small government conservatives, self-confessed, telling small businesses what they can and did not do. >> if you're a governor of a state you're telling a small business owner what they cannot do to keep their businesses safe. you're telling a family

restaurant in dalton, georgia what to do. and actually demanding from the governor's mansion, if you think it's in your best interest, if you think it's in your safety for yourself, your family, your employees, your restaurant, if you think it's best for your bottom line, we don't care because we want to make some cheap political points. and we're going to ban you from doing that. willie, it's just -- it is the most un -- it is the most big government centralized state move that you could do to have a governor reach in and tell a small business owner anywhere across your state, what they can or cannot do for what they think is best for their business. best for their bottom line. best for their own safety. it's crazy. i have to say, also, you look at states like texas and florida -- i mean, in florida, the case numbers are booming. the pediatric wards are filled up in so many counties across

the state of florida. the numbers just keep skyrocketing. and yet you have governors that are virtue signaling to 25% of the population. it's just crazy. i will say, i love what delta is doing, though. i love that delta is actually charging more to their employees who are engaging in medically proven risky behavior. you know when you go in and get life insurance they ask you do you do risky things, do you sky dive, scuba dive, go to an lsu home game wearing an alabama jersey? if you do any of those things you get a higher rate. no reason why for health insurance we shouldn't see these things happening. that's fair to the rest of the people there who are doing the right thing. >> yeah, it's the -- talking out of both sides of the mouth. let's take governor kemp who we talked about, i'm sending in the

national guard. it's so bad in my state i'm sending national guardsmen into hospital. the other side of his mouth, but you may not do these mitigation efforts at your small business, you may not require masks, vaccines. they're conceding the problem is grave in their states yet not letting school districts in the case of florida or small business in other states do the things they need to do to get on top of the virus. it's mystifying but scoring political points. there's more to say about covid across the country. but we want to turn to afghanistan, five days left to meet with withdrawal deadline. as many as 1,500 americans still need a way out of the country. >> reporter: with the desperate rush to leave before the august 31st deadline, the biden administration estimated 1,500 americans are still stranded in

afghanistan. tony blinken saying 6,000 were there when the country fell to the taliban, 4,500 have been evacuated since and the u.s. has made contact with at least 500 still there. >> for the remaining roughly 1,000 contacts we have, who may be americans seeking to leave afghanistan we're reaching out to them multiple times a day. >> reporter: the new figure is a steep drop from the original estimate of 10 to 15,000 americans. blinken making this pledge. >> there is no deadline on our work to help any remaining american citizens who decide they want to leave to do so, along with the many afghans who have stood by us. >> but this response when we asked president biden what he'll do if americans are still in afghanistan after the 31st. what will you do if americans are still there after the deadline? >> you'll be the first person i call. >> reporter: republicans blasting the president. >> he turned his back on our own

citizens stranded in afghanistan. he turned our back on our allies and our party fers. he has turned his back on his duties as commander and chief. >> reporter: and sharp rebuke by a pair of congressmen. saying it's obvious that because we started the evacuation so late that no matter what we do we won't get it done on time. but the trip is sparking a fierce backlash. >> there's a call on our sources, this is deadly serious. we do not want members to go. >> reporter: a white house official telling nbc news, every seat on planes leaving should be for someone trying to get out of afghanistan. meanwhile, among those desperate to get out, 24 california students who had gone there to visit their families are still stuck. and an american, whose niece in florida told us the taliban is

blocking their aunt from getting through the checkpoints. >> she's told you don't have a guardian with you, you can't travel without a male. she's told your paperwork is incorrect. given different excuses. >> peter alexander reporting there. let's bring in geoff bennett. good morning. >> good morning. >> help our viewers sort this out. we heard president biden is sticking to the august 31st deadline, come hell or high water. then yesterday we had the secretary of state tony blinken saying there's no deadline getting people out of the country, so which is it? >> reporter: i'll explain it this way. president biden is moving forward with withdrawing all u.s. troops by this august 31st date. what you heard from secretary blinken is he's saying if if there are afghans and even americans who remain in country after that august 31st exit deadline, he says that they will use every resource available,

not just u.s. resources but even resources among u.s. allies, economic and diplomatic to try to evacuate those remaining afghans or americans. that will be extraordinarily difficult. there are more questions than answers about how that process would work, willie. but to give you one sense of alarming deterioraing situation around the airport, yesterday the state department warned american citizens who might be outside the airfield to immediately leaf and you have officials pointing to what they said was a specific and credible threat on the crowds by isis-k. the isis affiliate in afghanistan. and that's one of the reasons that biden was ready to stick to the deadline he said every day they spend on the ground there, they face a growing threat. there are roughly 1,500 americans left in afghanistan. the state department is reaching

out to 500 americans to whom they have contacts. one reason it's hard to pin down a number, we heard from the state department yesterday, the u.s. doesn't track american citizens when they're overseas. it's entirely up to americans to register with the state department when they arrive -- when they arrive and leave, if that doesn't happen, you can imagine how it's hard to get a good idea of what the specific number is. that said, you have the white house pointing to the largest evacuation effort in history. not a single american casualty so far. what they're pointing to is really the incredible pace of evacuations but the window is closing. one of the questions is how much longer the pentagon will give this evacuation process before they shift to the process of withdrawing troops, withdrawing and destroying equipment. and then there becomes the question of what happens to the airport, which third party country will potentially work with the taliban to keep that

airport opening and functioning if there are afghans, americans who need to get out beyond the end of the month. >> there certainly will be. it email be interesting to see how america executes on the promise made yesterday to get them out. geoff bennett, thanks so much. joe, that's the question now, on september 1st, if the troops are gone, there's still americans or allies there what does that look like based on what secretary blinken said yesterday, how does the world do it and what's the united states' role in that. >> let's bring in he len cooper and sam stein and david leonard to get those answers. helene, the president is holding strong to the august 31st deadline, wants to get the troops out of there, and yet we see a package that there's

reporting that there are 24 students from california still stuck in afghanistan. when you see stories like that, those deadlines suddenly mean very little. the president and the white house obviously not going to, you know, bring all the troops home and leave california students or other people who want to get out stranded in afghanistan. >> good morning, joe. well, president biden has been adamant that he wants to get out by august 31st. but at the same time, he continues to leave a sliver of a doorway open to evacuate americans if there are americans that have to be gotten out. the pentagon is acting right now as if they are out by august 31st, they will take as many americans out as they can. they've hugely ramped up evacuations in the last few days, as you guys have reported.

but there are going to be -- turkey, for instance, is leaving troops at the airport for now. but turkey is a nato ally of the united states so it's possible that biden administration officials will try to work with the turks to get people out. but once american troops are there with the urgency that they bring to the task, the job just becomes hugely more difficult. it's really hard when you don't have eyes on the ground for any kind of situational awareness as the military likes to call it, to be able to go in and to extract people. that's just going to be a tough -- a tough one. there is -- it's possible there's some americans who don't want to leave. the biden administration will say that. but you're definitely going to have plenty of americans there who do want to get out and once the troops are gone, at that point it becomes a hairier

proposition. >> could you give our audience of an idea of the size and the scope of this evacuation over the past week, the historic scale of the evacuation, made really under extraordinarily difficult conditions? >> it's been a really big -- it's huge. i mean, you can compare it to the berlin air lift, you can look at the philippines, you can look at vietnam where there we evacuated 300,000 people. but -- so when it compares to those, it's not as big, but this has been done under very, very stressed conditions over the past week basically. a week and a half that we've gotten -- and they started out, you know, we were hearing at the beginning after kabul fell last week, sunday -- god, it feels like it was three months ago, not last week -- that they were

getting 500, 100 -- 500 people out, 1,000 people out. and then suddenly, they ramped that up hugely. and that's with the -- as they started counted the days down to august 31st. we saw on sunday that the military got out 11,000 people, a huge number. the next day 21,000. and the next day, it's been going up and up and up. they say they plan to keep those numbers as close to that as they possibly can. so it's been -- it's been a huge undertaking. they've been bringing in, you know, refrigerated trucks and food and water because of sanitary conditions at the karzai international airport were getting pretty bad when you have that many people there. you have problems with sanitation in doha at the air base and staging points where people have been taking. don't forget on the other side

you have state department and homeland security officials who were -- who have tried, not as well as the military, i have to say, because they're still behaving as if if they have -- in some cases as if they have all the time in the world to vet people when you're getting thousands and thousands of people and that bottlenecks there with the vetting has slowed down the military effort to a certain extent. but the diplomats and the consulate officials, the people who have been vetting all of these thousands of refugees who have suddenly come in, moving as fast as they can as well, but going through the same bureaucratic hoops that they've gone through in the past and that's been one criticism is that one official told me a couple of days ago, we need to just have thrown the whole book out on vetting and just bring as many people out once biden made

his decision once we possibly could have, because you can always do the vetting on the back end. >> david, it's been rich to hear people from the trump administration, people on the hill who were donald trump's fiercest defenders talk about how joe biden has betrayed america and botched all of this, when, in fact, you had donald trump attacking joe biden for not leaving earlier. you write about how there was no clean solution. no clean way to get this out. no magic pixie dust that joe biden or anybody else could have sprinkled over this. why didn't we start the evacuation earlier? well, the afghanistan president came and asked the white house, don't start earlier because if the taliban and the government and the troops see this massive evacuation going on, that's going to be a message to them

that we're about to surrender. if you do a counter factual and imagine biden pulls out afghan officials, the same people running the government before kabul falls and then kabul falls well, of course, the united states would have been blamed for causing the fall of kabul. the biden administration has clearly made mistakes here, helene just enumerated a couple of them. but the choice was do we stay in afghanistan forever or do we leave? and once we were going to leave and a bipartisan majority of voters supports leaving. once we were going to leave, there was no way to do it perfectly cleanly because basically there was no way to get everyone out before the city fell without helping to cause the fall of the city. so, yes, the u.s. could have processed visas so much more quickly than it did, and above all the biden administration did not take seriously enough the

possibility that the taliban was going to take over within a matter of days. they should have taken that possibility more seriously and then they could have done more planning for the evacuation. but no matter what, we would have seen scenes of chaos, we would have seen many more people wanting to get out of afghanistan than actually could. for all of our problems in the united states, there's still more people in almost every country in the world who would like to move here than we are going to admit. so i think some of the commentary, particularly for people who for years have been telling us afghanistan is going better than it was. images this solution that we leave and everything goes well, that's a fantasy. >> sam we're going to have senator ben sasse from nebraska on in our next hour. he said a couple days ago, damn the deadline, he wants to get all the people out if it takes a couple extra days or weeks we should extend the deadline and not be married to a date to get

everyone out. what's the sentiment on capitol hill? forget the posturing we saw. but what's the feeling on the deadline? >> i think most would say the deadline, there are few who say and will speak up about the possibility if you do just bust through the deadline, you dramatically increase the risk to the remaining u.s. troops on the ground, that the taliban will essentially target them, if not terrorist remnants in afghanistan. but by and large when you talk to lawmakers who do have to deal with refugees coming into their districts or have constituents in afghanistan, their interests are tied to those considerations and they say bust the deadline to do what it takes to get people out. be flexible and, you know -- and take however long it takes. i will say this, and helene eluded to it earlier. the biden administration has

left the door open here, as much as they're talking about getting everyone out by 8/31, they have notably, in each instance said we are developing contingency plans, the state department and defense department are developing contingency plans in case we cannot do this. i would not be surprised, as joe talked about, doing some deadline extension, they may not call it that, it may be done secretly. but i find it difficult to imagine they would simply pick up and root out and say that's it, we're going to leave how many people behind. >> your latest piece, david, is "a better afghan policy," what it could have looked like in the early years and decades that followed. in hindsight what's a leading theory as to a cleaner way to get in and out of that country? >> i think if you look at history, these long-term wars by

big powers in far away countries have a dismal record, france in algeria, vietnam, the soviet union in afghanistan, the united states in vietnam and now the united states in afghanistan. and i could go on. so when you think about that, i think one of the -- what i look back on is early in the war, after the u.s. swept in and had won and had beaten the taliban, it was possible to image a situation in which you try to create a coalition government there. the taliban offered to surrender, they had certain terms they wanted to agree to. but the bush administration sought total victory, a version in which we the united states would continue to be responsible for afghanistan because if we left the taliban would have taken over again. to me, that's if moment you say wow, what if? what if the u.s. with a little bit more humility early in this century said we don't want to be

responsible for afghanistan indefinitely. so let's come up with a deal. it's not going to be the exact afghanistan we want, but you know what, the exact afghanistan we want can't exist. if we fool ourselves into thinking it is we're follow the path of france in algeria, the soviet union in afghanistan and now the united states in afghanistan. >> we'll find out what afghanistan will look like without the united states. thank you for your time this morning. we appreciate it. the parents of an afghan baby girl born on a u.s. c-17 aircraft have named their baby reach after the baby's call sign. reach's mother went into labor during the flight but suffered low blood pressure, the pilot decided to lower the flight to

increase the air pressure saving the mother's life. all are doing well at ramstein air base in germany. still ahead on "morning joe," inside the pentagon's push to get service members vaccinated against covid immediately. plus the house committee task investigating the january 6th attacks is zeroing in on president trump's inner circle. also ahead, we'll be joined by senator ben sasse who was critical of president biden's deadline, saying this week, damn the deadline, also calling for refugees to find homes in america. we'll talk to him. "morning joe" is right back. him. "morning joe" is right back. ♪ music playing. ♪ there's an america we build ♪ ♪ and one we explore

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one-two. hammers the ball. deep center field. forget about it! gone! two run blast. dodgers back in front. >> we talk a lot on this show about the american league east, we admit it. but man the nl west is the battle to watch. aj pollock's home run ends a 16 inning game. the dodgers are great, giants better, padres slumping lately but only a game out of the wild card. that's an incredible division. the problem is the games end about the time we're waking up so we don't talk about them enough. >> exactly. someone told me we're all playing for second place whoever ends up winning the nl west.

an extraordinary group of teams. it's hard to remember three teams as stacked as the dodgers and the padres and the giants. you have to say the giants organization, along with the cardinals, year in, year out, they just keep -- they just keep winning. you expect them to be out of it and the organization always reloads. they won the world series in '10, then '12 and '14. now they're probably the best team and division we've seen in a very long time. >> and the dodgers are great. and yet holding off the -- the giants are holding off the dodgers team. let's get back to the east. enough of the west. >> kind of weird there. >> the red sox failed you may have seen last night to gain ground in the wild card race. off night for the the yankees and the a's both teams preparing

for a four-game series tonight. but they fell 9-6 against the twins. the bullpen giving up five runs. yankees three up in the wild card standings. the red sox they're in the playoffs right now. yankees, red sox one game to get into the big dance and the a's right behind them. >> right now the front office is thinking they were smart going for the barn hill buffet coupons instead of getting a relief pitcher although they don't usually go to northwest florida. sam, notice something from the red sox team that i haven't seen in quite some time from alex cora teams and i know it's driving him crazy. let's not talk about what the front office did in really messing things up as we move forward this year. let's talk instead about the players that are actually there. last night you had vazquez fall

asleep on the base paths when the game was still close. forgetting, forgetting how many outs there were. we cost them a run when they were down one or two runs. then a couple innings later you had verdugo hit the ball -- kids don't do this! hit the ball, i love verdugo by the way, hit the ball and stare at it thinking had e had a home run. hit the ball, run as fast as you can, when the umpire goes like this, go to the jog. but sat there staring at it and to make matters worst, it's not a home run. he takes a wide turn around first base and here's the ball off the wall, they throw him out at first base. it's just -- we've seen a lot of really dumb play from the red sox over the past week. again, very unlike most alex cora coached teams because as you and i both know, alex cora,

the best manager in major league baseball history. >> definitely. it's unlike most teams. it's unlike the team earlier in the year. the team earlier in the year had an identity of being scrappy, of being in any game of making these miraculous comebacks when they were down and now their identity is bad base running, bad swing and misses on pitches outside the strike zone. and a bullpen that every time they come out i'm convinced they're going to blow a lead, i'm going to have a heart attack. this is the fundamentals of the game they are failing at and this doesn't make sense because cora, when he was a player, that was his bread and butter, he was not the most talented player but what kept him in the league was he was good in the fundamentals. he imparted that on his team but

they seem to have given up on that element. >> alex cora, again, the best coached teams i've seen when you talk about the fundamentals getting things right. i've never seen a coach get more out of players than alex cora gets out of his teams year in, year out. but they've been playing sloppy. one other problem, too, willie, i don't know how we get past this. last night as people were exiting the stadium, there were whispers among the boston faithful as they left the ballpark, two words on everybody's lips, lemire's curse. lemire's curse. >> he was there last night. >> jonathan lemire took his boys to the game and i don't understand how these things happen. i didn't quite understand how the curse of the bambino lasted as long as it did but yes, the lemire curse now haunting boston fans. >> could be another 86 years now to the next world series. mark last night forward, lemire

bringing his boys to the stadium. >> that's terrible. one last thing and we can move on from our daily red sox hand wringing hour brought to you by the people of dunk indonuts. the rays, they have the highest payroll, and they have the best record in the american league, up four and a half games in in the al east. they are an incredible organization doing with what they have what they do every year now. we'll see what happens in oaklands with the yanks, too. >> i'm glad you brought that up willie. talking about the best organizations in baseball, you could see the rays coming three years ago. they have an amazing organization. they do more with less than anybody else in baseball. and man you get them at home in the ninth inning, they're going to beat you. even in the a stadium where they're like 37 people and maybe two or three hound dogs running

around in the stands, even in a pennant race, they play the best baseball in the ninth inning at home of anybody, they are an incredible organization. >> yeah, having another great season. mika is not here today but i can hear her sighing, see her eyes rolling through this, so it's time to move on. coming up here, the supreme court reinstates former president trump's remain in mexico policy. julia ainsley joins us next to explain what the ruling means for thousands seeking asylum. later we're joined by chicago mayor lori lightfoot after mandating vaccines for city employees. she'll explain that decision when "morning joe" comes back. .

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the united states supreme court ordered the biden administration to resume a controversial immigration program forcing asylum applicants to wait outside the country. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams has details. >> reporter: it's one of the first things president biden did after taking office, ending a trump administration program known as remain in mexico. it required people seeking asylum to wait outside the country while their claims were considered. tens of thousands lingered in makeshift tent city. human rights organizations said many were attacked. >> people were kidnapped, raped all kinds of terrible things happened to these people. >> reporter: but lower courts

ordered the biden administration to reinstate remain in mexico and the supreme court refused to intervene. texas and missouri sued to get it going again arguing the number of migrants trying to get into the country skyrocketed because they know the vast majority of claims are rejected but most people are released into the united states to wait. >> you'll see a reduction in the numbers, over 1.1 million people have illegally entered the country since january, at least that we know of. we have to stem that number. >> the numbers are really historic, overwhelming for so many people working at the border. the human -- the human crisis down there is terrible. we're talking a lot about afghanistan right now, but as we move toward the election in 2022, you can bet chaos on the southern border, along with covid, are going to be two

issues at the very top at the lot of voters' minds in those swing districts that will determine who controls the house of representatives. let's bring in julia ainsley. i understand the biden administration is going to be against the supreme court ruling, going to be disappointed by the supreme court ruling, but does this not offer them a bit of -- a chance to take a breath and slow the rate of those migrants flooding across the southern border? >> joe, i have heard from some sources, some people who have been working with customs and border protection throughout different administrations, including can the trump administration that they did breathe that sigh of relief. i was down at the border earlier this month and i did see shelters completely overcrowded, thousands of immigrants packed under bridges not to mention the covid fears right now at play. but right now hearing more from the human rights side of things

and people within the biden administration who wanted to undo the trump legacy on immigration is this is not a way to treat people. human rights first said under the policy that existed under the trump administration, there were over 1,500 reports of rape, torture, murder in northern mexico when those asylum seekers were forced to wait in those tent camps. the trump administration said mexico was prepared to provide humanitarian relief, that did not exist. so right now the biden administration is working with mexico to figure out how to comply with the court order in somewhat of a humanitarian way. but i think what you'll look at now if this goes into effect they won't be talking about overcrowding necessarily in southern texas but you'll see immense humanitarian suffering in northern mexico as people wait desperately to come into the united states.

>> we focus on the humanitarian suffering at the southern border during the trump administration, talked about children in cages, the overcrowding, but you were there a couple of weeks ago. can you talk about how that human suffering, the scale of that human suffering continues now because of the surge in migrants that have come and tried to get into the united states? >> it was really like nothing i have seen during many of my trips to the border, joe. i was just down there in late may, that was the time we were talking more about conditions on the southern border but since then the surge has only gotten higher and that went against the seasonal predictions, usually the numbers get lower as temperatures heat up. there are shelters at catholic charities in texas, which is a part of the way the whole system works because immigrants are taken there before being released for their court dates. it used to be a one stop shop now they've taken over the entire blocks.

it's two to three buses of immigrants an hour, instead of two to three buses a day. the numbers keep going up. we'll see what happens this month if the numbers continue to rise. it did show there were a lot of families who were deciding to bring their children with them because they thought that was their chance of staying in the united states because the biden administration continues to expel the majority of single adults under a cdc order that went into place during the pandemic. so we are seeing, of course, more suffering, more people saying they're coming now, because they think this might be their only shot. >> with everybody coming now because they believe this is their only shot or this is their best shot, obviously you've talked about the overcrowding and the suffering, and we've heard that this is a -- that the worse situation at the southern border in 20, 25 years. i'm curious, how do you compare the chaos and the overcrowding at the border today, this month when you went to visit, with how

it was a year ago or two years ago, when we were talking about the southern border much more? >> yes, certainly hard to compare to a year ago because 2020 was an anomaly for every stat you could think of and it was lower during the peak of covid. if you look back to 2019 there was overcrowding under the trump administration before they instituted the remain in mexico policy. when that overcrowding started there was less relief to reduce overcrowding so we reported on children who weren't able to find a place to sleep, accusing the border patrol for retaliation for simple things like asking to go outside. there were more reports of abuse and poor conditions for children then because they didn't have this relief that the biden administration scrambled to provide in this current crisis for those children. as far as sheer numbers, joe, the numbers are much higher.

although many are still being turned around because of the covid-19 restrictions. if that goes away and it could be delayed now because of the delta variant and we know the biden administration pushed back lifting those covid-19 restrictions, they initially thought they'd lift them by the end of july. if that goes away then the biden administration may be looking at the supreme court order as some kind of relief to try to keep more people from crossing the border. it's something the president doesn't like to talk about a lot. we notice he pivots away from immigration, even when the numbers are going up. >> julia, what happens to the asylum seekers in the united states awaiting their hearing now with this ruling from the supreme court? you talked about having to go back into mexico. as you point out, mexico has no legal obligation to take immigrants who are not from mexico, which most of the people coming up across the border are not. what happens to those people? >> well, that's the big question, willie, what now? so people who have already

crossed, they'll continue to wait in the united states most of the time with family members while they wait for their court date. sometimes that can take years, there's a 1. 2 million case back log right now. at the moment, if you crossed at this very moment we're talking you would be allowed to come into the united states. but the biden administration is speaking to the government of mexico right now to figure out how to comply with the court order because it can't be a unilateral decision, it took a lot of negotiation from the trump administration to put this in place in the first place. what we're seeing from the mexican government on twitter, seeing people in charge of these relations with north america, they're saying we need to be at the table, too, we didn't have a party in had this judicial decision. so we'll see what happens between the two of them. but the biden administration is under an order to comply and they say they're trying to comply in good faith. the only people this effects

right now are people still trying to get out of that trump administration policy. people who still were waiting in mexico, of which there were really very few. those people as of midnight when this went into effect, could no longer register to get out of the program and come into the united states for their court date dates. so they are still waiting in mexico. >> julia, thanks so much. still ahead, with a deadline looming the state department said there could be as many as 1,500 americans still seeking to leave afghanistan. we'll have the latest on the evacuations from kabul. plus republican senator ben sasse of nebraska will be our guest this morning plus he has views on whether the deadline should be extended and how many afghans he'd like to see welcomed to america. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming right back

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who negotiated the deal with the taliban has been on tv saying he would have handled the situation better and going out of his way to compliment the taliban. >> taliban great negotiators, tough fighters. great negotiators. the taliban, they're good fighters. you have to give them credit for that. >> you don't. they're the taliban. it's insane to call them good negotiators like they're trying to talk down a used car salesman. give it to me for free or i'll murder your family. tough but fair, mr. taliban. let me talk to my manager. he's dead, i'll get you the keys. welcome to "morning joe."

it's 7:00 in the morning. the capitol on the east coast august 26th. we knew the full fda approval of the pfizer vaccine we'd begin to see mandates. defense secretary lloyd austin is ordering members of the u.s. military to receive a covid vaccine immediately if they haven't already done so. in a memo to senior pentagon leadership yesterday secretary austin wrote, quote, to defend this nation we need a healthy and ready force. after careful consultation with medical experts and military leadership and with the support of the president, i have determined mandatory vaccination against covid-19 is necessary to protect the force and defend the american people. the memo does not give a timeline for completing vaccinations. the pentagon shows more than 800,000 service members remain unvaccinated. all city workers in the city

of chicago will have to be vaccinated starting this fall. the requirement goes into effect october 15th. the policy requires all city employees and volunteers to be fully vaccinated. employees can apply for medical or religious exemptions, they'll be reviewed on a case by case basis. the chicago federation of labor criticized the ruling saying it believes in vaccination but does not believe punitive mandates, as they put it, are the right way to do it. the chicago police union has always spoken out against the order. we'll hear more from mayor lori lightfoot on "morning joe." delta announced to employees they'll face a $200 monthly premium on insurance if they're not vaccinated for covid-19. in addition, unvaccinated employees will face other restrictions including indoor

masking, effective immediately and weekly covid-19 tests. the company's ceo said it also will stop paying protections for those who are unvaccinated, test positive and miss work while having to quarantine. delta said 75% of the employees are vaccinated but need to take this measure. the average hospital stay for covid-19 costs the airlines $50,000 per person. we talked about the government, the military, now private companies taking this step forward as we enter the fall and mandating vaccines for the benefit of their employees and their companies. >> it really does make a great deal of sense. let's bring in former u.s. senator, now an msnbc news analyst claire mccaskill and

host of "the circus," john heileman. and also national affairs analyst, host and -- well, that -- you know what, i like him so much i like him so much i was going to say it twice. john heileman is still with us, in fact. so there's a good reason we don't read prompter. so claire, it seems to me it makes a lot of sense if you're delta airlines to say we're going to charge more if you're not vaccinated. there's risky behavior, you pay more for life insurance if you scuba dive, if you sky dive, if you, as i said, go to an lsu game at lsu in an alabama jersey, and also for health insurance if you smoke, some insurers will charge you up to 50% more so why not extend that for all these companies to people who choose to engage in

really risky behavior. >> yeah, and the head scratcher for me, joe, as you've kind of talked about at some length in various segments is why republicans are going after businesses who are exercising their rights under the free market to try to control their own businesses and the costs associated with their businesses. and whether or not their businesses are safe. i have never seen the republican party go all in on big government knows best as i have around this public health crisis. and delta is a great example where a business has decided the way to control costs, which is huge for them in terms of health care costs, is to make sure that certain behaviors are punished. that risks people's health which they are responsible for under their health insurance policies. >> yeah, which also, a very

conservative concept for people to say why should i pay for the bad behavior of others? if you're a delta employee and you're vaccinated and your family is vaccinated, why should you pay for the reckless behavior of other people when their rates are going to go up, which causes your rates to go up. they need to be charged more. john heileman, let's talk about the military. people sit and talk about how they don't want the vaccine. they quote facebook, do this, that. the second there's a mandate they go and get the vaccine. it's like seniors who -- you know, we have about nine out of ten seniors in america who have gotten the vaccine despite the fact a predominant number of them are on facebook. fox viewers view older. so here you have a subset of the population you expect to have perhaps the lowest vaccine rates, they're actually sitting

at about 90%. when things get real, people get vaccinated and sometimes that's the head of the pentagon saying you take 13, 14 to go off overseas and deploy, take one more, especially since it's safer than aspirin. >> yeah, right. it's like, joe, the -- you know, when you're stupidity or your silliness -- >> you're talking about me, right? >> -- or desire to engage in -- if your stupidity or silliness or desire to engage in culture wars, if it has no cost for a lot of people you give them a huge benefit, which they'll be safe and they'll be healthy and keep their families healthy and the rest of the country healthy, that's not enough. but if you impose some penalties, you make it either create a mandate or have these kind of the delta story where there's actually a cost, an actual dollar cost, some kind of

a stick in addition to the carrot, people suddenly they're like, well, you know, it's just the way the market works in some sense, right. i think that's the new phase here. what we're seeing is private companies across the spectrum, regardless where they're republican or democrat, where dollars and cents are involved, the tolerance for absurdity that put us in this situation. we are living in the world of the delta surge for one reason only, there's too many people who are vaccine hesitant, resistant, we don't have enough vaccination across the country and the biggest change are the large institutions, businesses, the military, they have finally had enough. and i think you're right as we get to this place now where costs are going to be imposed, where the -- there's no longer going to be a tolerance for the extras thrown onto the rest of society by the stupidity or

desire to engage in political culture wars around science and health. there's no tolerance for that anymore. i think we may see over the next six months the kind of change we should have seen the last six months and may get to a place we're able to finally get this thing under control. >> i do think that, as we move further into the delta variant, it certainly is spreading, the southeast now, probably going to the northeast next as the weather gets cooler. again, you're going to have, i think, governors taking a far more aggressive approach on these mandates. claire, let me ask you a political question. i don't -- i think this is just a difference between republicans and democrats, how they think sometimes. republicans have no problem running over 25, 30, 35, 40, 45% of the population. if they have a policy and think it's right, they pass the

policy, they don't care about squawking from the left, they're going to get it done. in this case, with vaccine mandates and mask mandates, you actually have, if you saw the ap poll from earlier this week, the overwhelming majority of americans wanting vaccine mandates for people who fly on planes, go to restaurants, go to large sporting events, people who go to bars, people who go to concerts, for people who work in the federal government, you go down the list. the people opposed to it range from 20, 25, 26%. this is not a tough political question. i mean, fdr had 35, 40, 45% of americans consistently hating him. he didn't care. he just plowed forward and did what he thought would help americans in the depression. why doesn't the biden administration say, we're going to upset 25% of americans but we're going to help 100% of americans if we just drive

forward here with vaccine mandates and mask mandates nationwide? >> i think biden is trying to do it everywhere where he clearly has jurisdiction. i think there would be some legal fights over whether or not he has the ability from washington to mandate at the state level some of these requirements. but, you know, here's the thing about the republican party, joe. i think everybody needs to -- john just referenced it, they've become addicted to the culture wars as their main political platform. and it is something that started before donald trump, but he really put it on steroids. and you look at a state like mine, where we're going to have a u.s. senate seat up next year that's vacant. and you've got a bunch of republicans running for the primary and they're all trying to be crazier than the next one. i mean, we have an attorney general who is turning cartwheels because his political consultants have told him he needs to file these ridiculous

lawsuits, like against a mask mandate. so you have lawyers being sanctioned for filing lawsuits that have no factual basis that worked for donald trump. and then you have attorney generals like missouri's attorney general vying to win a primary, bringing the same kind of lawsuits with no factual basis and he's getting rewarded for it in the republican party because they represent cultural wars. it's not only bad for our country it's really bad for public health and that's what's frustrating that these guys are just going after a culture war issue which the masks have become. >> it's interesting, willie, how you have seen this from the age of trump forward. i will say that when it comes to vaccines, it's really interesting because again most of the people i know are trump supporters, most of my family

members trump supporters, it's fascinating that what i'm starting to find, i saw yesterday in a tweet with david french and eric eriksson, where they say a good number of people who voted for donald trump are sort of rolling their eyes at the anti-vaxxers that are making all of this noise and that are causing all of this chaos. and eric was talking about inside of his church, more and more people as weeks go by in his evangelical church are just saying these people are making fools of themselves and they're making us all a lot less safe. david french, an evangelical in tennessee saying the same thing. i'm hearing the same thing. i talked to people who had their trump flags up until like last week, we were sitting, talking, i was sitting talking to one of them, and we're sitting there

talking, walking around, i said, how are you doing, are you feeling okay? he said, yep my wife and i got the vaccine the second we could get it. i said, you got the vaccine? of course i got the vaccine, you think i'm an idiot? i know how politicians are acting in certain red states. i'm telling you as they continue to drill down to try to find the lowest common denominator, they are actually breaking their party in two. and it may -- may help them with what they consider to be their base, but it's not helping them bring that party together. i think it's short-term, i think it's dangerous. i don't think it helps the republican party in the long-term because there are a ton of republicans out there that have been vaccinated, who also are rolling their eyes at the unvaccinated and people who are spreading these wild conspiracy theories. >> you know who else is vaccinated? donald trump is vaccinated.

he got it as soon as he possibly could get it. he pointed that out at a rally the other night saying you should get it, he was booed. and governor abbott, putting in the restrictions, he's been vaccinated. he contracted covid and said the reason i tolerated it well is because i have the vaccine. many people signaling to the base are actually taking these protections and precautions themselves. and what we're seeing play out is that the people punished for this are doctors and nurses in these overwhelmed icus and emergency rooms. and it's taking a toll. the new surge in covid cases is hitting health care workers hard. our nbc affiliate in portland, oregon was allowed inside the icu at oregon health and science university hospital. >> reporter: hospitals in oregon are at their breaking point. only 7% of icu beds available across the state. >> every single patient on this unit right now has a breathing

tube. >> reporter: here at ohsu hospital in portland, more than a dozen critically ill patients fill the held icu. all but one are unvaccinated. >> there's always a nurse kind of right here ready to intervene. >> reporter: people from all over the pacific sea board come here to ohsu to get medical treatment from alaska to idaho to montana. >> our physicians are just being called at every opportunity, can you take this patient, can you help with consults on this patient. this patient is 26 and dying. this patient is 21 and dying. this patient is a father of four and dying. that's when they turn to us and the inn is full. >> reporter: health care workers are exhausted and straining to keep up with the surge of covid patients. >> you see these people, know it's preventable -- >> ya. >> -- what goes through your mind? >> heartbreaking knowing people are fighting fir their lives and it could have been prevented.

>> i don't think people have an inkling of the amount of suffering that you will experience being sick with covid. it is extremely painful. >> reporter: americans who hesitate to get the vaccine asking nurses and doctors to shoulder the unbelievable weight of deaths and illnesses. >> reporter: it's really unnecessary. it's totally avoidable. i think that's the most heartbreaking part of it. >> i just wish people could hear it. if you're worried about side effects from the vaccine itself, your risks of what can happen to you or your loved one if you do not get vaccinated are higher. >> nbc news portland. and that's in oregon with a high rate of vaccination compared to a lot of places across the country. still ahead on "morning joe," there are just five days left for the united states military to meet president biden's deadline to withdraw from afghanistan.

senator ben sasse of nebraska is concerned americans and afghan allies will be left behind. he joins us next on "morning joe." as your business changes, the united states postal service is changing with it. with e-commerce that runs at the speed of now. next day and two-day shipping nationwide, and returns right from the doorstep. it's a whole new world out there. let's not keep it waiting.

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you're looking moments ago a shot of kabul airport where this massive, historic air lift continues. and the biden administration suggesting it's going to go through august 31st, but obviously pressure for it to continue until every american gets home. let's bring in a member of the intelligence committee republican senator ben sasse from nebraska. they try to keep it simple for me because i'm a simple country lawyer. and in the one sheet it says wife likes bama.

so you married well, how is she feeling about the bama season. >> she's insufferable, hopefully we're not on the air but there's a legacy she's defending right now that's tough to beat. >> the mic is hot. the mic is hot. >> oops. >> nebraska we grew up with nebraska being great i grew up as an alabama fan, we won one national championship between '79 and 2009, nebraska is going through a tough time right now, any hope on the horizon? >> lots of hope. we'll be back. we have a ways to go, we have to rebuild but coach frost is doing a good job. >> all right. let's get to afghanistan now. so what -- how long do you think america should stay there? how long should they continue evacuating americans past the deadline? >> until every american is out. there's no excuse for leaving americans behind.

the president seems to be content with a plan that is going to end up in some sort of a hostage situation. it's completely indefensible. we need to finish the job. i'm against the withdraw decision but that's no what he're talking about right now. we're talking about the fact that this evacuation has been so ham handedly planned and the administration goes out to take these weird victory laps every 36 hours like things are working well. things are not working well. we should celebrate every american and american ally who fought alongside us against a common enemy. every one that gets out is a victory and we should celebrate those as humans but we should restore the sense when america gives its word to people we intend to keep our word so we need to stay there as long as necessary to get out all americans and the president made a bad decision to continue negotiating with the taliban. it was never a good idea when the last administration did it either but they're acting like

we can rely on the mercy of the taliban. we know what the taliban is going to do to people who are left behind. >> right. and you have been critical of the trump administration, you're critical of the biden administration for cutting and running, for both of them. but as you said, as we're talking about getting every american out, does that extend -- do we stay there until every american is out and until we can identify -- or try to identify every afghan that helped us over the past 20 years? >> so, first of all, what's happening at the edge of the airport, and obviously there are different reports so some of the stuff i know isn't stuff we can discuss here. but some of the public reporting of u.s. troops turning away s.i.v. holders at the gates of the airport is just completely indefensible. we need to be clear about who these people are. these are translators, these are drivers, these are combatants who fought alongside americans because we gave our word that

we, like they, wanted to make sure that the taliban wouldn't allow afghanistan to become a safe haven for al qaeda, al qaeda affiliates. there are reports that say isis and the taliban don't like each other, that's not true, but a lot of them like the idea of creating safe spaces for which they can plot attacks on a global reach. >> we have a slight delay here, i thought you stopped. i want to follow-up with what you said there. why would our troops be turning away afghans that have the proper papers and could prove that they were helping us as interpreters or in other ways over the past 20 years? >> the administration has a lot to account for, starting with the insane decision to have abandoned bagram air force base, but obviously there are a lot of

particular lines of miss communication around the airport over the last few weeks we're not even focussing in our national conversation about this, about places far beyond kabul. i can't explain why the administration would have done what they've done to our allies. i'm hearing constantly from troops who fought there, again on behalf of americans so we could take the fight there so it wouldn't be there. we decapitated terror organization after terror organization led by guys with bin laden's ambitions but not his name i.d. because they never took down the world trade center. we did that alongside afghan partners and american troops calling my office wanting to understand why we are not keeping our word. saigon was a unique moment in american history, i don't know about that the average troop would say, but i know america

isn't going to abandon you, you're fighting next to me, we're going to keep our word to you. and these people are angry and distressed that we're abandoning people they gave their word to because these afghans were fighting next to us. we're talking 60,000 people that we made commitments to and the biden administration is content leaving them on the battlefield and the troops i'm hearing from aren't content to do that. >> every troop i talked to, every person that served in afghanistan, whether in the military or the cia, whether they served in other intel agencies, when they talk about these afghans, and it's important people understand that, when they talk about these afghans, they talk about them like their brothers and sisters in arms. and they are just as intense about getting them home as getting anybody else out of

afghanistan. so let me ask you this question because it's a question that i think a lot of people are curious when they watch this show. i was upset when we removed our 3,500 troops out of syria, i thought we had a light footprint making a difference there, i'm upset we're moving the 2,500 people out of afghanistan, like you i would never -- let me anger more people in the audience -- i would have never given up bagram air force base ever. it was an extraordinarily important base where we could project power across the entire region, in between china and iran. but, you know, the big but is coming. but 75% of americans disagree with me. 75% of americans disagreed with you. they thought it was time to come home. so my question to you is, what's your message to them? what's your message to people that said, oh, 20 years is enough. this is a forever war.

a phrase that drives me crazy. it's time to bring everybody home. what's your message to those 75%? to that majority? >> let's admit that the political class in this country has failed for way over a decade at helping bring the american people along to understand what our mission was in afghanistan. there is a constant false choice that you see repeated by people who want to do foreign policy in bumper stickers for their next domestic campaign and that's no way to run a foreign policy, first of all. we have to assume that the voters want to have a long-term plan. in my experience, they do. but the political class has failed in constantly giving lazy bumper stickers. the choice has never been between zero troops and 150,000 force occupying ground army. that's never been the choice. we haven't had 100,000 people in afghanistan in over a decade. what we need to do to manage this ugly, messed up world, but

especially the coming technology and diplomatic race with the chinese communist party across the globe is we need friends and a lot of those friends need u.s. intelligence and special forces, not usually u.s. ground troops. we need a light footprint, forward deployed force in a lot of places around the world. are we in a forever war in japan, seoul, south korea, in germany? we have 115,000 troops across those three countries. we had gone down from 8,000 to 2,500, a decision i rejected. but 8,000 troops is not 150,000 troops. it's nothing like we have in south korea, japan, what we still have in germany. we need our allies to know we believe in leading a coalition of nations that believe in open seaways, trade, transparent contracts, believe in human rights. there is a genocide happening

right now against the weegers, we need all nations that believe in the universal dignity of people to be alive against the taliban and allies that are going to rape teenage girls across the country for months and years to come now and aally against the chinese dehumanization against the weers. we need it also for realist purposes because the u.s. is 24% of gdp but 4% of the people. we need to benefit with things that said trade, human rights, borders, have been in the interest of the median american so there are both realist and idealist reasons to be for a system of light footprint, forward deployment.

the chinese communist party is sending diplomats for every country where we tried to recognize people to recognize taiwan, something we want on idealist and realist grounds. huge parts of the economy collapse if chips get cut off in from taiwan. but the ccp is mocking the american people as people who can't keep their word. they're using this debacle in afghanistan as a way to say to countries, do you want to recognize taiwan? this is how america treats their allies. we have to have a long-term foreign policy where we're a nation known as people keeping our word. >> we've been trying to sift through comments yesterday from the secretary of state. we heard president biden say august 31st, we're sticking to that deadline. that's five days away. but i want you to listen to what the secretary of state said yesterday, even after that deadline we'd still be working to get americans out. here's what he said. >> let me be crystal clear about

this. there is no deadline on our work to help any remaining american citizens who decide they want to leave to do so, along with the many afghans who have stood by us over these many years and want to leave and have been unable to do so. that effort will continue every day past august 31st. the taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe passage for americans, for third country nationals and afghans at risk going forward past august 31st. >> the acting u.s. ambassador to afghanistan said something similar yesterday, senator, that the taliban may help to get americans out after the 31st. what happens on september 1st to the remaining americans and afghan allies? >> the small bit of encouragement is that we've got a lot of cia operative -- operators and intel community

relationships around the world that do some special things. but what we really need is a commander in chief to declare to the taliban there is no count down clock on american lives. secretary blinken said things that are partly good but they're under mined by things he says every day. he uses numbers that don't add up, are there 500 or 4,000 americans left. does it include passport holders only or green card holders also? the administration tries to do it as a pr crisis and take victory laps they have to walk back 6, 12, 18 hours later. and our nato allies are frustrated with the administration viewing this as a domestic communications problem instead of what it is, which is a national security crisis that became a humanitarian crisis. secretary blinen says different things repeatedly, his numbers

don't add up. and the only people he seems unwilling to blame is the taliban. tell me where the administration is talking about the taliban is? we're going to rely on the mercy and good graces of these rapists? they're going to households and saying to people we have rights to every girl over 12, are you ready to hand her over or do we have to fight you for her? the administration said we have good diplomatic relations. the administration is filled with people right now who are just saying nonsense, thinking they'll be able to outlast the next 24 hours of a media cycle at home. they don't have a plan to say to our allies, the american troops on the ground and to say to the americans who are trapped, many of them well beyond kabul, to say to the americans who are still in country you will not be left behind and the taliban doesn't dictate any count down

clock on your life or our moral obligation to keep our word. >> by the way, this bizarre view of the taliban dates back to president trump when they signed the deal in doha february 2020, when he said he had a good call with the taliban, they wanted to end the violence as much as he did p. i don't think any person believes the taliban is going to change their world view -- >> it's never been a good idea to negotiate with the taliban, they're not to be trusted. >> i want to ask about afghan refugees. you said loud and clear that afghan refugees would be welcome in your neighborhood, the kind of people who helped the united states during the war, welcome in nebraska. we heard different from other members of your party who said not in my back yard we have to vet these people. i don't want these refugees. why did you come out and say so clearly what you did about inviting afghans into the united states. >> let's start with who the afghans are that we're talking about. there's 32 million afghans we're talking 60 to 80,000 people to

whom we made particular commitments. these are special immigrant visa holders i'm talking about. these are folks that have already been vetted because we let them into foxholes to fight next to american troops. in addition, important because a lot of people want to do grand standing about these issues. it's parent to recognize there aren't planes flying from kabul into the united states. folks are being moved i think the number is classified, let's go with more than a dozen. folks are moved out of afghanistan to more than a dozen countries in the region. at those places there's further vetting. of course the vetting is important and needs to go on. but we're not talking about 32 million afghanis becoming refugees to the u.s. or our allies. we're talking in particular here about commitments we made to 60 to 80,000 folks who hold special immigrant visas and the administration has started to ferry them to closer places in the neighborhood and ongoing

vetting happens there and should continue to happen. what can't happen is americans to start doing a bunch of grand standing politicians to start doing things to imply that these folks are folks that we should now decide if we're going to make a commitment to. i'm talk about special immigrant visa holders, folks holding up papers that were given to them by americans and american troops saying if you fight with us against the taliban so we can take the fight against al qaeda and other al qaeda allies over there so they don't attack us again at ground zero in manhattan, we want you to know when we give you our word we keep our word. what we're talking about here is, are we going to be the kind of nation that keeps our word? we need to because of these particular people, because of the troops who gave them their word and because the rest of the world wonders if we're going to be a long-term stable ally in the coming decade plus fight against the chinese communist party in a technology and

diplomatic race around the globe that matters to every american community. >> senator, my first vote was for ronald reagan. and when ronald reagan left office, of course, i'm sure you're familiar with the farewell address to americans, he talked about the importance of america staying young, the importance of immigrants. throughout my adult life -- well, throw high school, college, into my adult life, i have seen the extraordinary arc of vietnamese refugees who came from south vietnam and communist vietnam and risked their lives coming across the world, they came to america and my gosh, the extraordinary stories of these vietnamese refugees how they made this a better country in so many ways only proves what ronald reagan said back in 1989.

i'm curious your thoughts about, again, a lot of people like drawing comparisons between vietnam and afghanistan. but talk about the lessons from vietnam and those refugees that came here and maybe how we can apply that to afghans coming to this country. >> when you bring up patron saint ronald reagan for a minute, let's pause and -- as somebody who lives on the bread basket of the world, i want to applaud his vision for creating nafta, obviously it wasn't a negotiated treaty document at that point but reagan would talk about the importance of creating a north american free trade agreement that's been beneficial to farmers are ranchers in my state. a shout out to reagan's vision for a community of neighbors. when you say that about vietnamese folks it was my experience as a kid as well, i live in such a boring white bred part of the world when i was a kid, the biggest divide in my

german, german, german down, was german catholic and german lutheran was the distinction and then a bunch of vietnamese refugees came to town adding value. and i remember as a kid hearing a republican politicians saying americans aren't against other people, we are other people. america is a nation that believes a bunch of stuff about human dignity. it's true of 7.8 billion people but for the 330 million americans what we want to start with is an idea that says we don't believe that government comes first. what comes first is the rights, first amendment speech, religion, protests. these rights are given to us from god via nature. we need to do a lot more american civics where we talk about the ant apology that underlies the american spirit before getting to the horse race

stuff fighting about a piece of legislation that is or isn't moving on capitol hill. the american people need us talking in common about what we believe in a people that's pre-governmental and then the vast majority of what you do is in your neighborhood where you're coach and little league and you're inviting people to dinner and new business. government has responsibilities but government isn't first. >> i love that line. i think there's a chance i just may use it again. americans aren't other people, americans are other people. senator ben sasse, thank you so much for being with us. hope to talk to you again soon. >> thanks for the invite. >> thank you, senator. appreciate the time. coming up on "morning joe," the fight in congress over the filibuster spills into the home state of west virginia's joe manchin. how protesters plan to get his attention today.

"morning joe" is coming right back. ng joe" is coming right back

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books in september and you can't stop -- >> well, it'll be over my dead body because i'm going to do everything in our power to stop it. the damage -- >> you think you can? >> the damage that will do. >> how will you stop it? >> i think manchin and cinema can slow it down but what about the 10 democrats in the house that are folding? that means they're not going to get re-elected again. i don't think they'll get reelected passing the highest spending bills. >> that's kevin mccarthy talking about the proposed spending

bills by the democrats. john heileman, let me bring new here. it's just -- was it judy collins, isn't it rich? it's so rich because i -- i don't know if joe kerr nan, i don't know if he was complaining about deficits and debt over the past four years or the past 30 years like i have been complaining about it. but i know kevin mccarthy wasn't. i know the republicans weren't, because i was tweeting every day asking them to complain about donald trump having the biggest deficits in u.s. history, the biggest national debt in u.s. history. the biggest spending budgets in u.s. history, passed by republicans, signed by donald trump year in, year out. caused the deficits to explode at record rates. caused the national debt to explode at record rates. go back and check. we talked about it on this show nonstop. i tweeted about it nonstop.

begging people like kevin mccarthy to complain about the massive spending. begging the freedom caucus to complain about the massive debts, massive deficits, massive budgets, biggestbudgets, biggest budgets ever signed into law by donald trump and supported by republican members of congress. interesting. interesting. kevin mccarthy never, ever talked to joe kernon to complain about trump's record deficits, did he? >> no, i'd have to check the tape on that, joe, but i'm willing to bet a reasonable amount of money the answer to that question will be no we talked about this issue many times on this show. i think there is no republican. i mean, really, there is no republican. because they voted in lock step. no matter what they said about debt and deficits in the past, they voted in lockstep with

donald trump and blew the giant hol in the deficit that you are talking about here. all of them have no credibility. on substance, there is not a republican who has any credibility whatsoever on the matter of fiscal restraint, entitlements. a part of the party's ideology and platform that you shaped your political career on. so they should all shut up about that. they have no credibility on it. then there is another thing in this clip. which is just imagine how bad your political situation is, if you say, over my dead body, and then the question, the reasonable question joe kernon says, what will you do about it? the answer is he is going to pray so some democrats come to his aid. you know, joe manchin, kristen cinema, they might save the day or the ten moderates in the house, they might save the day.

you know as well as i do, that is a bad position to be in politically when you are relying on members of the opposite party to come to your aid, i'm thinking about when you wish upon a star. that's not overpy dead body. that's fantasy land from kevin mccarthy's point of view. he knows it. >> joe manchin's name was invoked a. lot of talk about the filibuster as we look at the legislation. the west virginia chapter is calling the mass moral motorcade on manchin, groups upset with his stance on the filibuster. >> you have to have a mass manchin motorcade on manchin. we cannot let one or two senators run this entire democracy into the ditch and so it's time to stand up. it's time to fight back. >> joining us now, one of the leaders of today's protest, the

co-chair of the poor people's campaign, president of repairers of the breach, the reverend william barber. it's great to have you back on this show. so what's the plan today in west 52. ? and what is your specific objection to senator manchin here? >> first of all, thank you, thank you to joe and all of you who have me on. i would like to say i am one of the servants, really the leaders from the haulers in the mountains and hood in charleston, white, black, poor and low wealth people who said come to west virginia and they've raised the question, what does it profit many earthquake to hold on to an antiquated non-constitutional filibuster but to lose the soul of the democracy, to lose the infrastructure of democracy voting, to lose the opportunity to invest in poor and low wealth communities and lift them from the bottom. so they decided we want to do in covid times a moral motorcade on

manchin and the 100th anniversary of the miners, they are calling on manchin to end the filibuster, to pass the former people's ac. because have you to have that to deal with the issues. to pass the voting rights restoration act. to pass $15 in living wage. because 350,000 west make less than minimum wage because poverty is a policy choice. it is not because of a moral inaction of people. and this group of folk lastly are showing that this fight for voting rights and fight for economic justice is not just about jim crowe. it's not just about black people. but it's about white people. 95% of virginians.

>> reference barber, claire mccaskill. 1st i have great respect for the work you have done in so many places or certainly in north carolina or other place you have been instrumental in leading movements. but how do you reconcile the vast majority of west virginians that voted for donald trump. how do we reconcile those numbers with the possibility that any other democrat could win west virginia. is the pressure you are going to put on joe manchin to be effective in a state that is odominated by republican voters at this juncture in history? >> well, it is also dominated by a lot of poor and wealth people that just stopped voting.

they stopped voting because a lot of democrats have refused to go to them. i have been all over this country, harlan county. in the mountains with the mamas of appalachia, women that literally have to sell tacos on tuesday to help support the minstrel needs for other women. lot of them are turned off because nobody talks to them about politics and where they really are and talks about living wages and healthcare. we did a study with colombia university called unleashing the power of poor and low wealth voters. set it in states like west virginia and across the south. if anybody one to 25, 30% of poor and low wealth people have fought voted, began to vote, politicians will talk to them. the number one reason they said they did not vote is the politician don't say the word -- 55% of poor and low wealth people voted for biden-harris. but we also know that they have the power, 65 million poor and

low wealth. 30%. the last election 34 million voted. we touched 2.2 million of them infrequent voters. that left 29 million that did not vote. if the party would start reaching out, we would not have to wonder, could we beat a trump in a west virginia? remember, west virginia has a strong progressive history. that's why 800 years ago, these miners were fighting. the republicans don't have to win. and you don't have to have moderate democrats if you unwaken this sleeping giant of poor and low wealth people, who are the key to the transformation and who said this better than me? dr. king in 1965 at the end of the selma montgomery said the great fear of the aristocracy and the greedy elites of this country works for the negro poor low wealth masses and the white poor low masss to unite and be on a political alliance that could fundamentally change the

economic architect of this country and that is still true. it's empirically true. it's possible. that's why what you will see today is this unified of people coming together and saying to manchin, you need to stop. but also saying to the house, hold the line. hold the line. pass all of these states. pass infrastructure. pass the economic plan. pass the living wage. pass the voting rights act. pass the for the people's act. don't do some of it. deliver for the people, watch the increased voter turnout that you see. >> and that coalition of black working class americans and white working class americans, that was the dream of martin luther king. the dream of bobby kennedy and the dream that still remains unfulfilled. but, reverend william barber, thank you so much for being with us as always, thank you for your great work on the poor people's campaign. we so greatly appreciate it.

willie. coming up, delta air lines fighting back against delta variant with financial penalties for unvaccinated employees. plus, johnson&johnson says a booster shot of its vaccine may have major benefits for the millions of american who's receive a single dose. and despite a warning from the fda, the alabama poison control center is getting a growing number of phone calls about people trying to fight coronavirus by taking a drug meant for livestock. we have a pack 8:00 a.m. hour when we come back in just 90 seconds. we come back in just 90 seconds. thout my medication, my small tremors would be extreme. i was diagnosed with parkinson's. i had to retire from law enforcement. 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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we know our fda in many ways failed us by not use hydroxy chore quinn. >> we pelted them with questions about therapeutics. hoy direct examination color quinn and ver mekten is helping covid-19 patients across the country. >> that calls to the alabama poison center to expose of ivermectin to deworm livestock. peoplulesed it to treat covid-19. iver mectin has not been

approved in humans. the fda the other day tweeting this. are you not a horse. you are not a cow. serious, just all, stop it. nbc news reporters have called around stores that sell this kind of stuff. they say we can't keep it on the shelf. its flying off the shelf because of the stuff they are hearing we played right there. >> those words lifted straight from my 5th grade teacher, actually, in mississippi. you are all not a horse, not a cow. seriously, you all, stop it. unfortunately here we are talking everying about a people that are guiding americans to use de-worming treatment for cows. for horses, it's a strange thing, again, we talked about this a good bit. something we will never understand is this resistance to the vaccine.

the safest vaccine as we heard yesterday. it's safer if you look at the numbers than asprint. and people will, the president, the last president of the united states, talked about bleach, using bleach and then of course poison control. the fda will say, don't use bleach, scam medications. the governors buy tons of. don't buy hydroxy chloriquinn. we are talking about de-worming medicine for cows, people are trying instead of. probably what will go down as safest vaccine in history. certainly if you have pfizer, moderna, even j&jr, we focused on it a lot, are extraordinarily low as far as negative effects.

historians, 10, 20, 30 years ago from now will look back and say, what were these people doing in they were putting on leeches when they were sitting outside the cleveland clinic. it will make no sense for people looking back on this time. >> it's truly mystifying. again, this is what people are hearing in their information fitters, in the media, from the people they trust, try this anti-paracytic drug used on livestock. instead of the life-saving now fda-approved vaccine that was developed in miracle time that could put an end to all of this. this is serious business, too. because officials in two southern alabama counties have moved in more trailers in anticipation of a rise in covid deficits there. one was placed at the state's forensic science in mobile. another at the south baldwin regional medical center. this according to a spokesman with the department of public health. they are struggling with more capacity. overall, only 34% of residents

in both counties are fully vaccinated. meanwhile, in florida, more people in the state catching the virus, being hospitalized or dying of covid-19 now than at any previous point in the pandemic. according to cdc, more than 26,000 new cases were reported yesterday, breaking the state's single-day case total record. that data shows hospitalizations have almost tripled in the past month. georgia deploying more than 100 national guard troops to hospitals across the state to help staff with a rising number of covid cases. brian kevin says the guardsmen will be going to ten hospitals in the region to assist emergency rooms and front line workers with the overwhelming number of patients. last week, governor kevin signed an executive order to prevent local officials from requiring businesses to enact covid-related mandates and other restrictions to limit the spread of the coronavirus. meanwhile, johnson&johnson says it has evidence people who received it one-shot dose could

benefit from a booster shot after six months. nbc news correspondent tom costello has the latest. >> reporter: new protection could be on the way for the 14 million americans who received the one shot johnson&johnson vaccine. last month j&j reported the single shot provides through covid-19 for eight months after administration. now it reports an added booster shot increased anti-body protection by nine times. >> this is a fabulous vaccine. it really is. the data out this morning suggests a second j&j shot six months later gives you a huge increase in your anti-body levels. >> reporter: great news for the j&j, worried they may not have the same level of protection offered by the two-dose moderna or pfizer vaccines. keith alberts admits he's concerned. >> i feel a whole lot better, like this is what i have been

waiting for. i have been waying to hear this. there was nothing ever mentioned about a booster for johnson. it was all pfizer and moderna. >> reporter: with the delta variant spreading fast. the biden administration is eager to have boosters six-to-eight months after americans are fully vaccinated, starting next month. is it safe to mix them. giving a pfizer to someone with the j&j shot? overseas studies suggest yes. >> data would suggest mixing johnson&johnson and say pfizer or moderna leads to high effectiveness levels. that's very promising. >> reporter: it's not clear how long the booster protection will last. meanwhile, the push to boost comes as more government agencies and employers issue vaccine mandates, now including the pentagon, the city of chicago, disney and delta air lines that says unvaccinated employees will have to pay an extra $200 each month for health

benefits. >> tom costello reporting. have you delta airlines, saying, we will fine employees who don't get the vaccine. we got governors, abbott in texas, desantis in florida and governor kevin in georgia threatening businesses saying you can not put in mask mandates or vaccine mandates. it will be against the law in our state. again small deposit conservatives, self professed telling private companies what they can and cannot do. >> that really is the most bizarre thing. if are you a governor of the statement you claim to be a conservative. you tailing a small -- telling a maul business owner in ma con, georgia what they can and cannot do to keep their business safe, telling a person in delta, georgia, demanding from the governor's mansion. if you think it's in your best interest. if you think it's in your safety for yourself, your family, your employees, your restaurant, if you think it's best for your

bottom line, we don't care. because we want to make some cheap political points and we're going to ban you from doing that. willie, it's just, it is the most un-- it is the most big government centralized state move that you could do to have a governor reach in and tell a small business owner anywhere across your state what they can or cannot do for what think think is best for their business. best for their bottom line. best for their safety. also you look at states like texas and florida. i mean, in florida, the case numbers are booming. the pediatric wards are filled up in so many countries across the state of florida. the numbers are skyrocketing. the numbers signaling to 25% of the population.

it's crazy. i love what delta is doing. they are charging more to their employees who are engaging in medically proven ricky behavior. you know when you go if and get life insurance, they ask you, do you do risky things, sky dive, sub ba dive? do you go to an lsu wearing an alabama jersey, if you answer yes to any of those things, you get a higher rate. there is no reason for health insurance, we shouldn't see same thing happening. that's fair to the rest of the people there who you doing the right thing. >> yeah. it's talking out of both sides of the mouth. on one hand, let's take governor kevin, who we just talked arguments i'm sending in the national karsdmen into hospitals. on the other side, but you may not do these mitigation efforts, you may not require masks,

vaccines, so they're conceding that the problem is grave in their states. yet they're not letting school districts in the case of florida or small businesses do the things they need to do to get on top of this virus. it's mystifying but exploring political points. still ahead, the desperate rush to lead afghanistan with some 1,500 americans still left in the country ahead of tuesday's deadline. we'll get a report from the white house amid what could be the largest evacuation effort in u.s. military history. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. zblemplts

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. >> i want to turn to afghanistan now only five days left to meet the withdrawal deadline. as many as 1,500 american civilians still need a way out of the country. nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander has the late effort. >> reporter: with a desperate rush to leave before the august 31st deadline, the biden administration estimates 1,500 americans are still stranded in afghanistan. the secretary of state anthony blinken saying 6,000 were there when the country fell to the taliban. 4500 have been evacuated since. the u.s. has made contact with at least 500 of those still there. >> for the remaining roughly 1,000 contacts that we had who begged the americans to leave afghanistan, we are aggressively reaching out multiple times a die. >> reporter: it's a steep drop of the original estimate of 10 to 15,000 americans. blinken making this pledge. >> there is no deadline on our work to help any remaining american citizens who decide to

leave along with the many afghans who have stood by us over these many years. >> reporter: but this response when we ask president biden what he'll do if americans are in afghanistan after the 31st. >> sir, what will you do after the deadline in. >> you'll be the first person i'll call. >> reporter: top republicans blasting him for not expend tending getting people out. she letting the taliban make the shots. >> he turned his back on our allies and partners. he has turned his back on his duties as a commander-in-chief. >> reporter: sharp criticism from the biden administration from congressmen, both veterans, who secretly traveled to kabul. saying it's obviously that because we started the evacuation so late, that no matter what we do, we won't get everyone out on time, even by september 11th. but the trip done without authorization from congressional leadership or military brass is sparking a fierce backlash. >> there is a call on our

resources diplomatically, militarily. this is deadly serious. we do not want members to go. >> reporter: a white house official telling nbc news, every seat on planes should be leaving people getting out of afghanistan. among those desperate to get out, 24 california students who had gone there to visit their family are still stuck. she says the taliban is blocking their aunt from getting through the checkpoints. >> she's told, you don't have a guardian with you, you can't travel with a male. your paper is incorrect. she is giving different excuses. >> let's bring in correspondent jeff bennett. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. >> confusion, help our viewers sort this out. we heard that president biden is sticking to the august 31st deadline, five days away come hell or high water. yesterday, we had the secretary of state antony blinken saying there is no deadline in getting

americans and afghan partners out of the country. so which is it? is there a chance we will be there longer than august 31st. >> reporter: i'll explain it this way. president biden is moving forward with getting everybody out by the august 31st date. secretary blinken is if there are americans who remain after that exit deadline, he says that they will use every resource available fought just u.s. resources, but even resources among u.s. allies, economic and diplomat tobacco try to evacuate those remaining afghans or americans. that will be extraordinarily difficult. there are certainly more questions than answers about how that pos process would work, willie. to give you one sense of the really alarming deteriorating security situation around that airport. just yesterday, the state department warned american citizens who might be outside the air field to immediately leave and have you officials pointing to what they said was the specific and credible threat

of an attack on the crowds by isis affiliate in afghanistan. that was one of the reasons why you heard president biden say he was inclined to stick to his initial deadline. he said that every day the troops remain on the ground there, they face a grave and growing threat. you heard in peter's report, that there are roughly 1,500 americans left in afghanistan. the state department is reaching out to 500 americans, for whom they have contacts. they think there might be thousands of americans they are frantically reaching out to. one of the reasons it's hard to point down a specific number, the u.s. doesn't track american citizens when they're overseas. it's entirely up to americans to register with the state department when they leave, when they arrive and leave final. that doesn't happen, you can imagine how it's hard to get a good idea what a specific number is. that said, though, have you the white house pointing to the largest evacuation effort in history. not a single american casualty

so far. so what they're pointing to is the really incredible phase of evacuations. this window is closing. one of the questions is how much longer the pentagon will give this evacuation process before they ship to the process of withdrawing troops, withdrawing and destroying equipment? then there becomes the question of what happens to the airport? which third party country will potentially work with the taliban to keep that airport opened and functioning if there are afghans, if there are americans, who do need to get out beyond the end of the month, willie. >> there certainly will be. it will be interesting how they execute by the promise to get them out after the deadline. white house correspondent jeff bennett, thanks so much. coming up, the supreme court deals a blow to the biden administration's effort to end a trump era immigration policy meant to discourage people seeking asylum. julia ainsley joins us with her reporting when "morning joe"

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. >> the united nations supreme court ordered the biden administration to resume a controversial immigration program forcing asylum applicants to wait outside the country. nbc justice correspondent pete williams has details. >> reporter: it's one of the first things president biden did after taking office ending a trump program remain in mexico. it required people seeking asylum to wait outside the country. tens of thousands lingered in make-shift tent cities. human rights groups said many were attacked by drug groups. >> people were raped, kidnapped. all terrible things happened while they were trying to get protection under the laws of the united states. >> reporter: lower courts ordered the biden administration to reinstate remain in mexico. late tuesday night, the supreme court refused to intervene, the three liberals said they would have blocked the program. texas and missouri sued to get it going again, argue eggring

the number of migrants skyrocketed because migrants know even though the vast majority of asylum claims are rejected. most are released in the united states to wait. >> it takes incentive away. you will see a reduction in numbers. over 1.1 million illegals entered since january. we have to control our border. >> their numbers are really historic. i mean overwhelming for so many people working at the border, the human, scale of the human crisis down there is terrible. we are talking a lot about afghanistan right now. but as we move towards the election in 2022 you can bet chaos on the southern border and covid will be two issues at the very top of a lot of voter's minds in those swing districts. let's bring about nbc news correspondent july 82 ainsley.

i understand the biden administration is going to be against the supreme court ruling, going to be disappointed by the supreme court ruling. but does the not offer them a bit of a chance to take a breath and slow the rate of those migrants flooding across the southern border? >> well, joe, i have heard from people working with customs border protection including the trump administration. they did breathe that sigh of relief. i was down at the border earlier this month. i did see shelters completely overcrowded. thousands of immigrants packed under bridges, not to mention the covid fears at play. right now what i'm hearing more from the human sights sides of things and people from the trump administration that want to undo the legacy, this is not a way to get people into the united states. human rights first said under these policies that have existed

under the trump administration, there were over 1,500 reports of rape, torture, murder in northern mexico when the asylum seekers were forced to wait in the tent camps. the trump administration said that mexico is prepared to provide the humanitarian relief. that really just didn't exist. so right now the biden administration is trying to work with mexico to figure out how they might be able to comply with its court order and somewhat of a humanitarian way. i think what you will look at now, if this does go into effect, is that they won't be talking about overcrowding necessarily in southern texas. you will see immense humanitarian suffering in northern mexico as people await desperately to come into the united states. >> we obviously focus a great deal on the humanitarian suffering on the trump border, talked about children in cages. and the overcrowding. but you were there a couple of weeks ago. can you talk about how that human suffering, the scale of

that human suffering continues now because of the surge in migrants that have come and tried to get into the united states? >> reporter: this was really like nothing i had seen on my trips to the border. we were there in late may, we were talking more on conditions on the southern border. since then, the surge has gotten higher. it went against the seasonal predictions. usually they're lowerer. there are shelters, for example, at catholic charities in downtown mccallum texas. immigrants are taken there before they're released for their court date. it used to be a one-stop shop. now they've taken over the entire block. it used to be two-to-three buses of immigrants a day. now they're per hour. the numbers kept going up. we have to see this month as those numbers continue to rise. but it did show that there are a lot of families deciding to

bring their children with them. because they thought that was their chance of staying in the united states. because the biden administration continues to expel the majority of single adults under a cdc order that went into place during the pandemic. we are seeing, of course, more suffering, more people saying they're coming now, because they think this might be their only shot. >> julia ainsley, thanks so much. still ahead, the city of chicago has hay nounsed a new covid vaccine mandate for all city employees beginning this fall. mayor lori lightfoot joins us to talk about that and more when we come right back.

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. welcome back to "morning joe." a beautiful, live picture on a late august day in chicago at 7:35 in the morning there.

8:35 on the east coast. back to a growing number of cities requiring employees to get vaccinated against covid-19. chicago mayor lori lightfoot announcing yesterday all city employees and volunteers must be vaccinated. it's great to have you back on the show this morning. explain the decision here. we are seeing this more in countries. why do you think it's important for every public official that works for your city to be vaccinated? good morning, willie, it's great to be back with you. look, it's important that we follow the public health guidance and we know that the only true protection against the virus, against the delta variant is a vaccine. there is no substitute. what i know is 97% of my people in hospitals and equally shocking number of people who are dying are unvaccinated.

so we have an obligation to lead by example. we have an obligation when we are engaging with members of public to keep them safe. the vaccine is the only answer. >> so madam mayor, let me ask you about the response of the chicago federation of labor, criticizing the policy, saying, quote, we do not believe mandates are the right path to increase vaccines. what do you say to that? >> let me beclear. it's not the chicago federation. we have great relationships with 40 labor unions across the city. what they're referring to is unfortunate and offensive outpost from the leader of the fraternal order of police. unfortunately, it's predictable from him. it's a one-sixer. this is totally in line with his world view. i think the vast majority of police officers understand that the vaccine is absolutely safe. that it is widely available and

it's the only protection that they have against the virus. when you look at the statistics that the cdc has recently put out the virus is the leading cause of death among first responders, the answer is clear, you got to get vaccinated. >> i want to be clear. that was a statement from the chicago federation of labor. you right he gave an utterly insane response to what was happening na nazi german. they were critical saying we want to get everybody vaccinated. they don't believe mandates are the way to do it. >> we can agree to disagree with our friends in organized labor, but there is no substitute for protection against the virus. you know, there is a lot of conversation about let's have a testing option. test secretary fought protection. testing just gives you a point in time of blue are testing positive or not. i understand what their concerns

are. but the bottom line is, we have to get people fully vaccinated. that's why we set the date at october 15th for those people who haven't gotten vaccinated yet. it gives time to get two shots, the pfizer or moderna. but we have to get people fully vaccinated. we're going to continue on dialogue with our friends in organized labor. but the path forward is absolutely clear. a fully vaccinated is the only way to go. we can't have more people sick and dying when we know what the answer is. this isn't the beginning of the pandemic, where we didn't have a lot of tools in our toolkit. now we do since last december. we know the efficacy and safety of this vaccine. 99% of the people who are getting vaccinated are protected against the virus. if they do have the so-called break-through, which is a tiny percentage, they're not getting sick and dying or getting anywhere close to the proportion of people that are unvaccinated.

so fully vaccinated. that's the path forward. we're going to continue to educate people into compliance. >> mayor lightfoot, just, i want our viewers to know what this fraternal order of police president said, we're in america, blank it, we don't have to be forced, period. this ain't nazi-blanking germany, where they say step into the blanking showers, the pills won't hurt you. he goes on spewing vulgaritys. again, let's underline the fact that the number one cause of death among police officers in america this year is covid. i'm just curious, did this guy fought go to school? did he not get vaccinated five or six times to go to public schools? did his children, if he has them not get vaccinated? these people are acting like

idiots like there haven't been vaccine requirements before. madam mayor, i just, it's important to underline a new a.p. poll came out that said a majority of workers, workers want vaccine requirements and only 22, 23, 24% are o'begins those. the overwhelming majority of americans are for what you are doing. why don't more leaders take this step? >> well, i think what you will see more and more people doing exactly that. particularly with the fda approval, the pfizer final approval of the pfizer vaccine. but look, this guy who is ahead of the fop, there is no kind words for him. in all seriousness, i think the guy really needs some serious psychotherapy and this is just another hatred and stupidity he

spews on a regular basis. he is not representative. we have police officers in hospitals right now. very sick. around three-quarters of the ones that are in unvaccinated. it doesn't make accepts and to have something like this, who by the way is an apology gist for the 1/6 insurrection who has said other hateful, awful things about people of color, about refugees, immigrants. he's just an un-- he's a horrible guy. but i can't let him detract us from what is absolutely necessary. which is vaccine, vaccine, vaccine. the data is clear, not only nationally, in our city of chicago we know who is sick and dying. we have to carry that message forward, lead by example. i got to do what is necessary to protect our residents from the terminal deadly virus and i'm not going to be deterred by the likes of somebody who spews this

kind of stupidity and hatred on a regular basis. it's unfortunate that our local media gives him a platform. because he's a goof and that's probably the most terrible word can i use for him. >> mayor. this is claire mccaskill. talk a littleant your schools. what is going on with the connection with the children that cannot be vaccinated and parents worried about them returning to the classroom? >> we are fully opening on monday. we're excited to open schools august 30th. we're ready, prepared. our school system spent over 100 million on mitigation efforts last school year when we opened up and gave parents and option to come back to in-person learnings. we continue those efforts. we are ready to go. what we know is our children are literally physically safer in schools than any place else. we know that our kids go to

school not just to get an education, to get nourished, supported, to get loved. we are going back fully back five days a week in person starting monday. of course, we are giving some options for ones that can't get the vaccine. we will have legitimate medical issues. otherwise, we expect our kids to be back, our teachers to be back. we have been negotiating with our teachers all summer. look, we didn't start with a plank piece of paper. we had two rounds of very tough negotiations last spring when we re-opened our element air schools and high schools. we're ready to go. whether that union is going to stand with us and do the right thing and show parents, i can't predict that what i know is in chicago our schools will be opened and available for our kids to come back starting monday and our schools are safe. we got a huge body of evidence not only with the other school systems that were fully opened starting in september 2020.

also our own body of evidence from what we did to mitigate against covid. we got more people vaccinated now than we had when we started reopening in february/march of last year. we're safe. our kids are coming back. and i'm excited to greet them on monday. >> mayor lightfoot, as you know, there has been a renewed focus on mental health, because of the isolation so many people would help, particularly with the very children you are talking about, the impacts on their mental health. you have a new initiative in the city of chicago called unspoken investment in mental health. tell us more about it. >> well, we have found starting in 2019, we made what turns out to be now threefold investment in our mental health and listening to patients and clinicians to provide supports in the neighborhood level so people can have ready access to good quality and affordable mental health services. but we've known, willie, one of the biggest challenges we still

face when we talk about mental health is destigma advertising it. making sure people understand a comfort that they need to be able to talk about their challenges and also to seek help and what we've heard from a lot of practitioners over the course of the pandemic is that we're getting more moralized conversations around the challenges that people are nation on the whole spectrum, from depression anxiety to much more severe documented mental illnesses. so our campaign is about giving people the words, but showing people that look like them across a wide spectrum of demographics. the unspoken is filling in the planks about what are you feeling about mental health and wellness issues, so we can get it going and more people through care. the pandemic has been tough on people's mental health and wellness. we got to get people back to where they feel comfortable, in

their own skin. a big part of that is addressing the depression, the anxiety, the anger and the other spectrum of mental health challenges that people are feeling that have been exacerbated through the pandemic. >> as you say, the first step is just acknowledgeing it and showing that it's okay to talk about it, what it feels like weakness to some people. it certainly is not. because so many of us experience challenges like that. part of the anxiety and stress, obviously, that's been generations old in the city of chicago is gun violence. you had another 47 shot, 52 shot the weekend before that. what is being done to stem this tide that as i say has gone on for years but seems to persist right through one mayor to another? >> look. the challenge i think we peace is has absolutely been exacerbated by the pandemic. we see a level of brazenness in our streets. what i call upon residents of chicago is no not fight each

other but to unite against our common enemy. the common enemy is guns and gangs. there is no question about that. so with the support of the federal government, we're renewing our resources and effort in dealing with gun violence, getting traffickers, prosecuting those cases. we're about to announce a new initiative to come directly after them to hit them in their pocketbook, where they are. the long play as you well know is about building up supports and communities. giving our known people hope and understanding that their destiny is not pre-ordained. so we will continue to focus on providing mental health support, focusing on supporting our youth, particularly in their out of school time and making sure we are providing good quality jobs and economic development opportunities in these neighborhoods that have historically been disinvested in. that's the only way forward. we cannot solve this problem by arresting our way out of it. we tried that strategy over decades, it doesn't work. we got to partner with the

community and provide them with support and resources, that's exactly what we're doing. it's frustrating that the progress is slow. but the progress is absolutely happening and i believe that we got the right strategies in place, which is going to stay with it and be determined and interpretational about it. >> obviously a problem that has frustrated many mayors even before you, mayor lori lightfoot of chicago. thank you very much for your time this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. >> coming up next exmore on the efforts to keep children safe. ten florida school districts are dee defying state orders against mask mandates. "morning joe" is coming right back. t back >> need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot.

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desantis says only parents can decide whether their children will wear masks or not. and bars the school districts from having any guidance. let's bring in state attorney for palm beach county, dave arenberg. there is this commercial about timing where some guy was always just a little off kilter, and the impact it had on his social life. i think the governor's political timing is a little suspect right now because unless you live in florida, you don't understand that so many floridians feel under siege right now, especially the more populated areas of the state by this delta variant. what are you looking at to see whether the governor's timing is off or whether this is in fact most floridians want? >> good morning, joe. yeah, the governor picked the wrong fight and he is now paying the political price for it. he used this anti-mask mandate

stuff to rise to the top of the republican polls for president in 2024. he game a maga darling. but he neglected to think about his re-election next year for governor and this stuff is hurting him. there have been three major changes on the ground that led to this, first the spread of the delta variant which is much riskier for children in particular. and also the anti-mask mandates being thrust upon schools where children under 12 cannot get vaccines. and third, he has ramped up his rhetoric, he is threatening to defund school district that's pose him. and that slgan defound schools is about as pop or uhe lar as defund police. and as you said ten school districts are standing up to him. they are red and blue counties including two counties that voted for trump in the last election. so you are seeing cruise lines now, private companies, bucking

the governor. it was just a couple days ago that it was just norwegian cruise lines that filed a lawsuit but now all cruise companies are saying that they will require proof of vaccine for all passengers over 12 and the latest company to say it was disney and the governor has said nothing in response because it is one thing to try to bully local government officials, it is yet another to pick a fight with the mouse. >> willie and i have talked about it how strange it is to have these governors who claim to be tariff actually telling small business owners what they can't do, telling family restaurants what they can't do, telling entrepreneurs that create thousands of jobs across the state of florida or texas what they can't do. and yet you have the governor doing that and also telling all 67 county school boards, local school boards what they can and cannot do. that does not sound like a small government conservative. that kind of sounds more like a

big government socialist. i'm interested though, the governor is saying that parents should make individual decisions on masks. is he saying the same thing about the five or six vaccines that every child in the state of florida has to take before they start school? >> you're right, you're trying to use common sense, joe. he is also trying to blame joe biden for not ending the covid pandemic. that was his latest accusation which is crazy, that is like the miami dolphins defense in the '80s and '90s blaming dan marino for never winning a super bowl. and the school boards are responding to clear science on masks and they also know that the governor has limited tools that he can use to retaliate against them. first he wanted to defund schools but that was unpopular. then he wented to defund school salaries, but he doesn't have

the legal authority to do so. and now he wants to defund the equivalent of their salaries from the overall school budgets. but that is just a drop in the bucket and the biden administration has said that they will reimburse the money. so we have this political standoff which is really unusual in a one party state like florida, it shows that the invincibility of this governor is gone and ironically, although desantis has made this freedom thing, this sanity mask mandate his political brand, last year he imposed lockdowns state wind, but don't tell anyone because that will hurt him amongst his republican base. >> thank you so much, greatly appreciate it. claire h mccaskill, want to go you for final thoughts. where are we as we move toward labor day weekend? >> i think that we have a battle within the republican party between the people who understand science and respect

science and want mandates for their own public safety and these republican governors who are fighting culture wars in order to somehow capture the 20% to 25% of the trump base that are anti-vax, anti-mask. i think that battle is going to continue, in the long run it doesn't bode well for the republican party. >> and willie geist, you can always tell miami boys. bringing up dan marino in a conversation about mask mandates. >> yeah, and defending dan marino who gets knocked for not winning a super bowl. dave pointing out it was the defense that cost them the super bowls. joe, i wish you and fellow red sox fans the best of luck here moving forward. the yankees who really have become the sea biscuit of this time, an upstart team that is inspiring the country during difficult times, a country rallying around the yankees as they head into oakland for a critical four game series. so i think that there will be

movies made, books written about this yankee team and this time in our nation. >> sea biscuit, if sea biscuit had been shot with a ton of steroids before the race. but i'll let you go with whatever analogy. we're just the little engine that could. >> that's it. >> i think i can, i think i can. >> it is who we are. joe, thank you very much. thanks to all of you. we'll see you back here tomorrow morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage. and that ends the sports portion of our coverage. this morning a terror threat hanging over the mass evacuation effort in afghanistan with just five days left to get out thousands of people from the kabul airport. right now the airport is on high alert after the state department warned americans to leave the gates immediately because of a