hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. have at it. that was the blunt message from president joe biden today to members of the republican party who seem particularly triggered by the president's aggressive new plan to defeat the coronavirus and return our country to some semblance of normal. it was rolled out as the pandemic takes an unprecedented toll on the nation's children. but even that tempered the gop's outrage. a group of republican governors vowing they will sue over new requirements president biden announced last night specifically the new regulation that would require employers with more than 100 workers to mandate vaccinations or to make unvaccinated workers take a covid test every week. these measures represent some of the toughest and potentially most impactful new steps that

the biden administration has taken as they affect more than 100 million americans. of course in that 100 million many of those workers have likely already been vaccinated. but the response from the right erases any doubt at all the gop is in this thing together with the rest of us. the health and safety of residents of gop-led states a matter of personal choice, it would appear, in their view. texas governor greg abbott calling the mandates, quote, an assault on private businesses. said the state is, quote, already working to halt this. gordon said he asked his state's ag, quote to stand prepared to take all actions to oppose this administration's unconstitutional overreach of executive power, end quote. south carolina governor henry mcmaster promised to battle biden to the gates of hell. president biden today equally forceful response. >> have at it.

look, i am so disappointed that particularly some republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids. so cavalier for the health of their communities. this is -- we're playing for real here. this isn't a game. and i don't know of any scientists out there in this field who doesn't think it makes a considerable sense to do the six things i've suggested. >> to be clear, what republican governors are protesting is little more than a requirement that employees be tested for the deadly and rapidly spreading coronavirus once a week or they opt out of getting tested once a week and get vaccinated. here was president biden's announcement yesterday. >> tonight i'm announcing that the department of labor is

developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employ over 80 million workers to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated. or show a negative test at least once a week. >> that statement made them crazy. even a once a week test to protect other americans in those work places to keep business open and to keep our hospital capacities at a functional level is too much. too much for the right wing. president biden's new measures from axios, quote, top republicans are calling for a public uprising, protest president biden's broad vaccine mandates, eight months after more than 500 people stormed the u.s. capitol to try to overturn the election. u.s. senate candidate in ohio j.d. vance urging on twitter,

quote, mass civil disobedience. here is part of the statement he blasted out to all of his fans. quote, do not comply with the mandates. do not pay the government fines. don't allow yourself to be bully and controlled. only mass civil disobedience will save us from joe biden's naked authoritarianism. on high alert for radicalized right-wing violent extremists. the biden administration insists for the vast majority of the country insight to uprisings from have fallen glass. those close to the white house says, quote, is america divided? yes. but biden is uniting the 75% versus the 25% that's in opposition. that is unity politics in a divided nation. threatened by an unruly minority

and that is where we start with our favorite reporters and friends. david jolly is here, national chairman of the serve america movement. also joining us our friend, msnbc national affairs analyst, the host and executive producer of the emmy-nominated "the circus" on showtime, host of the hell and high water podcast, and dr. patel is here, an msnbc medical contributor. doctor, let me start with you. do these regulations help us beat covid? help us get back to something more like normal and help, you know, end what we're seeing in a lot of southern states where vaccination rates are still low? >> they do, nicolle, and maybe not for some of the obvious reasons the republicans want to you prey to, that this is an authoritarian takeover, that it will take rules and regulations and, unfortunately, some time to enforce, but probably the most important thing, and you saw it

with the l.a. unified school district and other employers who have come forward, it's given a tail wind to some private and public sector communities that have been resistant or needed some cover. this is the white house doing what a white house needs to do. it's not as if they arrived at this plan overnight. there's a lot that goes into it and will it make enough of a difference to help us tamp down what might be another surge three to four months from now. and i hope the answer is yes. combined with the fatigue the public has. they want life to get back to normal. we just want something normal. >> david jolly, what has struck this chord? what is the trigger? they are crazed. while this speech was going on,

i was watching twitter, it's not a vaccine mandate. it will be to either get vaccinated or submit to testing. any person in a responsible school has that regulation, what planet are they on? >> nicolle, you are right this is a work place testing mandate, not a vaccine mandate. but in republican parlance, believe me, this will be a vaccine mandate from today through november of 2022. and the triggering -- look, some of this is reflective partisanship, who we are as a culture, as a nation, as a political constituency. if biden is for it, republicans have to be against it. part of it is anger. this is smartly written to suggest the federal jurisdiction over work place safety could be used to go to the area of either testing or vaccines. but the third is also this,

nicolle, republicans want this fight. and rightly or wrongly, and they could be wrong with the politics, but they believe the politics actually will help them going into november '22. i got a text from a republican insider after biden's speech and he said biden just handed republicans the house in next november if they didn't have it already, and we're going to be looking for a whole lot more. we want this fight. that is an amoral position, almost immoral position to take in the threat of a public health environment in which both parties, all americans, should be concentrated on how we end the pandemic. we have not come to expect more from republicans. republicans see this as a political battle they can extract a currency from by going after joe biden on the narrative of a vaccine mandate even though it's a false narrative. >> i believe your friend texted you that but i'm calling bs on your friend's political acumen. >> good. >> here is what your friend would have written you if 1,500 people continued to die and

maintained a level of 150,000 new case as day. guess what, joe biden just handed republicans the house because so many people are still dying of covid. this is -- the politics of this are terrible either way. so the president did the right thing. i mean, most people who want to live and be healthy and see their kids not at risk in school will be glad he's fighting the pandemic. how craven is the republican party they would rather him -- i've heard the political analysis on both sides of that. a lot of people say republicans would like to see him fail at beating covid. that's even sicker. >> i think you're right, nicolle. i agree with you. i think my friend and republican insider is getting it wrong. but, more importantly, if you drop the red and blue jersey, a lot of americans yesterday thought, boy, we have devolved into a childish, petty, ignorant nation incapable of confronting a crisis and where generations

past understood protecting individual liberty but recognizing the calling of patriotism. that is not this generation of americans. and where do we go from this point? a lot of americans are trying to do the right thing for themselves and their fellow american. we look at this debate, this fight, and forget politics. we are a childish partisan, petty, ignorant nation that should be the laughing stock of the developed world because we are capable of ending this. we've been handed the tools by science and industry and technology and now government, and we aren't willing to use them. >> wow. all right. we're going to go from the profound, from david jolly, to the sublime howard stern. let's listen and we'll talk about it on the other side. >> [ bleep ] them, [ bleep ] their freedom, i want my freedom to live. >> there was more but the time it takes to bleep the fabulous, the one and only howard stern

was too much for my team stretched thin. you get the picture. i think someone who tells the truth captures how most people feel. >> happy friday, by the way. i think it is friday today. i got the day right for the first time in like two weeks. you know howard stern is one of my idols. >> mine, too. >> that was great seeing him weigh in with such clarity. maybe the same day i was on with joe and mika and said the delta variant raised the price of stupid. the price in terms of politics. now i would say it raised the price of stupid and the price of crazy. the problem is it's raised the price not just for the stupid and the crazy, it's raised the

price of rampant stupidity for the rest of us. joe biden has said there's only one way through this. we have to get a handle on this. it's terrible whether it's fair or not. a pandemic raging out of control that donald trump and others will blame on joe biden is bad for him. he has to get ahead on the pandemic. he's taken all of the action that he has within his constitutional authority and done this thing. he's basically said for those of you who are too stupid, i will take this decision out of your hands. i'm going to alleviate the cost of your stupidity because i will not let you be so stupid that you can't take care of yourself. and for those of you on the republican side who are crazy or craven, to your point before, i'm going to give you a big, long, extended middle finger from the white house that says what howard stern is saying

which is f your freedom. it's not really about your freedom. we all have claims to freedom and want to live free of a mortal threat in our communities. we all want to live free of a mortal threat to our children in their schools. you have your claims of freedom. i have mine. i'll tell you the side i'm going to be on is the side of the 75% who want to end this pandemic. and i can tell that you i know david jolly is telling the truth. a lot of republicans say they want this fight. i agree they're wrong on the politics. i'll tell you who else wants this fight, the white house. they know per that quote in the newsletter, they know this is an issue that will be divisive and they're on the side of the 75% and they are saying what joe biden said which is bring this fight on. we think we can win this fight in the politics and this is the only way we're going to beat back this pandemic and so they're ready to go. we'll see what happens but they're not backing down from this and took on the fight

knowing exactly what was coming. >> we've talked a lot about joe biden and president joe biden, as we head into the anniversary of 9/11 tomorrow, everything the country was asked to do after that horrific day, and some of them you might in this current political moment, i'm not throwing away my $9 bottle of fiji water, john heilemann, do you think -- and i pray to god nothing along these lines happens ever, ever again, but you talk to national security officials and they're equally worried about threats from abroad and domestic violence threats here. do you think we're still a country that could erect an agency that would tell us to submit to searches and take off our shoes and throw away our water? >> no. >> i don't either. >> we are not. the country has changed in a pretty profound way since 2001, nicolle. we've seen it, the divisions,

the pettiness, all of those things that were bad already when your administration took office, are infinitely worse now 20 years later. we know there are tens of millions of americans who believe in the big lie, and we know there are not quite as many but still millions who think the insurrection on january 6th was of just cause, was a heroic cause. a country like that is not a country that can pull together and embrace the call to shared sacrifice in the duty of patriotism or public safety. i don't think it was the right thing to do. i think some of the stuff on the domestic front was too much. but whether you think that or not in retrospect the reality is the vast majority of the country pulled together in that moment and said we're facing an existential threat. how can we help? how can we get onboard?

what do we need to do to keep our country safe? i don't think we have a country remotely like that now. the way we've handled covid and the insurrection proves it and it scares the hell out of me. >> me, too. and i think from where we started, dr. patel, we're in a moment now where kids are a pawn. the packed icu units, as of this hour today, friday september 10th, are largely in unvaccinated areas of largely unvaccinated states for now. so even seeing young kids, kids 5, 7, 9, 11 die is not shaking anyone out of this fever. i wonder on the topic of protecting children, i'm guessing the vaccine rollout for kids 5 to 11 will be as tainted as everything else but why don't parents who are listening to the

science even have that as a choice? i understand the vaccine maker that partnered with pfizer is getting ready to roll that out globally. why not here? >> yes, that's a good question, nicolle, about how we're handling a lot of the things that, frankly, we could improve upon from just the communication around this pandemic. i think the regulatory nature. there have been a lot of starts and stops. we don't have authorization or approval for our booster shot. the questions you asked about children, access to vaccines is forcing the american public to think through how can i do what i need to do to protect my children resulting now, unfortunately, in that very small vocal minority showing up at these school board meetings and protests to somehow bully parents who are trying to protect them. l.a. unified school district kind of mandating a vaccine for 12 and above is an incredibly bold move, but we will start to

see more of that. but we need a vaccine to be able to use for a potential mandate. and i'm just very concerned that we have 250,000 pediatric cases on top of previous weeks growing at a number. cases overall in the country might be going down, but the proportion of cases and the number of pediatric cases continue to go up and account for the fact we can't slow down this pandemic. i suspect as soon as we have an authorization for a pediatric vaccine we will start to see the right completely take that apart, too. you have a court that upholds the bans for masks. what do you think when we ask children to get vaccinated, and we're going to need children to get vaccinated to protect the country. so i really do think this is going to be a biden moment for lovers around education, support your schools. he put some of that in place yesterday t. reminds me when lbj pud medicare and medicaid in place, you used the program, with holding funds and medicare

as a threat to desegregate the hospitals in the south, continued to segregate patients. we're seeing some of that dynamic play out here and probably will continue to see that with children. >> david jolly, what makes you optimistic and hopeful? >> well, let me tell you the chapter in relation to childhood vaccines. if we thought the fight over mask mandates was significant, wait until the first school board mandates the vaccine for children. we are about to see a battle culturally among the left and the right. i hate that's the fault line but over vaccine mandates for kids. here is some optimism and encouragement and it would be this. with a new president, someone who has left behind the toxic nature of the previous president, a president in joe biden we all thought was going to come and try to build consensus, almost a soft form of

domestic leadership, he actually really continues to make some very tough decisions he believes are right and is willing to accept the consequences. look at the decision on the stimulus, a bill sherrod brown said contains some of the most progressive victories in a generation. he's taken a lot of heat for afghanistan. the president who said i think our nation needs to go in a different direction and i'm willing to take this fight on. look what he did yesterday, i'm willing to take this fight on. when it comes to childhood vaccines, i think what joe biden tells us he's willing to take the fight on and the political hit to do what he believes is right. in the face of a pandemic in contrast to the past administration that virtually did everything wrong this is a president truly trying to get it right. >> david jolly, dr. patel, john heilemann, thank you so much for being part of this conversation. i'm grateful to all three of

you. no evidence to back up the former president's claim of voter fraud, none, zilch, nothing. bill barr couldn't find it. chris krebs couldn't find it. republicans under pressure from the twice impeached disgraced ex-president and his friends a forensic investigation. funded by taxpayers there. the state's attorney general is our next guest. 20 years after 9/11, the nature of terrorism and a country coming together look a whole lot different today. how life has changed for all of us. in the next hour the congressional inquiry into the insurrection on january 6th at the u.s. capitol is powering along despite attempts from the gop house leader to put a stop to it. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. white houses after a quick break. we did it again. verizon has been named america's most reliable network by rootmetrics.

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here we sit in september 2021 still giving oxygen to the big lie, the sham review is not the pursuit of transparency. the goal is simply to stoke distrust and division and the most exasperating part of it all is everyone on this panel knows that. we know this and you know this. and yet here we sit. >> here we all sit. the top democrat in the gop-led pennsylvania committee that's launched a baseless taxpayer funded investigation yesterday into the 2020 presidential election. and they're having trouble

convincing anyone that this is actually about election integrity and not something designed to please donald trump or that anything they're doing is legitimate or more meaningful than the arizona fraud. when asked by "the inquirer" lawmakers have not explained how it would be run including whether best practices would be followed, who would be involved including what politicians would play, how the review would be documented, how equipment and ballots would be secured and what the scope of any review would be. joining our conversation pennsylvania's attorney general josh shapiro. you said on this show basically over my dead body. is this happening? and you're very much alive. >> i also said on this program it's time for them to put up or shut up. i think i said that a year ago and they've yet to produce any evidence of fraud because what we know as a point of fact in

pennsylvania is we had a free and fair safe and secure election which, by the way, has gone through two legal state-mandated audits already. the hearing you showed a alcoholism of and the comments from senator williams, i think, demonstrate this isn't a legitimate fact-finding mission. this isn't an audit. these are a handful of senators trying to undermine faith in democracy because donald trump asked them to. and we have to continue to speak truth and continue to point out the reality of what occurred and make sure taxpayers understand that there's a cost to them. first from the context of their dollars are being spent on this hearing and, second, these folks are ignoring the important work around climate change, around education, around job creation, around beating covid and they

are running errands for donald trump. >> they even admit they found no fraud. >> in your investigation was there any fraudulent voting found out in the votes? >> our report came back -- it's in our report but nothing was found, everything was ran properly. >> square, up and up, no fraudulent voting? >> that's what the report says. >> the republican says nothing was found, no fraudulent voting. that's what the report says. and i take your point that nothing legitimate is happening but are you concerned that even an illegitimate, bogus, horse bleep kind of review has the same effect among people who were immune to the facts? >> it certainly has an effect. it certainly is a cancer that's

growing on our democracy, certainly taking us away from those values and the camaraderie and the patriotism we all felt on september 12th. this is a danger to the future of our commonwealth and our country what they're doing. understand these republican senators have been lying to the good people of pennsylvania for the last ten months, and now they find themselves in a position where they've got themselves in a corner. they have to continue to lie to them on newsmax and in their newsletters. when they're in a hearing, and i'm using air quotes here, they can't produce a shred of evidence to back up the bogus claims they've been making. understand that person you just had on your screen, that was their star witness. they said this would be a blockbuster hearing. it was a total dud and the one witness confirmed what we all know and that is there was no election fraud.

i do take your point there is a cost to our democracy and something we have to speak truth about. >> there was a dud and a thud and donald trump couldn't find any either. you said something that stopped me in my tracks. this is your quote in yesterday's paper. quote, people are now waking up to the fact that the battle will now be in the states and they recognize that the only thing literally, the only thing, standing in the way of pennsylvania passing the same ban on abortions that texas passed. i've given up on the politicians in washington. i don't think we can count on them anymore. now i wish you had said that on this show. democrats control, have you given up on them being able to

govern on issues like voting rights, on reproductive freedoms or what were you saying there? >> i was saying what i said which i think the action is in the states. when you look at the big lie and leading to the violent insurrection, to the efforts to roll back voting rights in georgia and texas successfully and now, of course, what we're seeing in texas and in south dakota and other states efforts by lawmakers to control women's bodies beyond what i think the constitution allows this is something that is happening in the states and here in pennsylvania. those same bills to restrict voting rights, those same bills to control women's bodies, have been passed in the legislature. the only reason they haven't become law is because we have a democratic governor who has vetoed them. on the second point you raised, look, i recognize democrats control washington. i recognize many of them are

trying on both of these fronts. but because of this archaic filibuster, because you've got a couple at least united states senators who are willing to stand up for the filibuster instead of standing up for voting rights, instepped of standing up for reproductive freedom for women, that suggests to me that the answers aren't going to come from washington but rather from the states. and in a state like pennsylvania, if we want to stop ourselves from becoming like texas, becoming like georgia, we sure as hell better never lose that democratic governor's veto pen. >> if i could push you beyond the commonwealth's borders, where does that leave women in texas? where does that leave women in other states looking at a ban? where does that leave men, women, children in the 48 states looking at voting restrictions? >> certainly with this united states supreme court, at least with this texas abortion case, they're making clear that certain states will be able to

pass certain laws and that's why i think the action is in the states. i would much rather see a federal law in place that protects voting rights, that keeps lawmakers hands off -- hands away from women's bodies and controlling their bodies and controlling the decisions that they ought to make over their own bodies. but in the absence of that we'll have to battle this out in the states. i'm certainly prepared to do that, the work i'm doing and will continue to do here in pennsylvania. >> what do you and your peers in that elite and to some of us opaque circle of state attorneys general, the prospects are of success that merrick garland's suit against the near total ban on abortions, all abortions after six weeks? do you think that the texas law was crafted in a way the supreme

court has all but green lit? can you just give me your legal analysis on where things stand? >> two separate issues. the supreme court of the united states has made clear they are going to put restrictions on roe and they are going to allow states to clearly move in a direction that makes it harder for women to exercise decisions over their own bodies. on a parallel track, we do have a department of justice that is fighting back and hopefully crafting a legal argument that is going to carry the day. what i think texas did, i believe, to be unconstitutional. i wish that the supreme court of the united states didn't hide behind their shadow docket and were forced to write opinions and to justify their decision to go against jurisprudence. what we need to do is see the department of justice take this

case through. we need to see the supreme court hear it and ideally we're going to have a situation where that texas case is struck down. i'm hopeful. i'm not sure i'm willing to say that i'm cautiously optimistic but i'm hopeful. what i do know for certain in states like pennsylvania where those bills are going to be put forth we need to make sure we can fight back to stop them. and you stop them with an aggressive attorney general fighting to defend women's rights, fighting to defend voting rights and with the governor's veto pen who will veto that kind of bad legislation. >> pennsylvania attorney general, it feels like everything happening in this country is intersecting with your day job, so thank you for taking some time to talk to us. thank you so much. when we come back the terror threat against our country seems to increasingly be coming from inside from far right extremists fighting to save our democracy

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as we take stock how the 20 years have changed america and changed us, the greatest threat to our country is today not from terrorists overseas but from the terrorists here at home who call themselves patriots even as they storm the u.s. capitol using the

american flag as a weapon against law enforcement. one of our next guests argues it's long pastime moving from the war on terror and on healing our democracy here at home taking stock of america almost 20 years after 9/11 he writes this. what the united states represents and what it means to be an american are far more contested than when we reflectively rallied after 9/11. today it has been interpreted through tribal politics capitalized by deflection. the same republican party that led the establishment of a multitrillion dollar security state after 9/11 doesn't even want to investigate on what happened january 6. joining us is the author of that piece, ben rhodes, and former congresswoman donna edwards is also here. lucky for us both msnbc contributors. i want to get into your piece and ask you first what's on your mind ahead of this anniversary.

>> nicolle, i've been thinking about it a lot. i saw the second plane fly into the world trade center and watched the first tower fall. and it totally up-ended my life, propelled me down to washington. there are two things on my mind, among many, the first is i remember -- even though i was a young 23-year-old liberal democrat working for city council campaign i was rooting for my elected official who is were republican, rudy giuliani, george w. bush, i wanted them to succeed. i wanted -- i felt stirred by their words. i wanted the country to come together like just about everybody. and something has broken in those 20 years that you could have a violent insurrection on the u.s. capitol, the very threat we were so worried about after 9/11, the very type of

attack those heroic passengers prevented, you could have that attack and within hours of that attack instead of people rallying together people were trying to blame antifa, to obscure what happened. that's how far we've fallen in 20 years. frankly that's reflective of a reality where there's been this kind of radicalization inside, let's face it, the american right wing and pieces of the republic kwan party that would rather look away from the extremism in their midst than protect the american people whether it's from a pandemic or whether it's from a violent insurrection on the capitol or the kind of violence at synagogues. the healing we have to do, the work we have to do, i think is less in fighting wars overseas and more in the detoxification of our democracy and the recapturing, hopefully -- and it will take time, more than one

presidency -- of the kind of common purpose many of us felt called to after 9/11. >> donna, listening to ben, i want to hear about your day that day and your thoughts, but i'm going to tack on to it a question. what seemed so debilitating for our country is what ben is describing was the posture of every democratic elected official in washington. they, too, rooted for the people running the country. and we have had the debate about the wise or unwise nature of those decisions. the country was united. you have a dire, an urgent threat to the american homeland from domestic violent extremists and you do not have any republicans other than liz cheney and adam kinzinger who even articulate what the threat is and where it comes from. how do you keep the country safe with that as our new normal?

>> i think that is our real challenge. on 9/11 i wasn't thinking of myself as a democrat, i was thinking of myself as an american and a mom and worried about our nation. and i remember the visual of president bush in new york and feeling so proud and defiant and determined as an american. i remember seeing republicans and democrats from the left to the right on the steps of the capitol saying that as a nation we were united to fight this evil scourge of terrorism. but it doesn't feel that way today, to be quite honest. we are so divided. and i know that's been said, but it's part of the reason that i believe that president biden,

you know, governing from a perspective of creating a strong alliance with the 75%, because the 75%, i think, hold the future and promise of what we will be tomorrow. and i think back to that day -- i'm in the washington region. it was such a crisp , blue sky. >> i remember. >> and that plume of black smoke from the pentagon. and you can never really get that out of your mind. i lived in a neighborhood with service members and government workers and pentagon workers, and the feeling that we were all together. and i don't know what gets us back to that place. >> ben, it feels like this president governing for the 75% is also -- i don't know what the

right word is, but reprioritizing, maybe, expertise from the national security establishment. i think we don't mo what we don't know yet what they endured in the pentagon and the state department over the last four years. i think the scandals have certainly become public, but we don't mo what that work was like protecting the american homeland from threats foreign and domestic. i wonder if you have thoughts about this president and his history as a senator, history with grief, if you have thoughts how this anniversary affects him. >> well, i think he is both a deeply empathetic person and he's someone who was a kind of figure that when i moved down to washington because of 9/11, i wanted to be a part of what happened next. it completely redirected my life. i saw those attacks. i lived in the queens

neighborhood where i walked by firefighter funeral after firefighter funeral. i remember seeing widows sitting in lawn chairs with lines of sobbing men greeting them. i just wanted to be a part of it. and joe biden was the kind of figure that was in both parties, by the way, in those days when i came down, who you just knew i worked for a guy who was just like that. a plain spoken, pragmatic midwestern democrat. he thought about the country ahead of anything else. and i think joe biden is someone who thinks about the country ahead of other things. he's empathetic to people who suffered loss, who wants to rely upon expertise, who wants to get his arms around these challenges. part of what's so difficult from a national security perspective, nicolle, when i was in government we worried about people being radicalized to join isis or al qaeda online. i think with the explosion of social media this has entered a realm beyond national security where you have vast swaths of the united states population

essentially being radicalized by conspiracy theories. one man on a pizza gate conspiracy theory around the time of trump's election became a violent insurrection of thousands of people on january 6th. the scale of this challenge i think biden has the empathy and the reliance and expertise and decency and commitment of the country to address it. it goes beyond the national security realm, to our democracy, it goes to the information ecosystem in this country. and so it's going to take an effort that, again, relies on national security professionals but that also looks hard at what kind of country we want to be. >> we're going to sneak in a quick break. ben rhodes and donna edwards aren't going anywhere. stay with us. when we come back on the eve of 9/11 some thoughts this hour on what the next 20 years may look like.

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every day can be extraordinary with rich, creamy, delicious fage total yogurt. wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin? at new chapter, every day can be extraordinary with rich, its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done. we're back at 8:30 on this tuesday morning. it is the 11th day of september, the year 2001. we've got a nice crowd on a beautiful early fall morning here in manhattan. we hope the weather is pretty where you are waking up as well. >> i had that on in my office in the white house. those were the last glimpses of an america soon to be changed forever. 16 minutes after that live shot the first plane would hit the twin towers.

back with ben rhodes and donna edwards. i want to read something ben writes to you first, donna. american democracy must be fortified and revitalized. protecting the right to vote and strengthening democratic institutions at home must be the cornerstone of the united states democracy. stemming the flood of disinformation and hate speech on u.s. social media platforms would curb radicalization and under-mina authoritarianism all over the world. to replace the war on terror with a better generational project, americans have to be driven by what they are for, not what they are against. we are so far from that. we can't get democrats to put aside the filibuster, not just to improve access to the right to vote but prevent it from being steamrolled predicated on a lie about fraud which was nonexistent. how do we get there? >> yeah, it is so deeply

troubling because, you know, we had always known that institutions, especially over the last several decades, that people's trust in our institutions has been diminishing. i think what is more difficult to imagine is that we don't have leaders today who are willing to put all the old rules aside because they don't apply anymore, which is why i think those of us who called for a removal of the filibuster to gain some -- to regain some of those norms that ben writes about, that we need that because the old rules don't apply. so i'm really -- i'm worried for the nation. i'm worried that the tyranny of the minority will continue if we don't change the construct, and that means getting people engaged and willing to, you know, not just say that government is some third person but government is us. we have to own it, and the way

that we own it is to control our destiny, our destiny in terms of how we vote and whether we vote and who we elect as our leaders. right now we have a deep leadership crisis where the people who are supposedly in charge are some of the worst offenders against democracy. so we need a complete rewrite in order that the next 20 years don't look like the last decade or 20 years has looked. >> it is not happening on both sides. i mean let me just say it. there is one party that is comfortable with autocratic moves like propaganda being pumped into their base of voters, like the refusal to stand up to disinformation, be it about a mask, be it about a vaccine, be it about a deadly insurrection. i mean, ben, how do you project anything close to that shining city on a hill or whatever way you want to describe the idea of

america when we are so inward turned and divided? >> i'll try to find the hope here, nicolle. because, first of all, i think that the core thing that i was trying to get at there and that you get at i think every day on this show is that there are a lot of issues that we have to deal with as a country. democracy is the one that we can't get wrong, and that has to be the core north star for everything that we do. and if we can fight through this, if we can show that you can go through this kind of authoritarian resurgence on one side of our politic, if we can fight through this and improve upon it, it is a very relevant example for the rest of the world that is dealing with it. that work of pursuing democracy can ripple out in a way i think will be a more relevant example to the world than issuing edicts about democracy from a mountain top. we have to fight through this moment we are in and we're america, we know how to do that.

we know how to do big things, we've done it before. >> seeing our struggle and land on the right spot, seeing us elect president joe biden, is that your point? is that what you are saying, ben? >> that's a starting point, but we have to do it in our communities. we have to do it across the board, and all of us have a role to play. the second we give up on this is we know it is lost. we are citizens of a democracy. we can make of it what we want it to be. >> ben rhodes, donna edwards, thank you for making some time for this conversation. i'm really grateful to talk to both of you. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ i was astonished, frankly, by his statements. it is a felony to obstruct a congressional investigation. the real point is what's he hiding? why is he trying to keep the truth from coming out? you know, i think the leaders of our country -- and kevin is one of them -- should be stepping forward and trying to get to the bottom of everything that led up to january 6th, and people who aren't doing that are a mystery to me unless they participated. i don't know. i can't imagine what his reason for that is, that there is a benign reason for these statements. >> hi again, everyone. it is 5:00 in new york. member of the 1/6 select committee investigating the insurrection, congresswoman zoe lofgren asking the question that needs to be asked. why is minority leader kevin

mccarthy going to such great lengths to stop and impede an investigation if he has nothing to hide? her comments last night to our colleague rachel maddow are a direct response to mccarthy's threat against the 35 telecom and social media companies who received records requests from the bipartisan select committee asking for information relevant to the capital siege and efforts to delay or interfere with the transfer of power. mccarthy then threatened those companies, saying in a statement, quote, if these companies comply with the democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the u.s. minority leader, if you are watching, please let us know what federal law they're in violation of because we couldn't find it. but with this statement you could be obstructing a federal investigation, which as we just heard from the congresswoman is, indeed, a felony. despite mccarthy's attempts at bluster and intimidation, the select committee's inquiry into

the attack on the capitol is plowing ahead, and the requests for information are being answered extensively. a spokesperson for the committee released this statement just over an hour ago. quote, throughout yesterday and today, the select committee has continued to receive thousands of pages of records pursuant to our requests to executive branch agencies and social media companies. the select committee is reviewing those records. the majority of the social media companies are cooperating with the probe. however, we need to receive much more information and the select committee will use whatever tools are at our disposal to get the records we're seeking. as those in congress try to get to the bottom of what led to that attack on our democracy where five people have lost their lives and 140 law enforcement officers were injured, a search warrant served by the fbi this week provides a deeper look into the ongoing investigations of insurrectionists with ties to militia groups. mother jones has this reporting. quote, the oath keepers's

general counsel tweeted wednesday that the fbi had seized her phone. according to the search warrant, an image of which she provided to mother jones, the phone seizure is about suspected crimes connected to january 6th. among those suspected crimes, seditious conspiracy. while no one in the january 6th criminal investigation has yet been charged with sedition, this warrant does indicate officially that fbi agents are actively investigating that possible crime. there's new reporting in "politico" exposing more about what law enforcement knew and when they knew it before the capitol attack happened. quote, two days before about 300 law enforcement officials were prepped on a conference call for the planned demonstrations. the call specifically covered the possibility that things would turn violent and result in a mass casualty event. plans were made on how best to communicate if things took a turn for the worse. the officials were so prepared that they created

a #certunrest2021 to share information on the fbi's private communication service. the multiple investigations unearthing more and more details around january 6th is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. betsy woodruff swan is here. her buy line is on the reporting we red from on "politico." also an msnbc contributor. scott macfarlane, nbc washington reporter is here. frank figliuzzi is back, former assistant director for counterterrorism and lucky for us a national security analyst. i will take a sip of water. i want you to take me through your reporting which we read from, betsy. >> what we obtained were two new sources of information. first, i got an e-mail detailing this call that about 300 federal, state and local law enforcement officials all around the country joined on january 4th. additionally, i spoke to a person who was actually on the call who walked me through more details about what they spoke

about. that person told me that a d.c. law enforcement hub was so concerned about what they were seeing online in the days leading up to january 6th that they worked to set up this nationwide call speaking with federal, state and local law enforcement officials all around the country because the folks in d.c. knew that people around the country at a nationwide level were threatening to bring weapons to d.c., to bring militia members to d.c. in an effort specifically to go after the certification on january 6th. and according to the person who was on this phone call and the e-mail that i have obtained, they were also planning to attack the capitol building. that's what they -- these people said publicly and law enforcement officials knew about it. so many officials knew about it that, as you said, they created a hashtag that they could use to talk about this type of violent

civil unrest on january 6th. of course, the obvious question in response to all of this is where the heck were the u.s. capitol police officers, and i asked my source about this. of course, looked at the e-mail about it as well. what i have learned is that those d.c. law enforcement officials communicated to u.s. capitol police that they were deeply concerned about the intelligence that they were gathering from all around the country regarding what would happen on january 6th, but for reasons we still don't know -- and this is something i'm sure that the january 6th select committee will look at -- senior leadership at u.s. capitol police did not decide to amp up the level of security around that building, and the rest is just horrific history. >> so, betsy, you have an e-mail from law enforcement to the capitol police with all of this specific information about what was going to happen on january 6th? >> i have an e-mail from law enforcement to other state and local law enforcement official it around the country.

the "to" line in the e-mail is blanked out so i don't have a list of everyone who received it. from speaking to the person on the call and looking at the e-mail, it is clear this e-mail went out to the people who participated in the call. now, the person who i spoke to said that the d.c. law enforcement officials who set up this call and participated in it shared the information and intelligence that they had with u.s. capitol police. obviously because it would have been malpractice if they hadn't. therefore we've got the ball in u.s. capitol police's court, and it is still not clear why they didn't do more to protect that building. >> let me play former u.s. capitol police chief stevenson's sworn testimony before congress from february 23rd. >> a clear lack of accurate and complete intelligence across several federal agencies contributed to this event, and not poor planning by the united states capitol police. based on the intelligence that we received, we planned for an increased level of violence at

the capitol, and that some participants may be armed, but none of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred. >> so i guess if you focus in on the word "complete," i mean what is he -- how do you square that testimony with what you are reporting? >> stevenson seems to be implying that the u.s. intelligence community needed to employ psychics who can get magical visions of exactly what was going to happen on january 6th. intelligence is sometimes a science, but sometimes it is an art because you don't exactly know who is going to be in a certain place at a particular time. you don't exactly know what factors might set people off. and, remember, the intelligence community didn't get a draft of what trump's speech was going to be. they didn't know he was going to say, let's go up to the capitol right now, but they knew all of the elements that would be there. they knew it was going to be volatile. they knew people were going to break the law by bringing weapons into d.c. they knew militia members were

going to be there, and i have e-mails from months before january 6th from all levels of law enforcement talking about the likelihood that falsehoods and lies regarding the 2020 election were agitating trump supporters and potentially pushing them toward violence. now, was there anyone who said, "hey, we think there's going to be people grabbing shields from police officers and hitting them on the heads to try to break into the capitol building," no, nobody said that. but what people did say and what hundreds of law enforcement officials knew was that january 6th was likely to become dangerous, violent and according to this e-mail that i have and the person who i spoke to there was a possibility and they knew this at least two days beforehand, that january 6th could become a mass casualty event. >> a mass casualty event. scott, you have some incredible new reporting, but i want to bring frank in at this point. can you just give us some context about betsy's reporting? >> boy, i wish i could actually give you some context that would be something reasonable, but

this reporting raises far more questions than answers. questions, for example, why would the district of columbia region intelligence coordination center convene this call, hundreds of people on it, send out an e-mail if they did not have intelligence, at betsy said, that clearly indicated concern, right? they attached protocols for a mass casualty event to their communication. they set up the hashtag within the fbi's e-guardian system which is accessible to various intelligence centers around the country just in case to track, monitor. so it is there. we need to understand why all the signals were flashing red yet the capitol police and other agencies did not respond accordingly and why is it that senior fbi officials at least initially said there was no intelligence indicating that people would act out, that maybe

it was difficult to discern between aspirational talk, rhetoric, and people who would actually execute on the violence. many, many questions that i hope the select committee gets to the bottom of, because we need answers as a nation, we need to fix what is going on inside the intelligence community and law enforcement in terms of communication and coordination. and if people were part of a desire to not fully respond, not fully resource the capitol police, not fully coordinate this -- and the reporting that one of the aspects that disturbs me so much, nicolle, is this d.c. intelligence fusion center is left kind of on its own to say, hey, we've got some intelligence collection requirements. for example, anybody know anything about counterprotesters showing up, anybody know anything about -- they're kind of left hanging out there. where was the overarching

federal level coordination here? we need answers. and if senior officials can't provide those answers, maybe they need to find something else to do. >> so let me just follow up with you, frank. i mean have you ever been in receipt of intelligence about a potential mass casualty event that didn't get sort of coughed up the food chain? what is the preparation for a mass casualty event? what does that even mean? >> well, i think it is important to get down in the weeds on this. it might be that this particular d.c. intelligence fusion center, whenever they talk about concerns about a large event, they might have regular protocol to attach as a reminder, hey, here is what we do if things get really ugly in terms of mass casualties. so i need an answer on that. is that something they do routinely, just as a reminder? they also attached, by the way, reminder about privacy rules, which we hear a lot about, right? we don't want you collecting intelligence in violation of privacy or civil liberties, they

attach that, too. it is a routine thing. so we need to figure that out. but a mass casualty event for a major event in d.c. would include rescue, fire-rescue, paramedic response. you would call out the regional response so you would have fairfax county, virginia, and the maryland jurisdictions responding as well for medical response. all of that was talked about, tacked on, and yet we have federal officials saying, no, it wasn't there, we really didn't have the intelligence. so we need to get to the bottom of it. >> frank, one last question. the vice president of the united states was stuck in the garage refusing to get in the car and leave, and we didn't have extra people to help standing by? i mean how does that happen? i mean what is the overlay of the fact that these people were donald trump supporters who he invited there? >> look, we've got to call it as we see it. there's little doubt left in my mind that the -- that this

factor, this kind of trump factor that, hey, these folks are with the president, the president has convened this rally, this is going to be for him. we've got to -- we've got to, you know, remind ourselves that these folks, you know, they kind of look like us, we're going to get in trouble if we really stymie this rally and the response to it, let's be careful. but with regard to the secret service, yeah, this is one of the most befuddling aspects, nicolle, because they actually told the capitol police, hey, we've got some intel indicating you guys are going to get hurt today, right, but yet they brought a protectee in there, the vice president of the united states without their counterassault team to counter the very intelligence concern that they told the capitol police about. this does not make sense to me. >> well, scott macfarlane, you have been on this story longer than anybody. you have some new reporting about internal park police e-mails. i'm going to read from it. internal police e-mails reveal more gun incidents, more arrests and more safety warning in areas

near the white house in the hours before the u.s. capitol insurrection on january 6th. one alert shared by a park police commander with police lieutenants and national park service officials said the growing crowd near the white house was seen, quote, wearing ballistic helmets, body armor and carrying radio equipment and military-grade backpacks. i mean i'm sorry, i forget the -- you know, the looney tune who said it was a regular tourist visit but they were seen wearing, quote, ballistic helmets, i don't even know what that is, body armor, carrying military equipment and military grade backpacks. they saw it before the insurrection. what did they do with that information? >> nicolle, the latest reporting shows that the red warning signals they were describing got brighter and lighter after dawn of january 6th. under the freedom of information act we got e-mails from u.s. park commanders and situational reports from the fbi. not only did they see 10,000

people outside the elipse with the helmets and tactical gear, they saw somebody dumping backpacks in trees, somebody on 16th street in a tree suspected of having a gun, and they found the proud boys arriving by the hundreds earlier than we knew in the mid morning hours of january 6th. all of this underscores a big question the select committee has to get into and it remains over the next weeks and months, what took so long to get the national guard deployed with all of the warning betsy described, with all of the warning going out after dawn that morning? why did the guard take so long to get there, and that 4:00 p.m. hour, nicolle, later in the day according to the recent case files we have looked through, some of the most bloody and gothic fighting was occurring. the guard could have played a big role then. that's something that committee has to get into. >> let me ask you. i'm not going to play it again, but february 23rd the capitol police chief's son testifies

that a clear lack of accurate and complete intelligence across several federal agencies contributed to this event, not poor planning, based on the intelligence we received we planned for an increased level of violence, some participants might be armed but none of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred. it sounds like you have police e-mails by dawn that morning made clear there were a bunch of armed people, a bunch of people with military grade body armor and ballistic helmets and, you said throwing guns and backpacks into trees. could you tell us more where the e-mails were from and where they were sent? >> some of what i'm reading is fbi situational report, so sent out by fbi to all law enforcement entities including u.s. park police. so it is shared. is the intelligence sin they tiesed though, nicolle? are they taking the fragments and putting them together. we know about the fbi norfolk field office warning the day earlier there was dern about militant groups coming. we know from our own reporting

there was concern about the sharing of a website that has underground tunnel maps of the capitol complex. did they take the intelligence, analyze it and use it properly. >> frank figliuzzi, i need you to come in here and make sense of this. these seem -- i don't want to cast any skepticism on whether someone was truthfully testifying because i'm sure you can parse away to make some of that true, but what is your sense of what they knew ahead of time and as this was taking shape? >> yeah, i always -- you know, i have learned over the years to not presume some kind of deep, deep dark, nefarious conspiracy when you can simply say let's look at the incompetence factor. there clearly was a breakdown in coordination. there was seemingly no coordination, and the finger pointing that goes on, well, you know, the capitol police were responsible so, you know, it is not our problem. we shared a memo here or an e-mail there, you know, we sent an e-mail the night before saying be careful.

that just doesn't cut it. this had to be recognized, should have been recognized as what is called a national security special event. we do it for the super bowl. we do it for far less than the certification of an electoral college vote and a peaceful transition of power for the presidency. it should have been done here. to see a regional fusion center left on its own hanging, to see people ignoring warning signs and signals speaks to not only the inability to see ourselves as a threat, and we talked about this before, we are so equipped to look at the other, right, the folks from some foreign land, folks with different skin color, the folks who have a different religion, those people are the threat, not us. so i'm going to presume first a level of incompetence, an inability to see ourselves as a threat, but i want the select committee to presume that there might be something more nefarious here, which is that people at the top didn't want to pull out all the stops because

these were the president's people. >> we'll leave it there. betsy woodruff swann, scott macfarlane, thank you for your reporting. frank figliuzzi, thank you for helping us make sense of it. when we return democrats in the senate inch closer to a compromise on a bill to protect the right to vote. are they any closer to doing away with what president joe biden has now called a relic of jim crow, the filibuster, which is standing in the way of meaningful voting rights protections? our friend the reverend al sharpton weighs in next. plus, 20 years after the attack of 9/11, we will look back at the events of that day who covered it as it was happening. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. into your mu? at new chapter, its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done. people were afraid i was contagious. i felt gross.

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pressure is building on the white house and senate democrats to pass voting rights legislation as the clock ticks ever closer to the midterm elections in 2022 and republicans show no sign of slowing. throughout the course of the last few months the fate of federal voting rights legislation has often sat with democratic senator joe manchin of west virginia, who opposed the original for the people act and vowed to come up with a compromise with his party that could be a bipartisan bill with his colleagues across the aisle. again, any chance of voting rights legislation rests in manchin's hands. huffington post reporting today senate democrats are close to reaching an agreement on the compromise bill for voting rights which closely adheres to manchin's outline he presented to his colleagues a few months ago. now the outcome comes with manchin's ability to sell it to

enough of his republican colleagues in the senate. frustration is growing among civil rights and voting rights groups who want it passed in response to the wave of voting rights restrictions moving quickly in state legislatures across this country. our friend the rev al sharpton speaking out. in an interview with "the guardian" what i have said is that you, mr. president, said that black america had your impact and you'd have our back. well, they're sticking knives in our back. when do you come and have our back. there's nothing more fundamental than voting. if we can't depend on you here, when can we. let's bring in the reverend al sharpeton, president of the national action network. i asked why you were being so nice about this and it seems that something has changed. what has changed? >> well, i think what has changed is that we are seeing now that has manchin and some of

the democrats have come up with some kind of bill, the president now has to say if no republicans will come forward that we therefore need to have a carve out and he needs to advocate that, both in his private conversations and very publicly. we cannot risk leaving this season without a voting rights bill. the morality of it is clear, that you are denying people the right to vote based on a discriminatory premise. but the practicality is if we go into the midterm elections with these state laws that are being put on the books all over this country, the democrats will lose the senate and the house and we won't get voting rights at all. so it is do or die now, and we need the president to operate now. tomorrow will be too late. >> yeah. i mean, look, your point is you said you would have our back,

we've had your back, and that is kind of between the president's coalition. i have always watched this as a former republican, understanding what they're doing. they are rigging the electorate, and in some ways even as heinous as that is to our dmts and the democracy and the health of our democracy, they're also rigging who counts the vote. they're doing that in georgia. a lot of these bills have those provisions in them. to republicans it is existential. it is this and then the abortion ban. it is this and then we will fight over mask mandates. it is this first. that's why there were 400 voting restrictions pushed out to 48 states and they're passing like this. every single day they move forward in state legislatures. is that lost on democrats? is it just viewed as one among many priorities? tell me what is happening within the president's coalition. >> i think that it appears to be lost or it appears to be that they need to feel the pressure, which is why we have began with

the march two weeks ago that martin luther king iii and i led, cbs gave us 50,000 people that watched out, and out there in houston with some of the texas democrats sunday, and monday we will be on the hill including martin luther king iii and i, hand delivering a letter with his wife to mitch mcconnell's office. we need to really force this issue on the democrats. so whether they're missing it or not, we have to keep it in their face because we are talking about our very existence in this democratic process. if we are not able to vote, we will not be able to in a 50/50 senate stop from losing one or two states and tilt it back republican in the senate, which means we won't be able to confirm judges, we will not be able to confirm prosecutors, u.s. attorneys. i don't care who this president nominates they will not get through and you could lose the house. so we can't sit up here, not in

september, and act like we have time to wait on them to warm up. they're already on the field and they're getting ready to pitch. this is not time to get in the warm-up circle to get ready. they're pitching. they are proposing state changes in various states, over 40 states. they've already changed abortion laws and election laws in texas where i'm on my way to monday. so i don't understand why the democrats are acting like we need to get ready when they've already fired the first shots. we need to start unloading if you have any bullets, and we do, and that's why we're moving forward. >> be sure to tune in to "politics nation" this sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern for the rev's interview with epa administrator michael reagan. stick around. when we come back we will be joined by reporters who covered the 9/11 attack when they

happened and in the weeks after. we'll talk about the legacy of that day and what it means going forward. stay with us. going forward. stay with us and our customers rated us #1 for network quality in america according to j.d. power. number one in reliability, 16 times in a row. most awarded for network quality, 27 times in a row. proving once again that nobody builds networks like verizon. that's why we're building 5g right, that's why there's only one best network.

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a little preparation will make you and your family safer in an emergency. a week's worth of food and water, radio, flashlight, batteries and first aid kit are a good start to learn more, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com in time perhaps we will mark the memory of september the 11th in stone and metal, something we can show children as yet unborn to help them understand what happened on this minute and on this day. but for those of us who lived through these events, the only

marker we will ever need is the tick of a clock at the 46th minute of the eighth hour of the 11th day. we will remember where we were and how we felt. we will remember the dead and what we owe them. we will remember what we lost and what we found. >> and here we are 20 years later. about remembering, about what we owe to the people we lost on september 11th as true as ever. tomorrow on the 20th anniversary president bush will speak in shankesville, pennsylvania, where flight 93 went down. president obama will be at ground zero in new york. president biden plans to visit both of those sacred sites tomorrow as well as the pentagon. joining our coverage, the former white house correspondent on 9/11. mark mazzetti is here, a

pentagon correspondent. donny deutsch is here. the reverend al sharpton is still with us. we are still trying to get mark's shot up, elizabeth, but we were covering the end of the war in afghanistan and mark was on the air with us and said, you know, i'm thinking about covering the pentagon on 9/11. i thought about how so many of us have been at this since that day, and i'm going to put up your story on the front page of "the new york times" on september 12th. you were covering my old boss, george w. bush. that was your story. i want to ask you about that day, how often you think about it, what you remember from it and how it changed how you do the job you have now. >> well, i think about it -- i have thought about it the last few days. i was just downtown right at the washington bureau, which is just a few blocks from the white house as you know, and i remember that day. i had just moved to washington.

it was my second day on the white house beat, september 10th was a monday. that was my first day. this was tuesday. david sanger, who i covered the white house with, was in florida with president biden. i was planning on having a very slow day because the president was out of town and there wasn't a lot going on. i remember walking into the washington bureau and first thing i saw was the security guard and he said, did you hear, a plane just hit the world trade center. my first thought was, i'm not going to have a lot to do because it is a giant metro story for "the new york times." by the time i got to our floor, the day editor of "the time" told me there's another plane that hit the second tower. i think you need to get to the white house. it was my new beat so i remember thinking, okay. so i walked over to the white house but i couldn't get in because at that point there were people streaming out, the secret service was screaming, get away, get away. i ended up sitting on the sidewalk. i think it was 8th street, talking to people, you know, national security council staffers, whoever, talking to

them on the street as we saw the smoke rise up from the pentagon. i remember sitting next to a pentagon from the white house staff who had a little black and while television set on her lap. don't forget it was long before cellphones, long before cellphone video. i watched with her in black and white as the twin -- one of the towers fell. after that i remember being, you know, very alarmed. i went back to the bureau, and jill abramson, who was then our bureau chief, assembled us all downstairs in the conference and said to us, i will never forget what she said, this is what we do now. and she was right, for the next number of years that is what we did. >> mark mazzetti is with us now. i gave you credit for inspiring the segment. i was saying we were on the air when the war in afghanistan ended, when the pentagon announced that war ended. you made a comment about having been at the pentagon, covering the pentagon on 9/11. i wanted to take some time to ask you about that day and ask you about covering the pentagon

in the days and weeks that followed. >> thanks for having me, nicolle. the four months earlier i was asked by my editor at u.s. news and world report whether i wanted to cover the pentagon. i said, you know, i have never covered defense or national security issues. i would probably be in over my head. i remember him saying, don't worry, there's nothing happening. you will be fine. then the day of 9/11 i was actually supposed to be in the pentagon that morning doing an interview, and it got rescheduled the night before for later in that day. so i went to my other and watched the planes hit the pentagon -- sorry, the twin towers and then there was a report that a bomb had gone off at the pentagon. so i immediately, you know, tried to get my -- get to the pentagon as quickly as possible. it was very difficult getting across the 14th street bridge.

it looked like, you know, a horror movie. so i ran across the bridge and spent the entire day covering the scene, and then ended up being in afghanistan a few months after that. >> i want to read something, elizabeth, that you reported on and wrote. i guess about eight weeks after september 11th, about one of the memorials. i played one when we came in and there were many. you wrote this. when the dignitaries had left the platform anyone still up there could find another memorial, inscription scrawled on the wooden railing on the platform, a kind of graffiti of remembrance at the site of a mass grave. mr. bush and the others had stood right in front of the railing while the ceremony was held. dear daddy, began one inscription, i miss you so much. it is so hard with you not around. steve, began another, i love you so much. you gave me and our 22 1/2 years more than i could ever have asked for. we'll have you forever in our hearts. the kids and i will never forget all of the wonderful memories you have given us.

rest in peace and know how very much we will also love you. another written from parents to a son who had been a firefighter. you are our shining star in everything we did. love mom and dad. how do you report on a story like that without being crushed by it? >> you know, it is so finney. i don't remember that as well as -- well, obviously i've been refreshed by it now. but what i do remember, i remember that he went -- it was around the time of the u.n. general assembly. >> yeah, november 12th. >> right, the president stopped there first and it was very haunting. obviously i just spent some time reading those remembrances. you know, a lot of -- i do remember -- here is what i remember. september 14th i was on my first flight on air force one ever, was up to ground zero with president bush. remember, that was that first flight, he went up on a friday after 9/11 and we -- we had fighter jets escorting air force

one. we landed someplace in new jersey. it was an air force base. then we took helicopters into the city, and it was the first view i had had in person. it was still this acrid smell in the air and huge amounts of black smoke still coming up from lower manhattan. i had been city hall bureau chief before that and i had gone to the deli in the bottom of the world trade center a lot for lunch, and so i was back there in my old stomping grounds and i just remember not recognizing anything, it was such a mess. i remember, too, that the sludge and the ash and the mud there, and just being so haunted by what -- the destruction and the ash. i never forgot that day. you just showed a video of president bush with the bull horn. this is what happens when you are a reporter and you are, like, trying to get through the day. i was right there at his feet, but all i could think about at

the time was, how am i going to file, how am i going to file? i guess the answer is -- that's a long answer, that's sort of what gets you through the day as a reporter, just worrying about getting your story out. that was a really long day. our cellphones weren't working. i was filing, you know, verbal pool reports to the white house because i was the pool reporter. they were coming out. it was my first white house pool report as, you know, a "new york times" white house reporter. because i was phoning it in and the white house was typing, there was huge grammar mistakes, huge spelling mistakes and it went out under my name as a "new york times" reporter. i thought, oh. it was late. what i remember a lot about is trying to be a journalist on that day. it was much later when i saw a memorial to a man on my street in westchester county who had died, one of my neighbors who had died that i -- it was really -- it hit me more personally because i was kind of

being a professional that day. that's kind of how you keep it together. that's a long answer. >> no, it is right. i mean as a -- obviously i was a staffer and that is -- you do the next task. you go in the next morning and you try to field calls from reporters like nick, elizabeth and mark. we are going to sneak in a quick bray. break. on the other side i want to bring in nick, donny and the rev. stay with us. and the rev. stay with us

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we're back with elizabeth b.

miller, mark mazzetti, donny deutsch and the reverend al sharpton. i want to read something from today's "new york times". 20 years after september 11th, the attacks seem likely to be remembered as a double tragedy. there were the tangible horrors. the ensuing wars killed hundreds of thousands more. there's the haunting question that lingers. out of the trauma did the country manage to create a better future? donny, what do you think? >> i read that piece and there's been a lot of articles written about, well, we haven't seized the moment and, you know, bush went in the wrong direction, obama went in the wrong direction. all i know is this is that before 9/11, you know, every single poll would tell you, you know, when you asked, are we united as a country on issues, and, you know, overwhelmingly 75% were not. then 9/11 came and right afterwards we were aligned on the issues and who we were. it was 75%, 80% who we were.

of course, today it has gone back to we are divided. i guess the long way around to saying i believe we spend so much time talking about how divided we are, but at our core and i believe that day showed it, we do come together. i remember as a new yorker walking the streets all anybody wanted to do was help, whether it give blood or whatever you could do. my advertising agency was up town, downtown, and i remember getting everybody out. i think it brought out the best in us and i believe that's who we are. i believe that at our core we are one, and that tragic day showed it. so i'm still bullish on who we are. >> rev, how about you? >> i think that one thing that a lot of us missed with the real view of 9/11 is those terrorists that attacked the trade center and the pentagon and the plane in pennsylvania, they did not see us as different. they saw us as americans and our

lifts were expendable, no matter what our race, our creed, our orientation. they didn't send an e-mail into the world trade center to tell blacks, don't come to work tomorrow, or latinos or gays. they didn'tgays. the irony is the world sees us as one and we don't see ourselves as well. everybody died in that building can't escape on september 11th. >> wow, that's amazing way to think about that moment. >> mark, you spent a lot of the recent years covering the intelligence community. i wonder how this day be for them of a lasting trauma.

>> i think there is a trauma in the intelligence world, in the military and in the foreign policies establishment. not only for 9/11 but for what has come in the two decades since and all that's lost. i think a lot about how we are now going to war as a country. if you have over the last 20 years, it's not just the war in iraq in afghanistan. we wasted wars in pakistan, somalia and syria. in a way that did not get that much public attention sort of by design. presidents to wage wars that way when there is not large amounts of troops on the ground. that does not mean it's good policy or something we should sustain for a long period of

time. that's one of the things we don't look at enough over the last 20 years. the legacy is there is this machinery we have built and just because there are troops in iraq and afghanistan, does not mean the united states won't be war in a lot of places. that's going of repercussions. >> how do you think 9/11 change all of that? >> well, it changed everything. it changed everything. it changed -- i mean -- you know it made the pentagon powerful. the cia very powerful and people like rumsfield very powerful. it changed things for the better in terms of our national security. the country is far more secure than it was 20 years ago because

of you know 200,000 employees, department of homeland security, they are at enormous advances in technology that made it possible for the intelligence agency to track terrorists. there is more cooperation between the fbi and cia. there are counter-terrorism center. it did not happen again on his watch. we did not have home grown terrorism which is a much bigger threat in a way. after covering the white house, it made me want to cover pentagon. somebody like mark who have no background, it was like covering the pentagon in four years because i became interested

after 9/11. i spent some time in afghanistan. it was a powerful thing when i was awaken by 4:00 a.m. by saying that the taliban walked into kabul and washington police confirmed it. why do we have to confirm it? we see it and the people of the department we can talk to. i spent time over there. i did spend time. it made me just, you know, what a waste. i have to tell you what a waste. all that money and all those lives, all those afghan lives and it ended like this. i thought about it the last couple of weeks. >> say more. >> me? >> say more about that. >> well, i have a memory of -- i went to dover once to do a story about this new center for

families that was done by a lot of donations because when the war that came back to the united states, it came to dover, we all know what they did recently. until like 2011 or so -- there were just this little place and it was horrible, families would come and they would be in grief and they were on top of each other. there was this whole new visitor center was built. i watched a young man coming back from afghanistan, marine. it was heartbreaking. not a lot of people there. it was not like the president was there. a few weeks later, i went to afghanistan, the first thing i saw when i walked into that command center in helamann province was a picture of

photographs of a marine coming back. he was the most recent to die and just brought it home in the air way. it was an interesting trip. i learned a lot. it turned out to be very dangerous trip. i began to wonder we had 20,000 marines in that year and 2010 in helmann province. the marines had done a good job. they gone in and had tea with people and built bridges and roads and helped care centers and it's all gone. >> yeah. yeah. all of you, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. we don't get to do that often enough. i am grateful to all of you. tomorrow join msnbc for special coverage from our 20 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our country, coverage starts at 5:00 a.m. eastern with alex witt

and brian williams and i will pick up at 8:00 a.m. eastern and stephanie ruhle will pick up coverage at 11: 30. watch "america remembers: 20 years later" on msnbc. we'll be right back. later" on m. we'll be right back. ray loves vacations. but his diabetes never seemed to take one. everything felt like a 'no.' everything. but then ray went from no to know. with freestyle libre 14 day, now he knows his glucose levels when he needs to...

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. "the beat" with ari melber starts now. happy friday. >> hi nicole, happy friday, thank you very much. welcome everyone to "the beat." we begin with breaking news. president biden out in force and throwing down the gauntly at these new severe right-wing backlashes to the big news that changed everything for covid-19 in america yesterday, a vaccine mandate. first lady and the president