phone. and as they plan to see each other more often, shawn is discovering a whole new life. how new future. this sunday president biden's vaccine mandate plan. >> this is not about freedom or personal choice. >> with cases rising. >> folks, our hospital situation has never been more dire in my lifetime than it is right now. >> the president announces sweeping mandates to get americans vaccinated. >> we're going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers. >> calling out politicians and others for resisting vaccines. >> we've been patience. our patience is wearing thing and your refusal has cost all of us. >> republicans push back. >> what the biden administration is doing is government

overreach, pure and simple. >> i think it's wrong on principle, but it's also wrong on strategy. >> my guest this morning, surgeon general vivek murthy and republican governor asa hutchinson. as democrats try to go big with their agenda. >> people need help right away and we will get the job done. >> one of their own says the price tag is too high. >> i would ask my colleagues and all of the senate to hit the pause button on the 3.5, hit the pause button. >> this morning i'll talk to the democrat who could make or break that bill, senator joe manchin of west virginia. also, remembering september 11th. >> i just told him a second plane hit the second tower, america was under attack. >> reflexes on that terrible day and the 20 years since. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news senior washington correspondent hallie jackson, syndicated columnist george will, kim atkins stohr from the boston loan and

presidential historian, doris kearns goodwin. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. this past week we have been marking the 20th anniversary of september 11th after nearly 3,000 americans were killed during the terror attacks, the country pulled together as one. for a while at least the spirit of september 12th helped the country divided over the 2000 election unite against a common enemy. not so now in the fight against our current enemy, covid-19, where the red/blue conservative/liberal dividing line separates the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. two days ago we woke up to the news that 3,160 americans had died of covid over a 24-hour period. almost all unvaccinated, a higher death toll than those 9/11 terror attacks.

president biden threw away the carrots and brought out the sticks. he's no longer asking the unvabs nated to get a shot. he's telling them. many republican lawmakers call it government over reach while more than a few health experts say i'd about time. whatever the merits of this plan, the fact mr. biden felt it necessary to take this step was itself a concession that the current strategy against covid isn't working. >> we've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. >> president biden whose presidency rests on his ability to get the pandemic under control announced a sweeping vaccine mandate for employers, a move he long hoped to avoid. >> my message to unvaccinated americans is this. what more is there to white for. >> the republican national committee threatened to sue and republican governors promised to fight the administration even to the gates of hell, with most

challenging the rules. >> what the biden administration is doing is government overreach, pure and simple. >> a power grab by the federal government. >> my legal team is already working. >> nebraska will push back, fight back with any tool we have. >> have at it. we're playing for real here. this isn't the game. >> the mandates are an aboutface for mr. biden who resisted him. >> i don't think it should be mandatory. >> on friday the cdc released a study unvaccinated people are 4.5 times more likely to become infected than the vaccinated, ten times to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die. some employers are welcoming the sweeping new rules which require roughly 100 million americans to get vaccinated including federal employees and contractors, more than 17 million health care workers at hospitals and other sites that receive medicare or medicaid funding and employees of businesses with 100 or more workers who could be required to be vaccinated or tested weekly.

>> this is something that we're embracing, we believe in. >> americans are sharply divided. 48% vaif for a vaccine mandate. 52% oppose it, including 75% of republicans. when asked about an employer mandate, support does grow. 52% support a business requirement, 45% oppose. >> i've been waiting and hoping he would do something. i agree with it 100%. >> i think he's gone too far. you can't make people get an injection. >> biden's move comes after months of attempts to persuade the unvaccinated. >> this is your choice. it's life and death. >> early declarations of victory. >> today we're closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus. >> and several missteps, including the decision in may to very publicly tell the vaccinated to take off their masks. >> if you've been fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask. >> and confusion now over booster shots. >> the question raised is should it be shorter than eight months,

should it be five months? >> that guidance continues to be eight months. that has not changed. >> joining me now is the u.s. surgeon general, dr. offensive vek murthy. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you, good to be with you. >> before he took the oath of office, president biden was skeptical, said there wouldn't before be a mandate, there shouldn't be mandates, et cetera. now he's changed his mind. why? >> chuck, from the beginning, the president and all of us have said we've got to use every lever we have in order to fight this pandemic. that's what you see happening right now. over the last several months we've been working hard to get vaccines out to the public, partnering with the private sector, using every power the government has. now in the face of delta, we've got to move to the next phase of that response, and that involves focusing not just on expanding the vaccination effort through a combination of mandates and access, but it also involves focusing on increasing our

testing capacity, shoring up our health care systems which are really struggling in the face of this delta variant. so there was a lot in the plan that the president announced because we've got to bring everything to bear at the moment to fight the pandemic. >> is this ak acknowledgment, though -- when you do the mandate he's describing for private businesses, that feels like the last tool in the tool box. if this doesn't work, then what? >> chuck, what i would say is let's step back for a moment. if you look at how far we've come, we've gotten over 200 million people with one shot of a vaccine. 75% of all eligible player cans have gotten a shot and have some degree of protection. but we're not done yet. what we see is because millions of more people are not infected, they're susceptible at moments like this with the delta variant. the requirements that the president spoke about will help 80 million people in the private sector, 17 million health workers and over 3.5 million federal workers and contractors to move closer to vaccination.

here is the interesting thing that a lot of people don't recognize. many businesses have been looking forward to this. the business roundtable has said this is the right move. the american medical association has said this is the right move. i think it will help workplaces do what they need to do, make workplaces safer so people can feel safer coming back to work and we can keep our economy strong. >> given what you had to do this week with this sort of reset or next phase of battling covid, it really now puts the decision in may to change the masking guidance in may on the vaccination, it looks like that was a major mistake. why -- that seems like the one moment where politics got in the way of science because the delta variant was going through india very rapidly. the w.h.o. at that time was saying it was of concern. we seemed to be acting at that time as if the variant wasn't going to come here. how did we miss this so badly in may? >> chuck, if you talk to the cdc

about this, what they'll toll you is they were doing what they've always done, to make sure they're looking closely at the science and data and using that to guide their decision making. what they saw in may with the pre delta version of covid-19 was that when people who were vaccinated, when they got breakthrough infections, they had a very low likelihood of transmitting it, which is one of the reasons they felt comfortable pulling back on mask mandates. then things changed t. delta variant seemed to indicate that vaccinated people who had breakthrough infections would be more likely to spread than those with the alpha variant or prior variants. they why they shifted their guidance once again. one of the things we have to be able to do, chuck, in a public health pandemic like this, is we've got to be able to look at the data in realtime, to adjust our approach accordingly and communicate that clearly to the public. we've got to be prepared to keep doing that in the future. >> when you were part of the campaign during 2020, you were part of a team that emphasized

we need a full response here. it's not just a vaccinate add approach. we've got to get testing and contact tracing going. it does look like the approach in the last eight months has been it's vaccines or bust. now there's a new effort to enhance testing. where was this the first eight or nine months? it does feel as though everything was focused on the vaccine. and i get it, it's the simplest way out, but we've got a mask divide in the country has gotten worse. >> you're right there has to be a multiprong strategy against this pandemic. vaccines are certainly the backbone of that effort. we know other mitigation measures like masking and distancing are important. we know testing is a critical part of the response infrastructure. we know shoring up and strengthening our health care system so we can take care of those sick is essential, too. in addition to those being the areas of focus, the president

has been focussing on those on the last many months, billions of dollars in the arp that were put toward testing, to help schools have testing in place so they could be ready for a fall were a reflection of that broader set of priority. the focus on masking has also been a piece of that. the recent announcement that the president made that we are going to be sending tests, millions of tests to food banks and to community health centers so people can access them free, also part of that effort. yes, it is true that in the news you see a significant focus on vaccines, but let that not convince or convey to anyone that the approach has not been brought. i've been part of a lot of discussions overtaking that broad approach. a lot of community conversations where we're talking to people about the variety of steps we have to take to get through this pandemic. >> a practical herd immunity and how ever that wants to be defined, let me define it this way, uptick of ten percentage points over the next three months, plus the delta variant,

sadly, ripping through the unvaccinated. are we going to be at herd immunity by the end of this calendar year with the combination of what just described, more delta, sadly, wriping through the unvaccinated and a slight uptick in vaccinations? >> chuck, how quickly we get to a level where cases are low and stay low depends on what we do collectively, not just the government, but each of us as private citizens and what universities and schools and private businesses do. if we work quickly to get vaccinated, we'll get there faster. we've got to come together. chuck, let me tell you this, one of the things we can't afford to do during this pandemic is allow the covid-19 experience to turn us against each other. our enemy is the virus. it is not each other. i was ref nexting yesterday on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, what we learned from that terrible tragedy. one thing that sticks with me is in that moment of crisis we responded by coming together.

i saw neighbors helping one another get through the crisis. i saw people turn to strangers and offer support. >> i understand that spirit. some people take the mandate as not a moment of unity, but as sort of a divisive weapon. what do you say to that? >> i'd say, chuck, that the requirements for vaccination are part of a long tradition we have in this country of taking steps as a collective to keep people safe. we have had vaccine requirements in schools for years and years. you and i, when we went to school, had to make sure we lad certain vaccines before we enrolled. that's to keep everyone else safe. we have requirements when we drive that you obey a certain speed limit because we know even though everyone can push as hard as they want on the accelerator, that will actually hurt other people if it causes more accidents. so we have a tradition in our country, chuck, of taking steps as a collective to protect the broader community. that's what these requirements represent. we know when people wear mass, all together, that gives us the

greatest chance of reducing infection. when people get vaccinated, that gives us the greatest chance of keeping workplaces an schools safe. that's what we've got to do, chuck, during this pandemic. we've got to be all in together. >> dr. vivek murthy, thanks for coming in. >> thank you, chuck. be well. by friday morning 19 of the country's 27 governors condemned president biden's mandate plan calling it a federal overreach. more have joined in opposition since then. we invited the original 19 to come on "meet the press." 18 chose not to come. thankfully one did agree. it's says hutchinson. welcome to "meet the press." >> always good to be with you todd -- chuck ex-excuse me. >> that's okay. when you're born with two first names, those are the breaks. more than 650,000 people died, 200 times the amount of people that died in 9/11.

if not now for a federal mandate on businesses, when? this feels as if we're up against sort of the last -- this is the last tool in the tool box. zblt well, i appreciate what the surgeon general had to say, and we have to overcome resistance. this is a very serious, deadly virus, and we're all together in trying to get an increased level of vaccination out in the population. the problem is that i'm trying to overcome resistance, but the president's actions in a mandate hardens the resistance. and we talked about the fact that we've historically had vaccination requirements in schools, but those have always come at the state level, never at the national level. so this is an unprecedented assumption of federal mandate authority that really disrupts and divides the country. it divides our partnership between the federal government

and the states, and it increases the division in terms of vaccination when we should all be together trying to increase the vaccination uptake. >> governor, do you really think this is what's increasing our divide? realistically, it feels like this divide is pretty hardened here, and at the end of the day, it did seem as if there were a lot of private businesses that wanted the political cover, they wanted to do their own vaccine mandate, which you're supportive. you think if a business wants to do this, you don't want to stand in the way of that like other governors have done. given that, isn't the responsibility of the federal government in some ways to give some cover to businesses that would like to enact this but are afraid of the blowback themselves? >> we'll see whether it's actually constitutional or not. i've never seen this type of federal action in terms of

health care, in terms of vaccinations. it's always been done at the state level. let's think about this for a second. we have some very aggressive governors from blue states. i'm not aware of any governor from any state that said we want to mandate businesses to require vaccinations. and so the states, none of them have done that, and yet the federal government steps in. this is something that every state has to make decisions on. i support businesses being able to require vaccination, but it's their own independent choice for their workplace, but to have a federal mandate will be counterproductive. it's going to increase resistance. we're going to grow our vaccinations whether you have this or not. we're increasing them in arkansas and we're going to be able to increase them nationally. this will make it much more difficult and will increase the divide in my judgment. we've been divided over masks, but yes eve been more unified in terms of vaccination. not totally, but more so. this will not help us.

>> governor, you, yourself, went on this tour and you expressed your own frustration at the misinformation that had gotten around, particularly in the rural parts of your state. there was no other -- nothing else was accelerating the vaccine pace other than dead bodies, right? unfortunately the one thing that does seem to work in persuading people is when they have a family member who dies from covid. >> our vaccination rates went up 40%, both because we were providing better information, bringing in trusted advisers to the public, but also because of the risk factor as you point out. so, yes, as the risk goes up, vaccinations increase. that's a little bit of human nature. it's all about the trust factor. i try to build it by bringing in community respected leaders from the health care profession to talk to and get over some of the hesitation. but it was clear to me from the

very beginning the distrust is with government. this enhances the distrust. in a state like arkansas -- other states can make their own decisions. but it shouldn't be a federal government, one-size-fits-all across the country. >> before i let you go, i'm curious what you thought of what former president bush said during his speech in shanksville, pennsylvania. it touched a lot of people. let me play a click of it and get your reaction on the other side. >> there's little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. then there's disdainful pluralism, many their disdain for human life, their determination to defile national symbols. they're children of the same foul spirit and it is our continuing duty to confront them. >> some interesting words from the former president. do you think some folks will take his words to heart and start speaking back at these

folks that are doing this? >> i certainly hope so. i thought those were words of wisdom. he went on to say that he didn't have any perfect solution, and that's a challenge we face. i think we all have to look in our heart and say what more can we do. even coming on this show today, i hesitate to criticize our president, but necessary on principle. we've got to think of ways that we can diminish harsh rhetoric, bring people more together. i'm glad he raised that issue. i hope we can be more effective. >> governor hutchinson, you've always been somebody who can disagree without being disagreeable. thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective with us, sir. >> thank you, chuck. great to be with you. when we come back, the democratic who has the power to it's the biggest sale of the year, on the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it's the most comfortable, dually-adjustable, foot-warming, temperature-balancing,

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welcome back. president biden las seen no shortage of republican opposition to his vaccine mandate strategy, but when it comes to the democrats and their 3.5 million spending plan, the president has one democratic, including senator joe manchin saying not so fast. manchin caused for a strategic pause saying, i've always said if i can't explain it, i can't vote for it. i can't explain why my democratic colleagues are rushing to spend $3.5 trillion. senator joe manchin joins me now. welcome back. >> good to be with you, chuck. thank you. >> my first question, i'll cede to the speaker of the house. take a listen to what she said. >> where would you cut? child care? family medical leave paid for? universal pre-k? home health care, so important. >> i think that's what i hear a lot from democrats on capitol hill. it's like, we get it.

we get what he's not for, but how do you get there. what should not be included? >> first of all, everything the speaker, which i have the greatest respect for, i've for and voted for. we spent $5.4 trillion and it continues into next year and we haven't disbursed it all. i said put a pause on it. we don't know where covid is going to go. inflation is still very high and rampant. on top of that, the geopolitical unrest we have going on. we might be challenged there. don't you think we ought to be prepared for that? since we don't have the emergency we have with the american rescue plan when the president first came in and we passed. >> let me ask you this: this is long-term infrastructure -- they call it human infrastructure. social reforms, however you want do look at it. people have different names. they take investment. this isn't short term and it wants to be paid for. if it's paid for, there shouldn't be an inflation problem.

>> the only thing i said, there's not a rush to do that now. we don't have an urgency. don't you think we ought to debate a little more u talk about it? >> you're not against this. you could support the $3.5 trillion -- >> no. >> okay. it's not a time issue, it's a cost issue. >> we've got 5.4 out now, that's the 3.5 over ten years. it's going to be a lot more than 3.5 over eight or ten years because it will continue. with that being said, that's a social reform. i'm just saying we should be looking at everything and we're not. we don't have the need to rush into this and get it done within one week because there's some deadline we're meeting where someone is going to fall through the cracks. we have child nutrition. i want to make sure children are getting taken care of, that people are getting the opportunity to go back to work. 11 million jobs not filled. with that being said, we have people talking all the time that we can't find held or there's a

reason for that. >> what should they -- what would this bill look like if you were writing it from scratch? >> first of all, adjusting the tax code. i said basically the 2017 tax code was weighted unfairly to the wealthy. we need to change that. that's why i agreed to reconciliation. i'm not go into shoot myself in the foot and not be competitive globally. there shouldn't be anyone escaping not paying their fair share. i think the irs should be able to do its job, all those things. when you do all that, chuck, realistically and honestly, what does that spin off without going in debt? look at that number that spins off and find out what your greatest need is. >> if, right now, it seems as if the plan is to pay for as much of this as they can. is whatever they come up with for the pay-for, is that your ceiling is, if it's $2 trillion. >> the plan also had you could borrow up to $1.7 trillion. that was in the bill. >> right. they want paid for 2 trillion.

deficit spend with dynamic scoring. the infrastructure bill you helped facilitate has dynamic scoring which some would argue is deficit spending. >> we could have paid for that easily because they wouldn't go for it. >> so why is it okay to do that. >> we're still going to do some dynamic scoring, but let's be responsible and reasonable about it. that's what i'm saying. the thing is, we've got to get back in this country that we can look at each other and agree to disagree and work through our differences. that's where the sflat comes in. that's a deliberate body. who would have thought we got 19 republicans to vote for the bairp infrastructure. that one for 30 years we have deferred -- >> let's talk about the issue of climate regulations in much of this bill. >> absolutely. >> there's a lot of pushback -- a lot of assumptions that you're not supportive of this, some say because of west virginia's reliance on coal. how much of that is true?

>> let's look at the facts. i've always said you're entitled to your opinion, but not create your own facts to support your opinion. since the year 2000, 20 years ago, 52% of our electricity came to coal, 16% from natural gas, about 9.5% came from renewables. fast forward to today, 19% from coal, 40% from gas and up to 20% from renewables. the transition is happening. they want to spend billions to have utilities do what they're already doing. it makes no sense to pay a utility to do what they're going to do anyway. do you agree we need to accelerate the transition. >> you accelerate the transition -- don't you think if you have to pay a profit-making fortune 500 or traded on the stock exchange, pay them to do something they've already done and basically still have resiliency built in, we're going to leave ourselves in a situation by 2030 that we're not going to have reliability. that's what i'm concerned about.

we've got 30% of the electricity that was from coal is not from coal today. >> 50 years from now, do you think folks will look back at this congress and say, boy, i'm glad they worried too much about the fiscal and not enough about climate mitigation? >> there's a balance. there's always been a balance. i've always said that, i'm willing to find the balance. to do it in seven days, one week -- >> are you a hard no? >> on the 3.5? >> yes. >> yes. >> is there a number you can support? >> i haven't looked at that. responsibly and reasonably for a tax code -- >> this isn't a one-way negotiation. you're in the cat bird seat. you're the 50th vote. >> i have been giving. i'm for an awful lot of the things. i'm for also putting guardrails on. i think if you're going to make sure we're helping our children, let's make sure the children are getting the best benefit of that. let's make sure a guardian or parent is doing everything they can to nurture that child and

given the resources to do it. if you don't have any work requirements, no means testing on so much of this. >> if 3.5 trillion is agreed to by -- are you going to be the lone vote? >> i don't think i'm the lone vote. i think you know that, too. >> would you be willing to be the lone vote? >> i've said if i can't go home and explain it, i'm not going to vote for it. >> the vaccine mandate, are you supportive? >> the president has done what the president is responsible to do, he's looking out for the most vulnerable. if people are as sick and tired of this pandemic as i am, wearing masks and everything else, get vaccinated. i will speak on the private sector, going into the businesses, i'd rather incentivize versus penalize. >> if incentives don't work, what choice did he have? >> most of the businesses in the counted are less than 100 employees. fortune 500, traded on the stock

exchange, they have to do the responsible thing. if not, they lose the market share. >> senator joe manchin, thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me, chuck. appreciate it. when we come back, presiden you don't get much time for yourself. so when you do, make it count with crest pro-health. it protects the 8 areas dentists check for a healthier mouth. the #1 toothpaste brand in america. crest. do you struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep? qunol sleep formula combines 5 key nutrients that can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up refreshed. the brand i trust is qunol.

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welcome back. the panel is here. nbc news hallie welcome back. the panel is here. nbc news senior washington correspondent hallie jackson, president historian doris kearns goodwin, syndicated columnist

george will, author of "american happiness and discontents: the unruly torrent, 2008 to 2020." and atkins stohr, senior opinion writer for "the boston globe." let me show you where americans are on a vaccine mandate. you want to talk about being divided down the middle, we're divided down the middle. we asked should employers require vaccines for in-person work. here is the political divide. looks very familiar. it looks like the presidential approval rating the way it splits there. hallie jackson, this is as much a political decision by the biden white house as a scientific one? >> they think it's a winner. there's obviously a public health perspective. but one official said they believe the politics are on their side. it was interesting to hear governor hutchinson talk to you about the business aspect. "the washington post" carrying a piece with a top business leader in the houston area -- not just

houston but more blue. this is giving businesses some cover. we haven't had the phone ringing off the hook. the white house took notice of that, right? they think this is giving the ability to give some private businesses a little cover and say, well, our hands are tied, osha is making us do this. they're optimistic about. that said, chuck, the numbers that you just showed tells the whole story. this was politicized from, listen, april of 2020, may of 2020, when there was a different president in office. that's how this came about. >> kimberly, it's still an acknowledgment that the covid strategy hasn't been working. maybe there's nothing he could do with this current crew of unvaccinated people. >> look, i think there is a percentage of people who, no matter what happened, they're not only going to not get vaccinated, but they're going to push against this and politicize it any way they can. we have seen, to hallie's point, some of the businesses that have already taken upon themselves, delta air lines, others, to impose vaccine mandates. what happened?

a portion of their employees who hadn't been vaccinated got vaccinated. you saw it moving the needle. i think the president made that calculation. there's going to be pushback. certainly once you have the federal government coming in with a mandate, however strongly it's rooted in the constitution, which i believe it is statutorily and constitutionally, people don't like that. there are going to be people -- that's one of the reasons they pushed against the vaccine is because of a federal mandate. but he had to balance that against what is actually going to work. what is actually going to get vaccines in arms. what is going to help businesses move forward and the economy move forward. >> all right. doris and george, you look at this through decades of history. is this going to work, or is this going to backfire? >> i think he had to take the step. you had to make sure it had the possibility. look, mandates have been part of our hust for so long. go back to old george washington. he mandated his soldiers get inoculated against smallpox.

he made a great comment, necessity not only authorizes what i'm doing, it compels me to do this. if the smallpox rages, it will be worse than the sword of the enemy. that's where we're at right now. i think for biden to re-establish himself as the leader of the country, he had to respond to this crisis in a more muscular way. he was losing ground because the states were taking so much authority and talking about what they didn't want to do. you have to in a crisis show that you're mobilizing every national resource, giving direction to the country, and you're making country feel that they're a hole, they're a collective. individual liberty has to be balanced against public safety, and i think those are the decisions he finally made. >> george. >> the other george. >> you think this works or do you think it will backfire? >> it will work in the sense it will encourage people to get vaccinated, and that's a good thing. the president's impatience is as understandable as his exasperation. constitutional government and the rule of law requires patience. remember barack obama said 20 times he could not unilaterally

do what eventually he unilaterally did about immigration because he was out of patience. the same thing is happening here with mr. biden. courts look ensconced at executive agencies that extract suddenly vast, indeed unlimited new powers from old statutes. >> osha has had some success at having those authorities reinforced. >> but the centers for disease control found out when it decided it could have an eviction moratorium in the name of containing a pandemic that the statute would not permit that. this is either unconstitutional if, indeed, congress has delegated essentially legislative powers to these executive agencies that would violate the non-delegation doctrine. however, it's illegal if they're

reading the statute and finding no mandate for this behavior. >> it's going to be a court battle, right? that's where this is going. >> the white house wants a court battle. they want the attention. >> they're ready for it. they feel like they have their ducks in a row. >> in the meantime, you'll start getting more vaccines going. that's the key. osha has much more broad authority, signed by nixon, by the way, than did the cdc to use public health for evictions, but osha is supposed to defend the workability and the safety of the workplace. what is that doing now? this is what they're doing. >> it's a racial basis for review. if it's a constitutional challenge, it's a low bar for the biden administration to clear legally. >> can we look back here? >> this is an acknowledgment that the strategy hasn't worked. i sit back there and -- maybe again the people that will listen to this administration have listened. that's the problem. we're at the end of that. it doesn't feel like we saw delta coming the way we should have.

>> so there's that piece of it, the public health piece of it. there's what governor hutchinson said to you which is notable, we need to do something, a federal mandate creates more redistance. in his view, that's something that's going to backfire. i have to tell you, president biden said unvaccinated people can remove their masks. we're on a different planet. a lot of people are wearing their masks indoors all the time, right? there were missteps along the way. that is something that is clear. the defense you'll hear and i've heard is the science has changed. delta has evolved. this happened in a way we didn't expect it to happen. >> there's a pandemic of mindless strength. the battle of gettysburg occurred in pennsylvania, people say, wait a minute -- the president said in his remarks thursday, we're going to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. the whole point of being vaccinated is you're really not, in terms of the science and

data, you're not really threatened by the unvaccinated. when the president says that, if i need protection after i'm vaccinated, what's the point of getting vaccinated? >> we're done gettysburg and george washington. that's why we love having you guys come on. when we come back, remembering 9/11 20 years later. >> when the towers began to collapse, the entire country shuddered. i said on the air at that point, this will change us. kindness, honesty and hard work. over time, i've come to add a fourth: be curious. be curious about the world around us, and then go. go with an open heart, and you will find inspiration anew. viking. exploring the world in comfort.

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welcome back. it's been a weekend of remembrance, recalling that day

20 years ago on september 11th when our world welcome back. it's been a weekend of remembrance, recalling that day 20 years ago on september 11th when our world suddenly changed. we asked ten people, some of whom were in government, others who helped us through that terrible time, to tell us of their experience that day and their reflexes of the two decades that followed. >> that day was a day where we thought it was going to be an easy day. >> i was actually in a meeting catty-corner from the white house. >> my daughter called me and told me to turn on the tv. >> what's most vivid to me on that day is hearing the first report, thinking it was an accident. >> i actually saw with my own eyes the second plane hit the towers. >> i heard the capitol police yelling, leave the building, evacuate, get out of here right away. >> i just told him a second plane hit the second tower. america was under attack. >> when the towers began to collapse, the entire country shuddered, and i said on the air at that point, this will change us. >> it was a shock to really the presumption amongst the american

people that we were somehow immune from attack. >> we came together in a way that i've never seen in my lifetime. >> and what was really powerful was they were bringing pictures of their lost relatives and friends with yankee caps or yankee jerseys, jackets, saying what big fans they were. i realized that baseball was necessary for -- i guess to start the healing. >> in the first days after 9/11, he went to a mosque and said the muslim faith is not a faith of terror. it's a faith of love. >> a lot of people's commitment to our country was brought into question, overlooking the fact that there are scores of muslims who serve in our law enforcement communities. i was one of them. >> one of the greatest spontaneous series of remarks by

any president in history were the remarks the president gave at ground zero. >> i can hear you. the rest of the world hears you, and the people -- [ cheers and applause ] and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. >> the authorization to use military force was passed on 9/14, three days after this horrific terrible attack. that was the wrong time to pass such an overly broad authorization. >> we underestimated the complexity of the war that we were about to get into. i think a lot of people thought we could just walk in and clean it up. >> we got into some sense that we had to, quote, end the war. and it is in many ways the endless war. probably the right narrative, the right analogy would have been korea. i think that would have been the right way to think about afghanistan. >> we cannot remake a whole

country and prop up another country's government in a distant land in order to avoid another act of terrorism. >> i think it was a sad mistake that we went into iraq. that started to end that sense of unity. >> our response over time, particularly when we got distracted or refocused on the iraq war, became very militarized. >> i worry that if there were another 9/11 today, our government would be too polarized to summon a national response to that event. >> i worry that if we don't deal with our internal divisions, we will be vulnerable to another kind of degradation of america's security, america's values, and america's future. we've got to come back to common purpose. on purpose.

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we are back. especially doris and george, i'm curious what you guys think. where is america? >> one of the things that i think makes me sad when i look at that spirit that was generated on 9/11, we really felt ourselves as a nation, we felt ourselves as a nation, a sense of undaunted courage,

volunteerism, enlistments in the army. my own son graduated from harvard that june and joined the army. that spirit seems to have been lost. one of the questions fdr asked in the middle of world war ii when people are grumbling about rationing, only five gallons a week, one cup of coffee a day. he said what is a nation? a nation is when we feel like we're doing something for the common purpose, the common good, we're willing to sacrifice because we believe in the nation. we're at a war. we're at a war with this enemy of covid. where is the national spirit that we're in this together, the collective identity we've shown in so many other crises in the country. that's what i keep waiting to emerge. >> what do you think, george. >> we're exhausted from warness, war on poverty, wore on drugs. martial law means we get in line and obey orders. that's not the way we are

normally as a people, and we don't want to be that. we don't want wartime to be normal in the united states, particularly a low simmering, low intensity war from non-state actors. it's a very different thing. just as in the pandemic we're saying there are some things that just can't be done to fight even something as serious as a pandemic, the united states had to come to terms with the fact that there are some ways of fighting terrorism that are unacceptable. surveillance, for example, data gathering. one of the things that happened in this last 20 years is this. this came along in 2007. this symbolizes the big data gathering and the sense of privacy being invaded and perhaps big brother knowing more than he should. that matters because the terrorists came from within our midst. they were here, and therefore, we had to begin to make really difficult distinctions. >> kimberly, is our natural setting as america actually the setting we're in now? is it -- i look at soviets, the nazis, al qaeda, they got us to unite.

maybe that's all that gets us to unite. >> well, i think one problem is it's the new natural stance of america. another thing that this brought is the fact that everybody can seek out their own information sources. what, in turn, happened is everyone believed their own facts and the politicization of facts and turning americans against each other. it wasn't just that it's partisanship. we've suffered from years of partisanship -- >> the entire 19th century was polarizing. >> but i mean we had a president saying not just that the other party was wrong, but the other party hates america. you have a growing economic cleave, a growing wealth gap, growing geographic gap in america. people are having different opinions about who deserves to call themselves americans. at a time like that when divisions are that deep and that multifaceted, it's impossible, even in the face of a pandemic that threatens us all, to come together for a common purpose and trying to fight it. it really reveals how far we've come. >> one thing i'm thinking about

is what about the generation -- we have this #neverforget. it's been everywhere this weekend. what about the people who never remembered because they weren't born yet, right? kids in high school. anybody under the age of 20 years old. what is my kid going to learn about 9/11? half the states in this country have pieces in their curriculum that say, yeah, teach about 9/11, teach about the war on terror. 16 don't, right? how do teachers teach about it? how do you get the next generation to understand what 9/11 meant to us as a country. it's like my generation learning about pearl harbor. how do you do it? >> you guys to me are unofficial teachers for both of us. how would you teach 9/11? >> i think the important thing is you teach the remembrance that we summoned at the time, at the beginning, the spirit. when you go back to what we've seen the last couple days, maybe the spirit will come back. but you also have to teach that it led us to a series of wars, and wars exhausted us, as george said.

you think about the idea how much was spent on those wars, 20 years of wars, that could have been spent domestically on the problems at home. if i can bring in eisenhower right now, he said every rocket that is fired, every gun that is made, every warship that is launched is like a thief of people who are hungry and not fed, people who are cold and not clothed. that's what we have to remember. that was the legacy of what happened after 9/11, despite that great spirit in the beginning. >> how would you frame it? >> i'd frame it that 9/11 was not the end of normality. it was the restoration of normality in this sense. we had since the end of the cold war, 9/11, a par enthe cease, our holiday from history. it turns out that the world is a dangerous place and that never changes. >> thank you, guys. great panel. great way to end this weekend. that's all we have for today. thank you for watching, enjoy the nfl. we'll be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the

press." we've historically had vaccination requirements in schools, but those have always come at the state level, never at the national level, and so this is an unprecedented assumption of federal mandate authority that really disrupts and divides the country. >> a growing number of republican governors come out against president biden's sweeping new vaccine mandates, but the president is hitting back at critics, threatening legal challenges, and saying, bring it on. the question is how will this fight play out? plus, senators joe manchin and bernie sanders at