she'll want a plan to reach them. so she'll get some help from fidelity, and she'll feel so good about her plan, she can focus on living it. that's the planning effect, from fidelity. . ♪♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. breaking news this afternoon from "the new york times." that could represent a serious threat to donald trump's 2020 campaign and potentially even to the former president himself. there's claims about election fraud were a lie, and trump's campaign reportedly new it. the "times" uncovering newly released court documents revealing that donald trump's campaign knew from the very beginning that his attorneys' claims about fraud in voting machines were baseless, as the completely made up story went

now, according to the trump campaign's assis claims, dominion voting election company worked with a an election firm smartmatic, george soros and the government to steal the election from donald trump. of course, none that is even true. days before the infamous press conference, probably airing the baseless claims and there are internal records that prove it. there's the details from "the new york times" reporting, quote, according to emails contained in the court documents, zack parkinson, then the campaign director's director of communications reached out to subordinates in november 13th asking them to debunk several matters concerning dominion. the next day, it shows mr. parkinson got a copy of a memo, cobbled together by his staff which largely appeared to

be news articles. and the "times" has a list of rebutted allegations, photo, that dominion did not use voting technology that dominion had no ties to venezuela or mr. soros. and there's no evidence that dominion leadership had connections to left win antifa activists as ms. powell and others claimed. and according to the memo contained in "the new york times," that's about as clear and unequivocal as it can get, that members of the trump campaign knew there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories trump and his allies were very publicly spouting and it's all in writing. a reminder, according to the "times," that memo came november 14th, 2020. this press conference took place five days later, november 19th.

it was rudy giuliani and sydney powell, explicitly pushed the conspiracy theory, that dominion, george soros and venezuela worked together to rig the election. and donald trump's campaign had literally just debunked internally in writing. the memo was uncovered in it's "the new york times" filed as part of a defamation lawsuit brought against the trump campaign and others by a former dominion employee. but it raises questions about donald trump's personal involvement. the "times" stresses, quote, it is unclear that mr. trump knew about or saw the memo. it adds this, quote, the document suggests that his campaign staff remained silent when it knew about dominion. and donald trump repeated false claims about dominion in efforts to steal the election in the wake of the memo, on three days

after it, the only thing secure about our 2020 election was that it was virtually impenetrable by foreign powers. on that, the trump administration takes great credit. unfortunately, the democrats and dominion were unsuccessful. that was certainly not his last attempt to blame dominion voting for an election outcome he didn't like and continues to this day that the election was stolen from him. that breaking news with what the trump administration new. harry lipman is here. jonathan lemire, white house reporter for the associated press and msnbc political analyst. congresswoman and msnbc contributor donna edwards here here. and michael steele joins us, a republican strategist who works for dominion, is not joining us in that official capacity today. michael steele, what can you

tell us about where this lawsuit is? if you can't speak to the specifics of what the "times" is reporting and the internal documents that have been produced, where does this lawsuit stand? >> well, this lawsuit was brought by a former dominion employee eric kumar, and that is a separate effort from my work for dominion voting systems. i think it reminds us, though, that these facts were not just notably false, these claims that the president's supporters were making were not knowingly false, they were easily knowingly false. it seemed to involve a simple google search. it was easy and obvious what they were trying to portray as reality is simply not true. >> harry, i want to come to you and i want to really understand what this former dominion employee is trying to prove and how these internal documents help this case. >> he's trying to prove defamation, and where the case

stands exactly where they've come in and said dismiss it, and he said huh-uh, i have evidence. and here is the evidence, he's trying to prove that sydney powell, mike lindell of my pillow and rudy giuliani knowingly or recklessly disregards, very important here because they may say we never saw the memo the facts and made false statements, namely, the ones that you outlined. this immeasurably strengthens the case. and it's $400 million, and that's not hyperbolic, given the intense damages to dominion here. >> harry, i want to play some of the statements just if people forget how specific they were. let's watch on the other side. >> what we're dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through venezuela, cuba and likely china. in the interference with our elections here until the united states.

>> this is not a singular voter fraud in one state. this pattern repeats itself in a number of states. almost exactly the same pattern. i think the logical conclusion is this is a common plan, a common scheme. it comes right directly from the democrat party. and it comes from the candidate. >> so, harry, sydney powell again is also being sued by dominion, i think close to $1 billion. she says this. what we are dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through venezuela, cuba and likely china until interference with our elections. rudy goes on and makes similarly specific claims. this happens five days after the campaign has not just had a meeting where they say the stuff sydney powell is saying, the stuff rudy giuliani is saying is really out there. that's what happens under a

normal campaign. i was a communications broker in a campaign, when you're nervous about where the principles are going, you have a meeting. so you don't go to the point of creating this, and to put in a memo how long they are is to cover your own ass, there's no polite way to say it. do you think they were worried about their legal exposure in mid-november? >> of course. >> yeah? >> and can you imagine the brazenness of this up is down and down is up. and for giuliani and powell there's another problem, nicholl. they've gout problems on the defamation side, as lawyers they're not allowed to make representation of facts in representation of a client that's why powell was fined $200,000 in michigan. but the memo is to know the facts, but also because, you're out there lying, it's a potential problem. but it's a real problem once you've been sued for defamation,

powell and giuliani and lindell are in a world of hurt. >> jonathan lemire, you covered the trump white house. you covered the trump political efforts in the campaign. i want to read more about this memo, a pretty extraordinary memo from the campaign communications staff, it establishes and it proves out and it has documents and articles and others as michael steel said, things you can find on google that dominion cannot use technology from smartmatic. that dominion doesn't have ties to venezuela, to mr. soros, and that they have connections to left wing antifa as ms. powell claimed over and over again. and as mr. kumar, the memo produced by the trump campaign shows internally there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories regarding dominion. jonathan, if you could estimate

how many times after that memo was created the dominion voting company was smeared by sydney powell via trump, five times, ten times, 30 times, how many times? >> oh, dozens of times, i would say. that's probably conservative. it was merely in every media appearance by powell and giuliani, even though they were careful not to say it in a court itself. they were saying this outside. at the news conference where giuliani had hair dye streaming down his face streaked with sweat. there were all-out lies and as this reporting indicates, they knew themselves, the memo was there that there were no ties to soros or antifa or venezuela. that's trike, three, four, and franks, four, five, six, with baseball. and then people close to the president engaged in not just falsehoods or untruths, they were lies -- they were lies.

and they're perpetuating a fraud in order to claim that the election was illegitimate and therefore, joe biden deserves to be president. >> michael steel, i wonder if you can quantify, how much material, like what the "times" reports today has been generated by dominion defamation lawsuits? >> i can't talk about our discovery specifically, but i can say that there will be an extensive discovery process and i think that -- i'm speculating here, i think this is the beginning, not the end of a stream of revelations from the trump campaign, the trump white house, perhaps even the rnc, in this web of deceit that was created to try and claim that he didn't lose the election. >> you know, donna, the country suffered. the country is still suffering, the insurrectionists obviously are to blame for their crimes,

and the broken laws. and they believe, many of them, told judges, that they believe they were guests of the president and that they assaulted and mutilated the bodies of police officers because donald trump sent them there to do so. we have a country in which 40% of the whole population, 78% of all republicans do not believe joe biden is a legitimate president. and that has all sorts of repercussions for the country, with 40% of the public that doesn't trust science or doctors or medicine. but we don't have any recourse, right? the company does. and it would appear that there could be something instructive about the fact that a company like dominion may have more recourse against deadly lies than any of the rest of us. >> well, they do. it's a reminder to us as why as lawyers we view the process of discovery so important and crucial to our legal system. because that is how we uncover

things that we thought might have been buried but we don't know for sure. and i think, you know, the recourse here, and it's shocking to me that donald trump himself has not yet been sued. and maybe we're waiting for that. but when you look at the allegations, you know, think about the time when the leaked telephone call with the georgia secretary of state or the president of the united states continue to make those claims. and where the linchpin here is rudy giuliani acting both as a lawyer, a spokesperson and the connective tissue with the campaign and donald trump. so, i expect that we are going to see more exposure and, you know, thankness we have the civil system in which a company can bring to justice this campaign and through these allegations in a way that we can't individually. >> you know, harry, can you speak to this, and you can take

me inside, you know, you represented this former employee. how do you feel about the case you have? >> yeah. pretty good. i mean, i often represent whistle blowers, and he obviously has partially the keys to the kingdom. he's the one who had this memo. but i think he also was judicious in who he choose, a suit against trump, that has tied things up but he is going like a freight train at the lawyers, on powell and giuliani and lindell. and on top of everything else, it's ferreting out the truth, but also potentially having huge damages. so i think it's thoughtful and measured and probably he won't go much farther than that to look basically to recover under the law. he's looking pretty good right now. >> michael steel, i know there are parameters around which you can't talk about publicly.

but i did see you nodding. can you address the comments of donna, the question of whether or not donald trump should be prepared to be sued by smartmatic or dominion, and how the case is looking from the outside? >> yeah, i will just say this is a massive lawsuit in excess of $1 billion. while it will ultimately be up to a judge and jury, we think that's a well justified figure, given the cope of the damage and the defamation that these folks have suffered. >> harry, do juries and judges ever sort of take the moment into consideration? i know, it's not a science. sometimes, juries it's a little bit of an art there. but what would you expect? >> yeah, i would expect a huge verdict, so much so that you'll get a motion after for the court to try to reduce it arguing it was the product of prejudice.

but, of course, juries do, they take it all into account. and this is going to play as so brazen. and it's not just the lies but the consequences of them and the way they dovetail with basically an attempt to just take over the country and the democratic system. i would not want to be in front of that jury if i'm sydney powell and rudy giuliani. >> jonathan lemire, i want to come back to you, and sort of your reporting at the time and since the election ended of this trump campaign time. i don't know if beleaguered is the right word. i don't want to feel any sympathy for them, but part of me as a campaign staffer has a shred of sympathy of lines they all crossed, whether willingly or unwillingly, i guess i'll never know. i wonder how many of them have lawyers or roped into the defamation lawsuits? how many of them tried to explain what they slowed down?

how many have regret, or none? >> well, that anxiety level, nicholl, certainly increased today according to the texts i received. there are some people who worked for the former president on his campaign in the white house who do fear what could be next. and we're also instructed to flash back to where we were back then, very quickly after the election. after the first two days, the election on tuesday, by saturday, the associated press, nbc and other networks called the race fairly soon afterwards. even though, of course, trump raged against it and declared it as not true. the staff around him hauled out pretty fast at the white house itself. which, of course, led to the circumstances of january 6th in many ways because there was no one there anymore. as well as on the campaign team, the people -- a lot anyway, who had some sense about what happened and the realization that he had lost left. leaving him with only the true believers, the true believers who kept perpetuating the

falsehoods and encouraged him at times. with those gate keepers gone it was people like sydney powell and rudy giuliani who got in his ear and convinced him he was the victim of fraud. we saw what happened tragically a few days after election day at the capitol. >> i want to read more from the "times" reporting that broke this afternoon. this is part of the conversation that all of us had over the last ten months. even at the time when are political votes, republican and democratic alike dismissed the efforts of ms. powell and others like rudy giuliani as a wild last-ditch attempt to appease the president and denial of his loss, but the false theories spread and quickly gains currency and endured. donna, they're propelling 400 suppression laws in 48 states. they put the country at risk. they sit adjacent to a domestic

violence homeland security has warned us of as recently as today, homeland security christopher wray, what is the point of the purveyors of the fraudulent claims of this election? >> well, it really is damaging, because as you described, it has undermined the confidence in our elections, mostly within the republican party. so what is the sanction? i'm not really sure of what the appropriate sanction is on news organizations short of our civil justice system. it doesn't seem that there is criminal liability here. but i also think that congress can begin to put some rules in place that don't allow this kind of misinformation to be spread to undermine our democracy. that's what's at stake. and we see that with this, you know, avalanche of laws that have come as a result of these base claims against our election

system in trying to undermine it. >> michael steel, it's important to point out that representatives for.twice impeached ex-president did not respond to emails seeking comment for this sorry. but i wonder as a legal analysis, if you could characterize this reporting as so much of a kind of a case that could be brought against the ex-president? >> i don't know that i can speak to that. i think jonathan made a really important point. part of the problem here is that anyone at all familiar with our election process, how it works in this country knew it was fantastical at the time. and the fact that so many of those experienced people left working for the president or unwilling to stay in his path as he chose to go down this road that led us to this place.

>> harry, i want to give you the last word on what the next legal step will be? what are you watching for? >> look, legally, i'm watching the dominion suit and the denial of the motion to dismiss by the court. i want to second what donna said, the right remedy here is for all of these people to be exiled from the political culture put east of eden. i don't know if that will happen, they won't be criminally charged but the most damaging aspect here is that as fantastical as these claims are, remember what sydney powell said, nobody could even believe them, that was her first offense. they have, as you said, taken hold in 40% of the electorate and lead to an ongoing corrosion in our political culture. that's the real toxic effect here. >> sure is. being back today after technical difficulties, thank you, my friend. donna edwards, michael steel doing a careful artful job, grateful to all three of you for

starting us off. jonathan lemire is sticking around. when we come back, the ex-president and bipartisans continue to lead. the latest in the six-point plan to steal the election, we'll explain. plus, president biden today making the case that the united states can be a leader on the world stage again, despite criticism from around the world over multiple conflicts he's had to face later in the year. and later in the program, the director of the fbi ramping up the threats dense domestic terrorism. warning that the greatest threat comes from within. after a quick break. don't go anywhere. go anywhere. 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.

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stunning now details on donald trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election from the new book "peril" by bob woodward and robert costa, the authors report on john eastman, a conservative lawyer although was working for trump's legal team. it amounts to a blueprint for a coup. nbc has obtained a memo and how pence was to have disrupted the certification and handed the election to trump. is goes, pence announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the seven states there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those states. there are 232 votes for trump, 232 votes for biden.

pence then gavels president trump as re-elected. eastman lays out plan "b." writes this, howell, of course, from the democrats now claim that 270 electoral votes is required. so pence says, fine. pursuant to the 12th amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. according to the amended version of the plan, pence would delay the certification until states could send an alternate slate of electors was pitched by pence to eastman in the oval office. trump tells pence, quote, you really need to listen to john, he's a respects constitutional scholar, listen, listen to john. we all know what happens next. pence certified the vote after hours after a mob of

insurrectionists stormed the capitol. the revelation that trump allies had actually concocted a detailed and elaborate plan to steal the election january 6th, will be of honest interest to the january 6th committee which is showing signs of picking up real steam. bennie johnson told reporters to expect a first round of subpoenas isn't another week. and adam schiff said the committee won't waste time on documented interview requests hostile to the investigation. they will go straight to subpoenas. joining me congresswoman madeleine dean of pennsylvania, manager of the trump impeachment trial for his role in inciting the january 6th attack on the capitol. lest us not grow numb, trump who didn't like lawyers who took notes who would go on to have don mcgahn surveilled. we don't know exactly how or why

trump was involved but we know that mcgahn was surveilled. brought in a constitutional expert to draw up a plan for a coup. i'm still shocked by these details. >> i know. and i was thinking as i was reading this reporting this afternoon, it's stunning, it's shocking. and i think maybe that's healthy that you and i still can be shocked by the outrageous, corrupt, criminal behavior of a former president. because look at what was going on. this is two days before the certification. unfortunately the day that became the insurrection. two days before they're meeting in the oval office trying to convince pence. and you notice the reporting shows that pence was interested and was looking into it. in fact, even wound up calling a former vice president for some help. this was a desperate set of actors two days before certification. how many days after the election. still trying to cling to power

illegally, with the help of a lawyer eastman, who puts together this crazy memo, making up things out of thin air. >> i have eastman in his own words at the january 6th rally. let me show that to our viewers. >> we know there was fraud. traditional fraud that occurred. we know that dead people voted. but we now know because we caught it live last time in realtime. how the machines contributed to that fraud. all we are demanding of vice president pence is this afternoon at 1:00, he let the legislatures of the state look into this, so we get to the bottom of it. and the american people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not. we no longer live in a self-governing republic if we can't get the answer to this question. this is bigger than president trump. it is a very essence of our republican form of government.

and it has to be done. and anybody that is not willing to stand up and do it does not deserve to be in the office. it is that simple. >> so, incitement is what donald trump is impeached for. but they had a mission statement to hang mike pence. i wonder if mr. eastman is of interest understands the threat he might have instigated and represented to the vice president at the time? >> well, absolutely. take a look at that set of outrageous lies. offered by a person who is a servant of the court. i remember when i became a lawyer how important it was that i only profess the truth. and that man stood there desperate to support trump's big lie. and help incited an insurrection. i think that the bar association should get rid of such lawyers. >> you know, you raise the other, i think, sort of shocking passage from the book.

it was out last week, and it's the section that's reporting from bob woodward and robert costa. pence almost did it, pence almost did the eastman plan. and one insider said, i don't know how close he was one way or the other. we'll never know whether the call to vice president quayle was something to put him over the edge to certify. the direction of the phone call makes it seem that pence was parroting to quayle. there was no fraud. if there was fraud, he'll be out there with a siren. there was no fraud. the notion that pence was so close that it took a call from dan quayle to get him to do the right thing. it feels like another chilling reality that maybe we didn't appreciate at the time. >> imagine, it's dan quayle who pulls him back off the ledge.

incredible, unconstitutional behavior by a vice president of the united states. i think that reporting is very, very important and very, very telling. we observed mike pence for four years just be a bobblehead of agreement to a most corrupt president. so this reporting is very informative for those who are looking forward to the next election. and for somebody like mike pence who might be thinking of running, shame on him for his role all of these years in aiding and abetting a corrupt president. but i up until the last moment, to the last hour, thinking maybe he could pull tell off and claim power. >> i want to read a tweet from adam kinzinger who is one of those rare republicans who lives in reality with us. and the rest of the reality adhering americans. he tweeted this. this memo outlines a coup. make ted cruz or rand paul can do our bidding. rand and ted are the go-two options for doing their overthrow. this is the section about those

two gentlemen. someone, ted cruz, rand paul should demand normal laws that creates a filibuster that creates a stalemate that would give the state legislatures more time to weigh in to formally get pay board of electors if they had not already done so. i wonder if this had any influence among deliberations among democratic senators? and two, the memo outlines a very broad conspiracy, and i wonder if the committee should hear from ted cruz and rand paul? >> oh, i certainly do. i have long thought that anybody that had any interest or anything to do with what happened on january 6th, any communication with the president, with the president's legal teams should absolutely be before the committee to let us know their role. to let us know what they know. this reporting will go a long way to offer a summons, but the

committee has power of subpoena and gathering more. i want to say all the more reason why we have to move forward with a bill that was introduced today protecting our democracy. because our democracy needed restored faith. this is what i've been worried about, the last two years when i was in congress and trump was in the white house. that the erosion of our faith and our democracy was perpetuated by donald trump, aided and abetted by other elected leaders and appointed folks such agency the attorney general of the united states. we have to do what is necessary to protect our democracy. and to restore our citizens' faith in our democracy. so, that's why i'm proud to be part of protecting our democracy as original cosign or co-sponsor of the bill. >> do you think that when a big sort of new body of evidence, in

journalism, in investigative reporting becomes part of the conversation, that it strengthens the will to -- not that this committee needs to be strengthened. but does it help their case. if we're at the same moment when the committee -- it sucks to be sending out subpoenas. is it a good moment for the country to be reminded how detailed, how audacious and how vast what adam kinzinger calls the coup plan really was? >> well, sadly, i feel like we're reliving a little bit of our history. i was a young girl during watergate. of course, it was woodward who brought incredible reporting, illegal action, here we are again, one of the same authors and a very talented journalist. journalism has a role to play, as you know, as you play it, to bring forward the truth, the

facts, especially at the time when the public is bombarded with lies and disinformation. so here we are again, the reporting is important. the reporting of our committee is important. our oversight and reforming for the future. i'm proud to see democrats put forward a package to protect our democracy to enforce subpoenas, for example. to clamp down on the abuse of a malfeasance. and we're doing it at the time when we have a democrat in the white house. we're not afraid of a local chore that we reform our democracy over somebody like donald trump who just trampled over the rule of law, slammed through any norms. but the democrats see this correctly and ethically and constitutionally, so we have to bring forward this legislation in order tole restore our faith in democracy. >> stay on it, congresswoman madeleine dean, thank you for spending time with us. as you mentioned, the authors of

"peril" bob woodward and robert costas will be our guest tomorrow. president biden, shoring up any doubts of us standing globally, a reminder that stands in stark contrast to the lapses that were under full display under that last guy. we'll talk about that, next.

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president biden today in his

first address to the u.n. general assembly since taking office with an appeal for unity and global cooperation as a case for united states' restored status as leaders. with a somber stance around the world, including the global pandemic, controversial withdrawal from afghanistan, conflict with close friends, the french, australia leaving them blind sided and feeling out of the loop. and president with his decision to bring the war in afghanistan to an end. >> i stand here today, for the first time in 20 years united states is not at war to turn the page, all of the unmatched strength, energy, commitment, will and resources of our nation are now fully and squarely focused on what's ahead of us. not what was behind. >> joining our conversation former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfall, msnbc

international affairs analyst jonathan lemire is here. ambassador, take me inside what this was like for the world to see, an american president, not just with these major milestones, not just investing in vaccine supply for our allies and for other parts of the world. but to have the normal debates and policy differences, it's sort of a more normal baseline. >> that's exactly the right word. this was a speech, a normal speech from a normal american president at the united nations general assembly. now, democrats and republicans in the past would have different nuances to it. but basically said three things that mr. trump never said. he said, one, we're going to work with our allies. trump said the opposite. two, he said we're going to be a leader of multiviral institutions. trump said we're going to go our own way. and three, he talks a lot about

democracy and human rights, values, universal values, mr. trump never talked about values. and i think -- then he talked, you know, i think a very noble and ambitious set of objectives that he seeks to achieve. now implementing strategies to achieve them is a different thing, but as a speech outlining broad objectives way of doing business is a normal presidential speech at the u.n. general assembly. >> you know, ambassador, you said something here for the first time that has stuck with how i think of sort of the herculean task on the world stage. you talk about this fight between autocracies and democracies not happening within russia, but happening within america, and within the allies with what they're struggling with within the dark forces versus the lighter forces of democratic norms. and i wonder if those are conversations that take place on

the sideline? >> well, absolutely, because the rest of the world is skeptical about our staying power. they worry that a lot of americans don't agree with the president. and, by the way, they're right about that. strong majorities within the republican party don't believe in multilateralism. they don't want to promote our values. and they're skeptical about alliances, and there are also isolationist tendencies within the democratic party. that's number one. two, in spite of autocrats and democrats within the united states, other european countries aligning at times with autocrats around the world. think about it, mr. putin and russia agrees more with populist nationalists in europe and populist liberals in the united states than americans agree with president biden about the same issues. so, the challenge for the president, as he seeks to, you know, tackle covid and climate change, he's got to figure out

the ways to deal with the likes of xi jinping and mr. putin in doing that. but he also has to deal with these critics at home, some of which are policy critics and others that are fundamentally with him ideologically. >> i want to show you more of the president today, jonathan lemire. we'll talk about it on the other side. >> as a global community, that our own success is bound up in others succeeding as well. to deliver for our own people must also engage deeply with the rest of the world. to ensure that our own future, we must work together with other partners, our partners, toward a shared future. our security, our prosperity and our our very freedoms are interconnected, in my view, as never before. and so, i believe we must work together, as never before. >> jonathan lemire, those are

the kind of speeches that during normal times are unremarkable. but is this a president who has to bring along the country against isolationism which was the constant refrain of his predecessor. >> you know, that's exactly right. those do seem like words from a speech that a republican or democrat president would have delivered in decades past. but certainly, the last one didn't. of course, you remember, of course, a couple years ago that donald trump was actually laughed at by the world leaders gathered there at the united nations when he boasted about the competence of the administration. so much of what president biden is doing now is indeed mending fences from his predecessor. and reassure allies that america can be counted upon again. as they've told me in recent days, look, you don't need to look further than the pandemic to realize how interconnected we are right now. there is no way to not be a global community and international player. but this comes at a time when

the white house has had tension with one of our oldest allies france, over the submarine deal. aides said that president biden will be speaking with president macron in the coming days to try to smooth over that and literally unspoken, because he never used the word "china" in a speech today is that's the other part of it, in as much as he's rallying alliances, he's doing in opposition to china, but in a sense that these are competitors. he made clear he didn't want to see a new cold war with china, but he recognizes that is now defining a relationship of this age that he hopes, hopes, that he can get along not as rivals, but as simply competitors in the same sphere. >> jonathan lemire and ambassador michael mcfaul, thank you for spending time with this. the president pushing a plan to combat covid worldwide, the

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will we work together to save lives, defeat covid-19 everywhere and take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic, for there will be another one. or will we fail to harness the tools at our disposal as a more virulent and dangerous variants take hold? >> that was more from the president there at the u.n. general assembly today on the global responsibility to defeat covid with vaccines ahead of his virtual summit with world leaders tomorrow where he will call on them for an all hands on deck effort and announce further contributions from the united states. it comes as "the new york times" reports a global supply and distribution problem. not even 10% of the population in poor countries and less than 4% of africa's population has been fully vaccinated. let's bring into our conversation, dr. peter hotez, texas children's hospital and dean at the school of tropical

medicine at baylor college. dr. hotez, this isn't just something you've been talking about since the beginning of the pandemic. this is something you've been working on. tell us where this effort lags and how the president can strengthen it with his summit tomorrow. >> well, you know, in fairness, nicole, the details of what he is going to propose, we'll learn about tomorrow. i did not hear too much today. i mean, you know, what we've never heard from the president or the white house is the scope of the task at hand. we've got 1.1 billion people in sub-saharan africa, people in latin america, another half a billion people in the smaller low-income countries of southeast asia. that's 2 to 3 billion people times 2 to 3 doses. you know, we're looking at up to 8, 9 billion doses that we need and we don't need it by 2023 or 2024. we need it now. so, what's the plan? and you know, he touts providing 160 million doses of the

pfizer-biontech vaccine with another few hundred million planned for that. it's barely enough to vaccination nate the country of nigeria, so there doesn't seem -- he doesn't seem to have his arms around -- and in fairness, neither do any of the other g7 leaders seem to have their arms around the magnitude of this and the fact that we're not going to do this with mrna vaccines. it's simply not going to happen or adeno virus vaccines. we need a simpler technology that we can scale for the world ask that's what we're doing. we've developed a recome by tant protein vaccine. there's no upper limit to the amount we can produce for that one. but we need help. we need the u.s. government to take some ownership and the g7 countries and so what we're seeing is this kind of bickering of a handful of mrna vaccine doses that we simply cannot get there. it's a brand-new technology and there's a learning curve as any

engineer will tell you. it's a learning curve before you can scale it up to the billions and there doesn't seem to be that situational awareness that i've heard yet from any of the g7 leaders. >> dr. hotez, how do you feel about our country's efforts to fight covid as we head into -- in a lot of parts of this country as the first full month of having kids back to school. we have icus in many states across the country packed. we have kids on ventilators. how are you feeling about our efforts to defeat covid here? >> you know, it's -- we're still lagging behind. yes, the cases are going down in the southern u.s., but now you see they're going up north of there. they're going up into west virginia, kentucky, tennessee is looking awful right now, and now post sturgis up in the mountain west so what's happening is we're still, you know, going at 2,000 deaths per day, 2,000 american deaths per day. by the way, none of those individuals have to lose their lives. these are individuals who are

unvaccinated and defiant of getting vaccinated. so what's going to happen is it will start going down in the south where i am but it's going to pop up again elsewhere in the country and we're going to accelerate towards another hundred thousand americans losing their lives on top of the hundred thousand that have unnecessarily lost their lives since april/may. so we're going to hit that 800,000 death mark, unfortunately. so, i'm sorry i'm not giving you a lot of good news this afternoon, nicole. >> no, it's the reality of where we are, and you're right. every loss of life is tragic. someone's entire world being blown up and changed forever. but on getting sick and hospitalized and dying, that is a choice of not being vaccinated. so, we appreciate the blunt truth. we can handle it. dr. peter hotez, thank you so much for joining us this hour. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started. brea. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started

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we're also countering lone domestic violent extremists radicalized by personal bias, including anti-government, anti-authority sentiment, to conspiracy theories. the fbi has pushed even more resources to our domestic terrorism investigations. since the spring of 2020, so, the past 16, 18 months or so, we've more than doubled our domestic terrorism case load from about 1,000 to around 2,700 investigations. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in new york. the frightening reality of the times we now live in, that the biggest serious and growing threat to the homeland comes from within. up on capitol hill earlier, national security officials, including fbi director

christopher wray, who you just heard, testified before the senate homeland security committee and made clear the ongoing threat of domestic extremism, one that has become a very tangible threat for many who work and live in washington, d.c. new reporting in the "l.a. times" shines a light on the disturbing trend of threats of violence against members of congress, quote, in a year that kicked off with the deadly january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol, threats against lawmakers are soaring. in the first three months of 2021, the u.s. capitol police recorded 4,135 threats against members of congress. if that pace continues, total threats this year will double those in 2020. it's changing the job for lawmakers who must tread a fine line between being accessible to the people they represent and keeping themselves, their families and their staff safe. it's a fine line congressman anthony gonzalez, one of the ten house republicans who voted for trump's impeachment following

january 6th, is tired of treading. last week, we told you that the two-term congressman announced he would not be running for re-election. one major factor in his decision, concern over the safety of his wife and kids. meanwhile, the congressional investigation into the domestic terror attack that president biden called the worst attack on our democracy since the civil war, is pressing ahead. to 1/6 select committee chairman bennie thompson told reporters that the committee could start issuing subpoenas to individuals and organizations within one week and here is vice chair liz cheney emphasizing the committee's work and progress. >> this is, in my view, the single most important investigation i think the congress has ever done because of the subject matter and the work of the committee and the commitment of the committee members and other staff reflects that. >> when do you think you'll start seeing behind closed door

testimony, subpoenaed witnesses? >> i think you will see continued very clear, aggressive and serious progress over the coming weeks. >> the looming threat from within is where we start this hour. clint watts is back, former consultant to the fbi counterterrorism division. now a distinguished research fellow at the foreign policy research institute. also joining our coverage, carol leonnig, national investigative reporter for the "washington post." and punchbowl news founder jake sherman is here. lucky for us, all three msnbc contributors. jake, i want to start with you and something that caught my eye. i missed it live, but i caught it this morning. this is jonathan martin of the "new york times" on the new normal of political violence. >> it is striking, though, like nine months later, the degree to which the specter of physical violence still looms over american politics in a way that we haven't seen in this country since the 1970s. it's very difficult to explain if you don't work in politics

but it is such a part of our daily lives now, so much so that there are members of congress, including one i spoke to this week, anthony gonzalez, from ohio, who just don't think it's worth it to stay in politics anymore. because you're dealing with these sort of, you know, hassles, at best, where you're having to think of your spouse and your kids, are they safe, are they secure? am i flying? what's going to happen on the plane, in the airport? and he is not running for re-election. he's only been the congressman two terms. he's not quite 37 years old. he's calling it quits. in part because of these security threats, and i think that tells you a lot about politics today. >> jake sherman, is that the view up there? are they all scared for themselves and their families? >> i don't know about all. i can tell you i'll paint a pretty grim picture for you, nicole. i mean, a couple months ago, we

reported based on campaign finance data that anthony gonzalez and a host of oh members of congress were equipping their homes with new security systems or hiring private security to accompany them to events, and here on capitol hill, the federal government is setting aside more money to have police and federal officers escort people to the airport, bring them to the airport, outfit their offices back home for additional security. i can't put myself inside the mind of a member of congress, nicole, but i can tell you, from what they tell us, it is a -- not literally dodging bullets every day, but living in just such a heightened sense of threat environment that they've never seen before. and i remember back in 2010 and 2011, really 2009, 2010, we saw the beginnings of this, but now it's just, i see rank and file members of congress, nicole, with armed capitol police security details.

i mean, it's something -- that's something that's reserved for the speaker of the house, people who are carrying guns who are, you know, members of congress, rank and file members of the house, surrounded by three and four police officers when they're just walking around the capitol, which, by the way, nicole, this is a secure building. so, yeah, i mean, jonathan martin, j. mart for short, is right in that it's something that we are -- we've never seen before, at least in my lifetime of covering congress. >> let me just press you. i mean, congressman gonzalez is in kevin mccarthy's caucus. kevin mccarthy also has in his caucus marjorie taylor greene who created an ad with extremely violent imagery. we played it yesterday for the purposes of revealing what kevin mccarthy will tolerate and what he will not. liz cheney, the truth-teller on the insurrection. does kevin mccarthy feel responsible for the safety of his caucus? >> i don't think he would say that he sees that as his

responsibility at wul. i'll give you another example. he, a couple months ago, said that members of his conference, he said this in a private conference call but we reported it at the time, should not be targeting by name other members of the republican conference or congress writ large. made that plea to his 200 or so house republicans. they've summarily ignored that. so, it shows, at least, that he doesn't have sway with them on an issue like that because you saw for months on end, marjorie taylor greene suggest that she get into some sort of in-person debate with aoc and all these bizarre kind of requests like that. and even if you take it at its most basic, you see the members of congress talk all the time about liz cheney and adam kinzinger and call them out for various things. so they are not listening to mccarthy on that very narrow point, and it's not narrow, i mean, in scope, but not in import.

i think it's not an unreasonable request from a congressional leader to say, please don't target fellow elected officials in any way, shape, or form with your words. they've not listened to him on that point. >> look, it's bonkers that you even have to ask, but you know, carol leonnig, here we are. this is from the "l.a. times" reporting, threats against members of congress. four years of trump's divisive and racist rhetoric played a role, experts say, emboldening people to say things publicly they might have grumbled about privately in the past. it's also a sign of growing partisanship and declining civility. this is happening in people's real lives. i have friends that won't fly with little kids because they don't want them to be scared by an altercation on an airplane, let alone catch covid. this is manifesting itself in the threats against our election workers. 31% of all election officials from 2020 feel unsafe when they

go to work, when they do their jobs, concerned about being harassed in-person or social media. 35%. this sort of laid over what christopher wray testified to today, that they've doubled the number of cases they've opened for domestic extremists, people who have been radicalized in this country around ideologies and grievances with the government, public health mandates, this is the number one threat to the homeland. >> absolutely, nicole, and you know, i think about, as you and jake were speaking about just how far things have devolved since january, you know, the night of january 6th, you had republican members shaking their heads at the horror they had just experienced and witnessed. you had mitt romney a couple of days before january 6th harassed at an airport because he had made clear that he believed the election was fair and not rigged. and at that point, in the wake

after january 6th, you had republicans and democrats very distrustful of one another. in our book, "i alone can fix it," we delved into a moment in which liz cheney batted away the hand of jim jordan and said, you did this. don't try to help me. you had mitt romney basically going up to his fellow republicans and saying, you know, you're at fault. you caused this by stoking this. and you had democrats extremely distrustful of that same group of people who they felt had, you know, weaponized these conspiracy theories against them. now, here's the stressor we have now. multiple republicans are fearful of their own constituents. now they're fearful of their own colleagues. it's no longer pelosi saying, i don't know if we can trust this band of republicans who stoked this conspiracy. it's now republicans versus republicans, and much more dramatically than just romney and cheney, you know,

tut-tutting and shaking their heads. anthony gonzalez's retirement tells you everything you need to know. a person who should be on his upward trajectory of his career in public service is saying that the president, the former president, is a cancer that is metastasizing, that he can't survive. that he won't tolerate. it's pretty striking that now almost like a feeding frenzy within the party, people attacking one another, people arguing that one person isn't republican enough, and using some pretty false information to stoke anger against them that could imperil their lives. >> well, and clint watts, it has nothing to do with being republican enough. these are all very conservative -- liz cheney is, i think, one of the most conservative republicans in the -- she certainly was in leadership but i think she's one of the most conservative

members. this has nothing to do with being conservative. this has nothing to do with being a republican. this has nothing to do with how you vote on anything. this has to do with your servitude to a corrupt, twice-impeached ex-president who actually doesn't care about anything conservative either. it's about his own ambition and i wonder if this -- if we're getting at this and we're focusing on the threats that have emanated from this too late. i mean, how do you cut off the fish's head if the party's already rotten? >> well, it's interesting, nicole, just last night, somebody said, if you told me ten years ago that the cheneys would be considered too moderate, i would have never believed you and that really just tells you the direction. >> i can second that. >> yeah. it's a rather shocking turn around over a 20-year period, but i think the bigger problem is that we had the violent instant, right. i always thought, okay, someone will be killed. something terrible will happen.

and then you'll see the republican party start to purge it from the ranks. instead, the reverse is happening. it's continued to grow, and those that i thought would purge it from the ranks are now being purged from the ranks themselves so it's a very dangerous proposition because it's showing that it's reinforcing two things. one, mobilization and incitement, and two, specific targeting of individuals. and this is a symptom of the social media era. what we see is the more that they name specific individuals, it actually moves their audience to a specific target, and it also increases their following. if it's a vague sort of threat or just a general discussion, it just doesn't have the same sort of poignancy for the audience that it does when it's a specific person. >> that's terrifying. i want to turn to the investigation, the select committee. jake, politico's reporting that they're going straight to subpoenas, lessons learned, perhaps. i want to read this to you. in some cases, we make requests we think will be complied with, that's adam schiff, chair of the

house intelligence committee. in other cases, we're going straight to subpoenas where we think we're dealing with recalcitrant witnesses. it is a shift from the committee schiff led in 2019 where they gave witnesses weeks to comply. schiff said the change is an acknowledgment of the short timeline that the january 6th panel faces. talk about that. what is their timeline? >> i'm not really sure what he's talking about, respectfully, because they don't have a timeline. this investigation's going to go straight through next year. it's going to -- and they're not really going straight to subpoenas. they've made public a list of witnesses that they'd like to hear from and who they're asking technology companies and other entities to preserve documents and data related to, so people understand, broadly speaking, at least, some of the universe of people that they want to talk to. but i think it's fair to say, based on our conversations with

the chairman of the committee, bennie thompson in the last, i would say, two or three weeks, conversations that we have published, is that he believes this is going to go straight through next year. so, the -- and it's ironic, nicole, because if republicans had agreed to the initial configuration of this panel months ago, this would have had to wrap up by the end of the year. would have been much more advantageous to them if they had actually cooperated, if mccarthy and mcconnell had cooperated with the original configuration. now they're going to have a probe that's going to be more wide-ranging and is going to last straight until next year where they have the midterm elections coming up so we've made the case that we think that's probably a lot of people internally in the capitol think so too, a miscalculation by republican leadership to not go with that in the first place. >> and that's putting it in diplomatic and generous reporter speak. it's idiotic. let me come back to you, carol, with something that intersects with the topic you write about

at length. miles taylor kweeted this. i firmly believe trump provoked the attack on the capitol so he could declare martial law. for years he talked in private about the insurrection act and his magical powers to deploy the military on to the streets. the january 6th select committee needs to investigate this. i saw that and i knew you were here today and wanted to get your thoughts. >> well, you know, as a reporter, i don't speculate about what might be the case but i'll tell you, as a reporter, the most central unanswered questions sort of circle around the drain that miles taylor is smartly focusing on. and that is, the days before january 6th. this is why, to me, subpoena power is so powerful and i wish as a journalist i had it. we need to know about the conversations that republican lawmakers, donald trump, and white house staff had with each other and with organizers of the protest. we need to know those

conversations in detail. their communications about what they plan to do. we already know from very good reporting that, unfortunately, not with a subpoena, that there were protest members who were warning the senior white house folks that there was going to be a likely storming/march on the capitol. so, the white house should have been on alert. there was also a crucial meeting in late december between the president and other lawmakers in that special caucus that wanted to stop the certification of the vote. they were all sort of fist bumping after that meeting where they were going to discuss how they would stop the steal, how they would stop the certification. we need to know what they discussed and we need to know what white house staff notes were taken. we need to know the degree to which then president trump was aware of the likelihood and potential for violence. >> carol leonnig, that is such a good road map.

i'm sure liz cheney has some similar questions along those lines. we'll all watch it together. carol leonnig, jake sherman, thank you so much for starting us off this hour. clint is sticking around. when we return, the republicans' war on abortion rights is growing beyond texas as other red states look to follow suit and enact abortion bans of their own. what the biden administration is doing to protect reproductive rights ahead of that critical supreme court case that could end roe v. wade as we know it. that reporting is next. plus, the mystery deepens around the havana syndrome after an intelligence officer was stricken while traveling with the cia director. experts warn it could be a sign of an escalation in attacks against u.s. officials. and the dramatic change in leadership offered by president biden in his debut at the u.n. today and his call for relentless diplomacy, a far, far cry from what we saw over the last four years. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. if you're 55 and up, t- mobile has plans built just for you.

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what about criticism of the legislature that they're more pro-birth than pro-life, specifically citing the fact that they refused to fund the medicaid expansion. they're asking women to have these children and then not having a safety net for them. >> i mean, i think it's a ridiculous comparison. >> of course you do. that was missouri's republican attorney general, eric schmidt, when asked about the hypocrisy of his state's eight-week abortion ban after a federal appeals court heard arguments in the case. schmidt is vigorously defending the law and wants the u.s.

supreme court to take up the case. the missouri law just one of many laws moving through the courts right now with the potential to deprive a woman of the right to control her own future and health. the justice department is asking to present oral arguments in front of the supreme court when mississippi's 15-week abortion ban is heard in december. doj argues if the court fails to uphold roe, it will undermine the doctrine that gives power to supreme court precedents and in texas, a second lawsuit has now been filed against a doctor who wrote an op-ed in the "washington post" admitting to violating the state's near total ban on abortion there. both plaintiffs claim to support abortion rights and say they were motivated to provide an opportunity for the court to rule on the constitutionality of that texas law. joining our conversation, joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and law professor. alexi mchammond is here. i wonder if it's the right thing

to take all three together or if it's worth focusing on texas first and tell us what these two lawsuits are likely to yield if they aren't on the substance of the law but simply a mechanism to get the law reviewed. >> well, that's a lot, nicole, but i'll take up your invitation maybe first to think about all three cases together, because really, this is all about the mississippi case, which is an effort to reverse roe vs. wade outright. and in fact, the missouri statute that was under attack in the eighth circuit today anticipates that approach. that law in missouri has a provision where if roe is reversed in the mississippi case, missouri would actually have a ban from conception onwards on abortion. in other words, a total ban on abortion. there are other states like alabama that have adopted legislation, anticipating a reversal of roe, and then abortion would cease to be available to women under virtually any circumstances in those states. so, that really brings texas

into focus for us. texas was a case that no one saw coming, and it became important because the supreme court did something really unprecedented. it declined to grant an injunction to block the statute from going into effect while litigation over its constitutionality was ongoing. that's why we now have a ban in texas on abortion. the real question is how widely will that ban spread while this other litigation is ongoing, in effect depriving women of their rights while roe vs. wade is still good law. >> joyce, i want to read from your new op-ed, the evil genius of the texas anti-abortion law. the risk and uncertainty that the private enforcement mechanism creates is working as intended, depriving texans of abortion rights. this is precisely the quandary that caused the department of justice to enter the fray. the question their lawsuit poses comes down to this. if there is no legal mechanism for the courts to enforce a constitutional right, is it

really a right? if the texas legislature has its way, texans may have a right to an abortion, at least for now, but they won't be able to obtain one. and that is really no right at all. the nonlawyer in me comes back to this same question. was this simply written to trick, to bamboozle the supreme court, to let them overturn roe v. wade, which is what cecile richards, who ran planned parenthood for a very long time, says this law does? >> well, it's hard to not view the supreme court, this newly reconfigured 6-3 supreme court as a willing participant in efforts to reverse wade, and what happened in texas is really very interesting, from a legal perspective, if you walk out the emotion of the issue. these statutes had been beaten back repeatedly because any statute that imposed a ban on abortion was perceived by the courts as violating roe and so it would get blocked at this

preliminary stage, as soon as, really, as it was passed and opponents could get into court to challenge it. the courts would say, this statute violates roe. so, we're going to block it from going into effect while litigation is ongoing. and in texas, they decided they wanted to try to get past that ban and come up with a strategy that would permit the law to move forward. now, look, nicole, there was nothing that forced the supreme court to throw up its hands the way it did and diter when they were presented with this private enforcement mechanism. the court could have certainly seen through it and said, this is just a transparent effort to violate rights. we're going to enjoin this statute while the law is ongoing. that's not what the court did, and so the difficulty here is how do you read the tea leaves? does this suggest where the court is headed in the mississippi case? many people believe that this is an early warning sign, that roe is in serious doubt. or did the supreme court truly believe that this presented a

difficult issue that prevented them from issuing an injunction? there are folks who believe that as well. you know, we'll know soon enough when the mississippi case is decided this term. >> alexei, i want to turn to the political reality. there's the reality-reality, which is that there are women in texas right now who are deprived of their right to make choices about their bodies. there is a fear that that reality will soon become the reality for millions of women in this country. and then there's the political reality. this is some polling that caught our eye today. 30% of people who call themselves pro-life say they do not want roe overturned, and 60% of them say abortion should be allowed in cases of rape. the way the texas law is constructed further puts off abortion moderates since most people oppose fines or prison time for doctors who perform abortions. let me read these numbers again. 30% of pro-life americans don't want roe overturned.

they believe that precedent, when it comes to reproductive freedoms, is the right thing. and 60% think that abortion should be allowed in cases of rape. the vast majority of abortions in cases of rape happen well after all of these early bans, and i wonder where you think the work done happens and who does it of educating people about the insanely extreme nature of these abortion bans comes. >> well, i think that polling, especially with the pro-life folks, is really showing that people understand the severity of these restrictive laws being introduced across the country, even if they're not living in those states. we just did a swing voter focus group for axios with folks across the upper midwest, and it was a similar result. even people who considered themselves pro-life were saying that they personally thought that texas abortion ban went too far, and we've seen, as you know well, nicole, a number of instances and policy issues in

which republican leaders have been out of step with public opinion, but i think that public opinion is why you're also seeing democrats really go hard on different strategies to get involved in texas and mississippi and other states. it's not just the white house getting involved. it's democrats at the local level running digital and tv ads against corporations like at&t in texas this week who have ties to state legislators who have sponsored these abortion bills. you have democrats calling the white house and congress trying to coordinate with them on strategies, folks like cecile richards like you just mentioned, out on tv, trying to educate people what's going on so it's a robust response from democrats because i think, to your point, nicole, they're anticipating the political fallout of this is not going to end any time soon. >> alexi, i know from my time, past life in republican politics, it is a terrible news cycle when you are being depicted as extreme on reproductive freedoms. it used to be just a giant loser

in any general election context, statewide or nationally, and i wonder what you make of sort of conversations or plans to make sure people really understand the stakes of the upcoming midterms. >> i was just talking with congressman sean patrick maloney yet by phone who, of course, is from new york but is the chairman of the dccc, the democrat party's campaign arm that runs congressional races and he was saying while they're only looking at 12 republican-held districts right now, that may change because they're watching republicans who are supportive of these abortion bans across the country and basically told me they're willing to find democratic challengers to these republicans who go down these dark paths of restricting women's freedom of choice. it's not just sean patrick maloney, it's the head of the dnc who is very clear-eyed about democrat strategy moving

forward, talking about delivering results but also holding republicans accountable for these actions. >> joyce vance, alexi, thank you so much for staying on this story with us. it's nice to see both of you. when we come back, there is another case of the mysterious havana syndrome. this time it is a u.s. intelligence officer who was traveling with the director of the cia. we'll have the latest on that story and what the intelligence community is doing about it next. at the intelligee nc community is doing about it next at the magical everly esta, landscaper larry and his trusty crew... were delayed when the new kid totaled his truck. timber... fortunately, they were covered by progressive, so it was a happy ending... for almost everyone. so it was a happy ending... we did it again. verizon has been named america's most reliable network by rootmetrics. and our customers rated us #1 for network quality in america according to j.d. power. 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.

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we're learning of another government official who's reporting symptoms of the mysterious affliction called the havana syndrome that has been affecting american government officials since 2016. a cia intelligence officer who traveled with cia director william burns to india this month reported the symptoms and is receiving medical treatment after being tested by cia officials. the incident was first reported by cnn just last month. at least two u.s. diplomats were medically evacuated from vietnam after reporting symptoms ahead of vice president harris's trip there. with an increase in the number of cases, intelligence officials are still trying to figure out what causes the symptoms. but now the india incident is raising more questions about whether these are the actions of a foreign adversary who possibly could have targeted the cia director's staff. we're back with clint watts. i mean, clint, when you put the india incident of havana syndrome together with the vietnam incidents, is it possible they were targeting the vice president and the director of the cia?

>> nicole, i'm really concerned. it's only a matter of time before maybe a senior leader gets hit with this, and i wonder if it's also an escalation, that they're essentially striking closer and closer to senior leaders in order to send a signal that, hey, we can do that. i think the other thing that's infuriating is in the ranks, there's a lot of concern that this is not being taken seriously. i have friends that work at the state department who have gone on overseas assignments recently and one of them said to me, i hope i get one more tour in before i get a traumatic brain injury. so, it kind of tells you that this is really worrying the entire workforce, and it seems to be escalating to targets that are closer and closer to leaders that are so senior in the government. it would be a catastrophe if one of them were to come down with this, and it really shows american weakness that we can't defend against it after we've known about something going on for four or five years. >> i mean, clint, let me read you what the latest sort of public statement is from the cia.

where this is coming from. this is from nbc news, this reporting. last week, deputy cia director david cohen said that the agency's getting closer to solving the mystery, that there are limits in terms of have we gotten closer, i think the answer is yes. but not close enough to make analytic judgments that people are waiting for. i mean, like you said, why not? it's gone on through three administrations. the president was at the u.n. today. is this being pressed at high level bilats? >> i would imagine it's at the highest levels now, but i think it comes down to a manpower issue and how would you go about solving this. part of the challenge is this is all internal. we don't really know anything about what's going on. we've not seen any public reports that have come out of the government, which also restricts the number of people that could help. i imagine there is a medical component to this, a technological component of some sort, and then a counterintelligence component of some sort that would have to be launched, and to do all that, you really have to enable the

government to help out on a wider scale or you have to go out to the public so they can help get involved and bring in a task force to figure this out. i think lastly, the pattern, just when you look across the board, it started in cuba, and when you look at the targeting -- capability that could really -- country. >> clint watts, we lost some of you at the end. we're going to stay on this story. thank you so much for spending some time with us today. when we come back, how president biden is betting on relentless diplomacy to meet the world's challenges. the story's next. world's challenges the story's next

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so we can all live better tomorrow. ♪♪ ♪♪ the most important thing today has been your speech, joe, where you made a commitment on supporting the world to adapt to climate change, doubling the american commitment that's very important for us, and we've made 11.6 billion pound commitment. when i first became prime minister, but it's fantastic to see the united states really stepping up and showing a lead, a real, real lead. >> that was president biden moments ago with prime minister boris johnson, a display of the global cooperation the president talked about today on the world stage in his first address as president to the u.n. general

assembly. joining us now, historian jon meacham. jon also occasionally advises president biden. we asked you to come back yesterday. i put you -- i did that thing where i ask you on live tv so you can't really say no, but i wanted to talk to you about your new podcast, which features some of the most pivotal and inspiring sports teaches throughout history but i had to ask your thoughts about ambassador mcfaul earlier in the show talked about normal diplomacy, getting back to a baseline where countries debate policy differences but there's something more traditionally in the american spirit, if you will, presented at the unga. >> yeah, i thought so. i thought it was a great speech and i can say that i had nothing to do with it. so it's a legitimate compliment. without any caveats. there were three things that jumped out at me. one was the focus on climate. the planet is on fire.

and almost everything else, except for the challenges to our democracy, really do pale in comparison to whether this will be a sustainable environment going forward for decades and centuries. so, that was -- that jumped out at me. the other was the president saying, we will cooperate where we agree, even with powers with whom we do not agree at all. on other things. and that's a very pragmatic, it's very realistic way of looking at foreign policy. it's a very pragmatic and realistic way of looking at politics, right? we're not looking for total agreement, and you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. and the other thing, and i don't know how much attention this has gotten, is when he alluded to terrorism abroad and terrorism in our backyard. and he did mention the insurrection, and i thought it was a -- an allusion to what we

face here, the threat of white supremacist terror, the threat of political violence, and i thought, to say that on the world stage showed a level of candor that america's not preaching to you. we're trying to practice what we preach as well. >> i thought that was so interesting too, and obviously, i covered the former president, george w. bush's speech on september 11th when he said that the current domestic terror threat is of the same ilk and of the same, you know, foul spirit as the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 represent. and i thought the president went further today, obviously, in saying, i see what you see. what is the impact in terms of sort of alleviating concerns that donald trump could be back in three years? >> well, i think this is the one of the things that president biden's pretty good at, which is being pretty straightforward. you know, you can disagree about

afghanistan. but by god, he went out and he explained what he was doing. and i think he stood up there and i -- he can't promise that donald trump won't be back. and he's not. what he's saying is, we have to deliver now so that the rational folks who can be reached in america and around the world can see that this system, however flawed, is worth preserving. and not pushing aside in favor of authoritarianism. at the risk of total self-parody, this is a lot like the 1930s when there was a full-on argument that dictatorship was more commensurate with the challenges of global governance than democracy was. and that was in many ways what fdr was confronting, and charles lindbergh's wife wrote a book called "the wave of the future," basically saying that

authoritarianism was a better way forward, a more practical way forward. what president biden is saying, what i hope all of us would be saying, is, no. however messy, however imperfect, a system that puts an emphasis on the dignity of every person is worth the price in inefficiency. >> i want to switch gears completely and i want to play it first and then you can explain it to us on the other side. this is jack rivers. >> he should be judged as an athlete on his achievements in the ring and judged as a man and as a citizen on his words and actions in the public square. he risked everything for his religious beliefs. he gave up money and glory to stand against the vietnam war. the world was his ring. and he was the greatest. >> where can we get more of that? tell us your role in that. >> well, i wrote the episodes,

and doc made them much better, as he does. it's five speeches. it's jack buck doing the 9/11 poem when sports came back. obviously. i've sort of forgotten how much he did put on the line. he gave up an enormous amount of his professional career because he opposed the vietnam war and speaks in these global terms of identity and inclusion that resonate even more now. we have three more coming and tim tebow's inspirational speech when he promised he would live up to the fans, create a covenant, literally. and one of the reasons to do this was -- and i was just thinking about this over the weekend -- in this climate of reflexive division, it is true

that sports have the capacity to, for a moment, bring us together. there's almost a liturgical feel to it. you root for the team but you're for the game. you don't change the rules in the middle, right? >> i thought -- i watched -- on 9/11 i went back and watched sort of the story of how the mets and the yankees helped bring new york back. i can't even talk about it without crying. the mets played first and then my old boss threw out the first pitch at one of the world series games, and for all the talk we had two saturdays ago about unity, people who are fans achieve that every night if you're a baseball fan, every sunday if you're a football fan. i wonder how we live that up. >> well, i think it's common cause, right?

it's actually a really interesting democratic lower caste thing. it was a talk of the town piece, use the google machine to -- >> what he said, he'd say, check the google. >> he had a lot going on. but one of the things that creates sort of a list, he said democracy is quiet, the privacy in the voting booth, and democracy is the score at the top of the 9th. that's a really great way to put it, right, because you have three outs. we have common rules, it's an endeavor event, emphasizes excellence. luck and chance are incredibly

important parts of it, and when the score is over, we acknowledge the winner, we acknowledge the loser, and in baseball, which is the greatest of all sports, you play the next time. that's democracy, right? you debate, you follow the rules, you get a resolution and you go back and play the next day. >> and the next day and the next. it's such a good point. bond from my soul indeed. thank you for coming back again to make time to talk about it with us today. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. a quick break for us we'll be right back.

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that was our city soundtrack, the nightly sounds of gratitude and love and support echoing between new york city highrises back at the beginning of the pandemic as praise for the hospital workers, nurses and doctors. down below empty streets, abandoned sidewalks without people. the city felt like a foreign thing, like the moon to the folks who lived here. now a year and a half later, of course the pandemic isn't over, but still we have an opportunity today to reflect. new yorkers have a grumpy relationship with the circus generally associated with the weeks surrounding the u.n. general assembly, but after a period of reflective trauma, road closures didn't seem entirely awful.

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thank you so much for letting us into your home, we're grateful. "the beat with ari melber" starts right now. hi, ari. >> thank you so much, nicolle. i'm ari melber. we begin with congress unveiling a plan for democracy, and you might have forgotten it, because it's been nine or ten months since this was front and central of everyone's concerns, but given everything we learned of four years of trumpism, the democrats want to make sure to try to stop the next would-be trump from abusing the awesome powers of the presidency. today speaker pelosi and