all right. that is going to do it for us tonight. i will see you again this time tomorrow. "way too early" is up next. it will reach the level that we need to pass the bill. but we will pass those bills. this morning, democrats remain divided over how to move forward with two key pieces of president biden's domestic agenda. and with the looming threat o the government shutdown, the question is when are we going to see congress get something done. plus, top military adviser, contradict president biden,

telling congress they recommended a small amount of troops be kept until afghanistan. the question is why is that advice not followed? and nba star said heot the vaccination, despite others. it's "y too early" for this. good morning, welcome to "way too early" that links lebron might get more applause for than than "space jams." >> i'm jonathan lemire. on chicago, a democratic infighting appears to be threatening president biden's schedule. the president was scheduled for chicago today, but that is postponed. now, he'll remain in washington to pass forward the $3.5 trillion reconciliation act.

and the build back better. and this comes as pressure is growing on theresident to be more personally involved and define the mistakes and try to bridge the gap between prressives and moderates who until now not only find themselves far apart and find themselves notble to trust. and that's wre nancy pelosi finds herself dling with, calling between the progressives who want to enact and the sent terrorists who balked at trillions of dollars. pelosi sent a letter calling it morally important to pass the act. senator bernie sande urged use democrats to vote against infrastructure until a deal was reached. >> my fear is, that if the dual agreement that was reached is broken, and we just passed the infrastructure bill, the

leverage that we have here in the senate to pass the reconciliation bill will be largely gone. i think the one hope we have is to say, look, you guys want to pass the infrastructure bill. i want to pass it. you want to pass it? you have to deal with reconciliation, you just can't keep slow-walking this thing. >> the democrats have work to be done. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell is publicly telling democrats that they need to raise the debt ceiling but he's blocked another pathway. yesterday, majority leader chuck schumer passed unanimous consent. setting up to allow the democrats to suspend the debt limit by themselves but mcconnell rejected. >> democrats will not get bipartisan help borrowing money so they can historically below sums on a partisan taxing and spending spree. the democrat leader knew this

request would fail. there is no chance, no chance, the republican conference will go out of our way to help democrats conserve their time and energy, so they can resume ramming through partisan socialism, as fast as possible. >> of course, the debt limit isn't about future spending, but, rather, page off what other presidents, including republican president trump spent. further complicates the process, president biden opposes changing the senate rules to raise that debt ceiling. democrats have few options left as the deadline for default, catastrophic default approaches but they have ruled out using reconciliation. schumer argues the process would take too long and they simply don't have enough time. >> we're not asking them to vote yes, if republicans want to vote to not pay the debts they helped incur they can all vote no. we're just asking republicans get out of the way. get out of the way when you --

when you are risking the full faith and credit of the united states to play a nasty political game. we can bring this to a resolution today. using the drawn-out and convoluted reconciliation process is far too risky. far too risky. >> meanwhile, during a senate banking committee hearing yesterday, treasury secretary janet yellen gave congress a new deed line warning of indeed catastrophic consequences in lawmakers fail to raise the debt limit in the next three weeks. >> it is imperative that congress would risk the debt limit, if not, our current estimate is that the treasury will likely exhaust its extraordinary measures by october 18th. at that point, we expect treasury would be left with very limited resources that would be

depleted quickly. america would default for the first time in history. the full faith and credit of the united states would be impaired. and our country would likely face a financial crisis in economic ression as a result. >> joining us now, newly minted nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali. great to see you. >> thank you. >> september is nearly over, and house democrats don't have a deal on reconciliation. what happens now? what's the time line? how can this get done? do we still think this could happen in the next few days? >> right now, theoretically, the house could vote on the bipartisan bill on thursday. the open question this has been true for weeks is whether or not that will pass. progressive members of the house say they cannot vote and they will not vote on that bipartisan

infrastructure bill, without the larger bill in the framework or pass in the senate. we also know that senators bernie sanders and other progressive senators have given more coverage on that. sanders as recently as yesterday urged senators to vote no on the bipartisan bill because there has not been enough progress on the reconciliation bill. what's always been clear here, jon, house democrats and senate democrats, particularly one or two of them have very different time lines on how quickly they want to move on this. progressives now making clear they're willing to hold up the process because senate democrats like joe manchin and kyrsten sinema clearly don't have the push to actually push the negotiations forward. remember, manchin has still not laid out the top line number that he wants to get to here. it's kind of hard to figure out where you're going when you don't even know where the destination is. it under scores the reality on the hill right now where you're

dealing with political crises but different in nature. it's a political crises, crises in lower case letters because it's one of democrats' own making. if they don't meet their deadlines on infrastructure. there's a political cost. there's headlines about democrats not being able to get their signature legislation through. but there's no real cost to anyone else. on the other side of this, though, and your introduction laid this out really well, there's a governing crisis happening because there are questions about deadlines, the government funding, for example, runs out at midnight on thursday. those are deadlines that if they are not met, americans will feel that pain. i've covered government shutdowns in the past. i know that you have, too. the stat that a lot of politicians like to use about americans not being able to meet an unexpected $500 request, government shutdowns are where the rubber meets the road on that statistic. it's something that democrats have said they want to avoid, whether it's fair o not on the debt ceiling or government funding they're likely to have

to go it alone. >> yeah, certainly, there's been some pressure on president biden to be more personally involved with these talks. to this point, he hasn't really listened. or willing to push some in the party towards what he needs them to do. we knew he cancelled chicago. i think that's more optics with air force one, he couldo lobbying from the air. but they want to hear. they want to be a place where the csure rolls. just also from the legislative agenda, we're days from that shutdown as you mentioned, and with mcconnell blocking every method that the democrats have taken so far. at will the democrats do? will they bd the conciliation fearing they might take to it? what options do they have to keep the lights on? >> well, look, in terms of more immediate funding which is the deadline here they can go to more immediate funding for a bill through the date of their choosing. it looks like a date in

december. on the debt ceiling, the crisis a little farther out, maybe 20 aways in washington speak that seems like an eternity. nevertheless, what we've seen in the senate is majority leader schumer try to tell republicans they will not work with the democrats on raising the debt ceiling. we've seen schumer saying he wants to do it alone. mcconnell blocked the path yesterday. mcconnell wants to use the reconciliation process. democrat it's have said consistently,though, that's a nonstarter. that will take too long. >> nbc's ali vitali, thanks so much for getting up early with us. we'll see you this afternoon. still ahead what dr fauci is saying about a mix and match strategies for covid booster shots. plus congresswoman debbie dingell will be my guest to discuss the fight on infrastructure. we'll be right back with more on what's happening in that building in the next couple of days.

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on the verge of concluding tria that mix doses from pfer, moderna and johnson & johnson. during a white house covid briefing yesterday, dr. anthony fauci says that data will be available within the next two weeks. the miss and match studyt which you look at moderna as the boostgainst the other three, those dat are now available. the j&js the boost for the other three likely will be available literally within a week, a few days to a week. and the data at looking at pfizer as the boost tthe other three will be available someere in the first week, or at the most, two o october. . that's when the data will be available. of course, with all things that we do they must be submitted to the fda for the recommended approval. >> so far, 2.7 million americans

have taken the pfizer vaccine. meanwhile, t covid vaccine for children ages to 11, submitting trial data to e fda for review after recently determining the vaccine is safe and well tolerated. nbc news correspondent gabe gutierrez has the latest. >> reporter: with millions of children now back in classrooms, pfizer submitted data for the fda for 5 through 11 year olds, a crucial step towardsmergen use auorization. >> another barrier of protection r the little ones. >>eporter: pfizer's ceo with nbc's craig melvin who asked him for even youer children under 5. >> within a couple months we should be in a position to give update. before the end of the year. >> reporter: the 5 to 11-year-old children in pfizer's trial were given two small doses of the vaccine than those given 12 and older. the company says a smaller de has produced anti-dose

comparable tohose who received full doses. the vaccine also similar side effects to those seen in adults including arm sorenes and fatigue. >> younger children are less apt to be affected but we all know that there are children who have become seriously ill. >> reporter: perhaps nowhere has e debateecomeo heated than in schools where there's a clash over mask mandate, bus driver shortages and vaccine reiremen. w yorkity annnced tt teachers and staff will have a week to get vaccinated after a federal appeals court green lighted the mandate. >> i think they shod get vaccinated. our kids are inhere a ty have tbe held accountable. >> reporter: less than a quarter of americans still haven't gotten a first shot. and criticism over who should get a third. in charleston, west virginia, kitty frazier got her booster. not pfizer, but moderna which

the fda said can be offered to the immunocompromised. do you think this whole rollout of the boosters has been a little confusing? >> extremely confusing. in fact, when we came in this morning, and they said you can't have the moderna because it's not yet been approveds has the pfizer, a little bit vexed and thought, well, we wasted a trip down here. but then, when we said we were immunocompromised, they said we could have the shot. >> and as i reported last night for the associated press, the pfizer dose for children, though there will be some hope it could be halloween, likely november. but hopefully more towards the early to middle of the month, rather than waiting till thanksgiving. we'll stay on that story. still ahead, the playoff picture for major league baseball is taking final shape. the latest on the wildcard race,

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it's our nature.™ try the body wash, too. i know, but i was very skeptic about it all, after doing research and things of that nature, i thought it was best suited for my family and for me and my friends. that's when i decided to do it. >> nba push to all of its players just got a big boost. the sport's biggest star lebron james yesterday announced that he received the vaccine after being silent for months. while the vaccination rate appears to be 90%, some claims including washington state's behl and andrew wiggins, and others like kyrie irving have refused to divulge their vaccination status. throw irving has not attended

suggests he's unvaccinated. it's particularly of interest since local ordinances in san francisco and new york city would require them to be vaccinated to play home games, meanwhile, they would lose half the schedule. mean, the nba sent details of a slew of restrictions for players that would literally divide locker rooms. among the draft of rules obtained by my colleagues at ap, unvaccinated players will not be able to seat in the same room was vaccinated players and staff. they must have lockers away from vaccinated as possible. and they must stay masked at least six feet away from any attending a meeting. that's fasciting t watchn a few week turng now to baseball's wild push for the season, we begin in st. louis, after beating t brewe 6-2 for a 17th win in a row, 17th, the cardinals clinched a wildcard rth.

congrats to them will play in a wildcard dame in los angeles or san francisco. two games atop the n.l. west afte both teams posted over 100 games one of them has to play in a single elimination do or die game over the cardinals. the red sox suffered a loss with chris sale on the mound dropping to the lowly orioles, falling in baltimore 358-2 in what is a devastating start to a six-game road trip. in toronto, the yankees extend their lead over the red sox for the 7-2 victory over the blue jays. mewhile, hopping toronto in the wildcard series in a 4-2 win last night. seattle moves within a half game of boston for the second a.l.

wildcard spot six days to go. meanwhile, in kansas city, royals slugger perez hit his 47th home run of the year. perez now leads the leaguen home runs by one over the angels ohtani. the royals beat the indians 4. final in minsota a ball sent to the standsy detroit's pitcher. watch this agai having srted h delivery when a time-out is called. tyler alexander continues his pitch in order to avoid potential injury. and heaunches the ball over th netting behind home plate and into the seats. giving one lucky fan a souvenir, that guy. they beat the tigers, 3-2. time now for the weather, there are dark storm clouds over my head because of the red sox, bill barns. >> oh, you're fine.

you have five games left over the orioles and nationals. what could go wrong? >> they lost the first one, bill, we just played the highlights. >> i mean, they could not possibly lose four in a row and then lose -- they'll be fine. they'll be fine. or they won't. all right. so, let's get into this forest, it's been gorgeous around so much of the country, perfect transition from summer into fall. we do have a liteit o rain out the today this morng. definitelyeing wok upn the middle of the night in areas of texa betwe san antonio, houston is getting drenched with a middle of the night thunderstorm, some of those are coasting down towards victoria, so we have a couple areas of concern. all of the rain this afternoon moving to louisiana wil get hit with storms in mississippi have the umbrella in the northern plains. you're finally cooling off in the datas. then as we go towards tomorrow, we'll continue to see the wet weather in the middle of the country. hit and miss showers and storms heaviest in west texas, dallas,

nebraska. it won't be horrible, but that's the only bad weather on the ather map. today, absolutely gorgeous in the northeast. the northwest looks pretty good. still warm in the southeast and the midwest. a pretty nice looking weather map as we head towards the end of this week, jonathan. enjoy it. >> bill karins, we will try. thank you so much. we'll see you soon. still ahead, facing fierce criticism from republican lawmakers general mark milley fendshe phone calls he made in t final days of the trump administration. before we go to break, w want t know why are you awak ail your reaso to nbc.com, or tweet me. be sure to email me. we'll be right back. back. voya doesn't just help me get to retirement... ...they're with me all the way through it.

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♪♪ welcome back to "way too early." it's precisely 5:30 on the east coast. 2:30 out west. i'm jonathan lemire. congressional hearings will continue today for three top defense officials regarding last month's u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. joint chiefs mark milley, defense secretary lloyd austin and u.s. centcom commander kenneth mckenzie will testify before the armed services committee this morning after answering questions from the senate armed services committee yesterday. though the focus for today's hearings is supposed to be afghanistan, milley was prefdz about two phone calls he made in the final months of the trump

administration. he reportedly made these calls without the former president's knowledge. milley defended his actions including he followed protocol while keeping other top officials in the loop. >> military communications at the highest level are critical to the securit of the united states in order to deconflict mitary action, manage crisis and prevent war between great powers that are armed with the world's most deadliest weapons. the calls on 30 october and 8 january wereoordinated before an aft wit sectary esper, and acting secretary miller's staff. shortly after my call ended with general lee, i pernally informed secretary of ste pomp and meadows among t calls with ticshat no time was i aempting to change or influencehe process, usurp authority or insert myself in the chain of command. >> milley also admitted and

cooperated with a slew of books from president trump. the defense official contradicted president biden yesterday who claimed last month that no top military advisers urged him to keep groups in afghanistan. >> did a military adviser tell you, no, wehould jus keep 25 troops, it's a stable had condition? >> no, no one said that. >> i won't share my personal recommendation of the predent and i will give you my honest opinion and my honest opinion to you shape my recommendation. i recommended 2500 until afghanistan. i'm confident the president listened to them carefully. >> when asked, white house press secretary jen psaki insisted yesterday that president biden's comments were misconstrued? >> did the president mislead the public snp. >> the question askedy george stephanopoulos was were your top

military advices warned against this time line. they wanted you to keep 2500 troops. the president said, no, they didn't. it was split. that wasn't true. that was true. it was split. i think that's a key part of that phrang, later on, george stephanoulos said, so, no one today, your military advisers did not tell you, quote, no, we should just keep 2500 troops. it's been a sble situation for the last five years, we can continue to do that? no, no one said that to me that i recall. >> that was my colleague with the question. reporting here on the set, eugene scott, eugene, thankou for being here. what do were make between the top military officials in the white house with what happened on the withdrawal of afghanistan. it's shot so surprising tha members of the pentagon wanted to keep a presence about that. talk toss about that. >> well, i think what many

people wanted to know after that hearing, that press briefing is whether or not biden can be trusted to share or listen to e advice of the top pentagon leaders. of course, the white house said that they did and continue to do it. but what will i think a lot of people don't seem t understand just becau he makes a decisn that may discove from one individu doesn meaou're disrarding your adve overall. although wean be criticalf the president, and tt's what weaw from lawmakers on the right and will likely see today. >> certainly, we know preside biden well before he took offic was looking to move troops out afghanistan. that's a long-held position, he told others he felt that president obama was almost bulld by the pentagon to keep e troops there. he was going to be the one to bring ithome. we saw general milley there. certainly, much was made of his calls with his counterpart in beijing. should we expect today as the action shifts to the house that

republicans are going to stay on that particular topic? >> yes, as well as staying on the criticism that the journalists spent too much time on tell-all books, also concerns about whether or not things can be stable without so many troops remaining on the ground. something that the leaders made clear yesterday. they don'tnow how that can happen, given the withdrawal has been complete. >> we should note here that we encouraged top military officials to cooperate with journalists. i want to talk about, tell us a little bit more about what happened in afghanistan, in the war's fading days, that drone strike that came to kill -- that was meant to be targeting isis-k terrorists later was revealed to be civilians. ten people died, seven children. how much of a topic of conversation was that yesterday? do you expect more today? >> it was a significant talking point. the generals made it very clear they were deeply apologetic. they had bad intelligence that allowed them to mak a decision that did not protect as many

people as they hoped. we saw conservative lawkers make it clear that they thought the sort of decisions have real consequences and fear thathis contues to happen under this administration as different decisions moving forrd aren't made. >> "washington post's" eugene scott, thank you so much for being here. still ahead, after eight years of a totally different way to catch the rainbow, one candy company is bringing back the original flavor. "way too early" is back in a moment.

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but as any good home shopper can tell you you can't just leave with one thing. amazon meanwhile is ushering a new generation of at-home technology. the company launched astro, a robot on wheels for your home. the small robot inspired by science fiction movies and cartoons is aequipped with a screen and can navigate its way around the house and respond to commands, much in the same way as amazon's alexa does, this comes with wheels. this robot comes with a much heftier price tag, about $1,000. for now it's exclusively sold by invite only and will be allowed to the public later in the year. i just want a word of caution about inviting robots into our homes. veterans, it's ofcial, the original "law & order" sies is returned to nbc after an 11-year

hiatus. abruptly ending in 2010 it intends to pick up where it left off. no premier cast or date has been announced. here's another long awaited return. skittles bringing back an original flavor of the rainbow. the green exitle will return to its lime flavo after eight long years. the candy's parent company announced that the rainbow will return permanently. it was launched in 1979 but then was apple in 2013. we're bringing you the hard hitting news. still ahead when it comes to passing the infrastructure, congresswoman debbie dingell tells us failure isn't an option. she joins us next. "way too early" is coming right back. you won't want to miss it. clothl so much fresher than before ♪

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democratic senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema

visited the white house yesterday. the president spoke with sinema in the morning and then manchin in the afternoon. both sai that the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package is too larged and must be trimmed. a grong number of democrats are voicing concern about senator sinema. three sources tell nbc news that during a closed-door caucus meeting congressman ko khan said they don't have a two senator problem but a one senator problem. a state where the colleague is 100% on board, holding up the agenda of the entire house of the democratic party. here's my question, when is the democratic party going to tell a sile senator it's time to get in line. biden, of course, captured arizona last year. whithouse officials, though,

painted alightly more optimistic picture of where sinema is, believing that she will eventually get there. of course, right now, white house, capitol hill, everyone is posturing. it's hard to figure out exactly where the reality is. someone who knows is democratic congresswoman debbie dingell of michigan is here. good morning, we're excited when you join us. let's start right there, do you agree with the problem with the colleague on the senate and who would you say, quote, get in line? account speaker get there? >> good morning. even when i'm not on, i'm watching. you start my day. >> glad to hear it. >> look. i said this was going to be a week from hell, and it is a week from hell. but i will also tell you i've been saying for a week, failure is not an option. i will del you democrats are unified that failure is not an option. people have been having lots of

discussion. i think it's a failure that the white house is not having discussion and house members are talking to most of them. and there's probably great confusion at times what the president really wants the house to do. and i think that is becoming a larger and larger and larger complaint as i heard that yesterday from democratic members on all spectrums of the line. but i think people are trying to figure out how -- we have to have the bill. it's very simple. you have to have both bills. things that are in the bipartisan bill, need what's in build back better to even be completed, like -- you know, the issue i'm really -- one of the issues that i'm talking about this week is getting the lead out of water pipes. the expert released a study showing more than half the children in this country have measurable lead in their blood. well, there's not enough money in the bipartisan plan to get the lead out of the pipes. which is why we need the build back better bill. and i can go through a list of a

lot of things and there are things like that. and quite frankly, without some climate structure in place, with an agreement, we need that bill, quite simply, the bipartisan bill will not pass without the build back better agreement and bill. and i think that everybody has realized tha this week. we just simply aren't there with one bill without the oth bill. >> congresswoman, let's tal about the time line here. do we aicipate that we're going to have a bill vote tomorrow on one of these? how do you think things play out in the nex couple of days? and you mentioned president biden perhaps not doing oueach, that's what we've heard as well, growi complaints that the preside is listening, rather an pushing, and suggestion that he needs to do a more active role to bring them over the finishline. what do you think? >> so, i'm actually thinking and

being more open about it and probably will not be popular toda but i've been saying for weeks, you hear about these senators all the time. you hear about a few house members. you know, and house members in between. i threw a number 180 out of my head one day that are on the carrot. they represent the constituencies. they're trying to figure out the right thing to do. they need to know exactly where the president stands and what the president wants them to do. and they're getting mixed signals depending on who you talk to. what is it that he wants? what are his prioriti? people saying you got to be with the present. well, what is it that the president wan? nobody can answer that. i have front-runners that are really frustrated yesterday expressing that. so, i think that's a problem for the white house. i think that it's not just window dressg. with that trip to chicago, i

think he's got to talk toore senators. people want to know, okay, we're being held hostage by a couple of senators. we will work together. failure is not an option. we will get this out. democrats cannot l the american people down. a vote in the house. a simple continuing resolution so we don't shut the government down tomorrow night at midnight, whh will be the most irresponsible tng you can do in the middle of a pandemic. and you will see another vote to raise the debt ceing. senator mitch mcconnell saying you have to do this alone and go this alone but then blocking every effort that's made to jt get a simple vote done is irresponsible, puts it exactly on his hand. the market started to tank yesterday over some of what was happening. i don't think any of us, republicans or democrats, should be playing games that are already affecting an economy that's impacted by the pandemic.

it is irresponsible. >> congressman, let's switch gears. if you could briefly tell us about the legislation you produced to hold educational institutions responsible for sexual assaults committed by professors and staffers. tell us about it. >> i, unfounately, have two universities tt have had some very serious sexual harassment issues in my district. i work verylosely with a number of the young gymnasts at michigan state university before people had ever really heard about the case. i think title 9eeds to be strengthened. it's not just about what the department of education has as the authority to impact the funding in title 9, but i've met with many of svivors from michigan state several years ago, but both the university of michigan and eastern university have had some issues. you sit in meeting with 29 young women that are survivors and hear their stories, you know

there are patterns on college campuses. you know that people on campus heard it. people are told when they go to ta to somebody. something has to happen. universities have to investigate these patterns,nd they've got to assume responsible for these young people, to be able to have a private conversation and be able toet help. >> such important work. congressman debbie dingell, thank you for being here. we'll have you back. earlier in the show, we asked, why are you awake? one viewer writes, i'm up way too early to see bill karins perfect tie. puts willie geist to shame. let's check the tape. here it is. strong tie game. look at that, spectacular. see? best in the business. sophie shares a photo of her grandson, wesley, which depicts how mika must feel, if it is safe to come on set when you're talking about baseball. that's accurate, the lks she

gives us are priceless, is the word i'll choose. karen emai, today we're taking our first graders panning for gemstones in the hills of western north carolina. if i find a diamond, i'm sleeping in tomorrow! fair enough, karen. up next, a look at the axios 1 big thing. coming up on "morning joe," robert costa and bob woodward join the show and talk about their bombshell new book and how it played into yesterday's testimony from top u.s. officials. "morning joe," thankfully, is moments aw. reason, or fun. daring, or thoughtful. sensitiv or strong. progress isn't either or progress is everything.

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♪♪ joining us now with a look at axios a.m., co-founder jim, what's ios' 1 big thing? >> playing off what congresswomadebbie dingell was talking about, top advisers are saying joe biden is not going to beg democrats to support his plan. he's not going to succumb to the pressure and do kind of what

congresswoman dingell was saying. he feels at the end of the day that democrats will rally around their democratic president and do what he feels democrats need to . and i know there's a lot of frustratn among congresswoman dingell and others about that approach. they're feeling as, listen, this is $3.5 trillion. it's the largest, most transformative, subantive piece of legislation that democrats would pull off in their lifetimes, in a generation. they wt to know what does it need to look like t get it done? it's not going to be $3.5 trillion. you know that. joe manchin and kyrst sinema made that clear. you're thene sitting in the room, talking to these peop. tell us, bring us together to figure out what the end product is actually going to look like. but the president feels like, listen, i'm the president. i know the process. i know there is all this wrangling, whining, and concern, but at the end of the day, i think i'm going to get a big

package. i believe in nancy pelosi's ability to deliver the votes, and i believe i can finesse the modern democratso a place where everyone will be happy. we'l see. hard to see right now, but these things are always messy until they're clean. >> axios also spoke to progressive lawmakers who are frustrated. a lot of frustrated lawmakers right now. these annoyed with kyrsten sinema's resistance to president biden's reconciliation package. what are they telling you guys? >> you hit on this earlier, the notion they feel lik it is insane, i think was the word one of the congressman used. insane that one senator, in this case senator kyrsten sinema from arizona, could hold up the entire package and dictate whether or not it gets done, could dictate whether you get to the infrastructure bill, which would come before the $3.5 trillion deal. there's frustration. like you said, there's always frustration, especially when you're dealing with something of this consequence. you have a legitimate showdown. you have a couple of senators because of the narrow ma yur --

majority who have a disproportionate amount of power. when you have power, what do you do? use it. why not? they think the progressive wing of the party is too big and needs to be half the size, maybe caller. kyrsten sinema is protective in what she things the end dollar amount should be. it creates a puzzle for democrats. they have to get some kind of agreement so they can get the infrastructure bill, so at the very least, they win a $1 trillion infrastructure bil and have something to point to as a victy in the final months of this year. >> there's a lot of work in lobbying that needs to be done from the white house. i should note, tonight is the congressional baseball game. don't be surprised, there's speculation, that the president mayake the trip up pennsylvania avenue and take a look and do some personal glad handing. stick tight for "morning joe." congratulations t axios for their first ey interview.

thank you all for getting up "way too early" for us this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. see you over there. this week in covid history. as we end september 2020, the men who would be president have a "get to know ya." >> provide a -- >> by the -- >> why would you -- >> the question is. the question is -- >> radical left. >> will you shut up, man? >> listen. >> someone had to say it. next, it is time to play everyone's favorite game. >> do you condemn white supremacists? >> the question is -- >> are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists? >> proud boys, stand back and stand by. >> the answer we were looking for was, "yes." winning isn't everything. >> we won the debate last night. >> let's