was left on the four for no reason. joe weisenthal who has been a voice of 70 on this for as long as i've been following his work, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. >> one last note before we, go a special new episode of my podcast out this week, guesswee. jay caspian kang wrote his new book. we are talking about asian-americans. i find it persuasive and provacative. that's all in tonight and "the rachel maddow show" starts. >> thank you. good evening. our various cases unfolding and courtrooms around the country. the trial in georgia of the three men accused of killing an african-american jogger in their neighborhood running him down in their january of last year. in wiscon

man accused of killing two people and shooting and wounding a third during protests and unrest after a police shooting in kenosha of wisconsin, in august of last year. there is also the where who's who of the white nationalists of the neo-nazi group, killing one woman and injuring a dozen people in 2017. add to all of those unfolding dramas into today's news and i would also add another court proceeding underway kevin strickland had been imprisoned for 43 years for a murder that prosecutors say he definitely

did not commit. this is the prosecutor's office who says they discovered in their words this man is quote, "factually innocent of the crime for which he's done 40 years in prison." it was not rim and somebody else confessed of the crime. the prosecutors locked him up say he did not do it and they have the evidence and they're sure of that now. shockingly, missouri's republican governor are never the less fighting the prosecutor in this case. the prosecutors say he needs to be release. the court proceedings in this case have been underway as well in kansas city. >> certainly your honor, truth was not found by this attorney general's office because it was not solved.

41 years they had this case, over four decades after defending no claims made by there strickland. that's how long it's taken this attorney's office and those that came before them to talk to a single witness or victim. >> that's the kevin strickland's case in missouri. he always maintained his innocence and he's been in prison for 43 years and the prosecutors said he did not do it. another one of these incredible human dramas unfolding alongside these high court cases this week. some of the political news this weekend today also been based on the courtroom as expected after a federal judge ruled last night that president trump's white

house record must be handed over to the january 6th investigation. trump appealed that ruling from last night, it seems that this case may go all the way to the supreme court. one of the only matters of suspense here is how fast would they go. the fbi released some unsettling updates on who they're still looking for and for what in terms of people who participated in the attacks that day, we'll have that ahead tonight including some stunning footage that's released by the fbi. we got a veteran's day story that'll curl your hair. i think it's a coincidence that the story broke before veterans

day. i want to start with a story that we have been on this week that we help break this week and it's now continuing to develop in ways that are not good. this is a story that's getting more national attention. i have a suspicion that it will get more national attention. i will set the stage here, this is april of last year, the state of florida having a particularly bad time. the republican governor of florida ron desantis loudly and proudly against all of the tools we have at the time to limit covid spread. he was against stay-at-home measures and business closures and you will remember the footage of spring breakers partying in florida while florida had no anticovid rules and the covid numbers were bad. they were starting to get

terrible there. it was around that time that the state's top public health official held what by right should have been a totally normal, you know, non controversial press meeting. >> we emphasize the importance of avoiding crowds. if we are going to be in gathering, it should be less than ten individuals and we should consider wearing a mask in public in the event that some of us are symptomatic spreaders. again, for the elderly, these individuals need to avoid going out in public and certainly avoid contact with individuals who are ill. until we get a vaccine which is a while off, this is going to be our new normal and we need to adapt and protect ourselves. thank you.

>> when we have a vaccine against this, we'll be able to stop covid from person to person. we don't have a vaccine at the present time so our mitigation measure is the social distancing, six weeks away from each other, i see some of you here wearing masks and have gathering less than ten. they eliminate individuals going into their establishments. so as long as we are going to have covid in the environment and this is a tough virus, we are going to have to practice these measures so that we are all protected. >> rational, right? this is tape of april of last year, those were the measures that's available. that's florida's general saying these are the steps we have to take to protect ourselves until we get the vaccines.

social distancing would have to be in effect for a year or if not more because the virus was not going anywhere. moments after that, they yanked him. they did not pull one of those giant size hooks but they removed him from that press briefing. moments after that, see what's happening there? that's the communicator director comes up and says something in his ear and 73 seconds later he's gone. sir, time to go. the press core is still there and asking questions wondering what just happened to him but they pulled him out of the room. after that literal sidelining, he then continued to be sidelined not for a few days or weeks or few months but well over a year, they just disappeared him.

florida surgeon general was not seen during public briefings or press conferences, he was notably silence on those things he talked about like things like masks and vaccine policies and especially stuff related to school. he had to maintain that silence for a long time. that surgeon general's last day was november 20th of this year. that footage was april 2020, he stayed on as surgeon general for another year and he stayed on until september 20th of this year. that date is important. september 20th of this year is when he leaves. september 21st, desantis appointed a new surgeon general. right from the offset dr. ladapo was like nine days, he was very vocal about where he stood on

covid-19 measures and where he stood was where governor desantis stood. at that press conference, the first day he was appointed, he made a point saying "there is nothing about vaccines." he said vaccines have no more special than eating more fruits and vegetables. wow. and perhaps in light of that was no surprise by the following day, his second day as the surgeon general appointee, he signed a controversial new rules that took mask rules and quarantine out of the hands of officials. it was an executive orders that says schools could not put covid rules anymore. a parent legal guardian could choose to keep their kids in school if they wanted to without

restrictions or treatments, as long as the students remained symptomatic . same thing applies to masks if their parents do not think their child should wear it, that was their prerogative. interesting timing, right? the previous surgeon general who says we are going to need masks and social distancing, he leaves off september 20th, the next day, 21st, the successor is named the 22nd, the new surgeon general signs this antimask orders, we can't have mask rules. that's not the only eye brow raising bit of news of the new hand picked surgeon general. today we have this reporting, grave returns, joseph ladapo's

medical license okay'd in two days. dr. ladapo got his license approved in record time, it only took them two days to approve dr. ladapo's ten page. all 15 members of the board of medicine are appointed by governor desantis. reporter on that story spoke with the woman whose job it's to guide hospitals to the licensing process for doctors in florida, she says she had never seen anything like that. i have not heard of a full

license being issued in two days, ever. at the time that story went to print, the newspaper had not received any response from the reporting of the department of health as to why dr. ladapo's was sidetracked. applications must be reviewed within 30 days if submitted. communications director told the department of health, when a completed application is sent to the board of no issues or missing information, board staff can approve the application and physician can begin to work. the spokesperson says "since when is fast processing time for heroes and medical

professionales are a bad thing." letters sent by lawmakers to closely scrutinize dr. ladapo. we are at markets and prescribing fake covid cures. they take a hefty cut for themselves. this is a group where one of its star member claims the reason women get ovarian cysts because they have sex with demons. this is the group that dr. ladapo had a press conference with in july of last year. a scrutiny into that is not a bad thing.

that's weird goop to which to choose the governor of florida. one of the things that had newly emerged problematic for him are claims he made early on in the pandemic who said he had firsthand experience treating patients of covid. he spent the last week taking care of covid patients at ucla flag ship hospital. we had exclusive reporting calling all that in for question. they said he misled the public about his supposed experience treating covid patients at that hospital at that time. one of our sources who was part of the ucla covid task force. "i was part of the team taking care of covid patients, dr. ladapo was not apart of that team. he was not there." . we also reviewed scheduling

documents of june 2019 to september 2021, according to those documents, no point dr. ladapo was scheduled to treat covid patients. the medical professional spoke with us dr. ladapo's opinion pieces of antivaccine believes, those were a quote "embarrassment" from the hospitals. we contacted them multiple times and so far we heard nothing back. we still hope we will but for now it looks like governor desantis went to this quack medical group to choose a doctor to be surgeon general who had literally stood with this group on the steps of the supreme court last year saying that covid-19 was no big deal and there was a cure for it already. he fired the former, the

previous attorney general left and brought this new guy in and managed to get him a medical license in florida within two days, in time for him to sign antimask rules. it has since emerged thanks to our reporting that it appears he may have misrepresented his own clinical experience to someone treating patients. hundreds of doctors write to the state's legislatures, please could we have more scrutiny of this guy as he's installed as chief public health official in florida. as desantis positioned himself for a run of president or reelection on the base of strong record in protecting floridians and his response to covid. questions really do keep piling up around here.

joining us now is jeffery spears, it's nice of you to make time to be here. >> thanks a lot for inviting me to speak to you tonight. >> so you broke this news that dr. ladapo's license was expedited in two days which seems unusual. after you published your piece, the florida department of health came back and insisted it was not unusual at all that this was something happening for all doctors now because of the pandemic. i have to ask you what you make of that response from them and whether if that drivers of what you report today? >> they pointed to a particular part of their website that says, they need to review all applications within 30 days and they had a chart showing for various applications at stake

and wanted three days to process which you know was information that came to me after the story was published and it's a little bit contrary to what the experts that i spoke to told me people on the ground helping people get their medical licenses through the state of florida. there are a couple of exceptions if they're getting a telehealth license, there is an expedited process for that or if they have all their credentials already lined up and filed with the application. it could be done in the shorter period of time. the florida medical board's website says generally it takes two to six months. that was backed by the

experience of the expert i spoke with for the story that ran today. >> i am struck by the feedback that there is proceeding this reporting from you about the incredibly fast job of his medical license and the proceeding reporting from us of the serious questions that's been raised whether or not he was honest of his experience of treating covid papatients, was this initiative by a large group of doctors, it seems like medical professionals in florida saw red flags and saw this is something to worry about. i wonder how that's playing in the state and whether it raises issues whether he'll be confirmed for this job which

still has not happened. >> that's an interesting question. and, both what i found from my reporting and what i have heard from people and feedback i received is that, first of all, i think the administration sounds like this group of physicians because they characterize them as democratic, a group that's promoting medicaid expansion and other issues that i think are more in line with the democratic party than with the republican party which is the party in control in the state of florida and that's also in control of the florida senate which would have to confirm dr. ladapo's nomination as surgeon general.

>> thank you for helping us understand your reporting. i appreciate it. >> thank you for having me, i appreciate it. >> much more to come tonight, stay with us. to come tonight, stay with us

♪ ♪ for deb, living with constipation with belly pain was the same old story for years. trying this. doing that. spending countless days right here. still came the belly pain, discomfort, and bloating. awful feelings she kept sugar-coating. finally, with the help of her doctor, it came to be. that her symptoms were all signs of ibs-c.

and that's why she said yess to adding linzess. linzess is not a laxative. it helps you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. and is proven to help relieve overall abdominal symptoms belly pain,discomfort, and bloating. do not give linzess to children less than six and it should not be given to children six to less than 18, it may harm them. do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach area pain, and swelling. could your story also be about ibs-c? talk to your doctor and say yess to linzess. on january 6th during the attack on the capitol, somebody recorded this video and then uploaded it to the internet. you'll be able to see here why it subsequently become of acute interest to law enforcement. you see this man in the camouflage jacket, see the guy

in camo there, screaming in the face of this capitol police officer. he then shoves another officer really hard and then proceeds to punch the officer in the head. today that man was sentenced to 41 months in prison, three and a half years in prison, after pleading guilty to assaulting that police officer on january 6th. that's the longest sentence received by any of the january 6th attackers so far. it's been ten months since the capitol attack, and since the justice department has been investigating and arresting and prosecuting those who participated in it, the justice department just put out a sort of progress report summarizing the charges that have been brought against people who took part in it. in terms of the number of people who have been charged with illegally entering the capitol on january 6th, that number is over 600. the number of people who have been charged for assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees at the capitol that day, that number is over 200.

the number of people who have been charged with using a deadly or deadly weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer, it's more than 60 people charged with crimes like that. with this interim report, the justice department also highlights that some of the people who committed some of the most violent assaults on police officers that day have still not been identified by law enforcement let alone charged. i wasn't aware that there were so many people who had committed very visible, very acute, very serious attacks on law enforcement for which there is video evidence and the people still haven't been apprehended, but the fbi has nutted up more than a dozen and a half videos showing those kinds of attacks for which they still don't have a suspect in custody. for example, this man seen here in this video posted by the fbi repeatedly hitting police

officers with a stick or a baton. you can see it better from this second angle. he appears to hit one officer right in the head as the officer tries to shield the blows with his bare arm. the justice department says as of today they have not been able to locate this man. they have not been able to locate him, arrest him, and start to prosecute him. same with this man, this is a different man seen here leaning over a police shield so he can spray some kind of chemical something right into crowd of officers' faces. when the can is empty, he then chucks the can at them. this guy also has not been caught. here's another guy who was wanted for violently lunging at this police officer and having this extended physical struggle with the officer as he tries to wrestle away his weapon. that man is yet to be apprehended. this man also yet to be apprehended. the man in the yellow hat here, he's seen here pulling this officer to the ground by his neck.

that man in the yellow hat there who did that has not yet been found, has not yet been arrested. the fbi is still looking for him, and they're circulating these photos to try and find him. the justice department says they're still looking for this man, too, this man here in the red hat sort of stripes on his sleeves. here he appears to be wielding some kind of -- some kind of club that he's using to hit officers there. you see him spot shadowed there, taking an overhand swing at those officers. you can see it better actually from this angle in slow motion. if you look closely there, the club appears to have some kind of nail or sharp object sticking out the end of it. see that? as he is swinging it into the heads of those officers. that man has not yet been apprehended. the justice department is highlighting 19 of these videos today. they released this progress report about all the people they've arrested and all the people they've charged and what they've charged them with, but they're still looking for 19 people depicted in these 19 videos.

altogether they depict 20 people suspected of committing acts of violence on january 6th. they include people who have committed very serious acts of violence. these are people who haven't been identified or apprehended yet by law enforcement. by highlighting these videos doj is hoping that the public will watch them, maybe see somebody that they know, see something that they recognize to help the fbi locate them and bring these people to justice. again, this is some of the most violent behavior of that day for which people are still at large. one of the things that we're watching tonight is not only the aftermath of january 6th in terms of these criminal cases, but also the effect that it's having on our democracy, a stark warning today from a team of -- bipartisan team of veteran national security officials warning about erosions to our democracy that have devolved both from what happened on january 6th and what led to that. we've got more on that ahead. stay with us.

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this is the flyer for the event at the state capital in the great state of georgia last week, quote, audit the vote rally. we the people demand a forensic audit. got to get more of these forensic audits for the 2020 election to prove the election was stolen and donald trump is really still the president. at that event here was what one republican candidate for governor of georgia had to say about why the audit is so important. >> there's three steps to fix 2020. it's an audit, it's a decertification, and it's arrest. >> that's right. >> we're scared to say arrest, right? we're scared because then they won't do the audit. but it's our government. and if you -- if you do treason against the constitution, against the people of our country, you go to jail. >> that's right. >> that's what you do. >> shoot 'em! >> you don't just get primaried. >> right. >> you go to jail.

>> or maybe you die by firing squad. i don't know. i didn't write it. i didn't write it. >> that's right. >> our founding fathers wrote it. >> you see somebody in the audience there yelling "shoot 'em" as she's kind of getting up to the crescendo there of her remarks. first you do the audit that shows you the election was stolen. then you decertify the election results, which is a made up thing that election conspiracy theorists pretend will make donald trump president again, and then all the elected officials that you say stole the elections, as she said they don't just lose their seats, they don't just get primaried, they die by firing squad. she said you don't just get primaried. you don't just lose your seat. you don't just get primaried. shoot 'em. you go to jail or maybe you die by firing squad. we reached out to that georgia republican gubernatorial candidate tonight. she told us that we were misconstruing her remarks, and she's certainly not singling out

current elected officials that she wants killed. she's just talking about the constitution. but that's the rhetoric on the right right now around the sham audits of the 2020 election results, which they are still doing and which they are trying to do more of all over the country. there's, you know, this rally trying to gin up a forensic audit in georgia. in michigan last month a rally demanding an audit of the 2020 election results there featured several republican candidates for the state's top offices with at least one of them calling for one of their democratic opponents to be put in jail because of the need for an audit or something. just today the former trump appointee and stop the steal activist running an election review in wisconsin reportedly said he may need republicans in the legislature to give him more taxpayer funds to keep funding his investigation because he hears rumors there may have been a lot of dead people who voted in wisconsin last year, so he's going to need more money for his investigation because he's going to keep going. today there was new pushback on these sham election reviews, these sham audits, and it frankly came from an unexpected

corner. it's a new open letter in which nearly 100 former high ranking u.s. national security officials, ones who have served both democratic and republican administrations, they've addressed congress and told congress among other things that they should put a stop to these so-called audits. quote, we write to express our alarm at ongoing efforts to destabilize and subvert our elections both through and related efforts to inject partisan interference into our election process. most concretely, partisan election reviews fueled by disinformation have increased the risk to election equipment and software by handing possibly sense active election data and infrastructure over to inexperienced and unveted third

parties. there's also the risk of exposure, sensitive election or rotor data, foreign or malicious actors might attempt to leverage this information through disinformation that calls into question the integrity of the election process and sows doubt about the results of future elections. congress should push back on unwarranted and unsafe reviews of completed elections. these sham audits are just one symptom of the election disinformation campaigns that these dozens of national security officials say pose a national security threat. they also point out the escalating threats to election workers at all levels as well as the possibility for further political violence like january 6th. they're urging congress to act to safeguard the integrity of our elections. joining us now is one of the signatories to that letter, javed ali, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the national security council under president trump. thank you so much for being here. really appreciate your time. >> thank you for having me, rachel. >> tell me about the nexus between national security and the sort of election disinformation and the sort of perverting of technocratic election expertise that you and your fellow signatories here are singling out. >> yeah, i think what we were trying to convey in the letter is that election security is not

just an issue of domestic politics anymore, has an impact only on the domestic side of things. this is national security issue because now and for the last several years, what we saw with the 2016 elections and the 2020 elections is that there are various actors and forces on the foreign side adversaries who are actively trying to undermine democratic norms, systems, processes, some of which are election related, and this is a really troubling development. so there needs to be a complete paradigm shift in how we think about restoring the balance on these things of traditionally our foundations of our democracy. action by congress is only one part of a much larger piece. >> but action by congress feels a million miles away. i have to say i'm struck by the distinction or just by the

difference between seeing yourself and all these other national security professionals who served under different democratic and republican administrations, certainly i'd put a lot of the signatories here in disparate places along the ideological number line yourselves, and that sort of unanimity that you all are expressing in how this is a nonpartisan matter, this is a national security matter. this is something we need to do for the good of the country, not in any way that's going to benefit any one partisan side. that sort of civic equanimity about it is completely absent in congress where this -- what you're describing here is seen as a 100% partisan issue where republicans are against doing anything and democrats are for it. what to you explains that distinction? >> well, again, we are a highly polarized country politically, but that doesn't mean there still aren't options for us to take and pursue on the national

security side led by career professionals or other folks who are just looking at this objectively, and i would put myself formally in that category, my government service. so, again, if congress can't deliver results or some of the solutions because they're not going to be able to fix this on their own, the executive branch can come together and do different things without congressional action or support, but i also, going back to my original -- one of my original points about sort of a whole of society approach, the non-profit sector needs to get involved. the private sector clearly when it comes to social media and misinformation and disinformation, and then what can we all do as individual citizens to push back on this whether it's through exercising our voting rights, whether it's through educating ourselves more to not fall prey to the misinformation and disinformation that's out there, to know what facts are and what is not the truth. so these are all parts of, again, a much bigger effort that needs -- and there has to be leadership on this at the national level, and that is, i think, where president biden and

some of the folks in the administration are trying to get on this run. >> having served in the trump administration and having lived like all of us have through the last six years or so in terms of how things have changed around this issue in the republican party, i wonder if you have any insight into how to try to address the accelerationist nature of this on the right? i mean, we're seeing what started off as complaints that elections must be fixed in some way to conspiracy theories that a small number of people tried to sell to others, but were rejected by the courts to now it being a not unusual thing in right wing politics for people who are capitalizing on these things to call for the death, the imprisonment of their -- of people who resist them on this issue, people calling for civil war around these issues.

i mean, the radicalism around this issue is accelerating. it's getting worse, and i feel like people who are against the politicization and the undermining of our elections are sort of increasingly exasperated, but people who are promoting this perversion of our elections, they're getting emboldened, more radical, more extreme and louder. >> yeah, i would agree with that, and i just want to make clear i was not a political appointee in the trump administration. i served in the trump white house as a career professional from the fbi, but going back to your point, yeah, that is one of the shifts in this issue is that what was sort of on the fringe of sort of the extreme right has now over the last four to six years become mainstream at a political level, and whether that's due to the initial foreign influences that were promoting a lot of these beliefs and ideas in 2016 and have now become more mainstream in our political domestic political landscape, i mean, it's a

complex issue, but that is a troubling aspect of what we're seeing. and, again, we have to figure out a way to get back to the center so we can come up with some solutions to make 2024 a much safer process for everyone involved. >> javed ali, former senior director for counterterrorism, thank you for your public service and thanks for talking to us about this tonight. i really appreciate having you here. >> thank you. >> all right. we've got much more ahead tonight. stay with us. more ahead tonight. stay with us [gaming sounds] [gaming sounds] [gaming sounds] just think, he'll be driving for real soon. every new chevy equinox comes standard with chevy safety assist, including automatic emergency braking. find new peace of mind. find new roads. chevrolet.

it's our veteran's day sale on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to relieve pressure points. and its temperature balancing so you both sleep just right. save $1,000 on the sleep number 360 special edition smart bed. plus, free premium delivery when you add a base. ends monday. (swords clashing) -had enough? -no... arthritis. here. new aspercreme arthritis. full prescription-strength? reduces inflammation? thank the gods. don't thank them too soon. kick pain in the aspercreme. ♪♪ tomorrow is veteran's day, which is when we honor and celebrate everybody who has served our country in the military. just for disambiguation sake, veteran's day is different than memorial day. memorial day is a somber and hot breaking day, when we remember and reflect on those who lost their lives in war time serving

the united states. but that's memorial day. that's the day we mark in may. the day we mark tomorrow, veterans day, is celebratory. it is buy-somebody-a-beer day. it is cheer at a veterans' day parade. this year just in time for veterans day it looks like something pretty astonishing, something astonishingly gross and cruel to veterans is about to get undone. it happened last year, january 2020. the u.s. had launched a drone strike that killed a very high-profile, a very famous general in iran's revolutionary guards. less than a week later iran retaliated. iran launched a missile attack on u.s. troops stationed at an air base in iraq. it wasn't like a few mortars haphazardly lobbed. it was a sustained, very large ballistic missile attack. the chairman of the joint chiefs at the time described the missiles as large rockets with

1,000-pound, 2,000-pound warheads. iran fired 13 of these missiles into that base housing hundreds of u.s. troops, and the good news about that attack, at least the mitigating news about the attack is there was enough good intelligence about that impending strike that the u.s. soldiers at al assad air base were able to get into bunkers before the missiles hit so nome was killed, even though it was seen as a miracle at the time given how badly the base was damaged. nobody was killed, that was the good news. the bad news was that it was such an intense barrage by so many large rockets with such huge warheads that even in the bunkers, a large number of u.s. troops were still injured in this attack, dozens were injured. then after that attack the really astonishing, still-bewildering part came next. the president at the time, as you know, again, this was last

january, was president donald trump, he announced after the missile attack on al assad air base no americans had been hurt in the attack. now, that was not true. dozens of americans had been hurt in the attack. but when that became undeniably clear that americans were hurt, when literally, you know, the u.s. military started airlifting wounded troops out of that base, trump nevertheless decided to stick with his initial assertion that no americans were hurt in the attack. he decided he was going to stick with that lie. you know, maybe that had been a knowing lie from the outset. maybe it wasn't a knowing lie at first. maybe he was just mistaken at first, then when he learned he had been wrong and there actually were injuries he decided he didn't want to correct himself and so he would stick with it then. i don't know. who knows? but he initially proclaimed nobody was hurt.

when it emerged lots of americans were hurt, he denied that and he made the series of just absolutely astonishing statements about, you know, how as far as he was concerned these u.s. troops weren't really hurt. their injuries from that iranian missile attack weren't real injuries, at least he didn't consider them to be real injuries. he thought they were like wusses or something, wounded american troops. >> i don't consider them very serious injuries. no, i do not consider that to be bad injuries. >> i know there's a lot of competition for the title, but how is that like not one of the top ten things we remember about that man's time in office? the time he said american troops wounded in an iranian attack weren't really wounded because he didn't think their injuries were, you know, the sort of thing that should count. nah, i don't think they're that badly hurt, i don't consider that hurt. other people say they voted for trump because he is so patriotic, because he loves the country so much. it just conveniently doesn't apply to u.s. troops wounded in battle. anyway, what happened after the

attack, after the american president bizarrely and repeatedly insisted that these injured soldiers weren't really hurt, what happened after that is that the u.s. military actually awarded purple hearts to 29 of those u.s. soldiers who were injured, which is good that they got the honor they earned that day and the benefits it conveys in earning a purple heart, among other things, earns you the right to be buried at arlington cemetery. it is a big deal. 29 soldiers got those purple heart awards despite the fact that the commander in chief at the time was literally telling the country over and over again that he didn't think their injuries should count. the problem with this story now, for months now, has been this. it appears that it wasn't just those 29 soldiers who were seriously wounded that day. dozens more american soldiers were also wounded that day. "usa today" has spoken to both survivors of the attack and a u.s. official who reviewed the damage to the base immediately after the attack was

over, and they now have multiple sources corroborating that, quote, commanders discouraged wounded troops from filing paperwork for the purple heart. if that "usa today" reporting is true and nbc news has not independently verified it, but if that is true it is vile, right? wounded soldiers hurt in an enemy attack told that they shouldn't apply for the purple heart as the president at the time gave these repeated weird press conferences denigrating their injuries and playing them down. it's just vile, right? it is just astonishing as a thing that could have happened in our modern history. but now that time in our history is apparently over because the soldiers who were hurt in that big deal missile attack under trump, those soldiers are apparently no longer being told that they shouldn't apply for the purple hearts that they earned. "usa today" is reporting as of today that the army has just received and has now started to process dozens more nominations for purple hearts from the soldiers who were hurt in that attack.

once those applications, those nominations are processed, it means the total number of purple hearts awarded to soldiers who survived that attack will likely more than double, and it will happen this time without a commander in chief denigrating them for their service and insulting them for being wounded in an enemy attack. that news breaking today in "usa today" on the eve of veterans day, just in time. i'll tell you, we thought about calling the former president for comment on this story but we really didn't want him to hurt himself in the bone spurs if he got up too quickly to take the call. all right. that is going to do it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow.

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because we take trading as seriously as you do. thinkorswim trading™ from td ameritrade. all right. that is going to do it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. "way too early" is up next. ♪♪ infrastructure week has finally arrived. how many times have you heard over the last five years infrastructure week is coming? president biden touts his bipartisan infrastructure bill during a visit to baltimore. but with inflation surging to a 30-year high, the question is what does it mean for the economy? we'll go live to cnbc. plus, a dramatic day of testimony in the kyle rittenhouse triechlt we saw rittenhouse himself break down in tears and an irate judge yelling in the courtroom. the question is will we see a