tv MSNBC Reports MSNBC August 17, 2022 8:00am-9:00am PDT
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the cdc already okayed a once a lifetime booster. >> thank you so much for being with us. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. you can reach me on twitter and instagram @jdbalart. follow the show @jdbalartmsnbc. thank you for the privilege of your time. lindsey reiser picks it up with more coverage right now. good wednesday morning. i'm lindsey reiser. right now the republican party and donald trump's allies feeling the full impact of being in the former president's orbit. as we speak, in a georgia courthouse, his personal attorney, rudy giuliani, is testifying before a grand jury. giuliani's attorney tells nbc news that is a target to alter the outcome of the 2020 election in that state. we're also learning from "the new york times" that according to three people familiar,
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trump's white house counsel pat cipollone and deputy patrick philbin were both interviewed by the fbi about sensitive documents stored at mar-a-lago. this as the fallout from the fbi's mar-a-lago search becomes a -- comes to a critical juncture tomorrow. a judge will hear arguments about whether to release the affidavit behind the search, something donald trump wants and the doj opposes. even now, as donald trump's legal troubles mount, his grip on the republican party is tightening. and he just purged one of his high-profile critics. republican liz cheney lost her primary race to a trump-backed opponent by a landslide. but while a cheney may be out of a seat, earlier on "today," she made it clear she's not going anywhere and will keep up her fight against trump. >> there's no political office that's more important than the principles that we take an oath defend. and i believe that donald trump
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continues to pose a very grave threat and risk to our republic. and i think that defeating him will require a broad and united front of republicans, democrats, and independents, and that's what i intend to be part of. look, i think the republican party today is in very bad shape. and i think that we have a tremendous amount of work to do. i think it could take several election cycles. >> how determined is cheney? listen to what retiring republican congressman adam kinzinger, fellow member of the january 6th committee said about her on our network last night. >> she's very determined, very dogged, and she will chase donald trump to the gates of hell, for sure. >> we'll start there with the future of the republican party. nbc's vaughn hillyard is in jackson, wyoming. nbc's steve kornacki is at the big board. also with me, eugene daniels, politico white house reporter and an msnbc political contributor. vaughn, we learned that cheney is reorganizing her campaign to be a leadership pac that evokes the last line of abraham
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lincoln's gettysburg address about a great task. what more do we know about her future at this point? >> liz cheney overnight set up this leadership pac and transferred at the beginning of this month, they had about $7 million cash in that campaign coffer there. they are moving that money into this leadership pac, which cheney will be able to use for political purposes. for cheney, she made very clear. last night in her speech, and again this morning on the "today" show in that interview with savanna guthrie that this is not her end. even being out of office in 2023, she intends to take this fight to do whatever it takes, in her own words, to make sure that donald trump is never in office again. could that mean a potential 2024 run? take a listen to her just this morning. >> i will be doing whatever it takes to keep donald trump out of the oval office. >> well, you didn't say yes or no, and that's fine if you're thinking about it, but are you thinking about? are you thinking about running for president? >> that's a decision that i'm going to make in the coming
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months. >> this is the difficult part, though, that liz cheney and allies of hers are having to reckon with here. this is a republican voting population that voted here, in her own backyard, to reject her handily. she will have lost this race by about 38 percentage points here. and when you look at liz cheney, and the other three gop house members who voted to impeach donald trump last year, who also lost a primary, a trump-backed primary challengers, we're talking about jmie herrera butler from the state of washington, peter meyer from the state of mg, tom rice from the state of south carolina, liz cheney from wyoming. this isn't just a wyoming or rural republican electorate issue here. you're talking about every corner of this country, that is continuing to side with donald trump-aligned forces here, and giving the former president the ability and the influence to
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effectively purge this party of individuals who he has deemed to be political opposition forces within his republican party. now, that is where this morning, in that same interview with savannah, liz cheney was posed that question. she was hoping that she would be able to sway public opinion after these january 6th public hearings, and that's when she acknowledged to savannah saying, quote, we have a tremendous amount of work to do. i think it could take several election cycles. this is a big task ahead for liz cheney. >> so steve, break down the numbers for us, what happened there in wyoming and the larger trends that it could tell us. >> i think it is, picking up on what vaughn was saying there, really striking when you look at these results in the republican primary. let me put another set of numbers up here next to it. this is how wyoming went in the trump/biden race, the general election of 2020. and look how similar the numbers are. hageman, cheney, that 28.9%. not far off, joe biden's number
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in wyoming. this was the most pro-trump state in the country in 2020. the results in this republican primary really kind of mirroring a democrat versus republican general election in wyoming. the two counties that liz cheney won, this is teton county, where jackson hole is. this is albany county, where the university of wyoming. these are the only two counties in the state that went for joe biden. everything else was a trump landslide. everything else was a hageman landslide. one of the dpgs in this race was, we did see a lot of democrats change their party registration to vote in this republican primary. i think we did see previously independent voters change their party registration to vote in this republican primary. we saw extremely -- this is extremely high turnout for a republican primary. there was a democratic primary yesterday. the turnout for it was extremely, extremely low. i'm talking about 7,500 people total voted in the democratic primary in wyoming. so what that really means is, in
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some ways, this ended up being functionally like a general election in wyoming. and what you see liz cheney getting here is kind of the typical democratic share, democratic distribution of the votes in a general election in wyoming. so when you talk about a potential future for liz cheney, 2024 primary, that sort of thing, as vaughn was saying, this showing in wyoming does not demonstrate really anything in terms of appeal to republican voters. this is her home state. this is her political base. and it seems that it's the democratic voters in the democratic areas that were her only even slightly bright spot last night. and then as vaughn was saying, it's now kind of complete. we've been tracking it. the ten republicans who voted to impeach donald trump following the events of january 6th. here's their fate in 2022. four chose not to run. they retired. four like liz cheney lost primaries. i think it's notable, the two that got through primary season, that's dan newhouse in
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washington state, different types of primaries here. these were top two primaries. multiple, you know, candidates, democrat and republican, all together on one ballot. trump stayed out of this race. those different top two primaries are the only ones where republicans were able to survive the more traditional primaries, like we saw yesterday. not a single republican was able to survive. >> so, eugene, then, going back to cheney and dave wasserman with the cook political report, tweeting out lan. the idea that cheney could be a serious factor in a 2024 gop primary or would siphon votes from trump as an independent remains as preposterous as the idea this primary would be competitive. and you note in this morning's "politico playbook," cheney lost her seat, but gained something else. she's now the undisputed leader of the trump opposition. the competition wasn't very stiff. what impact, eugene, can liz cheney have really on a party that's reshaped in trump's image? >> i think at this point, it's hard to know, only other than
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what steve and vaughn just expertly laid out. there is, when you talk to a lot of different republicans, especially people who would probably consider themselves more establishment moderate republicans, that they are hoping that there is an alternative to donald trump in 2024. so that say we end up with a more open primary. let's say desan 'tis runs and cheney runs, right? the open that these folks have is that she is able to pull in enough votes in some of these states to keep donald trump from winning. maybe ron desantis is then the standard-bearer for the republican party. that is a steep hill to climb. she is the face of the opposition to donald trump and that includes republicans, democrats, and independents. it is her. because when you look at how democrats have operated, they want to stop talking about donald trump at times, because it hasn't helped them electorally. and so as she moves forward, as she works with this leadership
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pac, the great task, she's also going to be thinking about long-term, what is that organization that's going to fight trump and trumpism look like? and there is a lot of hope, and we saw this in 2016, if we can all remember that far, when we saw republicans hoping that someone was going to take down donald trump. the difference here is that republicans are putting their hands up saying, i will be, you know, the kamikaze candidate to ruin my political ambitions forp and his, if possible. it's hard to see, as every chance we get, republicans back donald trump. and some of his antics. you saw this with the fbi going to his home. how quickly republicans got onboard, spreading things that ended up being untrue, because donald trump said it. and i think that is what she and other republicans are going to be facing as they move forward, trying to take down donald trump and save their party. >> i want to look at another
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race and bring in nbc's ali vitali. one of which lisa murkowski advanced in her primary and one in which we believe sarah palin will be advancing as well, in a congressional seat. >> look, sarah palin and lisa murkowski were both asking the same question, which is how powerful is donald trump in the state of alaska. but they were hoping for two entirely different answers. in sarah palin's case, we're not going to know yet whether or not she's going to finish out the term vacated by the late representative don young. he passed away in march. that's the race that we're waiting for on palin's part right now. but really, when it comes to murkowski, this was a judgment day, but not the judgment day, especially because the way that her primary was working, is it was really just a question of whittling the field down from more than a dozen candidates to just the top four of them. and in talking to murkowski yesterday, i asked her about trump and if she feels like she
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fits in this larger republican party anymore, given the way that it's been remolded in his image. listen to what she told me. >> i've never believed that a party, a political party, should be the party of one individual. i just don't believe that. >> feels like it is right now. >> well, and -- and if it is that, if the republican party chooses to go in that direction, i think they leave behind a lot of americans. and i think that that's unfortunate. >> and i think what's going to be fascinating to watch here, lindsey, is it's a similar warning to what congressman cheney has been saying. not just about the state of democracy, small "d," in light of donald trump and the january 6th insurrection, but this larger idea of if the republican party puts itself solely around the idea of one politician, one persona, what that means for anyone else who might want to be a conservative or a republican, but no go around that cult of personality. there are very few examples of
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politicians willing to stake that claim. before lisa murkowski in her primary, it was all but assured that she would survive. that judgment day really comes in november. >> vaughn hillyard, thank you to all of you. and a programming note. my colleague, chris jansing will be anchoring her show live from wyoming today. up next, another legal headache for former president trump. new reporting that he's struggling to find lawyers to defend him. i'll talk to one of the senior members of the mueller team about that. >> and rudy giuliani is appearing before a georgia grand jury in the election interference investigation there. we'll go live to atlanta for the latest. and a series of failures in the government's response to a health crisis again. new details about what's gone wrong with the monkeypox response and how we could fix it. it lily! welcome to our third bark-ery. oh, i can tell business is going through the “woof”.
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it appears donald trump is looking for a few good attorneys. this "washington post" headline notes after the search of mar-a-lago, quote, trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers, but he keeps hearing "no." this as "the new york times" citing three people familiar with the matter report that pat cipollone, trump's former white house counsel and his deputy, patrick philbin, were interviewed by the fbi in connection with those boxes of sensitive documents stored at mar-a-lago. and tomorrow, a federal judge will decide whether to unseal the affidavit that federal
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investigators used to justify last week's search. the doj wants to keep it under wraps for now over concerns it will impact its ongoing investigation. trump and his allies are demanding it be made public. nbc's justice and intelligence correspondent, ken dilanian has the latest, and also joining me is andrew wiseman, former fbi general counsel, former senior member of the mueller probe, a law professor at nyu, and an msnbc legal analyst. ken, we'll start with you. what more do we know about tomorrow's hearing on this affidavit? >> lindsey, the justice department will make its case as to why it doesn't believe the th affidavit should be unsealed. it says, disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit would cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation. and it contains among other things critically important facts, highly sensitive information about witnesses, specific investigative techniques, and information
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required by law to be secret under grand jury secrecy laws. as much as i would like us to win, you know, our lawyers will be there, arguing on behalf of media organizations that this affidavit should be unsealed, generally, in fact, as andrew would say, in almost every case, the government wins when it says we have to protect an ongoing investigation. >> so what could this affidavit compromise if it's unsealed. >> it could compromise the ongoing criminal investigation. it could compromise the national security of the evidence it states if it's fully unredacted. because presumably, there's information there about the nature of the documents that the government believes would be found in mar-a-lago and presumably have been found. and it could compromise the identity of witnesses and lead to issues involving their safety.
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so this is a real uphill battle. i think the most anyone could hope for is a severely redacted affidavit being released, but the government even addresses that and said that it would be so redacted that it would be virtually unintelligible. this is one where i wouldn't hold your breath for a victory from the news organizations. >> i mentioned in "the new york times" report about pat cipollone and patrick philbin being interviewed by the fbi. that's according to three people familiar. and as "the times" notes in their reporting, they are, quote, the most senior people who worked for trump, who are known to have been interviewed by investigators. how valuable could those interviews be. >> so, it made a lot of sense that these two people were interviewed. they were two of seven people who president trump, while he was still president, on january 19th, just before he left
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office, designated as his representatives in terms of dealing with the presidential records. if anyone is going to know about the status of the records and about efforts to retrieve them, these are two people who would do that. so i think they could have quite extensive testimony. and in fact, in that reporting, this is information that three different sources said that in trying to get the documents back. the former president was heard to say, i'm not giving them back, because they're mine, not theirs, meaning the government. and that actually has the law completely backwards. those are government records, not personal records. so those statements, if they were made are really an admission to the criminal statute. >> let's talk about trump's legal team here. because in "the washington post" reporting about trump's rush to hire seasoned lawyers, where they keep saying "no," we know a trustee said "yes." has a doj background in the
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organized crime section. what do you make of this reporting, of the challenge it's been to build trump's legal team and this new addition? >> so i know jim and i don't want to take anything away from jim or any of the other lawyers who have been presenting the former president. the thing that is notable, however, that this is not the traditional "a" team that you would see representing a president or a former president. and it's just striking. usually, this is an honor. and you have people like david kendal, for instance, who everyone in the legal profession knows is one of the preeminent lawyers. and that's who you expect to see. and i think one of the reasons you're not seeing that is if you look at the track record for some of the former president's lawyers, you know, he liked roy cohn. well, roy cohn was disbarred.
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he likes rudy giuliani. rudy giuliani may be charged recently and he has already been suspended from the new york bar. he likes -- he used to like michael cohen. michael cohen is a convicted felon. he likes sidney powell. well, sidney powell is facing many civil lawsuits because of her conduct with the former president. so the kinds of pressures that you're put under, if you're representing somebody like donald trump, are ones that if you're at the top of your field, you really can think to yourself, i don't need this. >> all right. ken dilanian, thanks. andrew wiseman, our thanks to you. but you'll stay with us. this morning, rudy giuliani is appearing before the georgia grand jury on interference in the 2020 election. we'll have the latest from outside the court. and tomorrow, longtype trump executive allen weisselberg is expected to plead guilty in a tax case tied to the trump organization's business dealings. what it means for the larger
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here he is, arriving in court in atlanta just this morning. the fulton county d.a. subpoenaed giuliani last month, in its probe of whether former president trump and its allies tried to alter the 2020 election results in georgia. giuliani was informed monday he is the target of that investigation. nbc's blayne alexander joins me from outside the courthouse in atlanta. and back with us is andrew weismann. have we learned any details yet of what's happening inside? >> lindsey, good morning to you. we know very little of what's happening behind those closed doors. we know that testimony is still ongoing. it got underway around 9:00 this morning. we're talking about almost 2.5 hours in. but that's about all that we know. as you know, this is behind closed doors. it is by nature, a secretive process. but he is testifying under oath, before the special grand jury here ind atlanta. now, as for what he will or won't say, his attorney gave some glimpse into that in the days leading up to this.
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a couple of things. one, we know all of this is playing out against the backdrop that he has been notified that he is a target of this investigation. that's a relatively new development. it just happened over the past couple of days. and it also means that, yes, there is the possibility that he will be indicted. the other thing is that his attorneys told nbc news that when it comes to any conversations between rudy giuliani and former president trump, that giuliani plans to invoke attorney/client privilege and likely not answer those questions or get into any of those discussions. it is important to talk about why he is being questioned here. why the grand jury or the district attorney wants to hear from him. when i spoke to him in an exclusive interview last month, she made it clear that she wants to cast a wide net, and bring in anybody that has any indications of his thinking as it pertains to georgia. but specifically for rudy giuliani, we can expect him to get questions on the last high-profile trip he made to georgia, which was to make a
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number of statements before georgia lawmakers, especially peddling false claims about the election. a number of conspiracy theories that have since been debunked. that's certainly something that we expect to be a focus during that testimony today, lindsey. >> i want to touch on something that blayne said in a minute. given that he's a target of the investigation, what sort of questions is he likely facing? >> so he, as blayne said, is going to be asked about representations he made to georgia lawmakers. and that includes, and we know this, by the way, because these have been the subject of the new york state bar that has suspended rudy's law license, where they lay out his specific statements. they include the debunked theories of -- that there were underage voters. that there were dead voters, and a litany of false statements
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that rudy giuliani made to law enforcement. so those are all things that he would be asked about. i think that he is going to try everything to try and not give answers. whether it's attorney/client privilege, executive privilege, but ultimately, if he's forced to answer questions, i think he would be wise to assert the fifth amendment. particularly since he's been denominated a target of the grand jury investigation. >> all right. you answered my question there. so andrew, how closely do you think federal investigators are watching what's coming out of this? >> oh, i think very closely, because the crimes here at the state level overlap with the federal investigation in terms of -- because, let's just get real. rudy giuliani wasn't doing this on his own. he was doing this as part of a scheme to overturn the results of the election. and that was done for one purpose, and one person, which
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is the former president. so this is something that is going to be closely watched and coordinated, i believe, with the federal government. >> and blayne alexander and andrew weismann, thank you. tomorrow, another key figure in donald trump's orbit will also be in court. former trump organization cfo, allen weisselberg is expected to plead guilty tomorrow in his tax case. that's according to two people familiar with the matter. he's expected to get a five-month sentence as part of his agreement with manhattan prosecutors in the case related to the trump family business. despite the plea, weisselberg is not expected to cooperate with a broader investigation into former president trump as part of the deal. joining me right now is susanne craig, investigative reporter with the "new york times." so, susanne, can you help break down the charges that weisselberg is expected to be pleading guilty to. >> it's income tax evasion. and it's a scheme that spans 10 to 15, 20 years.
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and he's alleged to have not paid taxes what comes to $1.7 million. and this is very much, it's is not completely on corporate perks, but a lot of it is. he and his wife had a leased mercedes. there's two of them, whose taxes were apparently alleged to be not paid on. there's school tuition that was personally paid for by donald trump for his grandchildren. it goes everything down to flat screen tvs for iz home in florida, that were sort of put on the corporate ledger. and in addition, he's charged with saying that he didn't live in new york when he was living in new york for people outside of new york, that might not mean much, but in new york city, there's a higher tax rate, almost 4% that he would have had to have paid. it's a lot of things over a lot of years. >> and ever since report broke that wildsberg was under indictment, people have been asking him, will he or won't he flip? it appears we now have the answer, but he's drawing that red line when it comes to the former president.
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do you have any reporting on what led to this has thinking in all of this and why prosecutors would make such a deal? >> i think he's, you know, i think come to a personal decision that this is the best way out. and that's, you know, everybody that goes through this has to make these decisions. he is now going to have to move forward. not only will he face some prison time. my colleagues at "the new york times" who have done great work on this have reported that it will likely be five months. in addition, there will be financial penalties he'll have to probably pay back some taxes to you and i, to the u.s. taxpayer. and then he will move forward and cooper in the trial against the trump organization. and they enabled this scheme, this fraudulent scheme. so a lot of what he has to say will be very relevant at that trial if it goes ahead and they don't settle. >> so what could we learn down the road, as part of a broader investigation, if weiselberg is compelled to testify? >> well, it definitely strengthens the case against the
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trump organization, if they've got a key witness. these are very hard cases. you have to improve intent. they've been struggling with the fact that donald trump himself, he doesn't use email and do they have a paper trail and these are all the things we've been hearing and now they have a witness cooperating against the case, if it goes as planned tomorrow against the trump organization. if that goes to trial, it's going to be tricky. now they have allen weisselberg, and it's going to be going in front of a new york jury. and if it's convicted, the trump organization will face probably severe financial penalties and probably have to pay back the taxes that weren't paid again to the irs and to the city and anybody -- any other tax entity that was defrauded. but separately, you know, they're facing what's called collateral consequence. and that could be stiff, once you've been charged -- not charged criminally, but convicted criminally, if that
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happens, it will affect their relationships with lenders. and in some cases, they could have to pay their loans back immediately. >> susanne craig, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. coming up, monkeypox vaccines sent to the wrong states, arriving days late or kept refrigerated instead of frozen like they need to be. we're going to look at the impact of those mistakes. but first, it's believed to be a key step in preventing the spread of covid in schools. upgrading those ventilation systems. why many schools haven't done it, despite having the cash to do so. , despite having the casho do so. this is the moment. for a treatment for moderate-to-severe eczema. cibinqo — fda approved. 100% steroid free. not an injection, cibinqo is a once-daily pill for adults who didn't respond to previous treatments. and cibinqo helps provide clearer skin and less itch. cibinqo can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb.
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a monster was attacking but the team remained calm. because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer that was right under their nose. or... his nose. new astepro allergy. now available without a prescription. astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid free spray. while other allergy sprays take hours astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can... astepro and go. we are more than two years into this pandemic and kids are heading back for another school year with covid still a major concern around the country. despite having millions in covid relief money to improve air quality and ventilation, most schools haven't made the upgrade. nbc's stephanie gosk has more.
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>> reporter: after more than two years of a pandemic, school is starting up in ohio and it's coming in like a breath of fresh air. >> our students are behind, and the least we can do is provide them a comfortable climate with good air quality. >> reporter: this small town on the ohio river has tone an huge project. a total overhaul of its schools ventilation systems. one of the best ways to protect students from covid. >> it helps reduce the spread, helps increase the likelihood that we don't have to use masks. nobody likes to use masks. >> less covid, more time in the classroom. >> how much did it cost? >> $3.9 million. >> that's a lot of money. >> that's a lot of money. >> and it's a small town. >> sure. small town. >> so how were you able to afford it? >> federal funds. >> in response to covid, the federal government has dedicated money to improve school infrastructure. the latest funding includes $122 billion from the american rescue plan. but a cdc report found that fewer than 40% of u.s. schools have made improvements to their ventilation systems.
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getting the money and executing the project took the police over a year. >> it's tough in a small community like this. >> john o'brien is a member of the school board and the parent of a high school student. >> what motivated you to do it and stick with it when it got tough? >> i believe just knowing that if the basic needs of these kids aren't being met, their safety, their physical needs, them getting back to normal was never going to happen. >> reporter: the new system uses uv light, ionization and filters to eradicate germs. not just covid, but other viruses as well, including the flu. >> i can get to see my friends of them being at home, sick. >> cora is about to start sixth grade. her mom is a math teacher. >> i definitely think that we feel like we have a healthier safer school with our clean air. >> a relief for teachers who struggled with remote classes. >> there is something to say about being with people. and when students aren't with each other and they can't feed often of each other in a learning environment, it does
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hurt your education process. >> are you hopeful that this might be the first year since all of this started that's not disrupted? >> yes. >> by covid. >> i'm very hopeful. >> reporter: the key to that maybe as simple as the air she breathes. stephanie gosk, nbc news, galapolice, ohio. >> if you are one of the americans still frustrated that they can't get a monkeypox vaccine, listen to this new reporting from "the new york times." quote, roughly 5,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine intended for ft. lauderdale, florida, left the national stockpile's warehouse in olive branch, mississippi, with on july 19th. they somehow ended up in oklahoma. then tennessee, then mississippi again. then, finally, florida. in idaho, a shipment of 60 vaccine doses disappeared and showed up six days later, refrigerated rather than frozen as needed. another 800 doses sent to minnesota. a significant portion of the state's total allotment were unusable, because the shipment was lost in transit for longer than the 96-hour viability
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window. just some of the missteps and confusion that are leaving local officials scrambling. the cdc says there are now 12,700 confirmed monkeypox cases in the united states. joining me right now is dr. kavita patel, former obama white house policy director and an msnbc medical contributor. doctor, you worked in the obama administration and state officials are attributing these missteps to the federal government's new system to distribute these shots. what are your thoughts on this frustration, especially on the heels of a pandemic where people feel like these lessons should have been learned by now. >> lindsey, there's no excuse. and i think that the biden administration has been trying, especially with that novel attempt to divide the doses, but states have to get the doses in the first place to stretch out those doses. so i think it's one, a reflection of just how much we have not learned. and two, i think it's also a lot of inner agency kind of
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politics, because we have so many different agencies, really, there's one, the agency responsible for preparedness and response to all pandemics or natural hazards and threats. they really are kind of central command, but they need to have the cooperation of other agencies. that does not help when people are scared, confused, and public health officials are crying for help. so i do hope that all of this gets met with transparency and accountability. it's something we held the trump administration to and i absolutely think the biden administration should be held to the same standards. >> in harris county, texas, which includes houston, a child under 2 years old has tested positive for monkeypox, making him the seventh case in the country in a child. we know that mostly, the virus is impacting a particular community, and that is men who have sex with men. i want to talk about how we should understand this in terms of how it's spread and who
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should be really concerned at this point. >> so number one, we're trying to understand the spread in the context of kind of a changing epidemiology. think about it this way, lindsey. we know a lot about this virus. that's good news. but we're seeing it outside of the countries or the kind of situations that we would normally see them in. keep in mind, in africa, the majority of cases are amongst heterosexual couples. this conversation about, well, it's only in a certain population here, i think, two things. number one, we tend to pick up cases where we look for them. and we saw this initial kind of social network amongst men who have sex with men, gay, bisexual, transgendered individuals having sex with men. but we would be completely mistaken, to your appoint, to actually just say, it's this one population. children having it is something to watch for. children among children who are the most likely to get hospitalized. it will be really important to look for those hospitalizations
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or any patterns that emerge, telling us a little bit more about this virus, and to your point, the spread. we have to also be careful to make assumptions. we're now starting to see evidence of monkeypox virus in saliva. we're looking to see if it can be transmitted in other body fluids, but people have been very reluctant to say it's primarily airborne. we know it's primarily not airborne. it's primarily close contact. so, bring this all to a fold, we have people returning to school, as stephanie covered around covid, people are worried about their risk as individuals. it is still incredibly low. and even when individuals get monkeypox virus and then get the disease, they are more likely to have a self-limited illness. but we need to be able to diagnose and treat and accurately vaccinate people, which all brings us back to the first point that the federal government is our foundation and our bedrock. and we have to count that those cylinders are all firing to get individuals the safety they need.
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in the meantime, just be aware of people around you, illnesses, wear a mask, use that hand sanitizer, washing hands works, frequent hand washing. back to that basic hygiene. you can still live your lives, but be conscientious of your own health and the people around you, and encourage people to get checked out if it's an unusual illness and an unusual rash, something they have never seen before or they feel is off with their own health. >> doctor, i have to be quick with you on this. whole owe, a lot of us texting our moms, did i get this when i was a kid? what is your recommendation for people who don't necessarily know their status? >> it's hard to find the status. nbc news has some nice coverage on its website that you can see state by state. we don't have a federal register. the majority of adults, especially in the united states, you received your vaccines likely at 2, 4, 6 months and 4 years of age. that's the standard childhood immunization schedule for polio. if you're an adult, you didn't
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have a complete series, you likely only need three. people who have had the complete series do not need a booster, unless you're traveling to an area where we know we've had outbreaks or certain countries where we know you need those boosters. america is not one of them right now or you're a special essential worker. bottom line, most of us are protected. when in doubt, though, make sure you have at least three shots as an adult and you can find state records on the nbc news website to help validate which state and how to find it. >> great information, dr. kavita patel. thank you so much. >> thank you. it is a grocery store shortage that might have you seeing red. the severe drought out west means it's getting a lot harder to grow tomatoes, impacting everything from ketchup to salsa. m ketchup to salsa. despite treatment it disrupts my skin with itch. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day, that's effective
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without topical steroids. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin while some saw up to 100% clear skin. plus, they felt fast itch relief some as early as 2 days. that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin cancer, death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach or intestines occurred. people 50 and older with at least one heart disease risk factor have higher risks. don't take if allergic to rinvoq, as serious reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. disrupt the itch and rash of eczema. talk to your doctor about rinvoq. learn how abbvie can help you save. new astepro allergy. now available without a prescription. astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid free spray. while other allergy sprays take hours astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can... astepro and go.
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pool floaties are like whooping cough. amusement parks are like whooping cough. even ice cream is like whooping cough, it's not just for kids. whooping cough is highly contagious for people of any age. and it can cause violent uncontrollable coughing fits. sometimes followed by vomiting and exhaustion. ask your doctor or pharmacist about whooping cough vaccination because whooping cough isn't just for kids. if you like pisa or pizza or chips and salsa, we have bad news for you. high prices at the grocery store along with those scorching hot temperatures and droughts in the west are a nasty combo. especially if you are trying to find one very important ingredient in this. tomatoes. sam brock joins me live in miami. sam, first it's the coffee.
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are you just the food bad news reporter now? >> reporter: i know. i feel like i've been on a bad streak. coffee earlier this week. now pizza. the best stuff that everybody loves. when you consider this a fruit or vegetable, it's tied to a lot of other products that people love. for example, ketchup, salsa, soup, spaghetti sauce. they have gone up because of inflation, primarily fuel and labor costs. now we look at a situation in california, the worst drought in 1,200 years. i spoke with a man who orders the ingredients at this restaurant. he called the supplier for tomatoes. they didn't have any. in restaurants and supermarkets, large ripe tomatoes are there for the taking. be warned. these fan favorites won't come cheap. as california battles its worst drought in over 1,000 years.
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>> we had to stretch water further than we should have. >> reporter: scary for a state responsible for as much as a quarter of the global supply of processed tomatoes. with wells drying up and water at a premium, farmers are seeing a dip in production. bob estimates his tomato crops in northern california are down 10% so far this season. >> the united states consumer is going to see an increase in the price as this crop hits the shelf or the restaurant or where it's going. >> reporter: that's on top of the sticker shock driven by inflation. salsa is 13% higher than a year ago. tomato paste, up 16%. tomato sauce, 17%. sauce that's essential to any pizza. including the new york style slices served here in miami. of all the ingredients you have to buy, what are the most
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expensive? >> cheese and tomatoes. >> reporter: this man is the guy ordering ingredients while trying to keep a slice of cheese under 5bucks. then something happened that shocked him. >> i cannot find tomatoes. when i call to place an order, they say, well, i'm going to search from different places. i don't have any tomato. >> reporter: that has been resolved for now. it's a scary thought for pizza lovers. >> i work nonstop. pizza is a regular thing that i eat every single week, probably three times a week. >> i think tomatoes are ingrained in not our culture but other cultures that are here. >> reporter: beloved as they may be, the popular tomato is ripe for inflation. we will have so see what the rest of the harvest looks like in california. from what we hear from farmers
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right now, they are seeing increased costs between 20% and 25% for tomatoes, which will be added to what we pay at the supermarket on top of this inflationary trend that's occurring. buckle up, it's going to test our love for pizza and pasta. we know it's strong. >> my love is unwavering. thanks, sam brock. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. brock. "andrea mitchell reports" is next asking your healthcare provider if an oral treatment is right for you. oral treatments can be taken at home and must be taken within 5 days from when symptoms first appear. if you have symptoms of covid-19, even if they're mild don't wait, get tested quickly. if you test positive and are at high risk for severe disease, act fast ask if an oral treatment is right for you. covid-19 moves fast and now you can too. panera chefs have crafted a masterpiece... covid-19 moves fast succulent, seared chicken... a secret aioli... clean ingredients... in a buttery brioche roll. made fresh, to leave you...
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♪♪ good day. this is "andrea mitchell reports" in washington as a republican political dynasty is ending in wyoming, making way for liz cheney's next political chapter in her struggle with donald trump for the soul of the republican party. the january 6th committee vice chair conceding her primary after a landslide defeat to the trump-backed candidate, distinguishing herself from the former president by conceding. >>
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