we are coming on the air with breaking news this hour that nbc news has just confirmed the january 6th hearing, their perhaps final fall hearing just 24 hours away, postponed because of other breaking news. we'll get to that in a second. how hurricane ian is affecting plans for the committee to go public with what they know so far about things including roger stone, the committee's plans to show clips of him talking about his plot to disrupt and

discredit the 2020 election results and his new response to a member of our team. again, all of this now because of hurricane ian with florida bracing for the impact. we'll take you live to the evacuation zone and brand-new nbc news exclusive. the explosive comments our team found from the republican running for governor in pennsylvania a couple of years ago suggesting women should be charged with murder if their get an abortion after six weeks. i'm hallie jackson in washington. with me now is sahil, ashley parker, and former u.s. attorney and former deputy assistant general, harry lipman. walk us through. >> that's right. our team has confirmed just in the last minute or two that the january 6th hearing that was expected to be held tomorrow is expected to be postponed. members have been told it will be postponed as a result of

hurricane ian. that is according to our colleague who is bringing us this news right now. now, the expectation is the hearing will still happen. we don't have a date for when that will be. the plan for the hearing is it was supposed to be broader than previous hearings. not a narrow or singular focus on a particular topic or focus odd one or two witnesses. it's not even clear there will be witnesses. the committee had not announced any. the hearing regardless is still likely to happen and one of the things we are expecting once it does happen is footage from a forthcoming documentary following roger stone in the lead up to january 6th. i believe we have some footage of that. i want to play that right now. >> what they're assuming is that the election will be normal. will not be normal. oh, these are the california results? sorry, we're not accepting them. challenging them in court. if the electors show up at the electoral college, armed guards will throw them out.

i'm the president. [ bleep ] you. i'm challenging all of it and judges we're going to are judges i appoint. if they want to run fake ballots, we'll say these are fake. good-bye. that's the way it's going to have to work. >> a few days ago, bennie thompson told me and a few others that every member of the committee is going to have a chance to speak. all nine of them. which is again, a break from previous hearings where one or two of them basically ran the hearing. ultimately it looks like the committee believes it's done its job in portraying this and supplying evidence for what they believe is a premeditated coup attempt and they're going to be filling in some detail as members tell it about things they've learned in the last two months since the previous hearing. again, the hearing is expected to happen. but we do not expect it to happen as planned. >> let's just help us understand what we do and don't know and

let's be super transparent about the fact this is literally developing. about 2:59 as we were coming on the air. so there are still some questions our team is reporting out. we don't know when this will be returned to, fair? >> that's right. we don't know. >> it will have to be presumably before the end of the year and i would imagine they would want it to be before the midterms. i know you don't have the house calendar in front of you, but pretty sure they go on recess in october. >> that has been the plan, that the house and you know, in the hope of many senators, the senate would break for most of the entire month of october. now, the committee is not thinking of a time frame between now and the midterm elections when you talk to members. they're thinking about the time frame between now and the end of the year. that is when the charter expires. that's when the chairman has said they will issue their final report. they're not thinking about it in terms of the midterm election. they don't want it to be seen

through a political contact or prism. it's not clear if they have enough time to finish their report by the midterm election and one of the crucial components of this investigation, the legislative recommendations and the question of what congress does about this to prevent future january 6 style events, that is likely to have a, to get a final vote in the lame duck session so the real time frame to be looking at is between now and the end of the year. certainly it seems the committee is going to want to hold this hearing sooner than later. >> if you can, please stand by. ashley, i want to come to you here because your colleagues at "the washington post" scooped about 2:57. and again, our reporting is that members have been told the hearing tomorrow has been postponed. there's a huge hurricane that is taking aim at the tampa coast right now. we know president biden has postponed one of his trips that

was supposed to be happening this week to florida today. this is a committee that has proven itself to be fairly savvy when it comes to the way that the information it's presenting is going to be received. we knew they had brought in a former television producer to put together the hearings over the summer. this seems to be in that vein. the idea that the committee doesn't want to put this information out there up against a life threatening piece of developing news that a lot of people are going to be watching tomorrow. >> that's exactly right. the committee, i mean first of all, there's the actual issue of the humanitarian crisis barrelling down on florida. and there's very fair legitimate, logistical argument that all the nation's focus should be trained there and the committee understands that. then secondly, this is an incredibly savvy committee. they've worked really hard to try to make this as apolitical as possible although a lot of

people would argue the way the nation is polarized, a lot of people come to it with their preconceived views, but so far, each of their hearings has been run somewhat master fly with one or two of the committee members orchestrating the whole thing. like a conductor. the witnesses. the testimony is incredibly sharp and almost the whole thing is very pre-scripted. it's prime time. some of them. it's doing the work of the committee. they are making a very clear, pointed case to the public about what happened on january 6th and why it matters. >> what's also interesting here if sahil is with us, in previous hearings, in the 24 hours leading up to it, we had a good sense of what the theme of the hearing was going to be. how the structure of it might go. the committee to ashley's point

about being fairly savvy on this, had been forthcoming with that information. we interviewed them here live on msnbc for example. so we do not have it at this point, if the committee were to be holding its hearing tomorrow. now there's this delay. this is possible, right, that that could be an unexpected delay that allows them to organize some of that framing moving forward. >> the committee is certainly holding its cards close to the vest on this one in terms of structure and part of the reason is that there's a mishmash of information they have receive nd in the last couple of months when the last hearing took place. there are a couple of loose ends as the chairman calls it that they've been trying to tie up. one is the question of speaking in an interview with ginni thomas. bennie thompson indicated they had an expected date to talk to her and didn't say if it was fully confirmed. that's one of several pieces of information, leads, that the

committee was chasing. the other, missing secret service text messages. the committee has been angry with the fact there's a gap in secret service communications in the run up to january 6th. thompson said that could be a part of the next hearing. and beyond that, jamie raskin and others have said the committee believes it's done its work in conveying the bigger picture. what they seem to have is not a singular focus on one specific topic. given that the most recent hearing brought us to the day of january 6th. >> thank you. ashley, the backdrop to all of this, and the committee members have said publicly, this is not political to them. they don't see this in the context of the november election looming just five or six weeks away here. and yet the backdrop to these hearings we're seeing play out in a new poll that's out showing the number of folks who think the former president was responsible for january 6th

actually went down through the committee's summer hearings. it also shows that about a third of americans, including six in ten republicans, believe the election fraud lies that have been put forward by mr. trump and his allies. >> so not just has the committee been very careful to make this as apolitical as possible, but so has president biden. you know, even in some of the committee's most riveting moments of testimony, they made a concerted effort to remain from weighing in, but there was a moment where you saw the former president's numbers softening among republicans. and again, even though everyone says this is apolitical, president biden has finally in the view of you know, himself and his aides, hit a pretty solid, positive stretch. kind of starting in late spring

into the summer heading into the midterm elections. some of those are concerted things he did. legislation. the killing of al sa wahiri. the overturning of the roe decision. some of the things are out of his control, but they are the backdrop, for instance, the committee making a case against former president trump. mar-a-lago getting raided. those are things regardless of the intentions. of course, the justice department is apolitical. these are things that have the potential to benefit the president and democrats. although it may not end up being that way. >> harry, from an investigatory perspective, this delay that's going to happen with this final committee hearing, does it matter as it relates to the work the committee is doing behind the scenes? >> behind the scenes, i don't think particularly. they're on this timeline as soon

as they issue their final report, they only have a month, but you know, behind the scenes is only a small part of what they're doing. they have conflicting goals here as i see it. they want on the one hand, they've got a series of blockbuster chapters. they want another. and schiff has suggested there is going to be a big part of this hearing that will be a theme just as the previous ones have been. but thompson has said this will be the last one if nothing big surfaces, so they have the somewhat competing goal of putting a bow on it and having the overarching narrative be driven home. my sense is that they were not completely together on how they were going to accomplish this tomorrow and in that sense, the hurricane may give them a little more time. they might be able to make another play for prime time, which they haven't done so far. and as you say, they've played it so close to the vest that it's not as if we know yet what

they're going to do. so i think they'll be able to both enhance what they want to see thematically, but also do their best. all nine are going to speak. they don't want that to be too messy, but to make a kind. >> we are going to check on the storm that is postponing the work of the committee. before we do, ron, i want to turn to you. today is significant as it relates to an oath keepers trial that is happening and this one is not like the others. we've seen a lot of trials or a fair amount. there have been a lot of defendants. explain what makes this one so significant. >> the process is going to take a while. it's something that hasn't been explored before. but i wanted to pivot real quick just some breaking news. i was inside the courthouse

earlier for this individual, kill young, was handed down. he's an individual who brought his 16-year-old son to the capitol on january 6th and when he was with his son, he assaulted officer mike fanone. he grabbed him by the wrist. but more interestingly, he handed a taser to another individual, denny rodriguez, who drove a taser into mike fanone's neck. so kyle young has been sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison. it was a pretty dramatic moment because mike fanone went up and gave this victim impact statement along with another officer who was also assaulted that day. and at the end of it, he said he hoped that kyle young suffered when he spent that time in federal prison and as mike fanone was walking back, there's this january 6th supporter in the audience who called him a piece of s. fill in the blank there. and was escorted quickly from the courthouse and banned from the courthouse for the rest of

the day. you had this moment where they're squaring off inside the courthouse in terms of staring each other down, but the deputies were able to step in and pull that individual away before anything else escalated. so pretty intense sentence set down for this case. it's about what the justice department had been seeking for this individual, kyle young, who's now going to spend seven years behind bars. >> thank you. again with developing news we've learned that the next hearing set for not even 24 hours from now, is going to be postponed. this is what members have been told according to nbc news and our capitol hill team. that will be postponed. that will be delayed. why? because of hurricane ian. that monster storm that barrelled past cuba now. it is aiming toward the tampa coast. you saw president biden this afternoon promising federal help as ian is now a category 3 strong. storm rather, and may get

stronger here. it's also moving really slow. that's another factor. look what the storm did to western cuba earlier today. it just sat there. right? tons of rain. tons of wind. lot of problems and now in florida, it has even more people in its path. many of them, hundred of thousands being forced to evacuate. ellison barber is joining us from the main evacuation zone. we think the worst of it is going to be thursday night into friday morning, but this has been such a concern. the potential for a life threatening storm that we've seen the political impacts just this afternoon here in washington. >> reporter: yeah, i mean we are right along the bay. you can see for the most part, we're kind of the only ones out here. over 300 or roughly around 300,000 people in this county alone are under mandatory evacuation orders. they've laid out tarps, put up sandbags, doing what they can to

stave off what they think could be significant water coming in because of storm surge. we have spoken to a lot of people that are making their way out of tampa. a lot of them say it's for the very first time. that they have been through hurricanes here before, but this time, it feels different. listen. >> block the doors off. put those in front of the windows then barricaded that. and put everything up high in the house. i got the majority of my stuff in my trunk. important documents. jewelry, things like that. >> we're going to be actually evacuating heading more inland, just trying get away from the coast right now. we've been through this many, many times before. we've lived through it so we know what to prepare for. >> reporter: one of the things to keep in mind as we're talking about this storm is one of this they thinks that makes the golf, this part of florida, this area in particular, so susceptible,

that makes this place so great in the summer is because the beaches are long, wide, and flat. there's a coastal shelf here that acts as a welcome ramp where if the water -- on top of that, climate change playing a factor in tampa. they have seen the sea level rise by 8 inches since the late 1940s. >> please stay safe. i know we're going to be talking with you throughout the afternoon and tomorrow as well. coming up, the first big legal challenge we are just finding out about today to try to block the president's plan to cancel student loan debts. what does it mean for you? we've got a live report. plus, the first votes to keep the lights on here in washington. can lawmakers avoid a government shutdown. what to expect, next. avoid a got

shutdown what to expect, next ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

we are keeping a close eye on the is that the floor this hour because we expect to see a key procedural vote soon on a bill that could avoid a government shutdown which could happen at the end of the week. this is made more complicated by a separate bill that joe manchin is hope to be take on here. an energy permitting plan that some are already a no on. julie is following it for us. i feel like the bottom line question here is is there going to be a government shutdown this week? is that going to be the headache we're talking about on friday or not? >> there is no appetite for a government shutdown on either side of aisle, but you're right. this permitting proposal complicates things. i'm told even at this hour, it's still very much a jump ball. my sources tell me that senator manchin is trying desperately to

keep it afloat. he's still making calls at this hour to try to get at least 12 to 13 republicans to back this proposal, which most republicans support. especially from these energy producing states because many of them have slammed the biden administration for being slow to approve these permits for natural gas projects. he's got something up against him here. that is senator mcconnell and sanders. two unlikely senators to be on the same team, are here. they're against senator manchin's proposal for different reasons. for sanders, he says this is a gift to big oil and for mcconnell and republicans, they don't want to give manchin a political win especially after he sided with democrats to get the inflation reduction act passed this summer. >> julie live for us on the hill. thank you. new today, the first significant legal challenge to president biden's student loan debt forgiveness plan. got a public interest lawyer in

indiana seeing the administration to block the plan. what's the argument? that the policy violates the constitution and could hurt him financially because of state taxes. kelly o'donnell is at the white house. it is not unexpected that there would be a legal challenge to this plan. i think the white house had been bracing for that. the question might have been who might have standing. talk about any response so far from the white house. what it might mean for the president's plan. >> reporter: this has been a plan that's been fraught with a lot of political pressures from all sides as the president took a long time to come to a decision about how he would try to attempt to put student debt forgiveness into play and as you said, that was expected there would be some kind of legal backlash and now we see a case where in attorney in indiana is filing suit saying the president doesn't have this kind of authority to on his own create an executive plan for debt forgiveness. and that is something that will now work its way through the

courts. there's also been a lot of political pushback about the cost of this plan, which the congressional budget office estimates could be as much $400 billion if all the people who are eligible for this kind of program in some cases being able to forgive $10,000 of federal student loans and those who have received pell grants but have up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness. the white house has also taken issue with that formula and said the congressional budget office is not looking at all of the other benefits to this. like the fact that it would really help many americans who are struggling with this debt and how it could benefit society if they get that relief. so this can be a campaign issue. certainly democrats believe it could attract support from democrats who might otherwise preface it at home, younger voters in particular. at the same time, try to bring along the voters weighed down by this kind of debt. at the same time, it could bring

out republicans who view this as an overreach by the biden administration. we'll have to see what steps take place next from the white house. they did anticipate there would be legal challenge. they believe the president is on solid legal footing and that will be determined by the courts. >> kelly o'donnell, thank you. coming up, nbc's brand-new exclusive scoop. the comments just resurfaced from pennsylvania's republican nominee for governor saying some women who get abortions should face murder charges. the reporter behind that story joins us after the break. behiny joins us after the break

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front. merrick garland and the head of the dea making a big announcement on a huge drug bust with millions of fake fentanyl pills taken from all 50 states. >> agents conducted 389 investigations including 35 cartel investigations in 201 cities. over the course of these investigations, we seized over 10 million fake pills and 982 pounds of fentanyl powder across all 50 states. >> that comes after the new warning from the dea that drug cartels are using so-called rainbow fentanyl pills that look like candy or sidewalk chalk to target young people. monica alba is here. fill us in. >> that's right. this is a major announcement. a huge sweeping effort from the department of justice working with the dea and we did learn in

an exclusive interview yesterday with kate snow from the administrator there that there is particular concern over what is being called this rainbow fentanyl that some cartels are targeting young people with and calling it sweet tarts or skittles because it could almost be that kind of candy, when of course it is an incredibly deadly pill. so in order to get so many of these pills off the streets, the biden administration has been working specifically it says to target two mexican drug cartels that use chemicals that come from china to try to really get them before they come to the point of perhaps being sold again to some young people and we know even in the last couple of weeks and months, that some middle schools have had to be called to investigate these fake colorful pills that have turned out to be fentanyl that have led to so many overdoses and deaths. this is something the biden administration has worked on over the last year and a half,

but this announcement today from the attorney general is the result of a lot of work in what you heard there, more than 200 cities, to seize these deadly drugs. >> thank you. brand-new nbc news exclusive reporting you'll only see here, but potentially big implications for a key governor's race in pennsylvania. our team resurfacing audio from 2019 and in it, the republican candidate for governor in pa says outright that some women should be charged with murder if they violated his proposed abortion ban. i want to play that radio interview from a couple of years ago when he was a state senator. >> would that woman decide to have an abortion which would be considered to have an illegal abortion charged with murder? >> back to the basic question there. is that a human being? is that a little boy or girl, it deserves equal protection under the law. >> so you're saying yes? >> yes, i am. >> alan smith is the person

behind that scoop. let me just sort of start by laying out the backdrop here which is that abortion rights and the issue of abortion access has become a flash point in many races around the country, but especially in pennsylvania. we should also note he has not responded to our request for comment. he told a conservative network yesterday his views on abortion are quote, irrelevant. >> so pennsylvania really is as you said, one of those state where is the future of abortion rights is really on the line in this governor's race. josh shapiro has said he's in favor of current state law which allows for abortions up to 24 weeks and mastriano is open to signing new restrictions. he's tried to make the case his views on abortion are quote, ir relevant to this race, but the

state house and senate have been under republican control for a long time and if he were to win, he'd have the opportunity to sign new sweeping restrictions. he signalled he would be interested to signing new legislation similar to the bill he was discussing in 2019, a heart beat bill that would outlaw abortions in the range of six to seven weeks. >> we haven't heard from his campaign since this got published around 90 minutes ago. >> we have not. his campaign traditionally has not been very responsive toward more mainstream media outlets. >> what about josh shapiro's campaign? i would wonder how the democratic candidate might be looking at these comments. >> his campaign highlighted these remarks saying they are emblemmatic of the kind of abortion policies that mastriano stands for and how he would lead on this issue if he won the election this fall.

>> alan, as always, thank you. after the break, we're going to take you live to ukraine as the u.n. security council meets to talk about the sham referendums in russian occupied territories. plus, more reporting on facebook and how it caught fake chinese accounts trying to affect the midterms. we've got that. ff aect the midterms we've got that announcer: type 2 diabetes? discover the power of 3 in the ozempic® tri-zone. in my ozempic® tri-zone, i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. announcer: ozempic® provides powerful a1c reduction. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease.

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asthma, or smoking. even if symptoms feel mild, these factors can increase your risk of covid-19 turning severe. so, if you're at high risk and test positive, don't wait. ask your healthcare provider right away if an authorized oral treatment is right for you. right now, the u.n. security council holding an urgent meeting on russia's so-called referendum, what the rest of the world calls shams. they're not free, not fair. the fake results coming in. according to russian state tv and you will be shocked to learn those four russian occupied regions of ukraine voted in favor of joining us. this is sarcasm. they're worried they're going to use these fake results as a pretext to fully annex parts of ukraine. jay, talk us through what you're

hearing. >> reporter: i don't think you or anyone else there had steve kornacki on the speed dial just in case this was close. it's no surprise the numbers are 97% or more with 15% of the vote in. not a big spread. won't be official until friday. we know putin has scheduled a national address on friday so you would think those two coincide and that's when they'll put a stamp on this. there's also a rally scheduled in moscow. looks like friday will be the grand announcement of what most of the world seems to know here. you talk about the u.n. meeting. we believe that ambassador linda thomas greenfield will introduce a resolution to condemn this sham vote as the u.s. and so many western allies have called it. that's largely symbolic. they're sure to veto this condemnation. u.s. and other western allies

have said repeatedly that they're not going to recognize the results of this vote if it's not going to have any effect on the way things are going as far as this war's concerned. and president zelenskyy said the same thing. he said we're going to continue to push forward. we are going to continue to try and take back some of that territory that's occupied and that they will build their forces and push even harder. russia has repeatedly threatened to use strategic nuclear weapons once they annex these areas, saying they're our land now and we'll do whatever is necessary to protect mother russia in essence. in fact, former russian president medvedev reiterated that nuclear threat today. i want to get this right. he said that at one point, taunting nato, that the nato nations won't respond even if they use the nuclear threat. that they're basically making all of these statements and all of these warnings without having

anything to back it up. so you can see it building here. when this becomes official on friday, that's when we'll determine what's the next phase in this war. >> what is your sense, jay, of the way people in ukraine are feeling at this moment related to this war? >> reporter: i think it's no question that this has helped to reenergize a lot of people here. they are frustrated. they feel like their brothers and sisters if you will, are being pushed into a situation where they will have to accept what's going on there. i know for the folks in kyiv, it's really reenergized a push to get not only those that could be drafted into the russian army from these areas once it's stamped as russia, but also those already fighting on the front line to lay down their arms. telling them russia will never know whether you surrendered, were captured and we'll try to find a way that you don't have

to go back to russia. that's become a real selling point for president zelenskyy here as he speaks in russian to those russian troops on a nightly basis. a lot of people here feel the tide is turning. they feel this is a real breaking point so they're anxious. i should also point out they're really bolstered by the idea that the people in russia with these protests, with the lines of cars that you can see from space waiting at the border to leave russia, they feel like that's the russian people saying we don't believe in this war either. >> jay gray live for us there in ukraine. glad to have you on the ground. thank you so much. just in back in washington in just the last couple of minutes, the top republican in the senate, mitch mcconnell, making an announcement about how he views the electoral count act. a bill meant to prevent something like january 6th from

happening again. watch what he said. >> strongly support the modest changes that our colleagues in the working group have flushed out after months of detailed discussions. i'll proudly support the legislation provided nothing more than technical changes are made to its current form. >> mcconnell saying he will proudly support it. let me bring back in nbc news senior political reporter, sahil. we had a lot of republicans, more than ten, who had said they would support this, but mcconnell's weight behind this is sort of an interesting piece of the puzzle here. >> that's right. we've got news breaking left and right here on capitol hill at this hour. we have mitch mcconnell, the senate minority leader, just came out in favor of a major piece of legislation to tighten election laws to try to prevent candidates from stealing elections in the future. that is a presidential election reform act, which was spearheaded by a bipartisan group of senators who have been

working pretty much all year on it and yes, as you point out, there are currently ten republican cosponsors to this bill. mcconnell is number 11. his top deputy, john thune, the republican senator from south dakota, told me just a few days ago he is also favorably inclined to support this vote so we could be look at a big vote in the senate to pass this bill which has headed for a mark up in the senate rules committee just later this afternoon. and it's expected to get a vote on the floor of the senate later this year. most likely in the lame duck session, although that hasn't been set yet. but mcconnell's support has been key. he encouraged these negotiations every day about election law, not about voting rights, which he wants nothing to do with at the federal level and they tailored this to win republicans over. it looks like they're well on track to get this done. mcconnell has been crucial as we have seen over the last year and a half at making sure legislation gets to 60 votes. when he is there, usually enough

members of the republican caucus find their way there. if he's against something, then they struggle to find enough support to move forward. this is a very positive sign for proponents of this effort. >> thank you for coming back to a camera with that news. now to a new nbc news exclusive, inside facebook's takedown of a chinese network trying to interfere in the midterms here in the u.s. as we understand it, a chinese operation set up some fake accounts pretending to be americans attacking politicians from both parties and posting about abortion access, gun rights, according to meta. in what could be the first known chinese attempt in the midterms. china basically taking a page from russia a la 2016, but this attempt apparently caught by meta. ken is here with that exclusive scoop. take us inside this takedown. >> well, this chinese network

really alarmed facebook researchers because they hadn't seen it before. generally, china talks about the united states and its propaganda directed aboard. this was networks originating in china, impersonating americans, attacking politicians from both parties and posting on hot button issues in a way it was seeking to divide americans. really taking a page out of the 2016 russian election interference playbook. it was modest because meta caught it early and took it down so it was only about 83 accounts and didn't have much of a following, but it's alarming because china has a lot of resources to throw at this if they want to flood meta and other social media where fake accounts, they can do that. in 2016, meta said that 126 million americans were subjected to hidden russian propaganda through that effort. just a reminder that this foreign election interference, manipulation problem is still with us and it's something social media companies and intelligence agencies are grappling with. >> thank you so much for that

reporting. appreciate it. ahead, inside the court fight between two top airlines and the department of justice and what it means for the prices you pay. but first, a big student walkout in virginia today with kids protesting new restrictions on transgender students. we're live with one of those students coming up after the break. e of those students coming up after the break. we switched to tide hygenic clean free. it's gentle on her skin and out-cleans our old free detergent. tide hygenic clean free. hypoallergenic and safe for sensitive skin. you might take something for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory.

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specially designed for people with high blood pressure. be there for life's best moments. trust coricidin. walking out of classrooms. they're protesting a new policy that would restrict the rights of transgender students. you can see something like 100 schools almost staging these walkouts. thousands of students joining in. youngkin's policy would ban students from changing their pronouns at school unless they get permission from a parent. require school staff to reveal the student's identity to their parents even if they don't have permission and require transgender students to use bathrooms and play on sports teams aligned with their sex assigned at birth. if this moves forward, districts will decide whether or not to follow the policies.

virginia is not the only state. in the past two years alone, republican lawmakers in 18 states have passed laws banning trans students from participating in sports aligned with their gender identity and florida's rights law has led to copy cat laws. i want to bring in rivka, a sophomore at oakton high school, and lead student organizer. thank you very much for being with us. >> of course. thank you so much for having me. >> tell us about these walkouts today. do you think they delivered the message you wanted them to send? >> i think looking at social media, looking across the press that we received today, i really think we got the message across that we wanted to, which is virginia students are not behind these proposed guidelines. >> governor youngkin's team is telling nbc news in a statement

partly when parents are part of the process, schools are accommodate the questions, adding parents should be a part of their children's lives. i wonder how you would respond to that. >> of course. these proposed regulations are not about parental rights. if they were, then governor youngkin would be looking at things like expanding access to democracy in virginia. this is about attacking virginia students. governor youngkin doesn't understand students how harmful these policies can be. countless students in virginia have read these policies and understand the real implications are not the protect the rights of parents, but instead to deny our identity, humanity and our very existence. our goal is to ensure that every student can thrive in virginia schools, but it's clear that the governor is not interested in students or in parents just advancing his own political pros

pechts in his next campaign. >> why did you feel it was important to put your energy behind leading this charge? >> the most important thing i want to emphasize is that these proposed regulations do not only affect trans and queer students. it also allows denial of school counciling and necessary mental health support while virginia is in a state of mental health crisis. as a student who i've dedicated my advocacy to educating other students and making sure they can fight for their own rights, that this movement has been one of the most important actions i've ever taken in my work and advocacy. >> i should mention what we're hearing from fairfax county saying in response, they're quote committed to an inclusive learning environment for each student and staff member. it's not final yet. there's a public comment session until later on in october and so

far, there have been thousands of comments. more than 19,000 pouring in and counting here. talk about your group, the pride liberation project. what plans do you have now between now and when this period closes? >> of course. so what we are planning to do is to focus on our local school boards who as you know have the power to reject these guidelines and sue the virginia department of education for unconstitutional guidelines, which is clearly what these are. so we're looking to follow up this collective day of walkouts with local school board rallies and demonstrations and then just following up with your earlier point about fairfax county. i am a fairfax student, but i'm a virginia student first. and just because fairfax will protect its students does not mean other districts in virginia will. and that's what i'm here for. to protect the rights of all virginia students. not just the students in my county or school.

>> from the pride liberation project, thank you for your time on what has been a busy and important day for you. in boston, the justice department fighting american airlines and jetblue in court. trying to undo a year and a half-year-old pact. you've got new york and boston airports expanding. so they're saying team up. let's do it. have this alliance, which means sharing flight info as well as profits from selling seats on each other's flights. their argument is that this helps competition, eventually leading to lower prices for you. but the doj says time-out. the top four airlines control a big chunk of the industry, bringing in billions more than smaller competitors. they're taking the airlines to court in a trial starting today. cnbc's airline reporter is here to break it down. glad to have you, leslie. tell us how this might what we expect will play out in court and what it means for the

consumer. >> thanks so much for having me. well, this is a really interesting case. so we have jetblue, this kind of quirky new york-based airline going through a quarter life crisis. it's not a big airline. not a small airline. teaming up with the biggest airline in the country. this happens in 2020. the deal was passed for the two of them to coordinate in the northeast where airports are extremely congested. new york and boston. difficult to expand flying for many airlines and thought they would combine forces to better compete against delta and united. you have the justice department which has been taxed by the president with taking a hard line toward anything that could be anticompetition and the doj has lost a couple of cases recently. one including the sugar industry that the doj deal they tried to block. so this is really a litmus test for the administration if they will prevail. what this means for travelers.

trial's going to last about four weeks then we should see a conclusion to it before the end of the year. it's a bench trial. not a jury trial. so it should progress rather quickly. if the justice department prevails, there's a chance of a settlement where there are some concessions, but jetblue and american so far say they have a very strong case. they are not showing any consumer harm or that their agreement is driving up fares specifically for their passengers versus other airlines. so we will have a few weeks to see how it does play out. >> leslie josephs, thank you so much. >> my pleasure. >> important news. thanks for watching this hour of msnbc. a busy one as always. you can find me on nbc news now, our streaming channel for nbc tonight and every weeknight for show number two at 5:00. we'll have highlights from the show and new reporting on twitter. for now, nicolle wallace will pick up the deadline white house after the break. will pick up the deadline white house

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the hearing date to be determined was meant to be a big reset for the committee. a moment to refocus the committee's attention ton the deadliest attack on the capitol in centuries. the role of the u.s. president and his allies. a key player in the next hearing, roger stone. nbc news has obtained portions of the documentary, a storm foretold, which follows stone in the days leading up to january 6th. parts of the documentary will be featured in upcoming hearing. here's stone four months before the election telling an aide that trump should reject the results. >> what they're assuming is that the election will be normal. it will not be norm sal. oh, these are the california results, sorry. if the