still with us, michael beschloss. michael, i think there's a beautiful simplicity to that statue.all along the mall in washington, ground zero, pentagon, shanksville. we're a country that honors fallen heroes. every year, the reading of the names from 9/11. what is the importance of marking these moments of history, of preserving these stories? and frankly, bringing people together around them? >> because all of us should be able to unite around the idea that we're saving our democracy. that's what those heroes were doing on flight 93 and elsewhere 20 years ago tomorrow. our democracy tonight is as much in danger, i think, as it was in 1860 and in 1940. the right to vote is being taken away from people in various states. the legitimacy of elections is being undermined. we could be in a situation where the congressional election next year, in which certain people are elected to congress who are deprived of taking office, and the same thing even when a president is elected in 2024. that's enormously dangerous. we need to follow in the footsteps of those heroes. >> what should we tak

with michael beschloss.t premiered tonight, you can see it on msnbc, on peacock. congratulations on thisser is richlts what a provocative way to start? >> thank you, rachel. i love seeing you and thank you so much for the kind words. i'm trying to learn the way a little bit how you do it on this program. can i never measure up, all i can do is try. >> you are very kind. don't do anything that seems like what i do because you do it better, don't scooch over to my side. well, let me ask you about the core question that you are getting at here. what do you think we should understand? what does a close inspection of that narrow window of time between september 11th, 2001 and october 7th 2001 when we invaded afghanistan? what do you feel like we should remember and know and learn as a country from looking at that short window of time? >> well, you wrote a wonderful book called "drift" which i read very much. it said, among other things, i don't want to tell you about your book, the people in the audience who have

i'm your host michael beschloss. today we're going to show you a story from american history that is still playing out before our eyes. it's the story of rapid action with ongoing consequences. the desperation in afghanistan today, the withdrawal of american troops, the return to power of the taliban, it all began with a decision immediately after the 9/11 attacks to respond with war. we'll show you through the lens of the nbc news archives how america went from a quiet week in september 2001 to a military footing that would last for 20 years. along the way, we'll hear from a veteran of afghanistan and iraq, now congressman jason crow and we'll ask him the question that used to be almost taboo. was the decision to invade afghanistan made in too much haste? did we rush into war? our story begins on september 10, 2001. when president george w. bush used his fighting words for an altogether peaceful cause against a very different enemy. >> there are too many of our kids in america who can't read today. maybe not in this

there's no better way to end the week than with historian michael beschloss. f people forget that fdr's second favorite medium after radio was the new world of streaming video. >> right, yes. and his podcast, i think, i hope everyone listened to fdr's podcast. he used to call them fireside chats, but great podcast. >> yeah, great pod. his pod slapped, as the kids would say. we mention streed with you, because the details here, i think a lot of our viewers follow this, so we've been talking about biden's got more than one plan. he's got to hold that senate coalition but you've been able to remind us, this is one thing that hasn't changed. lbj said there's one way for a president to deal with congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. joe manchin was not who he was dealing with, but boy did he have plenty of irascible senators, michael. >> yeah, you're right, ari, and the real version of johnson's quote in private was probably a lot more profane than the elegant version that you just gave us for history. but that's right. roosevelt

patel, our msnbc analyst and michael beschloss and manny mclaughlin. special coverage i say because doctor, this is quite a breakthrough in policy and not one they took lightly. i am curious what you think medically about what it would mean for the united states and covid if employers go along with this and thus many more people get vaccinated. >> very clear this is exactly what we are going to have to do in order to really reduce the burden of covid medically and economic and just mentally, just been fatiguing for so many reasons. getting into 70% vaccination rates, all right six months ago is what is we thought we needed for the herd immunity is the concept of immunity in our country. delta variant changed that. we are looking at meeting 80% to 90%. to get there, we can't deal with this. we have to talk about these fixes. i realize it will be controversial. i will take that controversy. >> yeah, as you said clearly we are moving the sticks. eleanor, you cover a lot of different battles across different administrations. this is a turning point tonight

i'm your host michael beschloss.

with us to talk about it is michael beschloss. this past week, was it as bad as it felt? >> yeah, it was a big week but we saw a lot of it in public. we saw all these things, the president dealing with covid, the supreme court's abortion decision and economics and hurricane ida and other things. i think one thing that historians find when they look at a president's documents later on our his e-mails or other records that a president accumulates, this is what the presidency is like all the time because joe biden they have what looks to us like a quiet week, i guarantee you historians 30 years from now may find out she's dealing with a possibility of a serious terrorist threat or making decisions on the economy that affected a lot of people's lives. i remember a little bit, kris, in 1961, jfk a couple of months after he came into office tried to invade cuba and failed. it was embarrassing. he called in dwight howard. he was pretty much of a fight. i had no idea how hard the presidency is. you have to make all these decisions at once

"fireside history with michael beschloss" explores the path to afghanistan and the war.ight at 7:00 p.m. eastern, streaming exclusively on peacock. >>> we get to breaking news out of afghanistan. a second even vac wags flight has taken off from kabul in the last few minutes. i want to show you video, the passengers boarding the plane that is now en route to doha, qatar. just yesterday you saw that first commercial flight, we talked about it right here on this broadcast as it was in the air, leaving the afghan capital for the first time since u.s. forces pulled out of the country in late august. raph sanchez is in doha. as we've been talking about, the withdrawal of troops from afghanistan very much tied to the moment we're in now. these reflections on september 11th and the 20 years since and as we speak the evacuations are continuing. what can you tell us about this second flight? >> reporter:s flight taking off from kabul to doha a couple minutes ago. it's a similar setup to yesterday. everybody has an international passport beyond an afghan one. there are british and

we are joined by good friend of ours, the presidential historian and author michael beschloss.tainly, to our current times, to the site of nazi protesters on the campus of the university that jefferson founded to the side of our own citizens trying to change the course of a presidential election and ransacking our capitol? >> absolutely, brian. i'll try to do it fast. it's been 20 years that have been in many ways extremely rough. two wars in afghanistan and iraq that were american support among the people for those wars ebbed and the presidents involved were never able to quite explain why we were there and risking american lives and risking american treasure. we felt after 9/11 that our government could not protect us from something we had been protected from all during word war 2 and the cold war. never a direct major attack opinion american territory. this took us back to the sense of insecurity that americans had in 1814 when the british came to washington and burned the capitol and the white house. but the overwhelming thing that almost makes me cry and i kmpbly don't wan