it's important to prosecute the january 6th insurrectionists is steadily declining. all of this explanation why the right's embrace of domestic terrorists and their attempts to normalize violence as politics, which one might call fascism is the absolute worst, and that is tonight eat reidout, "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> some folks in our party have reneged on that agreement. that's where i think we have an issue here of trust. >> the biden agenda at a cross roads in congress as two democrats refuse to budge. tonight congresswoman pramila jayapal at the center of it all and the house on elizabeth warren and her colleagues holding everything up in the senate. and then breaking news from the january 6th committee. the new subpoenas are out. what we know about who they're targeting and why. and new proof the biden vaccine requirement is working as the pro-covid right finds a new

villain down under. >> you guys look at what's going on in australia right now, you know, they're enforcing after a year and a half, they're still enforcing lock downs by the military. >> when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes, it is not an exaggeration to say that democrats might have one chance, one shot to pass legislation to prevent a climate catastrophe, and they are trying to do that right now under the intense pressure of two other competing forces. one is the fact that due to the nature of american polarization, divided government, the structural advantage that republicans now hold in national elections, democrats can expect to control the white house and both houses of congress maybe every ten years, like once a decade, they really get a chance to pass their agenda. so that's one pressure point. the other is that we're already at 1 degree celsius of permanent

global warming. we need to very rapidly curtail emissions to avoid increasing to another 1/2 degree or two. and this is the one shot to pass a climate bill. that's something that democrats, remember, tried the last time they had unified power in 2009 and 2010 and it didn't happen, and guess what, things got much worse over the next ten years, and the rate at which we have to decarbonize has increased dramatically, so democrats have one chance for a substantial climate package right now where they can expect to wait another decade, which is likely way too late. with that urgency, democrats are right now trying to tiptoe across a legislative tight rope with the entire biden agenda and the future of the country and the world in their arms, and it's looking pretty dicey up there on the hill. the house is planning to hold a vote on one part of the biden agenda. that's the bipartisan infrastructure bill that has some climate stuff but nowhere

near enough. progressive democrats say they won't vote for that, unless the $3.5 trillion build back better agenda bill, that's the social welfare state that's expanded child care, and all the climate stuff, unless that moves forward in tandem with the bipartisan bill. the problem, there are two senate democrats who are holding out on that reconciliation bill. democratic senator kyrsten sinema of arizona. she has been an irritant in the process, i think you can say, saying she will not agree to the $3.5 trillion spending bill with the climate provisions. she met with white house officials three times yesterday alone, and then again today. afterwards, reporters tried to pin her down on her position on the two bills. here's how that went. >> reporter: progressives that are frustrated that they don't know where you are. >> in the senate. >> reporter: there are progressives in the senate that don't know where you are either. >> i'm like clearly right in

front of their elevator. that is funny. senator joe manchin of west virginia has been the other senate democrat holding up the spending bill. today he told reporters there is no chance for an agreement on it before the house is scheduled to vote on that other part of the biden agenda, the bipartisan infrastructure bill tomorrow. >> reporter: is it possible? >> no, it's not possible. >> reporter: not possible to get any pramwork? >> what's possible to sit down and have negotiations, pass the infrastructure bill. >> manchin also released a statement saying quote what i have made clear to the president and democratic leaders is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs when we can't even pay for the essential social programs like social security and medicare is the definition of fiscal insanity. progressives in the house say the spending bill has to move forward in tandem with the infrastructure bill. congresswoman pramila jayapal, the chair of the house progressive caucus responded to

manchin statement saying without the build back better bill that the bipartisan bill passed by the senate is dead in the water. >> he needs to give us an offer or this whole thing is not going to happen. >> his statement has created a bunch more votes on the floor against a bipartisan bill. >> pramila jayapal is a key person in thern, i'm going to speak with her in a few minutes. the house is supposed to vote on the bipartisan bill, the one that's already passed the senate but without the support of the progress i caucus, that's not going to pass. as of now, nobody knows what's happening tomorrow, what's happening more broadly. i don't know what's happening. joining me now, democratic senator who is 100% on board with passing the entire biden agenda, both the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package and the bipartisan infrastructure bill together, senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. well, you're one of 100 votes in the u.s. senate. you're very committed to this

agenda in tandem. maybe you understand where we are better than i am. where are we right now? >> we're still working on it. i think of it this way. we've got 50 republicans who said, they don't want any part of the this. we've got 50 democrats who are all in their own boats trying to row in the same direction. and what we're trying to do is we're trying to get roads and bridges, we're trying to get sewers and water. we're trying to get broad band. we're trying to get child care and home community-based care, community college, housing help and most of all, we're trying to take a real, real effort to fight back against the climate crisis. and we're trying to put all of that together and move it forward. and yeah, it's a little bumpy, but i tell you, i would rather be where we are, we're rowing, we're trying to make it happen,

and i think we're going to do it. >> okay. i can't tell if you're spinning me or you're more confident than some other people. i honestly can't. i mean, i guess if i were you, i would say, look, we're going to get there. there's that. >> why? i don't have to say that. >> well, because you want it to happen, and saying it's not going to happen isn't going to help. >> think of it this way. you're right. i do want it to happen. but i also recognize that the values of who we are as a democratic party, but also the values of who we are as a nation are deeply tied up in this bill. you know, you see bills that appeal to this group or to that group or some people have a specific problem. not this one. this one has it all. and we understand the only way it's going to go forward is if all of it goes forward, if the things that all of us have been working on have a chance to be

in there and to move forward, and we've got it. we are moving. it is the very fact that it is big and complicated. it makes the negotiations hard. but it also means there's more on the line and that increases the odds that we're actually going to get this done. >> you know, so this is a kind of -- a bit of a theoretical point, but worth exploring here. when you think about how politicians act when in office, there's a bunch of factors, they have constituents, they want to get reelected. those constituents public opinion views matter a lot. the median voter, the swing voter, the person who might hold their faith. there are local institutions and groups. there are hospitals or a big, you know, factory that makes a certain thing or you got, you know, big ag in your district. that matters, lobbyist corporate pressure, donors matter but one thing that i think matters that is under appreciated is just the individual views, the political ideology of the people involved. it strikes me that, like, that's part of what's happening here,

part of the holdouts just aren't on board with the agenda. yes, they're getting pressured by big interest groups, yes there's a lot of money flowing through, yes that's part of it, but that strikes me as part of the hiccup here. what do you think of that theory? >> you know, i still just look at the content of what we have here. and how many folks in our caucus really want to see us provide child care. and look at it this way. you know, if you take a look at what's happened to women just over the last couple of years so that today we have millions of women not in the work force, one out of four says the problem is child care, so if you care about women, then you care about this bill. if you care about babies being taken care of, you care about this bill. but also if you care about child care workers who are so often paid barely above poverty wages, you care about this bill because it raises their wages. but here's the thing, you cannot

like mamas, you cannot like babies, you cannot like child care workers, and you still care about this bill because you're hearing from all of the small businesses in your home state who say they can't find workers or they can't find workers if mamas can't find child care, so this is one of those where it's kind of like every piece of what's broken, what we're trying to put in here helps make it better, and can i add one more thing. >> please. >> and besides that, we've got fabulous ways to pay for it. the pay fors in this actually say that billionaires are going to have to pay a fair share, that giant corporations are going to have to pay a fair share, and that we're going to put enough money into the irs directed toward going after those billionaire and giant corporation tax sheets, and make them pay what they owe. that's how we pay for this, by

getting more fairness into the system, so there's a lot to love here. i love that the house progressives are in there saying, we love this bill. we just want to see the whole thing go forward together, just like we all agreed on. >> final question for you, which is about i've covered the 2009, 2010 period on the hill, i watched that play out, and there are three very big bills. there was the aca on health care, dodd-frank, and democrats went two for three. they got two across the finish line, the one that didn't was the climate one, ten years passed with no significant climate legislation. does everyone over there understand the urgency here that this isn't like other stuff, that there's a clock ticking and that you're going to get one shot maybe every decade? >> you know, in fact, i think it's even worse than that. it's that every time the scientists go back, take another look at the data, run the numbers again, they come back to us and say the problem is worse

than we thought, and we have less time than we thought. the good thing about this big package is how many different ways we attack the climate crisis. everything from changing the power grids so power is all green, wind and solar, to moving to getting rid of diesel fired school buses and public buses, and train engines, and replacing them all with electric all the way to a bigger investment in research, because we recognize that if we do everything in this package, it's still not enough. we also need to double down on the research end of this and figure out how to move faster in this crisis. >> senator elizabeth warren, that was illuminating, thank you very much. i guess i'm sort of cheered by your diplomatic this evening,

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given everything that's going on in congress, a little jarring to see members gather for the traditional bipartisan baseball game. president biden swung by to watch a few innings and cheer for the democrats. all looks joef yal, bear in mind, the republican team roster includes people like marjorie

taylor greene who made threatening comments, and she's on the same team as congressman mo brooks who told the crowd on january 6th it was a day for patriots to start kicking ass shortly before insurrectionists broke into the capital chanting hang mike pence. kind of weird for democratic lawmakers to have a friendly baseball game with those folks. in addition to that weirdness, the game is happening on the eve of the big house vote for president biden's agenda, the chair of the progressive caucus, congresswoman pramila jayapal saying in a statement, progressives will vote for both bills but a majority of our members will only vote for the infrastructure bill after the president's visionary build back better act passes. and congresswoman jayapal joins me now. you and the progressive caucus have been pretty clear on this from day one. i'm not sure people are tracking all of this, which is fine. i don't think it matters that much.

what matters is the outcome. why, though, explain your position right now. there is a bill that passed the senate. first of all, can we talk about the content of that bill and your caucuses just on the content of it before we get to process, before we get to the gain theory prisoner's dilemma that is set up. >> yes, absolutely, and great to see you, chris. so five months ago yesterday, the president made that journey from the white house to capitol hill and he laid out had his build back better agenda, and we all got up and cheered. i was in the chamber that night. we all got up and cheered for it because it was the agenda that we ran on, that he put forward as president, and we said we would deliver to his desk. then it got split into two bills. >> yeah. >> one bill is this infrastructure bill that is a much narrower, smaller piece that is kind of about what they're calling hard infrastructure, roads and bridges, primarily, and it's got a few other things in there, but there are a lot of people who

actually believe that some of the provisions in that bill are going to be negative for the carbon emissions net effect, and they're actually going to hurt us on climate change. now, some people say it's got the good, the bad and the missing. right? it's too small. it doesn't do enough, and it's got some bad stuff, but yeah, there's some good stuff in there, and we all need roads and bridges, and you know, we want to get some of that done, but they took all of the really important stuff and they put it in this much bigger build back better act. now, what does that have in it? that is child care, paid leave, it has taking on climate change with real standards that would bring down emissions and get us to the goals the president has laid out. it has housing to house the houseless. it has health care, medicare expansion among other things. >> go ahead. oh, no, i just lost you.

>> can you hear me there? >> now i got you, you're back. >> okay. so hopefully you heard me talk about everything. >> yes, you got to medicare. i'm glad that we're recreating the daily nightmare experience of everyone's lives over the last year and a half. here on our tv show, but yes, i did hear you get to medicare. >> okay. great, so now here's the two bills, one is a small bill and it's bipartisan, it's the easy stuff to do, and then there's another bill that has the majority of the democratic agenda in there. they took five months to negotiate that infrastructure bill, that smaller bill, and now we need to get this build back better agenda done, so the only way that that bipartisan bill was going to pass the senate is because 11 progressive senators including the one that you just had on, our friend elizabeth warren voted for the bipartisan bill under the promise and the commitment that if they passed that bill this the senate that

the house would first finish the reconciliation bill, and then once that's voted on, then we would pass the bipartisan bill. that was the position that the progressive caucus took almost 3 1/2 months ago, because many of our members if they just had to vote on the bipartisan bill don't think it was a very good bill. it was negotiated by a small group of members. we were never consulted on it, we don't think it does enough, and there are a lot of people who don't want to vote for it, and because we're all adults and play on the team of the democratic party, we said every one of our progressive members would vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill as long as they stuck to the promise and commitment of passing the reconciliation bill first, the build back better act first, and then suddenly out of nowhere, chris, in comes a few people, 4% of all of the democrats in the house and the senate and they said, we're not going to stick to the original agreement. we're just going to pass the infrastructure bill, and then we'll see what happens.

well, progressives said not so fast, we are going to make sure we deliver the entirety of the president's agenda because guess what, 96% of the democrats in the house and the senate agree that that's the right thing to do. the president agrees, 70% of the american people agree, and we need to deliver that transformative bill. >> i'm with you on all of that. i get that. and i don't think you're wrong on anything you said there factually in terms of the politics, that is the case, there is tremendous democratic consensus for this, there are the votes in the house, 48 votes in the senate, president biden wants to sign it, but the problem is, there's 48, you need 50. right, that's the issue. >> right. >> and i think -- i've heard what you have been saying. so the question is how to get to 50, right, and i just want to ask this question, which is do you think that saying we're not going to vote for this bipartisan infrastructure bill is tangibly improving the prospects of getting to 50?

do you see what i'm saying because i'm just not clear that it is, and i think people understand where i'm coming from, like i'm rooting for you guys, basically. i mean, i support that legislation. i think it's good. i'd vote for it in congress. the question is what is it doing, actually, at a time when alexandria ocasio cortez said trust is needed. we're not going to get together. what work is that doing, and let's be counter productive. >> let's be clear on who did what first, it's kind of important, the commitment was the reconciliation bill would past first and all of a sudden that was changed. i'm past trust, there were things promised that didn't happen, and frankly, that's happened a lot. it happened in the aca fight, it's happened throughout. progressives often get rolled but in this particular case, this is the president's agenda. it's not some crazy left wing agenda wish list. it is actually the president's

agenda. and so if we were to pass the bipartisan bill, what i would say to people across the country is you saw perhaps joe manchin's statement today on how far he is from the build back better agenda. we are at the end of september. nothing happens on capitol hill of any importance that isn't must pass once you get to, say november. certainly nothing happens next year because it's an election year, and so the reality of the situation is if we pass the bipartisan bill, all of a sudden we essentially delay the reconciliation bill and as rachel maddow said the other night, delay is death on capitol hill, and so that is the decision that we had to take, and we took it with seriousness of purpose, that we promised voters across the country to deliver on these important things, and we are not going to leave behind women, communities

suffering from climate change. we are not going to leave behind immigrants, we're not going to leave behind all of these groups that actually were the ones who came out and delivered for us because a problem in american democracy is that people have lost faith in us, in government, that we actually will fight for working people and not just do what's easy, but actually fight to give transformative change and opportunity to people across this country. that's what we're going to do, and we'll believe that it actually will force people back to the negotiating table and make sure that we deliver both pieces. >> so this vote is slated tomorrow. there's no way it's going to -- pelosi is not going to bring it to the floor if it's going to go down. a very eventful 16 hours ahead of us. congresswoman pramila jayapal come back again and keep us updated on this, i appreciate it. thank you, chris. there's more breaking news out of congress. we have brand new subpoenas, a whole crop of them from the january 6th committee that give an interesting window into where

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just a little before we came on air, we got a second round of subpoenas from the house committee investigating january 6th. they have been issued for eleven trump roll associates involved in the events and the rallies leading up to the insurrection included that infamous rally where donald trump riled up the supporters and invited them down to the capitol right before they stormed the capitol. the committee is seeking documents and testimony from nearly a dozen people close to the trump campaign as well as the pro trump group women for america first, which organized the january 6th rally. lawmakers also want materials dealing with the planning, funding and participation of the events and bus tours, social media activity of associated entities and communications with or involvement of trump administration officials and lawmakers. one of the subpoenas was issued to katrina pierson, the national spokesperson for the trump 2016

campaign the first time he ran. the committee says she was in contact with the white house about events and rallies preceding the insurrection in 2021. specifically according to the subpoena issued to pierson, pierson met with then president trump himself in the oval office on january 4th. wood row swan has reported extensively on the fallout from the january 6th insurrection and joins me now. betsy, this is the second tranche of subpoenas, how would you characterize this group, what does it say about where the investigation is headed? >> this is the january 6th ellipse rally crew. it's the people who ran the stop the steal event that the president spoke at and from which protesters moved to the capitol and attacked the capitol. these people are the connective tissue between trump himself and the crowd that subsequently had, you know, numerous, numerous members break into the capitol

and participate in that insurrection. it's the stop the steal crew. i sort of jokingly think of them as the steal stoppers from a wide variety of different parts of the conservative and far right media ecosystem, some folks who are very high profile, katrina pierson is probably the biggest name on this list. she was the top spokesperson for trump's first presidential campaign, and then there's some interesting inclusions, one person who received a subpoena is the head of a company called rms protective services, a company i was not familiar with. i follow this stuff closely. what the subpoena said is that basically it indicates that his company appeared to somehow be providing security at the january 6th rally. at least that's my read of the subpoena. so i'll be very interested to see what they specifically asked that person, if they're curious if any of their workers might have over heard stuff in the green room, that we otherwise might not have known about. >> one of the other names, and it is, maggie mulvaney, the

niece of the nick mulvaney, i'm going to read here from the subpoena, according to press reports, those working with you and women for america first organized the january 6th rally collectively communicated with president trump, white house officials, including chief of staff mark meadows, and others about the rally, planned to coincide with the certification of the 2020 electoral college results. i follow this closely, too, and i had not known she was a character in this. >> it's a lot of characters to stay on top of, and that's one of the things that's making this select committee investigation so interesting. maggie mulvaney, there's also a person by that name with a linked in profile that tracks with her career that's now listed as a republican congressional staffer, it's safe to surmise that we're talking about the same person in the legislative databases it shows a republican congressional staffer named megan mulvaney, i think these are the same persons, if so it would be notable that congress has issued a subpoena to somebody who works for congress. that's something that we're keeping an eye on, running down,

and reaching out to the office that employs the person named maggie mulvaney. >> here's a key factual question that i don't think was answered and this points towards. we know that a happened and b happened, a was the rally that was organized by a bunch of groups. a bunch of people were brought to the capitol, the president went and spoke to them, right, we know the president said go down to the capitol because we have him on tape saying that, and then we know a bunch of those people went down to the capitol and broke into the capitol, and did things like chant hang mike pence and assault cops. the factual question is like, when they were planning the rally, was that the plan? right? was it the plan for those events to flow in precisely that order, and i don't think that's factually answered but it strikes me that getting at the rally organizers is part of getting to the bottom of that. >> no question. the obvious question that i'm sure that select committee

investigators will ask is what did you think was going to happen. >> right. >> what did these people expect was going to be step two, three, four after you bring a massive group of people into d.c., you get them really riled up with speeches that are incredibly incendiary, and then you say, let's all go to the capitol, because the fact is, these people were not working toward a political solution for the grievances that they had. >> correct. >> they were trying to use these heavy handed, and frankly as they became illegal tactics to stop a lawmaker process from playing out, and so the question is, were people thinking about the fact that these tactics were the tactics that they were. were they thinking about it, were they talking about it. what did they expect to happen. was there any conversation whatsoever along that front. obvious questions that i hope get answered. >> yeah, it's a really big sort of black box right now, that

stuff, and i do want to answer that as i know you do too. betsy woodruff swan, thank you very much. >> thank you. we released a unique episode of my podcast, in it, a phenomenal writer and journalist talks about who carries about some of society's most ethically troubling work, who sleeps well at night, and who doesn't. it's a fascinating exploration of the types of jobs we don't tend to and don't want to think about and why. i hope you check it out. despite the cries of tyranny, new evidence that vaccine requirements work, they work. we will show you next. work, th work we will show you next. they may have lost an eye, or their hearing, or their youthful good looks. but there's a lot of things these remarkable dogs haven't lost... like their ability to lick, wag, and love with the best of them.

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it's becoming more and more clear every day that vaccine mandates are working in this country to encourage the minority of people, small minor and shrinking who are still hesitant to get the shot. many of those on the right like republican governor ron desantis

of florida are crying tyranny, and looking for any excuse to rail against covid safety measures. desantis who's state has suffered a brutal outbreak has a new boogeyman to scare americans from keeping themselves healthy and alive. i have to say this one took me by a little surprise. >> you guys look at what's going on in australia right now, they're enforcing after a year and a half, they're still enforcing lock downs by the military, and that's not a free country. it's not a free country at all. in fact, i mean, you know, i wonder why we would still, you know, have the same diplomatic relations when they're doing that. i mean, is australia freer than china, communist china right now? i don't know. the fact that that's even a question tells you something has gone dramatically off the rails. >> actually, i know this one, it is freer than china at this point. it's not really a question. first of all, china has literal

internment camps where they have forcibly detained up to a million and a half people solely because of their religion and ethnicity according to the united nations, but ron desantis is railing against the democratic country of australia, our ally because he's throwing out the red meat, the anti-dr. fauci sentiment on the right, and that has decided that australia is the dystopian vision of covid inspired tyranny that democrats want to bring here to the u.s. let me say this, there's a little speck, a kernel of truth there. australia has been way way stricter on how they have handled covid than anywhere in the country from the very beginning. starting in march of last year, they closed their borders to everyone but citizens and residents. anyone allowed to return to the country from elsewhere had to spend two weeks in lock down at a hotel, and i mean like alone in a room with no visitors security guards in the hallways and all meals brought to your door kind of lock down.

domestic travel restrictions were put in place, meaning you couldn't go from one place to another. nearly all businesses were closed and australians were required to stay home except for essential purposes, punishable by fines or even jail time. a 21-year-old man in new south wales was fined $1,000 when he was spotted eating a kabob on a bench after ignoring two warnings by police a. 32-year-old woman and 27-year-old man were funed for sitting in their car without a reasonable excuse not to be at home. a man was sent to jail for sneaking to a hotel to see his girlfriend, breaking his mandatory quarantine after he flew from the eastern side of the country to the west. now, here in the u.s., we never had anything close to that. i mean, honestly there was no real enforcement of any of the so called lock downs, there were in terms of closing the businesses but even in the midst of the worst days of the pandemic, you could just get in your car and drive across several state lines to see your loved ones if you wanted to.

no one would stop you. heck, if you showed up at the airport at jfk in new york city, no one would check where you were going on what you were doing, just come on in. australia also had a lot more success suppressing the virus last year than we did. this is what sydney looked like last winter. while we were suffering from the worst wave of the pandemic, australians were back in restaurants, bars and shops. they had essentially eliminated covid from their island continent, and then the delta variant hit this summer, and much of australia plunged back into severe lock down. >> almost half of australia is back in lock down as multiple covid outbreaks grow across the country. queensland has become the latest state to impose stay-at-home orders on 4 million residents. nearly 6 million people in sydney and its surrounding regions are in the midst of a two-week lock down after the delta strain led to 149 cases. >> the streets of sydney are

almost deserted now. new covid outbreaks forcing many more australians into lock down than last year. internal state borders have been shut while international travel has been more or less banned for well over a year. . >> you hear that part where she said the lock downs were precipitated by 139 new cases. more than 5 million people in sydney have now been in lock down for more than two months. the border is still closed. australian citizens still need permission to leave or enter their own country. this week authorities announced sydney will come out of lock down last month as vaccination rates hit 70% and above. they have been a bit slow on vaccinations but will likely pass us in the u.s. shortly. again, they have been using extremely coercive methods against the virus, way more coercive and heavy handed than anywhere in the u.s., democrat, republic or whatever. so on that point, governor desantis isn't wrong. australia's lock down, in fact,

highlights that for all of the complaining on the right, the live free or die revolutionary war, and the people yelling at school boards about masks and screaming we know where you live, our response has been pretty light touch. in fact, it makes all this foam nating around tyranny sound a bit ridiculous. ron desantis is correct that australia chose a different path than florida or anywhere else, and certain freedoms have been curtained there, it's worth asking what kind of results have they gotten, how have they actually done against covid. it turns out australia has roughly the same population as florida. that makes for a useful comparison. florida's got about 21 1/2 medical people. australia has 26 million people, over the course of this pandemic, since last march, 1,256 people died from covid in australia. florida surpassed the entire pandemic death toll of australia in just one week at the height of the delta outbreak. over the same period of time,

florida had 54,000 deaths, adjusted for population, that would be more than 64,000 deaths in australia. it's not crazy to say that there are 63,000 aussies with friends and families and lives and dreams, just like you and me, engaged in all sorts of social, and spiritual, and economic activity, folks who are alive today walking around who would not be if they lived in florida. who would be dead. and that's just one state. our country's lost nearly 700,000 people. yes, there are some tradeoffs at the extremes, between freedom and public health measures, and yes it is the job of policy makers to make those difficult calls and decide between those two extremes informed by the science, and it's also the case that for all the hysterical whining about tyranny, the biden administration has been, i think, balancing those comparatives pretty well.

look at their big new policy, this is the one republicans are up in arms for, it's a fundraising gold mine, and comparing it to the literal gestapo. it's a vaccine requirement for health care workers, a vaccine requirement for federal workers and a vaccine requirement for large employers over 100 people, which you can opt out of by taking a test a week. again, compare that to getting fined if you leave your house for a kabob or arrested if you break quarantine to visit your girlfriend. this is the balance the biden administration has chosen between public health and liberty, and guess what it's working. we're getting evidence from places that have started implementing vaccine, and their showing relatively light coercion is producing results. united airlines announced less than 1% of their 67,000 work force did not comply with the mandate. trinity health, one of the first major hospital chains said the percentage of its vaccinated staff has increased from 79% to 94%. since tyson foods announced its vaccine mandate last month, its

vaccination rate has gone from 50% to 80% with the deadline still more than a month away. we are never going to get back the people we've lost, the 700,000 lives we've lost. that's what's so brutal and enraging about the policy mistakes america has made at all levels, we can't undo them. they're permanent. we can act to protect other people, to protect our fellow americans from meeting the same fate, and right now, that's what the biden administration is doing. now, that's what the biden administration is doing. a choice that requires no explanation. it's where safe and daring seamlessly intersect. it's understated, yet over-delivers. it is truly the mercedes-benz of sports sedans. lease the 2021 c 300 sedan for just $449 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer.

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♪♪ kathleen sebelius came to attention as the governor of kansas. president obama appointed her to be his first secretary of health and human services. she was worn in amidst the swine

flu epidemic of 2009. she's seen a thing or two. and i'm happy to be joined by her now. i want to start on the first point, which is that policy in all these cases amount to judgment calls made by elected representatives invested with democratic authority by the people. that can't just be the science. they're built on the science, but there are tradeoffs and calls that policymakers are going to have to make in all these situations. >> you bet, chris. it's good to be with you. you're absolutely right. but i think the fundamental job that any elected official, particularly in an executive branch agency, a governor, a president, a mayor, looks at the safety and health of the constituents he or she serves. then the economy, and other things. but protecting the people is

fundamental. and you use all the resources possible. i think what president biden has done is balance between what the science says and trying to cajole, encourage, make it easy for people to follow the science. and when that turned out not to be as effective, then he turned to more hardened mandates. but what people don't have a right to do is make other people sick. put other people in jeopardy. risk other people's lives, risk children's lives. and so i think the president has been walking a line of balancing science and safety and security at every step along the way. hoping that the mass majority of the american public would follow that lead. >> i mean, i think you even see it in this employers over 100

employees policy. it's done through osha, it makes sense, because it's a workplace safety issue if there ever is one. and there's this option, people can go get tested once a week. is that a pain? yes. but it helps keep people safe. and even having that shows to me the degree to which policymakers in this country broadly and up to the white house including the president are really thinking about this question about coercion, choice, about america's fidelity to its cherished liberties and freedoms. >> i think you're right. it's a lot like secondhand smoke. you have a right to be a smoker. the science is very clear what smoking will do to you, what cancer will be caused, what kinds of health conditions. you have a right to be a smoker. you don't have a right to smoke

next to my desk, to blow smoke on people, on my children. to force me to live in a housing facility where i am subjected to more smoke. that is a line that we have in this country, which delineates what your individual rights are. and i think we're looking at very much the same situation. osha, you're absolutely right, has always provided guidance and mandates about safety in a workplace. this is not a safe workplace if i'm working with a person that may make me and my family sick. and that's not acceptable. >> i'm glad you brought up smoking. i think it's a really good historical precedent. we're getting to all-time lows in the percentage of americans

who smoke, and in the number of individual cigarettes consumed a year, and all-time lows in teen smoking. it's a huge triumph of public health. it's a combination of litigation, social shaming, elite consensus, and it's been a huge success. there were people that complained at every step. and you have to be a nihilistic sociopath to say, i wish we could go back to people lighting it up on planes. >> i remember when the smoking section of the plane was at the back of the plane, and all they did was puff their smoke, and it came forward. oh, this was a brilliant strategy. and people suggesting that if restaurants had no smoking, nobody would go out to eat anymore. and bars, nobody would drink anymore.

none of that has come to pass. and we have a lot of people alive today who would be dead if they had not just chosen to smoke themselves, or if they had been subjected to secondhand smoking. >> and florida had a really bad outbreak, one of the worst. we've seen a decline in their arrival ratings since delta hit. but it's also amazing to me how death on the scale that we're dealing with doesn't seem to have the political impact i thought it would. >> unfortunately, i think we're seeing a situation where i know a lot of people, i hear it every day, where people look at the death statistics, which are horrifying, almost 700,000 of our fellow americans have died. and they don't believe it. >> yeah. >> this is part of fake news. >> yeah. >> so until it's your family member, your child, your relative, your grandfather, your

whatever, people are saying, people are making those up. we're inflating the numbers. and that's an unfortunate ongoing part of this. but for a governor of a state to say it's okay to lose as many people every day as australia has lost in the entire pandemic, shame on him. shame on him. >> kathleen, always good to get a chance to talk to you. thank you for your time tonight. >> nice to talk to you. >> that is all in, "the rachel maddow show" starts now. >> good evening. happy to have you here. there's a lot going on this hour. tonight, we'll be speaking with congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez. she'll be here live with us in just a few minutes. it is of course just over 24 hours now until we're facing an absolutely pointless federal government shutdown tomorrow at midnight. i say that it is absolutely

pointless