to the cia, so much so that he didn't even want to brief president trump on it. he was afraid it would make him look bad. he was told he had to do so. trump says a very interesting comment for this story, while denying that he ever requested information about a possible assassination. he says assange has been treated unfairly. this is the guy his own administration then later indicted and now here trump is reverting to his earlier sympathy for julian assange and wikileaks no doubt remembering all the help they gave him in the 2016 election. >> you said it, this is jason bourne stuff. everyone should read this article right now. it is deeply fascinating. michael isikoff, thank you very much. >> sure enough, thank you. and "new day" continues right now. >> i'm brianna keilar alongside john berman on this "new day." the active threat to america's

democracy intensifying this morning underscored by a big confession from the former president, donald trump, and the massive manhunt for brian laundrie enters its third week as the fbi searched his home, collecting personal items and anything they could find for possible dna testing. the week from hell as congress heads into tumultuous full days, deadlines and chaotic negotiations, what this means for you and what it means for the biden agenda as it hangs in the balance. a former dsa official who once led the intelligence branch is speaking out fort first time, the intelligence he says was covered up because it made the former president look bad. good morning to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. it is monday, september 27th,

and america's democracy is in peril as the republican party continues to sow doubt about the outcome of the 2020 election and threatens to wreak havoc on elections in 2022 and 2024. the party's ring leader and for now the front-runner for the nomination is the big lie's biggest cheerleader. >> the former president confessed that a rally in georgia that he called republican governor brian kemp in the wake of the 2020 election and asked him to hold a special election. he wanted kemp to hold an election to throw out the results of the november election and do a new one all based on trump's lies about voter fraud. >> let me handle it. i'll call him up. "brian, you have a big election integrity problem in georgia. i hope you can help us out and call a special election and let's get to the bottom of it for the good of the country. let's get to the bottom of it for the good of your state."

election integrity, what could be better than that? "sir, i'm sorry, i cannot do that." let me tell you, this guy is a disaster. he's a disaster. >> joining me now, bill crystal, former chief of staff for vice president dan quayle and director of defending democracy together. this is the president saying it out loud the former president. he's not embarrassed by his public in broad daylight lies about the 2020 election. >> good morning, john and brianna. you said he confessed in a legal sense, as ben said correctly he's not embarrassed. the key is he can't be embarrassed and not going to apologize. the whole point is to normalize this and the republican party is carrying this message of denying the facts about the election and committing in a sense to the possibility at least of overturning the next one, it's

not just donald trump. so the whole point of the enterprise here is not to apologize, not to cover it up. it's to normalize this. >> the point is in 2020, the point is 2024. >> totally. maybe a little bit 2022 incidentally and states where there might be close elections. no, the point is that trump as a party -- if donald trump were an ex-president put wailing away at the injustices done to him and sulking and screaming and yelling and everyone was ignoring him that would be one thing. he dominates the party. mitch mcconnell said last week that he is fine with all these candidates who are running as almost exaggerated versions of trump in different senate primaries and totally embracing the election law. here in virginia a candidate tried to put a little distance from trump delicately but basically will not repudiate the election law, will not say he would have voted if he were a member of congress to uphold the

election of january 6th. we have a political party that is being organized to possibly overturn the results of the election in 2024 and the voters of that party and voters in general are being taught this is no big deal. in fact, this is kind of what it means to be a tough, good republican and not to be a wimp like brian kemp. that's why trump goes after brian kemp so much. he wants to purge people like kemp from the party and make it difficult or impossible for republicans to succeed in elective office. if they resist he's okay with some being quiet but if they're quiet they'll ultimately go along. >> you bring up georgia glenn youngkin who refuses to say how he would have voted to certify the election on january 6th where he were in congress. he refuses to say it. that should be a lay-up question for anyone who believes in truth and the silence there, you know, isn't option three. i'm not going to address this. silence itself does something,

which is what liz cheney was saying in an interview last night. listen to what she says. >> when you look at the spread of these mistruths and the spread of the disinformation, silence enables it. silence enables the liar, and silence helps it to spread. when we allow that to continue to go on in the face of rulings of the courts, in the face of recounts, in the face of everything that's gone on to demonstrate that there was not fraud, that would have changed the outcome, then we all, if we do that, we are contributing to the undermining of our system, and it's a really serious and dangerous moment because of that. >> she is saying, bill, the republicans can't just look the other way. >> i think she said that extremely well. "silence is acquiescence, silence is enabling," and taking this kind of, you know, trying to be cute about it is also

enabling, and the question is, will people pay a price, though? voters, it's unclear whether if you're a republican operative you think it's terrible that trump cost, may have cost republicans those two seats in georgia on january 5th, but that's not what the whole party thinks and not the way the party is behaving and not clear where voters are honestly. my colleague sarah longwell has done focus group with many voters and reluctant, people who left trump -- swing voters who stuck with trump reluctantly and what's striking is somehow it has not been brought home to them how dangerous the situation is. they kind of look at it, not paying close attention honestly and they see the parties are squabbling and maybe there was some election, some problems with the election and who's to say? you let this stuff go, though, you don't confront it, it really could become deeply damaging to our democracy and again, the people who most effective at

confronting it would be republicans, people who might have voted for trump once or sympathetic to the policy goals of some of the policy goals of trump. that's why liz cheney is such an important figure, liz cheney and adam kinzinger. how many of them are there, john? >> you just named two and there may be a couple more but it's not much more than that. i got to let you go but constitutional crisis as written over the weekend, is it a crisis? >> it's a crisis for democracy. >> bill kristol, thank you for being with us this morning. a potentially significant development in the gabby petito beth investigation. on sunday the fbi was back at the laundrie family home in florida to collect personal items belonging to her fiance, brian laundrie. they appear to be trying to match dna samples here. here to try to help us understand more of the challenges in this case, zeke unger, a bounty hunter and fugitive investigator with over 40 years of experience. zeke, first thing's first.

what does this tell you they're trying to collect items it appears they're using for dna comparison. what does that tell you? >> i think it tells us two things. one is that they're trying to pin him directly to the homicide by using dna samples, and also that they want to start using k9s and possibly that dna in a sense will allow the k9s to do what they do very well, to attempt to locate the fugitive. >> okay, so look, he's not being called a suspect at this point, just to be clear here. he's certainly being investigated for sending money, at least $1,000 that was not his, right? he's obviously they're intensely interested and there is a manhunt under way. with that, knowing that you have searched for many individuals, where do you start with this? how do you go about searching for someone in this situation? >> the first thing is i believe he is a suspect and they're just not letting that out yet.

i believe they havening they're not disseminating to the public. never assume, always investigate. they have a lot of leads coming n different parts of the country. the problem is he's evaded twice, evaded detectives on his interview and also evaded by giving false information to his parents, which was disseminated to law enforcement and law enforcement took the red herring and went to florida deep in the swamp there to look for him for a week, which gave him the ability to have a week's jump on law enforcement, so you have to be very careful about chasing red hergz in the fugitive game. you have to look at fact and conduct your investigation accordingly. >> you took no credence in what he told his parents or family and no credence in what the family related to law enforcement sounds like. where does that lead this search using perhaps social media,

using tips and that kind of thing. where do you go from here in a search like this? >> i think you have to stand down momentarily and take a big look at the totality of the circumstances surrounding the investigation and then what you do is you reach out to law enforcement areas in which you think that the suspect may be in, along with social media. you have to remember that fugitives will usually go where they feel comfortable. many fugitives are caught within miles of their home. he spent a lot of time in the appalachians. i'm starting to gear my investigation towards the appalachian ridge, rural and easy to hide. also everyone's wearing masks right now, so it's hard for facial recognition, so when your tips are coming in, it makes it harder to disseminate whether that is actually your target or not. >> zeke, this is the hunt that

continues and we appreciate you being with us to talk about it. zeke unger, thanks. >> thank you for having me. the week from hell on capitol hill, so much hangs in the balance, possible shutdown, arguments about paying the debt, infrastructure. we'll tell you how lawmakers are dealing with this in this last-minute push to get through president biden's agenda. built for trauma, not for an influx of covid patients. dr. sanjay gupta takes us inside the hospital where he has worked for 20 years and we'll talk about the challenges that the staff is now facing. and the dhs whistle-blower to says former president trump wanted the u.s. to lie about russia, the border and white supremacy. to run a growing business, is to be on a journey. and along the ride, you'll find many challenges. your dell technologies advisor is here to help. so you can stop at nothing for your customers.

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but the thing they'll remember forever? watching the game together once again. ♪ the time for getting back together is now. ♪ find it on vrbo. a week from hell, that is what one democratic member of congress says is now upon them in washington, with legislative deadlines colliding and president biden's agenda at stake, there's the threat of a government shutdown and the possible default on the u.s. debt. today senate majority leader chuck schumer plans to hold a key test vote to fund the government and raise the debt limit which pays debts already incurred by the united states. tomorrow and wednesday, the house may take up the $3.5 trillion spending package over ten years, that has divided democrats. the divide between moderates and

progressives threatening to sink the spending bill which in the words of one prominent democrat would be "disastrous." debate on the bipartisan crafted trillion-dollar infrastructure bill begins today in the house. speaker nancy pelosi says a vote on that will be held on thursday. federal government is set to run out of money on friday if congress doesn't pass a new government funding bill by then. so a major player in all of this, this week, is west virginia democratic senator joe manchin, who is trying to bend the domestic agenda to his will. the democrat is opposed to the top-line number of $3.5 trillion in spending over ten years, but what were the plans inside that proposal actually do for his constituents, for the people in west virginia? john avlon with the reality check. >> all roads to the democrats' chance of success this week seem to go through west virginia, whose senators joe manchin in a make or bake position for the

biden presidency and the razor thin democratic majority. there's been a lot written about the red state democrats disproportionate influence, much along the lines of the kanye west lyric "no one man should have all that power." there might be strategic symbiosis here. west virginia would benefit big time and democrats benefit big time from more red state representatives. the reason they can't afford to lose a vote is because they literally have no margin for error and right now the clock's ticking as they count the hours. so let's start with facts first. west virginia is a one-time democratic stronghold that swung right going from an all-democratic house delegation in 1998 to an all republican state in 2014. manchin is the only democrat in the state's congressional delegation winning re-election in 2018 between donald trump's two 68% wins. no joe manchin no democratically controlled senator. john denver called the state

"almost heaven" going into this hell week, west virginia has more than its share of challenges with the largest population of drop in the u.s. over the past decade. it has the sixth highest poverty rate in the nation, unemployment is now below the national average at 5% but with almost one in five children living in poverty, that's before the pandemic, west virginia would benefit from the extension of the child tax credit, child nutrition programs and universal pre-k proposed in the democrats' budget. likewise only 40% of the state had dental insurance as of 2012. proposed expansion to cover dental as well as vision and hearing make a difference in people's lives. a lot of the debate concerns climate change mitigation and clean energy and west virginia is of course coal country. that's been a powerful culture war wedge issue used against liberal environmentalists. many of the proposalals are about incentivizing investment. it would create thousands of new jobs moving to nearly 80%

emission-free power generation by 2030 and hard infrastructure, the other trillion-dollar bipartisan bill hanging in the balance now. west virginia got d grade frlz the american society of civil engineers for bridges, dams, roads, drinking water, waste water. 21% of the state's bridges are structurally deficient, three times the national average. the proposals put billions into rural broadband could help the fact that internet service in west virginia is slower and more expensive than the rest of the country. this is not to say there isn't room for pruning and negotiation, which manchin will do, citing excessive spending and concerns about inflation but big picture, biden is betting the democrats can begin to win back some of the blue collar voters they've lost in recent decades by delivering on bread and butter economic issues while side-stepping some of the culture war debates that have cost them rural and red state votes. progressives attempted to balk at a redux of lgj's great society ignore the fact he had

super majorities in the house and senate including a lot of rural representation. under biden there aren't the margins to make the perfect of the enemy the good and there's no room to punt another quarter with the midterm elections looming. it's time to put up or shut up. that's your "reality check." >> he's got to be able to go back and explain proposals to his constituents. sounds like if he explained a lot of what's in this bill to the constituent, maybe they'd like it >> that's exactly right. this is stuff designed to help people who have been struggling for a long time, describes a lot of voters in west virginia, that's what this bill is designed to do. >> john avlon, thank you very much. a former department of homeland security whistle-blower now speaking publicly says the trump team manipulated intelligence in return to a white house would be a disaster. he joins us next.

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a department of homeland security whistle-blower is speaking out publicly for the

first time. brian murphy, the acting undersecretary for intelligence at dhs during the trump administration says trump appointees covered up intelligence about russian interference and white supremacy because those topics made the then president look bad. they are shedding light on allegations he previously made in a whistle-blower complaint last year. murphy a republican and voted for trump in 2016 says he faced "intense pressure" to take intelligence and fit a political narrative. murphy's last day at dhs was on friday, and he is with us now to talk about this. thank you so much for being with us today. >> thank you for having me. >> you said you were told to lie about multiple topics. which topics? >> so it was really anything that made the president look like. from the moment i arrived, three main topics that would draw the ire of the administration, anything to do with white

supremacy, russian disinformation and the southwest border. >> why? because it made the president look bad? >> that was it, yes. they were topics i assume the president did not want to be addressed, did not want to hear about and did not want anybody else to hear about. >> did officials confront the fact that ignoring these things could be problematic? >> i think it was more than ignoring them. it was to manipulate the intelligence to fit that political narrative. they did not want things to come out but shape it in a way that would support the president's objectives. >> ken cuccinelli, a top official in the trump administration, tell us about the interaction with him. was this in person? what is it he say? >> i met with ken cuccinelli and chad wolfe to brief them on intelligence. many points articulated to him i

was concerned what was happening, i thought it was unethical and probably violations of law. he would constantly tell me to keep my mouth shut and to do what he said and i refused. >> you started complaining. this whistle-blower complaint wasn't the only time. >> right after i arrived at dhs in 2018 from the fbi it was intense. the three issues were immediately told to me that these are things that are going to come out or change the narrative intelligence, i issue my first ig complaint in 2018, really four or five months after i arrived and again in march of 2019. by the time it came to 2020, i had a target on my back. i was told they knew i had the complaint and it was a matter of time before i'd get fired. >> who basically said we need to change the narrative and did

they actually use words like "change the narrative"? >> so i was told by virtually all the senior departmental officials, chad wolfe, ken kuchie and many words. "i'm ordering to you change the outcome of these products" the intelligence products we would do and i told them many times that i would not do that and if they kept the pressure up i would go to congress or use the whistle-blower path to make sure it was addressed. >> ken cuccinelli demanded you modify the homeland secthreat assessment. >> we completed the threat assessment in march of 2020. it doesn't go out for months. the reason for that is ken cuccinelli and chad wolfe and others consistently wanted several areas changed. one was on white supremacy part

and the other was the russia disinformation. >> did they say why that made president trump look bad? >> because of the president's statement in charlottesville and more as the spring and summer of 2020 went along as it related to the murder of george floyd and otherenings in that time era, it would make the president look bad. those were his exact words. >> white supremacy anti golf extremism, we saw some of the fruits of that january 6th during the insurrection. do you think this denialism affected preparedness for january 6th? >> absolutely. and the organization that i led my predecessor is on the january

6th committee and shut all of those things down, all of the safeguards we had in place and i'm confident my team would have found it. i'm positive they would have found it but strikingly joseph maher sits on the committee investigating himself, which i am baffled why one, we would take that job and two, why they chose to put him on the committee. >> i do want to ask you about the response from some of these officials that you of course pointed a finger at, for instance, chad wolf, the then dhs chief has disparaged your skr credibility and said you're part of violating legal requirements when it came to reporting on journalists during the activities in portland, the portland violence that we saw. i want to listen to something that chad wolf said. >> regarding the intelligence and analysis whistle-blower complaint from mr. murphy is patently false. it's a fabrication, completely. i reject any claim that i

attempted to influence or retaliate against any individual at dhs but specifically mr. murphy. >> what's your reaction to that? >> so my reaction is that there was a pattern at dhs covering many areas of which just articulated and chad was a part of that. at no point did me or any member of my team ever collect information on reporters or violate any law or anything along those lines. >> so he's lying? >> i think that he has a credibility problem that, when he removed me, he told me that he knew that there was no violations in place but he was tired of me not being a team player and that he was up for confirmation and concerned about the optics that he would to have face from the media. i'm not surprised the media reacted the way they did. everything that was coming from the department at that time i didn't believe it. it was like walking in a hall of mirrors on a supplanted floor, all twisted and turned upside down but yeah, let me be unequivocally clear.

at no point did me or anyone else collect on journalists for journalists' sake. we were collecting on content which was publicly available, and i would also add that i've been told by multiple people now the inspector general has completed the report, my organization's activity in portland and completely cleared me, and i would like to see that report come out. i've never read it so i can't -- i don't know fully what it says but i'm willing to see what it has to say. that's what i've been told. i'd like to see the inspector general release it. i have no idea why they haven't. >> brian thank you for joining us in studio to talk about this. it is great to finally hear from you personally about this. >> thank you. >> thank you, brian murphy. >> there's something so powerful about hearing someone so matter-of-fact about something so important. it really, to hear him just flat out say yeah, they made my lai because they told me it would make the president look bad, it really, it blows you away. >> yes, and to be going into work day in, day out and that's

what you're hearing but i think that's part of the pattern that we're seeing john with some of these whistle-blowers is you just get the sense truly a lot of these folks, these folks are really just, they're just servants, they are just going about their work. a lot of them are not trying to attract the attention a whistle-blower does and initially a lot of the complaints they filed were things to deal with the situation internally and eventually it becomes public and they find themselves thrust into the spotlight >> these are about important things, the rise of white supremacy, white supremacist violations. we don't want to talk about that because it makes the president look bad. really, this makes you sit up straight when you hear brian murphy talk about that. >> it does. we need to know about these topics for sure. today, new york may tap the national guard to replace unvaccinated health care workers to fill hospital staffing shortages. plus the governor of west virginia begging his state to

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west virginia governor gym justice is pleading with his residents to get vaccinated. >> this is our fourth surge and it didn't have to happen. it didn't have to happen. if we would have just gotten vaccinated. everybody is encouraging you to get vaccinated, and we know this, that if you don't, it will be more and more and more and more and it's just going to keep on going. you don't need to die. you don't need to get sick to make a point. the owning thing that i have in my arsenal to make this get b better is for you to get vaccinated. >> joining me cnn senior data reporter, why is governor justice pleading this much this hard? >> it's pretty simple why he's pleading this much this hard. less than 50% of the adult population fully vaccinated,

it's only one state, folks. it's only west virginia, with just 48% of the adult population fully vaccinated. every single other state in the nation has at least 50% of all adults vaccinated, west virginia unfortunately is last. >> now the reason we are focusing on this, harry, it was not always us. >> no. >> west virginia was a success story about vaccinations early on. >> it was a success story. it wasn't that long ago on march 5th, where did they rank on adult vaccinations? they ranked fourth. they were in the top five. they were consistently held up as the success story. unfortunately now 50th, last from fourth to 50th. terrible. >> what happened? >> politics, that's essentially what happened. there are variables highly correlated with lower vaccine uptick. noncollege educate adults. the higher you are the less your state gets vaccinated, first in the nation west virginia.

west virginia second highest in the nation. national politics is getting in the way of public health. >> if they had more vaccinations i would think these numbers would not nearly be as bad. seven-day new case average third highest, current hospitalizations, highest. seven-day death average, fifth highest. lower vaccinations, higher case loads, higher hospitalizations, higher deaths. >> justice is pleading with them to get vaccinated. are they listening? >> unfortunately not. we've seen as cases go up, states that even have low vaccination levels tend to get more vaccinations. that has not happened in west virginia. in the last week they ranked 50th in new vaccinations among adults and since september 1st, again, 50th. so no, they are not listening. >> governor justice is pleading

for his people to get vaccinated. he's not in favor of vaccine mandates. what have we seen in terms of how effective they can be in certain situations? >> i think the airlines kind of prove a pretty good test of this. we have united essentially saying if you aren't going to get vaccinated, you're going to be terminated. look at this. 97% of united employees are fully vaccinated. now look at what happens with delta. what they're essentially saying you're going to pay a $200 monthly fee if you're not vaccinated. just 82% of them are "vaccinated." so when you compare these two, what we're seeing is that when you put in a full and actual mandate it really, really, really works. >> they have 13,000 as of last week, 13,000 people unvaccinated and the question is, you know, why not do the united plan if

it's that much more effective? >> you'll have to ask them. the numbers clearly show that vaccine mandates do work. >> harry, thank you very much. >> thank you. the surge in cases among the unvaccinated is forcing a top georgia hospital that's built for trauma to decide if it even has the room to take in all emergency patients. cnn's dr. sanjay gupta works there and he gives us an inside look. >> how unusual is what we're experiencing right now? >> this is very unusual. >> reporter: grady memorial hospital. this is the hospital where i work, where i've been a neurosurgeon for more than two years, a level one trauma center. almost nothing a hospital like this can't handle. >> there was one sunday evening, 27 gunshot victims brought to

grady. 27. >> take a pandemic and unvaccinated people. >> we can't do it. >> diversion, you have to dithert patients away. drg dr. robert janson never wants to happen but covid-19 has changed everything here. >> 20-bedouinity, this morning 14 covid patients just on this unit alone. >> up in the intensive care unit it's almost eerily quiet. no indication of the tremendous suffering happening behind closed doors. the yellow bags are full of ppe and everyone knows those are the rooms with covid patients. how much of what you're seeing is truly due to the unvaccinated? >> it's more challenging than the first covid wave we had, they're going more quick, this variant is quick.

>> this is the board we use in the gcc to coordinate ambulances. >> reporter: we're now in the georgia coordinating center. this is where they work moment to moment, trying to decide where ambulances can actually take patients. >> if it's red that means they're full. there are occasions when they're made to wait without taking the patient inside, it's called on the wall where they're kept outside of the emergency room with the patient back of the ambulance waiting to be able to go inside. we don't allow that here. >> reporter: even if you're vaccinated and done all the right things because of the pandemic because of the unvaccinated it affects you. >> it is. we talk delaying surgery because we don't have a place to put you after the operation. that is a consequence of this pandemic and related directly to the lack of vaccination. >> reporter: it's when hospitals are on diversion that the toughest decisions of all need

to be made. who gets treated. who doesn't. what's the practical impact on me. i was driving here, got in a car accident. >> we take care of anybody who comes. what we've had to do is cancel patients who would require hospitalization following surgery and now we've canceled other patients hospitalizations. the downstream effect is devastating at times. every morning i come in and go through every covid patient, determine who is on ventilators. i have to report the deaths. >> even as we're talking we learned someone passed away around the corner. >> unfortunately, it's a daily event. >> reporter: how frustrate something all this for you? >> well, personally it's frustrating but what i worry about is our staff. >> natural humanistic part of you that says how many more can

you take? when it's in your heart to care, you keep coming. you keep coming. >> reporter: keep coming, because that's exactly what the virus will do. dr. sanjay gupta, cnn, atlanta. >> consequences, right? this is the consequences of a lot of people's decisions right now, it has an impact across the board. >> it is so upsetting to know that all of that could have been averted, and they're just talking about it like someone else died. it's just happening every day. it's happening multiple times a day, and not only is it affecting the people who are passing away. we think of their families, and also just thinking of the hospital staff there. we've heard this, john, from so many doctors who are talking about what their nurses are dealing with. i can't imagine the trauma that they're going through. this next story has democrats saying here we go again. mitch mcconnell not ruling out blocking a potential biden supreme court pick.

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neuriva. think bigger. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell is reminding democrats just how important the 2020 midterms are shaking up to be. when asked about blocking a supreme court pick, he said he'll, quote, cross those bridges when i get there. we're focusing on '22. i don't rule anything in or out about how to handle nominations if i'm in the majority position. of course, you'll remember mcconnell blocked the merrick garland nomination in 2016. joining us now is the justice correspondent for the nation magazine. tell us, first off, how you think this is affecting justice

breyer's conversation about what he's going to do? >> it's hard to answer that question because stephen breyer might be the only person on the planet who thinks this is a news story. mitch mcconnell saying he potentially will block another nominee, that's not new news. we all know what he's going to do. stephen myer has been on a national gaslighting tour explaining the supreme court is not part of the institution. he's completely wrong about that. if he believes that, he's naive like little red riding hood bouncing around the woods. even she had sense to run away from the wolf when the wolf was b b baring his teeth. hard to know. he doesn't care. it's hard when he thinks his own

self-regard is he has to be in this job for ever and ever and ever. >> look. he may decide he doesn't want to be. we'll see, you know. there's obviously a political component that has gotten significantly more i don't want to say severe. i guess you could say severe. what is the long-term effect of that? >> the supreme court nomination process is broken. the person who broke it was mitch mcconnell. he took the unprecedented step of blocking a nominee, refusing to even have a hearing, refusing to have a hearing on a nominee by the president, and he received no punishment for that. democrats didn't punish him. voters didn't punish him. the court itself didn't punish hichl him. neil gorsuch didn't. mitch mcconnell will continue do

his court-breaking political maneuvers, and until the democrats grow some kind of -- i don't want to say backbone because it sounds like i'm pulling things out of the air. there are concrete things democrats could do to depoliticize the court. one would be to expand the number of justices on the supreme court so each individual confirmation bat sri lanka not a life-or-death decision. if one goes down, that's a huge political ideal. if there were 19 justices, 29 justices as there are on the ninth circuit court, they could do it in a bipartisan position, you get five, i get five. they won't do that, so mitch mcconnell is going to keep winning the street brawl as long as we let him. >> this is certainly going to continue to be a battleground.

elie mystal, thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me on. we're going to go to capitol hill. lawmakers waking up this morning and bracing for a week of hell. ♪ we are the next. the next generation of visionaries. rule breakers. game changers. and world beaters. we certainly aren't here to do what's been done before.

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it's the rohr-breaking stuff. justin tucker with the baltimore ravens with a 66-yard field goal t longest in nfl history gave a victory over the lions. yes, it represents a new painful way for the lions to lose. the story here is that may be one of the most amazing things you'll ever see. >> i always wonder how they have the confidence to say i'm going to try something like this. it's crazy. >> all right. cnn's coverage continues right now. good monday morning. i'm erica hill. >> and i'm jim sciutto. it is a critical week in washington, lawmakers facing key votes on the debt ceiling, infrastructure, and the multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation bill, what could be a make-or-break week for president biden's agenda. today's vote on the infrastructure bill scrapped. hous