there, so it's starting fresh. it feels like sanctuary. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thanks for watching. ♪♪ first up on msnbc, as the nation battles to contain the delta variant, florida sets a new record in covid cases and hospitalizations this week, and it's all ahead of a monster truck event that's expected to draw huge crowds, but despite the crisis in florida, the governor is going after president biden and railing against possible restrictions. >> i'm the governor who protects parents in their ability to

protect their kids' education. i protect jobs by not letting the federal government lock us down. regarding the insurrection, preparing to send out subpoenas any day now, this as another republican joins. >> we can't worry whether we have an "r" or "d" next to our name. it's time to look at it in a fact-based way on what happened january 6th. u.s. men's basketball winning their fourth straight gold. we'll also talk to an olympian trail blazer, who's helped pave the way for big changes. and for only a second time in its history, the peace corps is being mobilized for a mission right here in the united states. good morning, everybody. it's saturday, august 7th. i'm lindsey reiser.

>> and i'm kendis gibson. it's the last weekend we get to look at the beautiful shots of tokyo as the sun sets right there. it looks beautiful, but there's a tropical system that's expected to impact on these last 24 hours. >> can they get a break. >> not much of a break at all. it's the second time we've had a tropical system -- >> indeed. >> -- during the course of these games. our correspondents and analysts are joining us from tokyo and tampa this morning. we're going to begin with the troubling new developments stemming from the delta variant. covid cases surging at an alarming rate. look at the red, the deep dark red, many states surpassing peaks when the vaccine was not even available. >> the u.s. is reporting 1 million new cases. and the average is up 40% from last week. about half of new infections are in seven southern states. we showed you the heat map

incluing florida and louisiana. >> then there is florida. florida is breaking another single-day record, reporting 122,000 new cases and 199 new deaths. louisiana in the meantime grappling with its worst surge this week, record-breaking numbers in hospitalizations and cases, over 22,000 cases in the past seven days. >> now at least 50 hospitals say they're overwhelmed and can't care for all the patients coming in. what's the biden administration to do? using federal powers. >> mike, i'm going to start with you. the white house has now confirmed it's considering some options to compel vaccination, even withholding funds if necessary. what more do we know about this? >> yeah, kendis, good morning. the good news is we saw for the

first time yesterday more than 50% of all americans have been vaccinated, an important milestone, but the bad news, you mentioned it, we're now seeing an average of 100,000 new cases, the highest level since mid-february, and more concerning, the highest level of hospitalizations since march. primarily in pockets of the deep south where we've seen the vaccination rates far lower, that's leading to concern and frustration by the biden administration that's been trying to do everything it can to stem the rise of this virus, but it's facing a lot of political opposition. so biden administration officials stressing these conversations about potentially withholding federal funding, using the resources of medicare funding for nursing homes as an example to require institutions, to require they have their staff be vaccinated. all these options are on the table as jen psaki put it

yesterday as part of a wartime effort to defeat the virus. you mentioned florida. that's where we've seen an increasing war of words between the governor and the white house. take a listen to jen psaki yesterday speaking about the governor's actions. >> i think i've spoken to this a few times, but i will say as a parent myself, i have two young children that i want public health officials to make decisions about how to keep my kids safe, not politicians. not only is governor desantis not abiding by it, he's fund-raising off of this. >> now, you remember just a month ago when president biden traveled down to florida. i was with him. he sat side by side with governor desantis talking about the surfside tragedy. both of them were praising one another. a very different situation here. psaki telling me this week she doesn't want to start a political food fight here, but there's very real concern these

governors are standing in the way of progress. >> stephanie, we heard the war of words, but governor desantis is dealing with a massive surge in cases and now a lawsuit over his decision not to mandate masks? >> indeed. in fact, there are many local governments here in the florida area who are, you know, pushing back against governor desantis. just last week he signed an executive order making masks optional for children, leaving that decision, if you will, in the hands of parents, and this is as millions of schoolchildren here in the state of florida are expected to go back to class next week. we're here outside raymond james stadium in the tampa area, and in just a few hours from now, there will be a huge back-to-school event kicking off here. 35,000, 40,000 people here expected at the stadium. they're going to have not only free school supplies and entertainment, but they're also going to be offering free covid

shots, and that is because officials are attempting to boost vaccination rates here in the state of florida. when we talk about vaccinations, according to the most recent numbers just released by the florida department of public health, 63% of people in the state over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated with about 70% having one shot. when you include the number on a broader perspective of children of all residents, that number drops to just 49%. and that is the problem are those vaccination rates, among many other things happening here. in fact, according to the latest numbers of the department of public health, as of last week, more than 134,000 people battling coronavirus here in the state. and you talk about those hospitalization numbers. florida broke its record for hospitalizations. so far across the state, nearly 12,000 people in the hospital battling coronavirus. this is also overwhelming

hospital systems. and, lindsey and kendis, one of the hospitals in the bay area has scaled back on its elective surgeries because of the surge of covid patients. >> you've got that monster jam about three hours south of you. thanks for getting us started. things are so bad in louisiana and florida that a leading infectious disease expert had this to say. >> if florida and louisiana were countries and not states, they would be number one and two in the world for the incidence of covid. >> that really is striking right there. we do have experts from both of those states to cover the staggering numbers and situations in those states. dr. arlene marti is an infectious disease expert and dr. patel is the chief medical officer at the medical center in new orleans. welcome to both of you. dr. marti, i want to start with you. florida reporting a fifth of all

new infections and hospitalizations. is this latest push you saw by the biden administration the best route for your state? >> there's many things that should be happening, and the bottom line is every single leader should be working to reduce transmission. we're actually one out of every four cases in the united states right now, and our hospitalizations are including a tremendous amount of young people. our pediatric hospitals are overwhelmed. the nicholas hospital has 60% occupancy with covid-19 patients. it's tragic. tragic that we have to give monoclonal antibodies. i want to say florida has

traditionally been up front and provided the type of guidance to parents for decades. we have in florida since 1984, we adopted the vaccine for children program and have been very proud of having that type of attitude of guiding parents toward the best possible behavior and even having strict laws for swimming pools and laws for not leaving a child in a hot car and all of these things. so these types of regulations that government does to help parents parent best are the correct and proper attitude of government. >> dr. patel, we want to get to you also. in louisiana where you are, cases are riing so rapidly that some places have to ration care. we've been here before. i can't believe we're talking about this again. you have warned hospitals may hit a breaking point unless

major changes happen. what do those major changes look like? >> it's extremely frustrating. i think for health care workers, they're just exhausted and mentally tired. we have finally the magic bullet we've been looking for throughout this pandemic. we need more people to get vaccinated. i'm also concerned we won't vaccinate ourselves out quick enough because it takes time for the vaccine to kick in. i think lockdowns are difficult to enact with doesn't public pressure that government officials are facing. so it's frustrating for health care workers at this point. >> certainly. >> dr. patel, while we have you, how bad is the situation in your state? i ask because on that map i look at the new cases in the past 14 days. except for vermont and the

dakotas, it really is striking how bad the situation is in this country. >> it is, absolutely. the situation is very grim. the numbers have been increasing at a rate much greater than we got hit in new orleans when the pandemic first hit in 2020. for many hospitals in the state, they are at the breaking point or past the breaking point. they're providing what we would call crisis standards of care, which is, again, so demoralizing for health care workers, when it is a preventable situation in many of their eyes. >> dr. marti, quickly, because we only have a minute left with you guys. what variants out there right now are concerned you most? we have the delta variant. i read about the delta plus variant, the lambda variant. what are you most concerned about? >> there's no question the most dangerous variant that's

spreading at a fast speed is the delta variant. it has a special mutation that allows it to form cinci shah. the cells melt together so the virus can pass from one cell to another without having to encounter antibodies, and therefore it's incredibly effective at causing very high doses of release of the virus by individuals that are infected. even people who are vaccinated have very high doses to share with other people, and it's tremendously contagious and dangerous. that's the worst one. >> we're going to leave it there with dr. aileen marty and dr. nirav patel. thank you to both of you. the good news is the u.s. has crossed that mark, 50% fully vaccinated. but there's a race as we know that's been going on for some time. four months and senators and

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as the old lady said, it's been 84 years since washington started infrastructure week. >> that long, huh? >> that long. maybe this is it because the lawmakers are moving toward a finally passage of that $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. senators are going to convene for another rare weekend session for a procedural vote today. >> they don't have to drop the big heart into the ocean. julie, the bill is on track to pass. of course, there's a hang-up. tennessee's senator bill hagerty, a trump ally, says he's

objecting to it. what impact is this having? >> reporter: yeah, guys. good morning. we were here superlate when senators were trying to figure out a way forward to pass a bill that night and avoid these procedural votes they now have to take. like you said, senator bill haggerty, freshman republican from tennessee was that one hang-up in addition to other amendment votes. he said when i checked in with his office, he's going to continue to object to it. what were his issues with moving forward with the process on thursday? the first being the price tag of the bill. the cbo scored it, estimating it would lead to debt in the next ten years of a quarter of a trillion dollars. the group maintains that's just not true. the second thing haggerty was objecting about, probably the biggest part of this, he dulkts want to make it any less painful for democrats to get on the budget resolution. that's what they're going to do

when they finally pass this $550 billion bipartisan package. when they convene on a rare weekend, they're looking at a couple of procedural bills. if 100 senators agree to move forward on this bill, they can get it done rather quickly. we'll see what haggerty decides to do. now, with this $550 billion bill, that's going to be the biggest in generations. all americans will see construction in their backyards for coming years after this bill passeslet that's money for roads, bridges, water, broadband. it's truly an investment in all of those areas. like i said, it's the biggest we've seen including in the last few administrations. >> julie, we're hearing that the

select group hired denver riggleman to serve as a consultant. we thought it would happen. we confirmed this week it is happening. what can you tell us about that decision? >> we've seen denver riggleman from virginia meeking with speaker pelosi and liz cheney. they held a virtual meeting on january 6th. then a few hours later they came out with this announcement that riggleman was hired as a senior adviser to sort of help the committee as they move forward in investigates the aftermath of january 6th. riggleman, he released a video on twitter saying this is the biggest assignment he's been given, even after being deployed after 9/11. he said people should take off their partisan jerseys and whether you have an "r" or "d" next to your name, it shouldn't matter. they should find out what went

wrong. this panel, nine democrats, two republicans, all appointed by speaker pelosi, we don't know where they're at. we know subpoenas are expected in the next few days. we don't know what those may be yet. a reminder the house is on recess. they're going to come back to vote on these infrastructure bills. but as far as coming back for another hearing, that's not going to happen until mid- to end december. guys? >> thank you so much. we're going to bring in former gop congressman joe walsh and former direct over the democratic campaign committee taryn rosencran. we'll start with you. >> i think it's a great addition. denver's a great guy, and this assignment fits perfectly with his background, military intelligence. lindsey, i think the other

important aspect is denver is a republican, and it's important because my former political party is going to continue to paint this select committee as some partisan witch hunt. it's not. liz cheney is on the committee, adam kinzinger is on the committee, and now you have another republican. i think it will add a lot of heft. >> this is considered a big win for the biden administration. he campaigned on his ability to get bipartisan things done. when you think about it, infrastructure is kind of the easy thing, right? it's not as controversial as gun control, as immigration. so do you see this as a win right now, and also do you see any big ticket items likely? federal voting rights, anything like that as the focus starts to shift to the midterms? >> yeah. i do think this is going to be

transformational change and generational change. this is one of the biggest things we've seen. as your reporter said on the ground, this is going to be construction in everyone's backyard. it improves roads and bridges and impacts people when they get back to work every day and commuting that. i do think with the changes we're seeing, we could see a shift as we see different things coming into the view here. so i think it's a little hard to bridge what will be the next big thing for them, but i certainly know they're ready to tackle all of the issues as they come forward and closer to the midterms. >> tara, let's talk about the midterms. we knowshon patrick maloney is warning democrats. they're going to have to adjust their messaging about the

economy if they want to keep the house. looking at polling, it's not looking good. speaker pelosi yesterday, this is what she said. >> i'm very confident we will win the house, but in terms of the specific -- where he was zeroing in on it, always run scared. >> would you be giving the democrats the same warning here? and what is it about their current messaging that isn't registering, taryn? >> i think the one thing she said and having worked there for a long time, you do need to always run scared. you always need to run like you're two points down, like you're in the fight of a lifetime. if you're going to represent them, it's the people's house. if you're going to be representing the people and running every two years, you have to run as if you're fighting for these people and the intensity of which and the importance of which is this job, right? because it's every two years, it means that every single decision you're making and every vote you're taking is going to impact

them directly, and you're going to take that vote quickly. it's kitchen table issues, right? they absolutely are, you know, just that much more impactful than a senator or governor or somebody on a four to six timeline. they do have history not on their side. >> joe, i want to give you the last word here. to be honest, joe, when it comes to looking ahead to the midterms and where the republicans and democrats are, i actually don't know where you stand. i mean are you supporting right now democrats going into the midterms in trying to keep the house? >> to me, lindsey, donald trump and trumpism is still the biggest threat in this country. this -- my former political party is anti-democracy. am i a democrat, no. but having an anti-democracy party like the republicans control the house or the senate

is a real concern. we know, lindsey, republicans are going to be fired up to vote next year. democrats have to be fired up. and i think focusing on infrastructure and as we said kitchen table issues, i think, will help get democrats out to vote. >> representative joe walsh and taryn rosenkranz, it was good to talk to you both today. two dozen. that's how many openly gay athletes were there? 2012. what this watershed moment feels like for lgbtq athletes. we're there with the headlines next. e with the headlines next water tastes like, water. so we fixed it. mio

so we get about another day of that open to play with it. >> i'll miss it. >> we'll miss it. we just got used to it 17 days

or so ago. on sunday night the 2020 olympics will finally come to a close and with that, what many are calling the pandemic curse. get it. right now there's a typhoon that's expected to approach the tokyo area, the second big storm since the game started. this on top of many unlucky issues. we've had more than a dozen athletes sidelined for positive covid tests. heatwaves and extreme weather-delaying threats and protests and the delta variant. >> it hasn't been easy. despite the challenges, there have been amazing storylines that have come out of the olympics. you always tune in and this year didn't disappoint. also this morning, big news, team usa's men's basketball striking gold for the fourth time. they clinched it.

laura harris has been keeping a close eye on everything for us. laura, good evening. >> reporter: good evening to you, good morning to you, and also i want to point out you forgot the earthquake. we also had an earthquake. we're making it through. we're all still standing. yes, we made it through a cup ol' daves ago. we're still here. as you said, men's basketball finally claiming that gold medal. it was shaky in the beginning. they lost to france and that was the team they had to play to win the gold medal, and they made it happen. kevin durant has been stellar this entire time. had more than 23 points again today. has had 23 or more points in every game he has played here at the tokyo olympics. so now the men's basketball team has won four gold medals straight. truly incredible. speaking of dynasties, let's talk about the women's basketball team as well. how about this. they're going for their seventh gold medal in a row. how about that.

you know, i got a chance to talk to head coach dawn staley a couple of days ago. i said, what's the secret sauce? how do you continue do this? she said this year she can speak for this team because there's a little bit of old school, a little bit of new school. they have have the veterans, have "the olympian"s there. and there's something to be said about a coach who's been there before. she's won five of the six. she's been a coach or play when they did there. there will be action on the hardwood tomorrow for the gold medal gape. now we have to talk about allyson felix. it's truly incredible. the race she had yesterday, the time she put up for the bronze medal is better on the time she put up before she got pregnant. how about that? just truly incredible. she has now tied carl lewis for ten medals in olympic games, and

she just might be running again tonight, which would make it 11. as you watch her, you just kind of wonder, ryu you going to be able to do it again? is she going to come back from paris? this is her fifth olympic games, and it doesn't look like she's going to slow down. and i want to congratulate the usa women's water polo team. it's been a great, great time here. >> pointing out all the positives. >> can we go back though? >> the earthquake? >> the earthquake? >> the swarm of locusts. >> how did we miss that. >> reporter: okay. for those of you keeping score at home, let's go through it. we came here through a global pandemic. we had to take two covid tests before we got here, five co-ved activities since we've been here, a covid test to get back to the united states. some of of us going to other countries have to do something else. yes, there was a typhoon, there was a tropical storm, it's rain auld day here.

we also had an earthquake, and allegedly there was a little something after the earthquake that was a bit of an aftershock. i slecht through both of them, thank goodness. all i'm asking for is we all get home safely. let's try that. >> what sort of work, the heat and humidity does it do on your hair? i hear you, sister. >> it was like 100 degrees on the court. >> what was interesting about volleyball -- go ahead. >> go ahead about volleyball. >> reporter: well, i was going to tell you outside on the sand, they had to stop play for a second and actually spray down the sand because it was so hot out there. i mean one day the heat index here was 117 degrees. i promise you, we felt every bit of it, and we weren't even playing a sport. >> i can just imagine. laura harris. >> laura harris, take a vacation. >> before that vacation, we're

going to check back with you in an hour. >> reporter: okay. see you. >> as i mentioned, there are plenty of positives to talk about emerging from these games including many of the lgbtq athletes. take a look at this graphic. in 2016 there were 23 openly gay athletes. this year, 168. one of those athletes is alanna smith. thank you. alanna, so good to see you. >> so good to see you. thanks for having me on. >> congratulations on the game and showing up and being a high light for many people. you identify as a nonbinary. what do those numbers that pop up mean to you personally? >> i think it's incredible just being somebody who grew up watching the olympics, seeing people like me or my community.

it's awesome to look up to people as younger kids, adults, anyway. >> you pointed out on instagram for the first time you said you are proud of the person you've worked to become, that you choose your happiness over medaling. and i'll tell you. you finished last in many of the competitions you competed in at the olympics, but so many people kept pointing out they never have seen someone looking so happy who finished in last place. what was going on there? >> i mean i just wanted to go in and enjoy the experience, and i -- with all of these contests and especially the olympics, i felt like i mentally needed to be prepared to go in and be authentically me no matter what happened. i didn't care what place i got. i wanted to be happy and enjoy the experience for once. i feel like i did that. >> you have corrected those who

misused pronouns. you identify as "they." how do you feel about telling people? >> i feel like i'm learning more about myself every day. it's important because there are a lot of people around the world who don't feel safe around their environments and will feel misgendered. if we can start to get moving now, lit make things easier for the future. >> let's talk about skateboarding because i remember in the past they were talking about tony hawk and they said, oh, he's way too old for it and he was in his 40s. this year it's finally an olympic sport. finally i got it. the gold medalist was a 13-year-old. the silver medalist was a 12-year-old. you're 20 years old. were you looking at these kids and going, these young 'uns. >> a little bit.

when i started competing it was like i was the older one and i thought, oh, this is different for me. it was incredible watching them and seeing the work pay off. it was amazing to see. >> i'm surprised it's taken this long to be a sport. as you look back at the olympics and pointed out to the troubles, the earthquakes and all that sort of stuff, are you happy that -- there were a lot of calls to cancel it. are you glad it went through? >> i'm glad we could do it safely and everyone was able to do -- at least for the most part keep everyone in tokyo safe. i think it's pretty amazing that throughout everything that happened, we were still able to do it and keep everyone safe when it comes to covid. it's more of like a milestone in my eyes. >> and i know -- i've got to be quick here. i know as i mentioned, you're relatively old to your sport, but 2024 is only a few years

away. are you going to go to paris? >> it's still in my thoughts. we'll see. i just want to have fun with it. if it comes along and i'm feeling good about it, i might go for it. >> awesome. >> thank you. >> thank you for joining us, and congratulations. you're doing everything young. congratulations on getting married as well. you're making us old-timers feel like a slacker. congratulations on being there and representing the country well. >> thank you, thank you. and still to come, the governor has called for a special discussion today. will the state democrats that are still holed up in d.c. return and risk arrest. and today, alexander vindman who helped to impeach donald trump with his phone call to ukraine he's live to discuss his

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we're back now with breaking news from overseas. you see the picture to the left of the screen? this is in thailand, bangkok, thailand. more than a thousand protesters clashing with the police over the government's handling of the pandemic. these are live pictures coming in right now. we don't have control of these cameras. the word is they're reporting on all of this that these dramatic images of officers in riot gear shooting tear gas and rubber bullets have been going on for quite some time to try to push back son protesters. the protesters marched toward the government house which is the office of the prime minister, demanding that he resigns. thailand has just recorded its largest number, increase in covid cases, in the last 24 hours, and they say the

government there has not been doing enough to try to curb the growing crisis there when it comes to covid in that country. we're going to have more for you as the story develops. yet another special session of the texas voting bill begins in just a few hours. less than a day after the last one ended. texas governor greg abbott has put together a long list of gop priorities on the agenda, but, of course, the main focus will be voting rights as republicans try again to pass that restrictive voting law. we now know texas house democrats holed up in washington are skipping out on the vote. they plan to stay in d.c., lobbying for federal reform. here's what senator jeff merkley of oregon said yesterday. >> we anticipate we'll begin try to move the bill to the floor before we leave here sometime this coming week. you never know with the u.s. senate how long things will

take. and then should we fail on that, we'll have a chance several weeks in between returning here to try to recruit an additional ten republicans to join us in the fight for freedom. >> nbc news correspondent jay gray joins us now live if there texas. of course, if these lawmakers go back to their state and don't report back to work, they face arrest? >> reporter: well, not arrest like we think of. they'll be gathered by the department of public safety and brought back to the chambers here, and the chambers can be locked down to require them to do their work. if they return to texas, that's something they may face. the gavel will fall on a special second session at noon here in texas. no quorum as you talked about is expected. they were protesting a highly restrictive voting law. the legislation would make some new rules as far as mail-in

voting is concerned as well as early voting, and that's something they say is too restrictive and doesn't need to be in place. they say even the republican secretary of state has said that everything went well in the 2020 election here and there's no reason to change these laws. look. this is going to be a tough go for the democrats. only eight are needed to form a quorum here. remember, they've been out here for almost a month without their families, without their jobs. how long they can hold out is certainly an issue. but you're rye. they hope congress can pass some sweeping legislation that may supe seed anything that would be done here in the texas legislature. it will be interesting to see the tug-of-war and the standoff, just how long it can last. we do not expect to see them here today when the second special session opens. >> jay, just so we know the time line because we know you'll be updating us throughout the day. you say the gavel will hit at

12:00 p.m. is that local time there? texas? >> reporter: yeah, local time in texas. 12:00 local, 1:00 eastern. what they'll do is gavel, call the roll, and they'll go through the process again, saying there's no quorum, allowing the dps to find and retrieve those lawmakers if they can. again, most of them are out of the state. >> of course. jay gray, thank you so much for that. we'll see you throughout the day. we're going to speak with jasmine crockett about her colleagues' plans. tune in for that. we have a veiled threat from a fire brand for anyone who goes door to door offering vaccines. that threat involves the second amendment. plus, the biker rally that likely led to covid cases last summer. it's back and drawing bigger crowds, this time with a variant that's easier to spread. ariant that's easier to spread. millions of vulnerable americans struggle to get reliable transportation

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before we told you about it, it had all the characteristics of a superspreader in 2020. now it's roaring back just the time to spread. delta. the annual sturgis motorcycle rally is beginning. thousands of bikers descending on the streets of the black hills despite warnings that the event will worsen the surge in covid cases. some 700,000 people are expected to attend with zero restrictions in place throughout the weekend. and this really is how bad the delta variant and concerns about covid have gotten. peace corps volunteers are being deployed here in the united states for just the second time in history. >> more than 150 volunteers are working with fema to help people get vaccinated from new jersey to oregon and they're going door to door to hand out information and try and bust some myths about the shots. >> joining us with a peace corps

response volunteer who is on the ground for us in virginia. thank you for being here. >> thank you for inviting me, good morning. >> thank you so much. we want to find out, what does an average day look like for you as you're doing this door to door business? have people been receptive or are you getting doors slammed in your face? >> no, most of the people are very receptive. we're usually going door to door, business to business, throughout the day, just handing out information about the vaccine clinics in the area, just about -- talking about what are the myths that can be busted about the vaccines, just trying to get people to be more informed about the vaccine and, you know, just spread the word around that once it's done, you would really be able to get back on our lives again. >> i'm curious, you were also a health volunteer in the east african country of malawi some time ago. what would you say are some similarities between doing

service abroad and now doing service right here in the u.s.? >> the work is about the same. both is in health sector. i was in the health sector in malawi too. i would say just basically getting the people to be more informed about anything, be it malaria or hiv, as i was doing it in malawi, or is it just about the vaccines in this country, you know, just getting the people to have and make a more informed decision about the vaccine. so it's just basically sometimes a lack of education, lack of information that basically prevents people from doing what, you know, what should be done. and i think just getting the word out there, you know, just as many people as possible is definitely what is going to help. and i think that was also the case in malawi, just i traveled a lot of villages, just not the village i lived in, and i think that made a big difference where i would have some kids from villages which are like ten miles away saying, oh, i know

you, i've heard you talk. and so it's just -- i think it's over on the same. i mean, you're humans across the border. so definitely lack of information, lack of knowledge is always the thing. and i think that's the key where we come in. >> you know, i was a one-man band early in my career, where i would be by myself and i would go knock on doors to get interviews. there's an inherent risk, you don't know who's going to open up the door and how hostile they're going to be. you hope for the best, obviously. does it concern you that people like, for example, congressman marjorie taylor greene appearing to encourage people to be hostile to door to door operators. she said president biden will be sending police state friends to your front door asking whether you've taken the vaccine. she said we love our second amendment right and we're not big on strangers coming to our

door. what's your reaction. you said you haven't experienced a lot of hostility. do you feel that could increase? >> when we see something that says no soliciting, no trespassing, we basically just respect that and we move on. so if not one door, it could be the neighbor that's going to be friendly, and basically maybe the friendship between the two neighbors might spark and change some thoughts and ideas. so we basically just target as many as we can. i mean, the goal is, at the end of the day, is basically to inform and educate the people. so, you know, as many people as we can get is our goal. >> you have been doing -- >> i don't stress myself over that. i don't worry about it and that's how most of us look at it. >> you've been doing such important work there and we hope that you continue to do that and be successful and stay safe. thank you. >> thank you. thank you so much. all right, coming up in our next hour, he called florida governor ron desantis a pied piper of covid-19 leading his

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this fire, the dixie fire,

you've heard us speak about. it just simply exploded. it is now the largest active fire in the united states and the largest single fire in california history, burning for weeks, leveling the gold rush town of greenville in northern california and more than 100 homes and buildings gone in seconds. the images just staggering, california's hot dry weather along with fierce winds hampering efforts to contain it. many calling it a reflection of climate change. coming up we're going to hear from some of the people who are now wondering where do we go from here? >> yeah, many communities still under risk right now in the eyes of the dixie fire. we're going to begin a new hour of msnbc right now. ♪ and first up, florida is in the heat of a covid crisis as cases and hospitalizations hit a new record, and this comes as a major monster truck competition hits the state today.

but despite this surge the florida governor continues to clap back at president biden and covid restrictions. >> joe biden has taken to himself to try to single out florida over covid. this is a guy who ran for president saying he was going to, quote, shut down the virus. and what has he done? why don't you do your job? why don't you get this border secure? and until you do that, i don't want to hear a blip about covid from you. >> we're going to ask the miami beach mayor live for his thoughts coming up. texas style showdown at high noon, the voting rights battle getting more intense, the texas governor calling for a second special session just hours from now. the texas democrats are sticking to their plan of delaying the bill as most stay in washington to buy time. we're going to speak with the texas state representative, jasmine crockett about her plan of action. >> i watch a lot of news but