CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday: President Biden's vaccine mandate plan.
PRES. BIDEN:
This is not about freedom or personal choice.
CHUCK TODD:
With cases rising --
GOV. ANDY BESHEAR:
Folks, our hospital situation has never been more dire in my lifetime than it is right now.
CHUCK TODD:
-- the president announces sweeping mandates to get Americans vaccinated.
PRES. BIDEN:
We're going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers.
CHUCK TODD:
Calling out politicians and others for resisting vaccines.
PRES. BIDEN:
We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.
CHUCK TODD:
Republicans push back.
GOV. DOUG DUCEY:
What the Biden administration is doing is government overreach, pure and simple.
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:
I think it's wrong on principle, but it's also wrong on strategy.
CHUCK TODD:
My guests this morning: Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. Plus, a strategic pause as Democrats try to go big with their agenda.
REP. NANCY PELOSI:
People need help right away, and we will get the job done.
CHUCK TODD:
One of their own says the price tag is too high.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
I would ask my colleagues and all of the Senate to hit the pause button on the $3.5 trillion. Hit the pause button.
CHUCK TODD:
This morning I'll talk to the Democrat who could make or break the bill: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Also, remembering September 11th.
ANDREW CARD:
I just told him a second plane hit the second tower. America was under attack.
CHUCK TODD:
Reflections on that terrible day and the 20 years since. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News Senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson; syndicated columnist George Will; Kimberly Atkins Stohr, senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe; and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
CHUCK TODD:
Good Sunday morning. This past week we have been marking the 20th anniversary of September 11th. After nearly 3,000 Americans were killed during the terror attacks, the country pulled together as one. For a while, at least, the spirit of September 12th helped a country divided over the 2000 election unite against a common enemy. Not so now in the fight against our current enemy, Covid-19, where the red-blue conservative-liberal dividing line now separates the unvaccinated from the vaccinated. In fact, two days ago, we woke up to the news that 3,160 Americans had died of Covid over a 24 hour period, almost all of them unvaccinated, and it was a higher death toll than those 9/11 terror attacks. It was against this backdrop of an upward slope of death and disease and a downward slope in his own approval ratings that President Biden threw away the carrots and brought out the sticks: He's no longer asking the unvaccinated to get a shot. He's telling them. Many Republican lawmakers and candidates called it government overreach, while more than a few health experts said it's about time. Whatever the merits of this plan, the fact that Mr. Biden felt it necessary to take this step was itself a concession that the current strategy isn't working.
PRES. BIDEN:
We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin.
CHUCK TODD:
President Biden, whose presidency rests on his ability to get the pandemic under control, announced a sweeping vaccine mandate for employers this week, a move he had long hoped to avoid.
PRES. BIDEN:
My message to unvaccinated Americans is this: What more is there to wait for?
CHUCK TODD:
Within hours, the Republican National Committee threatened to sue, and Republican governors promised to fight the administration, even "to the gates of hell," with most threatening to challenge the rules.
GOV. DOUG DUCEY:
What the Biden administration is doing is government overreach, pure and simple.
GOV. TATE REEVES:
This is a power grab by the federal government.
GOV. KRISTI NOEM:
My legal team is already working.
GOV. PETE RICKETTS:
Nebraska will push back, fight back with any tool we can find.
PRES. BIDEN:
Have at it. We're playing for real here. This is not a game.
CHUCK TODD:
The mandates are an about-face from Mr. Biden, who for months resisted them.
PRES. BIDEN:
I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't demand it to be mandatory.
CHUCK TODD:
On Friday, the CDC released a study showing unvaccinated people are 4 and a half times more likely to become infected than the vaccinated, 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die.
DR. JIM SOUZA:
This entire unit is filled with unvaccinated Covid patients.
CHUCK TODD:
Some employers are welcoming the sweeping new rules, which require roughly 100 million Americans to get vaccinated, including federal employees and contractors, more than 17 million health care workers at hospitals and other sites that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding, and employees of businesses with 100 or more workers, who could be required to be vaccinated or tested weekly.
JONATHAN CHARIFF:
This is something that we're embracing, we believe in.
CHUCK TODD:
But Americans are sharply divided: 48% favor a vaccine mandate, 52% oppose it, including 79% of Republicans. When asked about an employer mandate support does grow: 52% support a business requirement, 45% oppose it.
CHICAGO RESIDENT:
I've been waiting and hoping that he would do something, and I agree with it 100%.
CHICAGO RESIDENT:
I think he's gone too far. You can't make people get an injection.
CHUCK TODD:
Biden's move comes after months of attempts to persuade the unvaccinated --
PRES. BIDEN:
This is your choice. It’s life and death.
CHUCK TODD:
Early declarations of victory --
PRES. BIDEN:
Today we're closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.
CHUCK TODD:
And several missteps, including the decision in May to very publicly tell the vaccinated to take off their masks.
PRES. BIDEN:
if you've been fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask.
CHUCK TODD:
And confusion now over booster shots.
PRES. BIDEN:
The question raised is should it be shorter than eight months? Should it be as little as five months?
JEN PSAKI:
That guidance continues to be eight months. That has not changed.
CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now is the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Dr. Murthy, welcome back to Meet the Press.
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
Thank you, Chuck. Good to see you.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to start with, basically before he even took the oath of office, President Biden was very skeptical, said there wouldn't be a mandate, said he didn't think the federal government would get involved in mandates, there shouldn't be mandates, etc. Now he's changed his mind. Why?
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
Well, Chuck, from the beginning the president and all of us have said we've got to use every lever we have in order to fight this pandemic. And that's what you see happening right now. Over the last several months, we've been working hard to get vaccines out to the public, partnering with the private sector, using every power the government has. And now in the face of Delta, we've got to move to the next phase of that response. And that involves focusing not just on expanding the vaccination effort through a combination of mandates and access, but it also involves focusing on increasing our testing capacity, shoring up our health care systems which are really struggling in the face of this Delta variant. So there was a lot in the plan that the president announced because we've got to bring everything to bear at this moment to fight the pandemic.
CHUCK TODD:
Is this an acknowledgement, though, that this is -- I mean, when you do the mandate that he's describing for private businesses, that feels like the last tool in the toolbox. If this doesn't work, then what?
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
Well, Chuck, you know, what I would say is let's step back for a moment. If you look at how far we've come, we've gotten over 200 million people with one shot of a vaccine. That's 75 percent of all eligible Americans who've gotten a shot and have some degree of protection. But we're not done yet because what we see is that because millions of more people are not infected, they're susceptible at moments like this with the Delta variant. The requirements that the president spoke about will help 80 million people in the private sector, 17 million health workers and over 3.5 million federal workers and contractors to move closer to vaccination. And here's the interesting thing, Chuck, that I think a lot of people don't recognize. Many businesses have actually been looking forward to this.
CHUCK TODD:
Right.
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
The business roundtable has said that this is the right move. The American Medical Association, certainly on the health side, has said this is the right move. I think it will help more places do what they want to do, which is to make workplaces safer so that people can feel more secure coming back to work and we can keep our economy strong.
CHUCK TODD:
Given what you had to do this week with this sort of reset or next phase of battling Covid, it really now puts the decision in May to change the masking guidance on the vaccination, it really looks like that was a major mistake. Why -- that seems like the one moment where politics got in the way of science because the Delta variant was going through India very rapidly. The WHO at that time was saying it was a variant of concern. And we seemed to be acting -- acting at that time as if the variant wasn't going to come here. How did we miss this so badly in May?
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
Well, Chuck, if you talk to the CDC about this, what they'll tell you is that they were doing what they've always done, which is to make sure that they are looking closely at the science and the data and using that to guide their decision-making. What they saw in May with the pre-Delta version of Covid-19 was that when people who were vaccinated, when they got breakthrough infections, that they had a very, very low likelihood of transmitting that, which is one of the reasons they felt comfortable pulling back on mask mandates. But then things changed. The Delta variant came, and the Delta variant seemed to indicate that vaccinated people who had breakthrough infections would be more likely to spread than those with the Alpha variant or prior variants. And that's why they shifted their guidance once again. One of the things that we have to be able to do, Chuck, in a public health pandemic like this is we've got to be able to look at the data in real-time to adjust our approach accordingly, and then communicate that clearly to the public. We've got to prepare -- be prepared to keep doing that in the future.
CHUCK TODD:
When you were part of the campaign during 2020, you were part of a team that emphasized, "We need a full response here. It’s not just a vaccination approach. We've got to get testing and contact tracing going." It does feel as if the approach in the last eight months has been, “It's vaccines or bust.” Now you’re -- there's a new effort to enhance testing. But where, where was this the first eight or nine months? Because it does feel as if everything was focused on the vaccine. And I get it, it's the simplest way out. But it's not the only one, and we've got a mask divide in this country that's only gotten worse.
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
Well, Chuck, you're absolutely right that there has to be a multi-pronged strategy to address this pandemic. And we've actually been talking about that from the beginning. Vaccines are certainly the backbone of that effort. But we know that other mitigation measures, like masking and distancing, are important. We know that testing is a critical part of the response infrastructure. And we know that shoring up and strengthening our health care system so we can take care of those who are sick is essential too. And in addition to those being the areas of focus of the president's announcement this week, I've actually been focusing on those over the last many months. The billions of dollars in the ARP that were put toward testing to help schools, for example, have testing in place so they could be ready for the fall were a reflection of that broader set of priorities. The focus on masking has also been a piece of that. The recent announcement, actually, that the president made that we are going to be sending tests, millions of tests to food banks and to community health centers so that people can access them free, also part of that effort. So yes, it is true that in the news you see a significant focus on vaccines. But let that not, you know, convince or convey to anyone that the approach here has not been broad. It has been. I've been part of a lot of the discussions where we're focusing on taking that broad approach, a part of a lot of the community conversations where we're talking to people about the variety of steps we've got to take to get through this pandemic.
CHUCK TODD:
A practical herd immunity, and however that wants to be defined, let me define it this way: An uptick of ten percentage points over the next three months, plus the Delta variant sadly ripping through the unvaccinated. Are we going to be at herd immunity by the end of this calendar year because of -- with the combination of what I just described? More Delta sadly ripping through the unvaccinated and a slight uptick in vaccinations?
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
Well, Chuck, how quickly we get to a level where cases are low and stay low really depends on what we do collectively, not just the government, but each of us as private citizens and what universities and schools and businesses do. If we work quickly to get people vaccinated, then we will get there faster. But we've got to come together. Chuck, let me tell you this, that one of the things that we cannot afford to do during this pandemic is allow the Covid-19 experience to turn us against each other. Our enemy is the virus. It is not each other. And I was reflecting yesterday, Chuck, on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, about what we learned from that terrible tragedy. And one of the things that sticks with me is that in that moment of crisis, we responded by coming together. I saw neighbors helping one another get through this crisis. I saw people turn to strangers who were suffering and offer them support.
CHUCK TODD:
I understand that spirit, but some people take the mandate as not a moment of unity, but as sort of a divisive weapon. What do you say to that?
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
Well, I'd say, Chuck, that the requirements for vaccination are part of a long tradition that we have in this country of taking steps as a collective to keep people safe. We have had vaccine requirements in schools for years and years. You and I, when we went to school, had to make sure that we had certain vaccines before we enrolled. That's to keep everyone else safe. We have requirements when you drive, for example, that you obey a certain speed limit because we know, even though everyone can push as hard as they want on the accelerator, that that will actually hurt other people if it causes more accidents. So we have a tradition in our country, Chuck, of taking steps, you know, as a collective to protect the broader community. And that's what these requirements represent. We know that when people wear masks all together, that gives us our greatest chance of reducing infection. When people get vaccinated, that gives us our greatest chance of keeping workplaces and schools safe. And that's what we've got to do, Chuck, during this pandemic. We've got to be all in together. And that's how we'll get through.
CHUCK TODD:
Dr. Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General. Thanks for coming on and explaining the administration's perspective. I appreciate it.
DR. VIVEK MURTHY:
Thanks so much, Chuck. Take care. Be well.
CHUCK TODD:
You got it. You too. Want to turn now to the Republican reaction. By Friday morning, 19 of the country's 27 Republican governors had condemned President Biden's mandate plan, calling it a federal overreach. More Republican governors have joined in opposition since then, but we invited the original 19 to come on Meet The Press. Eighteen chose not to accept our invitation, but thankfully one did agree. It's Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, and we are grateful that he did. Governor Hutchinson, thank you and welcome back to Meet The Press.
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:
It's always good to be with you, Todd.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask --
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON
Or, Chuck. Excuse me --
CHUCK TODD:
That's all right. That's all right. When you're born with two first names, that’s the -- those are the breaks. We've had more than 650,000 people have died. It's two hundred times the amount of people that died in 9/11. If not now for a federal mandate on businesses, when? Because this feels as if we're up against sort of a last -- this is the last tool in the toolbox.
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON
Well, I appreciated what the surgeon general had to say. And we have to overcome resistance. This is a very serious, deadly virus. And we're all together in trying to get an increased level of vaccination out in the population. The problem is that I'm trying to overcome resistance. But the president's actions in a mandate hardens the resistance. And we talked about the fact that we've historically had vaccination requirements in schools. But those have always come at the state level, never at the national level. And so this is an unprecedented assumption of federal mandate authority that really disrupts and divides the country. It divides our partnership between the federal government and the states. And it increases the division in terms of vaccination when we should all be together trying to increase the vaccination uptake.
CHUCK TODD:
Governor, do you really think, do you really think this is what's increasing our divide? I mean, realistically, it feels like this divide's pretty hardened here. And at the end of the day, it did seem as if there were a lot of private businesses that wanted the political cover. They wanted to do their own vaccine mandate, which you're supportive of. You think if a business wants to do this, you have said, you don't want to stand in the way of that, like other governors have done. Given that, isn't it the responsibility of the federal government, in some ways, to give some cover to businesses that would like to enact this but are afraid of the blowback themselves?
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON
Well, we'll see whether it's actually constitutional or not. I've never seen this type of federal action in terms of healthcare, in terms of vaccinations. It's always been done at the state level. And let's think about this for a second. We have some very aggressive governors from blue states, but I'm not aware of any governor from any state that said, "We want to mandate businesses to require vaccinations." And so the states, none of them have done that. And yet, the federal government steps in. This is something that every state has to make decisions on. I support businesses being able to require vaccination. But it's their own independent choice for their workplace. But to have the federal mandate will be counterproductive. It's going to increase resistance. We're going to grow our vaccinations whether you have this or not. We're increasing them in Arkansas and we're going to be able to increase them nationally. But this will make it much more difficult, and will increase the divide. In my judgment, we've been divided over masks --
CHUCK TODD:
Right --
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON
-- but we've been more unified in terms of vaccination. Not totally, but more so. But this will not help us.
CHUCK TODD:
But Governor, you yourself went on this tour. And we've seen some, and you've expressed your own frustration at the misinformation that had clearly gotten around, particularly in the rural parts of your state. You know, there was no other -- nothing else was accelerating the vaccine pace other than dead bodies, right? Unfortunately, the one thing that does seem to work in persuading people is when they have a family member who dies from Covid.
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON
Our vaccination rates went up 40%, both because we're providing better information, bringing in trusted advisors to the public, but also because of the risk factor, as you point out-- and so yes, as the risk goes up, vaccinations increase. That's a little bit of human nature. But it's all about the trust factor. I try to build it by bringing in community-respected leaders in the healthcare profession to talk to and to get over some of the hesitation. But it was clear to me from the very beginning the distrust is with government. This enhances the distrust in a state like Arkansas.
CHUCK TODD:
Right --
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON
You know, other states can make their own decisions. But it shouldn't be a federal government, one size fits all across the country.
CHUCK TODD:
Hey, before I let you go, I'm curious what you thought of what former President Bush said during his speech in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I know it really touched a lot of people. Let me play a clip of it, and I want to get your reaction on the other side.
(BEGIN TAPE)
PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH:
There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.
(END TAPE)
CHUCK TODD:
Those are some interesting words from the former president. Do you think some folks will take his words to heart and start speaking back at these folks that are doing this?
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON
Well, I certainly hope so. I thought those were words of wisdom. He went on to say that he didn't have any perfect solution. And that's a challenge we face. I think we all have to look in our heart and say, "What more can we do?" Even coming on this show today, I hesitate to criticize our president. But necessary on principle. But we've got to think of ways that we could diminish harsh rhetoric, bring people more together. I'm glad he raised that issue and I hope we can be more effective at it.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, Governor Hutchinson, you're always been somebody -- you can disagree without being disagreeable. And there's nothing wrong with that. Governor Hutchinson, thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective with us, sir.
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON
Thank you, Chuck. Great to be with you.
CHUCK TODD:
When we come back, the Democrat who has the power to single handedly stand in the way of President Biden's expansive and yes, expensive agenda. It's Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia who joins me next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. President Biden has seen no shortage of Republican opposition to his vaccine mandate strategy. But when it comes to the Democrats and their $3.5 trillion spending plan, in addition to united Republican opposition, the president has at least one Democrat, but probably a few more, including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, saying, "Not so fast." In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Manchin called for a strategic pause, writing, "I've always said, if I can't explain it, I can't vote for it. And I can't explain why my Democratic colleagues are rushing to spend $3.5 trillion." Well, Senator Joe Manchin joins me now. Senator, welcome back to--
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Good to --
CHUCK TODD:
-- Meet the Press.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
-- be with you, Chuck. Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start. My first question actually, I'm going to cede to the speaker of the House. Take a listen to what she said. I want you to respond to her.
[BEGIN TAPE]
REP. NANCY PELOSI:
Where would you cut? Childcare, family medical leave paid for, universal pre-K, home health care, so important?
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
I think that's what I hear a lot from Democrats on Capitol Hill. It's, like, "We get it. We get what he's not for. But how do you get there?" So what should not be included in the bill?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Well, Chuck, first of all, everything that the speaker, which I have the greatest respect for, has mentioned, I have been for and voted for. We spent $5.4 trillion. And a lot of that really continues way into next year. We haven't dispersed it all. Only thing I've said, put a pause on. Shouldn't we basically put a pause on with all the unknowns that we have right now we're facing? Don't know where Covid's going to go. Inflation is still very high and rampant. And then on top of that, the geopolitical unrest that we have going on, we might be challenged there. Don't you think we ought to be prepared for that since we don't have the emergency that we had with the American Rescue Plan, when the president first came in and we passed?
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask you this, though. This is long term infrastructure that, in some ways, you know, they call it human --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
This is --
CHUCK TODD:
-- infrastructure.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
-- socials reform.
CHUCK TODD:
I understand that. Social reforms, and however you want to look at it. People have different names. They take investment. This isn't short term. And it wants to be paid for. And if it's paid for, there shouldn't be an inflation problem.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
And the only thing I have said, there's not a rush to do that right now. We don't have an urgency. Don't you think we ought to debate a little bit more, talk about it, and see what we've got out there?
CHUCK TODD:
So you're not against this? You could support this $3.5 trillion --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
No --
CHUCK TODD:
-- plan?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
-- I cannot support $3.5 trillion, okay? No, okay.
CHUCK TODD:
Okay. All right. Now we're getting to -- it is not a time issue? It really is a cost issue?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Well, you've got $5.4 trillion right now. Okay. That's a $3.5 trillion they want to spend.
CHUCK TODD:
Over eight or ten years, depending on what the --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Well, $3.5 trillion. But still yet, it's going to be a lot more than $3.5 trillion over eight or ten years because it'll continue. All these programs will never come off. They don't even scored out that far. But with that being said, that's a social reform. I'm just saying that we should be looking at everything, and we're not. We don't have the need to rush into this and get it done within one week because there's some deadline we're meeting, or someone's going to fall through the cracks. We've got child nutrition, out of all the things I want to make sure that children are getting taken care of, that people are basically having an opportunity to go back to work. We have 11 million jobs that we haven't filled, 8 million people still unemployed. Something's not matching up there. And with that being said, we have people talking all the time that, "We can't find help." Or, there's a reason for that. We haven't found that reason.
CHUCK TODD:
So what would this bill look like if you were writing it from scratch?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Well, if I was writing it from scratch, I'd be looking at first of all, adjusting the tax code. I've always said that. I said basically, the 2017 tax code was weighted unfairly to the wealthy. We need to change it. That's why I agreed to go to reconciliation. But I'm not going to go to a situation where I shoot myself in the foot and not be competitive globally. I think that corporations should be paying. There shouldn't be anyone escaping not paying their fair share. I think the IRS should be able to do its job, all those things. But when you do all that, Chuck, realistically and honestly, what does that spin off, without going in debt? And then look at that number it spins off, and find out what your greatest need is.
CHUCK TODD:
If-- right now, it seems as if the plan is to pay for as much of this as they can. Is whatever they come up with with the pay-for, is that your ceiling, if it's $2 trillion --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
The plan also, Chuck, had in it you could borrow up to $1.7 trillion, okay? That was in the bill. Okay.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. We see where this was going. They want to pay for about $2 trillion, deficit spend with dynamic scoring. Look, the infrastructure bill that you helped facilitate has dynamic scoring, which some would argue is deficit spending until we see if the economic growth --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
We could've paid for that very easily without any of the --
CHUCK TODD:
But we didn't pay for it.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
-- dynamic scoring. But because you know what? They wouldn't go for it. They wouldn't basically let allow us to move in that direction because --
CHUCK TODD:
So why is it okay --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
-- they --
CHUCK TODD:
--to do that, and you don't want to do --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
No, no --
CHUCK TODD:
-- this one?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
-- we're still going to do some dynamic scoring and all that. But let's be responsible and reasonable about it. That's all I'm saying. Chuck, the thing of it is, is we've got to get this country back to where --that we can look at each other and agree to disagree and then work through our differences. That's where the Senate comes in. That's a deliberate body that we have. Who would've we'd have gotten 19 Republicans to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure, the hard --
CHUCK TODD:
The physical.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
-- infrastructure?
CHUCK TODD:
Physical infrastructure.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
And that's the most urgent need that we have. You want one that needs to be done? That one for 30 years we have deferred making.
CHUCK TODD:
Or let's talk about the issue of climate regulations that much of this bill --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Sure. Absolutely.
CHUCK TODD:
There's a lot of pushback, there are a lot of assumptions that you're not supportive of this, some say because of West Virginia's reliance on coal. How much of that is true?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Well, let me say let's look at the facts. And I've always said this, Chuck. You're entitled to your opinion. You're just not entitled to create your own facts to support your opinion. Since 2000, the year 2000, 20 years ago, 52% of our electricity came from coal. About 16% came from natural gas. And about 9%, 9.5% came from renewables. Fast forward to today, 19% from coal, 40% from gas, and up to 20% from renewables. The transition's happening. And that clean energy standard, they want to spend billions of dollars to have utilities do what they're already doing. Makes no sense to me to pay a utility to do what they're going to do anyway.
CHUCK TODD:
Right, but don't we need to accelerate this? Do you agree that we need to accelerate this transition?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
You accelerate the transition. Don't you think if you have to pay a profit-making, Fortune 500, or basically trade on the Stock Exchange, pay them to do something that they've already done, and basically still have resiliency built in? We're going to leave ourselves in a situation by 2030 that we're not going to have reliability. That's what I'm concerned about. And we're going to move, we’ve got 30% of the electricity that was from coal is not from coal today.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. But 50 years from now, do you think folks are going to look back at this Congress and say, "Boy, I'm glad, I’m glad they were fiscally -- worried too much about the fiscal and not enough about climate mitigation"?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
There's a balance. There's always been a balance, Chuck, and I've said that. And I'm willing to find that balance. But, you know, to do it in seven days, to come back and do it in one week when we don't have --
CHUCK TODD:
Are you a hard no?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
On the $3.5 trillion?
CHUCK TODD:
Yes.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
Okay. Is there a number you can support?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
I haven't looked at that, because you know why? They won't look at it responsibly and reasonably for a tax code or any type of revenue --
CHUCK TODD:
But this still is a one-way negotiation. Look, you're in the catbird seat. You're the 50th vote, but don't you need to give, say, what you're for --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
I have been giving. I could say that I'm against this and that and everything. I'm for an awful lot of the things. I'm for also putting guardrails on. I think that if you're going to make sure that we're helping our children, let's make sure the children are getting the best benefit of that. Let's make sure that a guardian or a parent is doing everything they can to nurture that child and give them the resources to do it. But if you don't have any work requirements, there's no means testing on so much of this --
CHUCK TODD:
If it --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
-- doesn't make sense to me at all --
CHUCK TODD:
-- $3.5 trillion is agreed to by 49 others --
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Well, everybody's looking at numbers.
CHUCK TODD:
I understand that.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Everybody's looking at numbers.
CHUCK TODD:
Are you going to be the lone vote against President Biden’s agenda?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Well, I don't think that I am the lone vote. And I think you know that too.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. But would you be willing to be the lone vote?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
I've said this. If I can't go home and explain it, I can't vote for it, okay --
CHUCK TODD:
And right now, you don't think you can explain it?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
I can't explain what we're doing now.
CHUCK TODD:
The vaccine mandate that President Biden's doing, are you supportive of it?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
The president has done what the president is responsible to do. He's looking out for the most vulnerable. And if people are sick and tired as I am of this pandemic, of wearing masks and everything else, get vaccinated. Get vaccinated. But now, I will speak on the private sector, going into the businesses, I'd rather incentivize versus penalize.
CHUCK TODD:
But if the incentives don't work, what choice did he have?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Well, basically, most of the businesses in the country are less than 100 employees. So he put no restrictions there. And it's only going over the 100. Those are responsible, Fortune 500, usually traded on the Stock Exchange. They have to do the responsible thing. If not, they lose their market share.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. Senator Joe Manchin, I know you're doing a few other interviews. Thanks for coming on.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
Thanks for having me, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Good seeing you.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN:
I appreciate it.
CHUCK TODD:
Appreciate it. When we come back, President Biden is gambling that not only will his new vaccine mandate initiative be good health policy, but believes it's good politics. Is he right? Panel is next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. The panel is here: NBC News senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson; author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin; syndicated columnist George Will, he's author of the new book American Happiness and Discontent: The Unruly Torrent 2008 to 2020. Hopefully, it's not an epithet. And Kimberly Atkins Stohr, senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe. Welcome to all of you. Well, let me show you where Americans are on a vaccine mandate. You want to talk about being divided down the middle, we're divided down the middle. We asked about this. Should employers require vaccines for in-person work, basically, 50% yes, 44% no, and here's the political divide. Let me put that up. It looks very familiar. It looks like the presidential approval rating the way it splits there, Hallie Jackson. This is as much a political decision by the Biden White House as it was a scientific decision.
HALLIE JACKSON:
And they think it's a winner, Chuck. I mean, politically. There's obviously the public health perspective here, but I was talking with one White House official who said, listen, they believe that the politics are on their side on this. It was interesting to hear Governor Hutchinson talk with you about the business aspect of it because I will tell you it did not go unnoticed in The Washington Post yesterday, carrying a piece with, you know, top business leader in the Houston area. Now, Houston, you know, more blue than the rest of the state, but basically saying, "This is giving some businesses," and I'm paraphrasing here, "businesses some cover. We haven't had the phone ringing off the hook." The White House took notice of that, right? They think that this is giving the ability to give some private businesses a little bit of cover and say, "Well, our hands are tied. OSHA's making us do this." So they are optimistic about it. That said, Chuck, the numbers that you just showed tell the whole story. This was politicized from, listen, April of 2020, right? May of 2020, when there was a different president in office who was taking a very different attitude toward masking wearing, right? And that's how this came about.
CHUCK TODD:
Kimberly, it's still an acknowledgment that the Covid strategy hasn't been working. Now, maybe there's nothing he could do with this current crew of unvaccinated people.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
Yeah. I mean, look, I think there is a percentage of people who, no matter what happens, they're not only not going to get vaccinated, but they're going to push against this and politicize it any way that they can. But we have seen, just to Hallie's point, some of the businesses that have already taken it upon themselves, Delta Airlines, others, to impose vaccine mandates, what happened? A portion of their employees who hadn't been vaccinated got vaccinated. We saw it moving the needle. And think the president made that calculation. There's going to be pushback. Certainly, once you have the federal government coming in with a mandate, you know, however strongly it's rooted in the Constitution, which I believe that it is statutorily and constitutionally, people don't like that. That's one of the reasons that they pushed against the vaccine is because of a federal mandate. But he had to balance that against what is actually going to work, what is actually going to get vaccines in arms, what is actually going to help businesses move forward and the economy move forward.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. But Doris and George, you guys look at this through decades of history. Is this going to work or is this going to backfire?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
Oh, I think he had to take the step. And you had to make sure that it had the possibility of -- look, mandates have been part of our history for so long. Go back to old George Washington. You know, he mandated that his soldiers get inoculated against smallpox. And he made a great comment that I think appears today. He said, "Necessity not only authorizes what I'm doing, it compels me to do this because if the virus, if the smallpox rages, it'll be worse than the sword of the enemy." I mean, that's where we're at right now. I think for Biden to reestablish himself as the leader of the country, he had to respond to this crisis in a more muscular way. He was losing ground because the states were taking so much authority and talking about what they didn't want to do. And you have to in a crisis show that you're mobilizing every national resource, that you're giving direction to the country, and you're making the country feel that they are a whole, that they're a collective. Individual liberty has to be balanced against public safety. And I think those are the decisions he finally made.
CHUCK TODD:
George?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
George, the other George.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, the other George, do you think this works, or do you think it'll backfire?
GEORGE WILL:
It'll work in the sense that it will encourage people to get vaccinated. And that's a good thing. The president's impatience is understandable, as is his exasperation. But Constitutional government and the rule of law require patience. Remember, Barack Obama said 20 times he could not unilaterally do what eventually he unilaterally did regarding immigration because he was out of patience. And the same thing is happening here with Mr. Biden. Courts, however, look askance at executive agencies that extract suddenly vast, indeed unlimited new powers, from old statutes.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, OSHA though has had some success at having those authorities reinforced by the Court.
GEORGE WILL:
But the Centers for Disease Control found out that when it decided that it could have an eviction moratorium in the name of containing a pandemic, that the statute would not permit that. This is either unconstitutional, if indeed Congress has delegated essentially legislative powers to these executive agencies, that would violate the non-delegation doctrine which, alas, has been dormant for a long time in the Court. However, it's illegal if they are reading the statute and finding no mandate for this behavior.
HALLIE JACKSON:
It's going to be a court battle, right? I mean, that's where --
GEORGE WILL:
Exactly.
HALLIE JACKSON:
-- this is going. And I think the White House understands that --
CHUCK TODD:
White House wants the court battle, weirdly enough, don't they?
HALLIE JACKSON:
Yeah, and they're ready --
CHUCK TODD:
They want the attention.
HALLIE JACKSON:
--for it. And they're ready for it, right? And --
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
And so are the Republicans.
HALLIE JACKSON:
-- they feel like they have their ducks in a row.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
And Republicans want that too.
HALLIE JACKSON:
Right, you've shown this.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
And in the meantime, you'll start getting more vaccines going. I mean, that's the key. I mean, OSHA has much more broad authority, signed by Nixon, by the way, than did the CDC to use public health for evictions. But OSHA is supposed to defend the workability and the safety of the workplace. And what is that doing now? This is what they're doing.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
And that's a rational basis review. If it is a Constitutional challenge, it's very easy, a low bar for the Biden administration to clear legally.
CHUCK TODD:
But can we lift back here? You know, this is an acknowledgment that the strategy hasn't worked. I mean, I sit back there and -- And maybe, again, the people that will listen to this administration have listened, and that's the problem, that we're at the end of that. But it doesn't feel like we saw Delta coming the way we should've.
HALLIE JACKSON:
So there's that piece of it, Chuck, right the public health piece of it. There's what Governor Hutchinson said to you, which I thought was notable, which is, "We need to do something," he said. "We've got to overcome resistance. But a federal mandate creates more resistance."
That in his view, that is something that is going to backfire. I have to say, at the top of your broadcast here, President Biden did say vaccinated people can remove their masks. We're on such a different planet now, Chuck, right? I mean, a lot of people I think, especially in this town, they're wearing their masks indoors all the time again, right? There were missteps along the way. That is something that is clear. But what you -- I think the defense that you'll hear is, and that I've heard, is the science has changed. Delta has evolved. This happened in a way we didn't expect it to happen.
GEORGE WILL:
There is a pandemic of mindless truculence in the country. We understand that. If they said the Battle of Gettysburg occurred in Pennsylvania, people say, "Wait a minute."
CHUCK TODD:
Let me tell you something --
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
"Wait a second."
GEORGE WILL:
On the other hand, the president said in his remarks, what, Thursday, he said, "We're going to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated." Well, the whole point of being vaccinated is you're really not, in terms of the science and the data, you're really not threatened by the unvaccinated. And when the president says that, people say, "Well, if I need to be protected after I'm vaccinated, what's the point of getting vaccinated?"
CHUCK TODD:
Well, we've got Gettysburg and George Washington. That's why we love --
HALLIE JACKSON:
Check and check.
CHUCK TODD:
-- having you guys on. When we come back, remembering 9/11, 20 years later.
[BEGIN TAPE]
TOM BROKAW:
When the towers began to collapse, the entire country shuddered. And I said on the air at that point, "This will change us."
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. It's been a weekend of remembrance, recalling that day 20 years ago on September 11th when our world suddenly changed. We asked ten people, some of whom were in government, others who helped us through that terrible time, to tell us of their experience that day and their reflections on the two decades that followed.
[BEGIN TAPE]
ANDY CARD:
That day was a day where we thought it was going be an easy day.
MICHÈLE FLOURNOY:
I was actually in a meeting catty corner from the White House.
GEORGE PATAKI:
My daughter called me and told me to turn on the TV.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
What’s most vivid to me on that day is hearing the first report and thinking it was an accident.
JEH JOHNSON:
I actually saw with my own eyes the second plane hit the towers.
REP. BARBARA LEE:
I heard the Capitol Police yelling, “Leave the building. Evacuate. Get out of here right away.”
ANDY CARD:
I just told him a second plane hit the second tower, America was under attack.
TOM BROKAW:
When the towers began to collapse, the entire country shuddered, and I said on the air at that point, “This will change us.”
JANET NAPOLITANO:
It was a shock to really the presumption amongst the American people that we were somehow immune from attack.
GEORGE PATAKI:
We came together in a way that I've never seen in my lifetime.
JOE TORRE:
And what was really powerful was they were bringing pictures of their lost relatives and friends with Yankee caps or Yankee jerseys, jackets, saying what big fans they were. I realized that baseball was necessary for, I guess, to start the healing.
ANDY CARD:
In the first days after 9/11, he went to a mosque, and said that the Muslim faith is not a faith of, of terror. It's a faith of love.
REP. ANDRÉ CARSON:
A lot of people's commitment to our country was brought into question, overlooking the fact that there are scores of Muslims who serve in our law enforcement communities. I was one of them.
ANDY CARD:
One of the greatest spontaneous series of remarks by any president in history, were the remarks that the president gave at Ground Zero.
PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH:
I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!
REP. BARBARA LEE:
The authorization to use military force was passed on 9/14, three days, three days after this horrific, terrible attack. That was the wrong time to pass such an overly broad authorization.
TOM BROKAW:
We underestimated the complexity of the war that we were about to get into. And I think a lot of people thought we could just walk in and clean it up.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
We got into some sense that we had to, quote, “end the war,” and it is in many ways an endless war. Probably the right narrative, the right analogy would have been Korea. I think that would have been the right way to think about Afghanistan.
JEH JOHNSON:
We cannot remake a whole country and prop up another country's government in a distant land in order to avoid another act of terrorism.
GEORGE PATAKI:
I think it was a sad mistake that we went into Iraq. That started to end that sense of unity.
MICHÈLE FLOURNOY:
Our response, over time, particularly when we got distracted or, you know, refocused on the Iraq war, became very militarized.
JEH JOHNSON:
I worry that if there were another 9/11 today, our government would be too polarized to summon a national response to that event.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I worry that if we don't deal with our internal divisions, we will be vulnerable to another kind of degradation of America's security, America's values and America's future. We've got to come back to common purpose.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
And we are back. Well, especially Doris and George, I'm curious where you guys think -- where is America?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
Well, one of the things that I think makes me sad when I look at that spirit that was generated on 9/11 was we really felt ourself as a nation. There was a sense of undaunted courage, there was volunteerism, enlistments in the Army. I mean, I know my own son graduated from Harvard that June and he volunteered for the Army on September 12th. That spirit of wanting to be part of a nation seems to have been lost. You know, it's one of the questions that FDR asked in the middle of World War II when people were grumbling about rationing, grumbling about having only five gallons a week, grumbling about only one cup of coffee a day. He said, "What is a nation? A nation is when we feel that we are doing something for a common purpose, for the common good. We're willing to sacrifice because we believe in the nation." We're at a war. We're at a war with this enemy of Covid. Where is the national spirit that we're in this together, the collective identity that I think we've shown in so many other crises in the country? That's what I keep waiting for that to emerge.
CHUCK TODD:
Where do you think we are, George?
GEORGE WILL:
Well, I think we're exhausted from war-ness. War on poverty, war on drugs, war on climate change, war on this. The political rhetoric is always driven toward war because martial metaphors mean people will get in line and obey orders. Well, that's not the way we are normally as a people, and we don't want to be that. We don't want wartime to be normal in the United States, particularly a low simmering, low intensity war of this sort, from non-state actors. It's a very different thing. Just as in the pandemic we're saying there are some things that just can't be done to fight even something as serious as a pandemic. The United States had to come to terms with the fact that there are some ways of fighting terrorism that are unacceptable -- surveillance, for example, data gathering. One of the things that happened in this last 20 years is this. This came along in 2007. And this symbolizes the big data gathering and the sense of privacy being invaded and perhaps Big Brother knowing more than he should. That matters because the terrorists came from within our midst. They were here. And therefore, we had to begin to make some really difficult distinctions.
CHUCK TODD:
Kimberly, is our natural setting as America actually the setting we're in now? I mean, is it -- I look at the Soviets, the Nazis, Al Qaeda got us to unite. But maybe that's all that gets us to unite.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
Well, I think one problem is it's the new natural stance of America because another thing that this brought is the fact that everybody can seek out their own information sources and then what in turn happened is everyone believed their own facts, and the politicization of facts, and turning Americans against each other. I mean, it wasn't just that it's partisanship. We have suffered from years of partisanship where the former president --
CHUCK TODD:
The 19th century was a -- the entire 19th century was polarizing, right, and partisan.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
Well, but, I mean, but we had a president saying that, not just that the other party was wrong, but that the other party hates America. You have a growing economic cleave, a growing wealth gap in America, a growing geographic gap in America. People are having different opinions about who deserves to call themselves Americans. At a time like that, when the divisions are that deep and that multifaceted, it is impossible, even in the face of a pandemic that threatens us all, to come together for a common, for a common purpose in trying to fight it. I mean, it really reveals how far we've come.
HALLIE JACKSON:
The one thing I’m thinking about is, what about the generation, we have this hashtag #NeverForget, right? It's been everywhere this weekend. What about the people who never remembered because they weren't born yet, right? Kids that are up through high school now, anybody under the age of 20 years old. I think about, you know, what is my kid going to learn about 9/11? Half the states in this country have pieces in their curriculum that say, "Yeah, teach about 9/11. Teach about the war on terror." But 16 don't, right? How do teachers teach about it? How do you get the next generation to understand what 9/11 meant to us as a country? It's, like, I don't know, my generation learning about Pearl Harbor, right? How --
CHUCK TODD:
That was easy --
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
-- do you do it?
CHUCK TODD:
-- to teach. Well, let me ask the two of you guys who, to me, are unofficial teachers for both of us. How would you teach, how would you teach 9/11?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
I think the important thing is you always teach a remembrance that we summoned at the time at the beginning, a spirit. And when you go back and see what we've seen these last couple days, maybe that spirit will come back again. But you also have to teach that it led us to a series of wars. And wars exhausted us, as George said. And you think about the idea of how much was spent on those wars, 20 years of wars, that could've been spent domestically on our problems at home. I mean, that's one of the great things, if I can bring in old Eisenhower right now. I mean, he said that every rocket that is fired, every gun that is made, every warship that is launched is like a thief of people who are hungry and are not fed and people who are cold and are not clothed. I mean, that's what we have to remember. That was the legacy of what happened after 9/11, despite that great spirit in the beginning.
CHUCK TODD:
How would you frame it for an education?
GEORGE WILL:
I'd frame it that 9/11 was not the end of normality, it was the restoration of normality in this sense. We'd had, since the end of the Cold War to 9/11 a parenthesis, our holiday from history. And it turns out the world's a dangerous place and that never changes.
CHUCK TODD:
Thank you guys. It's a great panel. Great way to end this weekend. That's all we have for today. Thank you for watching. Enjoy the NFL coming back. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.