0 four was not different than today's amazon factories, and it would take a lot of illegal strikes across the country, and 33 and 34 to get the right to collective, bargain and then really unleash another wave of strikes in 1936. josh, chain, that was "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. very happy to have you here. it's friday eve, after all. this billboard has just gone up in times square in new york city. as you can see there, it says "trump lost," no more, quote, audits. this was put up by a republican group, a group called the republican accountability project. we've talked about them a few times on the show. they're basically a group of anti-trump republicans, including people who served in the trump administration who are now anti-trump republicans basically trying to save their party from the direction it has taken under trump. and the republican accountability project apparently has a sort of subgroup called republicans for voting rights. they put this up in times square. and i have to tell you, when i first saw that, i thought that this might be one of those things where an advocacy group does kind of a stunt ad. they just -- you see this sometimes in the d.c. tv market, that a political group will run a political ad like once in washington, d.c., in the hopes that just the right person or just the right media will see it. you also sometimes see that in times square. you'll have an advocacy group just put up one ad for one day, just in times square, hope that media organizations based in new york will cover that, as if it is a national thing, even though that one ad is running only once in new york city. i have seen my share of those kinds of p.r. stunts and sort of news stunts over the years, but it turns out that is not what this is because while it is in times square in new york city, look, here it is today. this is in the wild, in harrisburg, pennsylvania. again, you see it's the same sort of graphic there, "trump lost, no more audits." and here it is today also in the wild, in virginia, in richmond, virginia. you can see there if you look closely, this billboard is directly above ye olde car wash. "trump lost, no more audits." you can see in the foreground of that photo the political campaign signs there, that's because virginia has its election for governor less than three weeks from now. and yes, the republican running for governor of virginia, a guy named glenn youngkin, is trump-endorsed. he has called for one of these audits of virginia's presidential election results. last night at a glenn youngkin event in virginia, trump himself phoned in and steve bannon spoke. at the event they literally asked the audience to pledge allegiance to a flag they said had been flown by trump supporters in d.c. on january 6th while the mob of trump supporters attacked the capitol. that was like their special treat for the fans. hey, glenn youngkin supporters, you can pledge allegiance to not just any flag but to the january 6 flag. wow. in any case, this billboard, this "trump lost" billboard is up in the wild in pennsylvania, in virginia. it's up in the wild in austin, texas, today, also in orlando, florida. apparently the plan is to run this "trump lost, no more audits" billboard in georgia, florida, texas, pennsylvania, michigan, virginia, wisconsin, arizona, and times square in new york city. other than new york, of course, all those other states are places where republicans really are either already doing or planning to do these partisan pseudo audits, these bizarre reviews of the presidential election results that treat the election as if it was some kind of crime that requires forensic investigation. tonight we're going to be speaking with the attorney general of the great state of wisconsin who has come out forcefully this week saying that the election investigation republicans are doing in that state isn't just ridiculous. it's harmful. he says it needs to be shut down. this is actually good to see today in "the washington post." the national press starting to cover the fact that republicans are messing with the election results in wisconsin as well. this is not something that ended in arizona. they are really running with this thing. and the situation in wisconsin deserves more national attention than it's getting. that's why it was really good to see this "washington post" piece today. look at the lead here, it's a gem. quote, the glaring errors became clear soon after a former wisconsin judge issued subpoenas earlier this month in a republican review of the state's 2020 presidential election. some of his requests referred to the wrong city. at least one was sent to an official who doesn't actually oversee elections. a latin phrase included in the demands for records and testimony was misspelled. michael gableman, the former judge leading the review, admitted days later that he does not have, quote, a comprehensive understanding or even any understanding of how elections work. he then backed off some of his subpoena demands before reversing course again, telling a local right wing radio host that officials would, in fact, still be required to testify. quote, the latest round of reversals and blunders in wisconsin is intensifying calls to end the investigation. one of several recent efforts around the country to revisit biden's win in states where former president trump and his supporters have leveled baseless accusations of voter fraud. voting rights advocates, election policy experts, and some state and local officials accuse gableman in wisconsin of incompetence. they say his review will decrease public trust in wisconsin elections. wisconsin state attorney general josh kaul this week called gableman's subpoenas unlawful. he called them, quote, dramatically overbroad and he urged republicans in the state legislature to, quote, shut this fake investigation down. again, that was from wisconsin state attorney general josh kaul. wisconsin state attorney general josh kaul is going to be our guest here live in just a moment. we also have our eyes on other developing news around that particular dark corner in our politics. now that former president trump has apparently advised trump white house officials to not comply with subpoenas from the january 6 investigation in congress, the committee that's conducting that investigation is apparently planning to move forward with a criminal contempt referral for at least one of those trump white house officials, steve bannon. i should mention, at that event for republican candidate glenn youngkin in virginia last night, the one where they pledged allegiance to the flag that was used by the crowd at january 6, at that event steve bannon whipped up the crowd with all these claims that the election had been stolen from trump and said they're going to take it back. he reportedly said at this event that not only is trump coming back into office, but then he said they're going to rule for a hundred years. okay. will you be here for all of them? it doesn't seem like mr. bannon is too bothered by the threat that there is a criminal contempt referral coming his way as he defies the subpoena for the january 6 investigation. but that criminal contempt referral is apparently coming his way. we shall see. as trump justice department officials continue to try to thread their way out of the attempted subversion of the election and trump's efforts to use the justice department to try to stay in power after he lost the election, today there's also some interesting news that one trump justice department senior official, very senior official, jeffrey rosen, he served as attorney general in the final days of trump after bill barr quit, jeffrey rosen apparently spent eight straight hours yesterday testifying behind closed doors to that same january 6 investigation that's going to send the criminal referral for steve bannon. jeffrey rosen, eight hours of testimony yesterday. must have had a lot to talk about. it was behind closed doors, we don't know what happened. we expect that that testimony will eventually be shown to the public. and no, i'm not going to read all eight hours of it on the air when we finally get the transcript, but you better believe i will find the good stuff, when we finally get it. so like i said, we've got eyes on all those developing stories tonight. but there's been a whole different kind of drama and momentum today when it comes to covid. a whole but any things are happening now all at once on covid. first of all, and most importantly, of course, we've still got a huge proportion of our population that is unvaccinated, that is driving crushing numbers of very sick covid patients that are still overwhelming hospitals in multiple states. you're hearing about how nationally the numbers are starting to come down from our most recent peak, and that is a good piece of news nationwide. but look at the headlines just today. out of all these different states, wyoming, utah, minnesota, michigan, montana, alaska, all headlines today about hospitals hitting or maintaining or even exceeding their peak patient numbers even as recently as today. the biggest hospital in montana, their icu unit is now operating at 175% capacity. whatever relief we might be getting in the numbers nationwide, montana is still really in the thick of it, as are all those other states, as are even more states than that. so the crush of patients, unvaccinated covid patients, and how that is crowding out all the other kinds of care that hospitals need to be providing, honestly, to me at least it still seems like that's job one in terms of what's wrong in the country right now on covid. we have to protect the health care system. people who get in car accidents or have strokes or heart attacks or have operable cancer and need to be able to get in, they sometimes need icu beds. if we've got hospitals and icus overtapped consistently in state after state after state, week after week after week, we're losing our ability to keep americans alive and keep americans from getting grievous illnesses. that ought to be preventable. people who ought to be saveable won't be as long as our health care system has this kink in it because of the crush of covid patients who are not vaccinated. and, you know, we've got all the attendant problems that go along with that crush. the need to support, the need to spell, to give some relief and support to our doctors and nurses and other health care workers. we have seen the federal government taking some creative stabs at that problem. you've seen these federal strike teams being deployed to local hospitals around the country. even u.s. military assets, u.s. military being deployed, national guard but also active duty troops. and that helps. but those are -- you know, those are sort of local solutions to what's a widespread problem. it's an ongoing problem, an ongoing challenge that will only get better when there are fewer patients. and that will only happen when more people are vaccinated. and then alongside that, there's the evolution, the really interesting evolution right now in terms of what we've got in the quiver to fight off this virus. today it was a 19-0 vote by the fda advisory panel considering the question of whether the moderna vaccine will be approved for a booster dose, a third dose, just like pfizer. the vote today was 19-0 in favor of moderna offering a booster shot. that third shot would be half the dose of the other two shots. and you take it no sooner than six months after your second shot of moderna. it will be for people aged 65 and over and also people younger than 65 who are at high risk for covid because of other medical issues or they're at high risk of covid exposure because of where they live or where they work. it's the same criteria that's being used for the pfizer shot in terms of who qualifies for a booster. the fda looks like it's on its way toward a similar set of approvals for moderna with that unanimous vote from the fda advisory panel recommending that. tomorrow, that same advisory panel will consider the question of johnson & johnson, the single shot vaccine, and whether there's going to be a booster for that. there's a lot of interesting potential variables that, we'll talk about that in just a moment. you know, big picture, a, more americans need to get vaccinated, period, regardless of who gets a booster shot or not. and, b, the whole world population needs to get more vaccinated than it is, if we are ever going to get to the end of this thing. and while all these approval decisions are working their way through our system for the u.s. population, one of the other dynamics at work now is that president biden's most senior advisers on covid are getting sort of increasingly outspoken, are leaning increasingly hard on the companies producing these vaccines, particularly moderna, that they need to get off their wallet and start really kicking up their production capacity. they need to start making more, because for all the drama and the mishegas around vaccines in this country, writ large, a vaccine, as far as we know, is humankind's way out of this pandemic. it's the way out for our country. it's the way out for the world. and no country can get out of it until the world gets out of it. and, therefore, we need lots more vaccines to be able to get there. president biden's most senior advisers now advocating that the companies making these vaccines need to make more. joining us now is dr. david kessler, former fda commissioner, now chief science officer for the white house's covid-19 response. dr. kessler, it's always a real honor to have time with you, thank you for making time to be here tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> first let me ask you about this advisory process and the consideration around these boosters. am i right to worry that the focus on the boosters, while important, that we need to worry about whether or not that might be distracting attention, might be distracting focus from the sort of more overwhelming need to just get more people vaccinated, full stop, regardless of whether or not certain populations eventually get a third dose? >> i agree with you 100%. job number one is to get the unvaccinated vaccinated. no doubt that is the first, foremost item on the agenda. i do think the step that the advisory committee took today to recommend a booster shot of moderna at six months for people who are 65 years of age or at high risk, i think that's an important step. assuming fda and acip go along, that brings moderna and pfizer into sync. we've administered 11 million pfizer doses so far, and data presented from israel showed an 11-fold reduction in infection after boost, 19-fold reduction in severe disease. so boosters give people increased protection against infection. but no doubt, getting people who are not vaccinated vaccinated is job one. >> and, dr. kessler, in terms of this consideration tomorrow around johnson & johnson, there's been some intriguing reporting, that's a different type of vaccine, an mrna vaccine, than pfizer and moderna. it's a single shot vaccine so far. is it possible that the booster recommendation around johnson & johnson might not be that people should get a second shot of that vaccine but rather their second shot should be one of the others? >> so let me give you the data. you're right. for all people who took the j&j vaccine, tomorrow is their day at the advisory committee. the data will be presented. we know that j&j's own two-dose studies, that's j&j with j&j, shows that a second dose of j&j increases protection by about 20% against moderate to severe disease. so that is very good news. but you're also talking -- the committee will also look at what's known as the mix-and-match studies. and these results are very exciting. the company didn't do these, but the nih did these. and the mix-and-match studies give excellent boost, certainly with regard to neutralizing antibodies. so let's see what fda recommends. >> fascinating. and talking about what the companies have done and what the companies have spent money to figure out versus what the government has spent money to figure out, nih funded studies, for example, in those mix-and-match questions. i've been interested to see the discussion around specifically moderna, which is a company that the u.s. taxpayers have dumped billions of dollars into overall, and to great effect. i mean, moderna has contributed massively with their vaccine to humanity's arsenal against this pandemic. but because the u.s. taxpayers have contributed to much to what that company is and what they've been able to bring to market, you've spoken out recently saying that moderna needs to really step it up in terms of just the number of doses they are producing, both for the u.s. market but particularly for the world. and the covax initiative and other ways we've strategized to try to make sure the world gets vaccinated. >> i've been very direct with them. we need moderna to provide substantial doses at a not-for-profit price to low income countries. we need them to do it now. and we need the companies to create manufacturing capacity in africa. having real manufacturing capacity on the african continent will make a real difference in access for many people who do not have access to these vaccines. they need to step it up and they need to do it now. >> is moderna resisting those calls or are they responsive to those concerns? >> they've heard our message loud and clear. i hope there's progress. we will hold their feet to the fire. >> dr. kessler, let me also ask you, going back to what you said was job one. the latest numbers that i've seen say that there's still between 60 and 70 million americans who haven't gotten a single shot. and there is all this talk about the boosters, and there's interesting talk about, you know, therapeutics and the antiviral pill from merck. but that job one of getting people to get their first vaccine shot, people to get on the train to getting fully vaccinated, are there things that we could be doing that we are not doing? are there things within the government's power or within our power as a country that could winnow that number down? are there things you wish we were doing that we haven't yet been able to do? >> so one set of very interesting numbers is that we went from 95 million people unvaccinated before the president's vaccine requirements in july to 66 million today. so we were at 95 million unvaccinated in july. those requirements were announced, and we're now down to 66 million. so vaccine requirements work. they are good for the economy. they're supported by the majority of the american people. and most importantly, they save lives. so i think we have these requirements. we have boosts. let's get our kids vaccinated. the fda advisory committee will reconvene at the end of this month. hopefully those doses after fda review can start rolling out to our kids. i think with those things, those increased requirements, boosts, getting kids vaccinated, we can make real, real progress. >> dr. david kessler, chief science officer for the white house's covid-19 response, of course, former fda commissioner. sir, thank you as always for your time and for your clarity. thank you. >> thank you, rachel. we've got much more to get to tonight. stay with us.