In a controversial decision, a CDC advisory panel voted against recommending Hepatitis B vaccines for many newborns. “A lot of people used to die before they were five years old,” warns MS NOW senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny. Childhood deaths have decreased significantly over decades, “because we have found the beauty and the miracle of vaccines.”

The new HBO documentary “The Devil is Busy” looks at the difficult daily work of abortion providers working under strict restrictions in Atlanta. Executive producer Soledad O'Brien tells Ali Velshi that with abortion becoming a highly politicized issue, she wanted to show "who are the actual people in these clinics, and what they do day in and day out." The documentary's focus on providers and patients, rather than higher level discussions of policy, O'Brien explains, aims to provide "a more nuanced picture of what's actually happening" in post-Roe America. 

By asking people to submit tips about their fellow citizens and instances that are not in line with its ideology or agenda, the Trump administration is creating a permission structure for the public to monitor and report one another – and there’s a reason for that. “Authoritarianism is a mafia state,” University of Toronto Philosophy Professor Jason Stanley tells Ali Velshi. “And how does the mafia operate? The mafia operates by getting you to be complicit in their crimes.”

Since entering office this year, the Trump administration has encouraged people multiple times to send in tips about people who are not aligned with its agenda or ideology on a number of issues. Historians and experts on authoritarianism have a word for this: denunciation – the practice of citizens monitoring each other and reporting perceived wrongdoing to the state. Many Americans have expressed resistance to the idea of becoming a government informant, but it’s another sign of how the country may be slipping into authoritarianism.

There are so many alarming behaviors being normalized in the second era of Donald Trump, and so few lighthearted moments in politics, that it's tempting to see video of Donald Trump seemingly falling asleep during a televised cabinet meeting and laugh. But we should resist the temptation to laugh. Ali Velshi explains that Americans cannot participate in such a dangerous normalization.

Today’s meeting of the Velshi Banned Book Club dives into Jane Austen’s masterpiece, “Pride and Prejudice,” the romance novel that has defined the genre. Author Elaine Castillo shares how Austen inspired her own work and discusses why Austen romances have had such a profound effect on readers for generations.

Immigration attorney Allen Orr criticized President Trump’s move to revoke Temporary Protective Status of Somali refugees in the U.S. “We don’t have to return them to a situation in which they may die,” he said. 80,000 Somali-Americans in Minnesota are the latest target of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. “We’re making judgements on the value of individual lives, and that’s not okay,” Orr said.

Some top officials in the Trump administration – like FBI Director Kash Patel, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – have recently been plagued with scandals related to their personal and/or professional conduct. Tom Nichols, writer for The Atlantic, and National Security Attorney Bradley Moss join Ali Velshi to discuss it. Nichols says there’s a “bunch of very child-like grifters” at the head of the government. “One of the things that's so striking about all these people is not just how amateurish they are, but how completely unfocused they are,” Nichols adds.

Donald Trump chose fealty and showmanship over experience and skill when choosing people for top positions in his administration. As a result, he undermined his own agenda, as his handpicked leaders get overrun with one scandal after another. Ali Velshi ticks through some examples of how Kash Patel, Kristi Noem, and Pete Hegseth are becoming liabilities to the White House and the country.

A controversial “double-tap” strike in the Caribbean on Sept. 2, which killed two survivors, has sparked a conversation about the legality of that strike. This week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to shift blame for the strike to his admiral. Retired Navy JAG Todd Huntley warns that facts are being shaped “to arrive at a predetermined outcome” and says Congress needs access to chat logs and the full execution order to determine what really happened.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is under fire after a Caribbean strike reportedly killed two survivors, sparking debate over whether the attack amounts to a war crime. Hegseth appears to be shifting blame to his subordinate, Admiral Mitch Bradley, while some legal experts and members of Congress warn that everyone involved could face serious consequences.