sweeping pieces of legislation in most recent history, set to impact american life on many, many levels. by now you probably heard about the $1,400 stimulus checks, which could start going out via direct deposit next week but the bill is also expected to add 7 million jobs to the economy. it's designed to cut child poverty in half, specifically helping black and hispanic families through the tax credits and family aid and it will fund nationwide vaccine distribution that should help bring an end to this covid pandemic. to underscore that, we just learned in the last hour, the biden administration will announce plans to buy 100 million additional vaccines from johnson & johnson. we should make it clear, that while there is a lot of hope and a lot of potential surrounding the new covid bill, we will not be sure how effective it's going to actually be until it's put into action. i want to bring in garrett haake on capitol hill. also with us, chief white house correspondent for nbc news, peter alexander. garrett, any surprises we can possibly see today? >> stephanie, democrats are confident they will have the votes and hakeem jeffries told me yesterday they were 100% they could pass this bill. remember, they lost two versions when the house passed its original version. the democratic whip, jim clyburn, thinks they will get at least one of those two back. they've been using events to slow down even routine votes so even though we have the house floor opening now and this bill is at least the first piece of business they're trying to deal with this morning, it could be well after noon before this vote is finally gaveled. but, again, democratic leaders here were very confident yesterday, holding really two press conferences declaring an early victory on this bill that they think will be incredibly important for crushing the virus and handing the biden administration their first major win. >> talk about the president's plan to sell this bill to the american people, and also this new j&j vaccine news. >> white house is thrilled by this, as the president, president biden, campaigned on this issue saying it was his first priority. it's now about to become a reality. i'm told it's likely he will be able to sign this bill friday, a couple days away, with preparations being made, weather permitting, for a formal celebration on the south lawn to help america celebrate the historic comeback from an awful pandemic. as we expect joe biden to make that formal announcement for the purchase or plans to purchase 100 million additional vaccines from johnson & johnson. today when he hosts executives from both j&j and merck here at the white house, as you know, president biden has said it will be the end of may when he thinks the u.s. has enough vaccines available for every adult in the country. of course, that's different than every adult being vaccinated by that point. the challenge ultimately is the distribution, getting those into arms but they certainly have a sufficient number, the white house believes now, to help provide enough vaccine to many of those americans in just the next couple of months. in terms of selling this, the white house says they will sell it, certainly, but they emphasize the majority of americans support this bill. there is bipartisan support they say in the country even if not a single republican lawmaker will support it. some of the key provisions in this bill they're focusing on, among them obamacare premiums, it will increase subsidies meaning a family of four making $60,000 a year will save roughly $221 a month, that and the child tax credit for family of four making roughly $68,000, they could get $550 a month through those payments as well. >> a lot or even a little money would certainly help in this time of need. peter, garrett, thank you. i want to dig deeper and bring in the man who said this thing is going to pass 110% sure, that's how confident he is. chair of the house democratic caucus, new york congressman hakeem jeffries. congressman, thank you for joining us this morning. really huge day. yesterday i heard you say it over and over, mission accomplished. mission accomplished getting this bill through but let's be honest, with all due respect, $1,400 is important but it's not going to deliver someone long term from poverty. food assistance is not a sub suit for long term, good paying job and we still have 250 million americans that haven't gotten the vaccine. how can we say mission accomplished yet? >> good morning, stephanie. it's great to be on. mission accomplished in terms of meeting the moment with respect to passing the american rescue plan. joe biden made clear that his top priority was to ensure that we addressed the covid-19 pandemic in a comprehensive and compassionate way. this is a once-in-a-century pandemic. it required a once-in-a-century response. that's what it represents. in terms of the reviving the economy, we know the american rescue plan will add at least 7 million good-paying jobs. that's substantial. there's short-term assistance in the form of direct payment survival checks and, of course, dealing with issues connected to unemployment or food insecurity or people who are on the brink of homelessness, but the changes that are being made to the affordable care act with the subsidies, the changes that are being made with respect to the child tax credit, the changes that are being made with respect to the earned income tax credit should have a more sustainable impact on creating an american to bring about prosperity in every single zip code. >> let's talk about that. there's a difference between a rescue and long-term resolution. $5.5 trillion into the system over the last year, which we needed. but are there permanent changes to the system in this bill? when you think about the importance of reopening schools, you're darn right it's important, but it doesn't solve the fact we had failing skills all over this country even before they shut down. >> one of the things that joe biden had said on the campaign trail, which i think was incredibly important, was we had to build back better. that was a recognition that we can't return to normalcy pre-pandemic because there were challenges in terms of normalcy, there were far too many americans who were falling behind and weren't able to robustly pursue the american dream. prior to the pandemic, half the american people reported that they couldn't afford a sudden unexpected $400 expense. this is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, so certainly to your point, stephanie, much more needs to be done and in the context of the build back better agenda, but this is a substantial and meaningful first step. the most significant investment in the social safety net in over a generation. >> certainly is. i want to talk about oversight, because we know in a rescue plan like this, some dollars are going to get misused but not just some, billions have been misused. programs like ppp, that started with great intentions, but we saw a lot of money go to a lot of people that didn't need it. now that potentially we are seeing this next $1.9 trillion go through, what are we looking to do to make sure it lands in the right place? >> congress is looking to take its oversight responsibilities with jim clyburn, who speaker pelosi appointed to lead the covid-19 special select committee, on reviewing how federal dollars are being spent to make sure they're being spent in an effective, efficient and equitable fashion. that work will continue. but we also have an administration that will stay on top of the expenditures to make sure they reach the american people. the last administration had many people asleep at the switch because they were concerned about the wealthy americans. this administration is concerned about everyday americans, the least, lost, and left behind. that will be a big difference. >> for everyday americans in need of help, help is almost on the way. congressman, thank you so much for joining us this morning. i appreciate it. and throughout this week, throughout this day, we're going to answer one question -- in this bill, what is in it for you? to answer this question, we've got three guests with extensive experience in three critical areas, health care, food and housing. i want to start with sarah cliff, she covers health care for "the new york times." i want to explain this bill because a lot of people just think my stimulus check, when am i getting it? but this would expand the aca, subsidies for cope ra premiums through september, and people who pay their own insurance 0 would get that covered at 100% through february, and that all sounds great, but it's temporary, right? >> it is a big deal. the premiums will be cheaper because of greater subsidies. people who earn too much to qualify will qualify for subsidies for the first time. people who already qualify will get more, generous subsidies. you're right, stephanie, this is only for two years but the hope is among democrats i have spoken with they can ultimately make these permanent. obviously, that's going to cost a lot of money, just these subsidies alone cost $35 billion but it's a big boost and help solve the key problem with the affordable care act in the eyes of legislators, premiums were not affordable. that's what they're trying to tackle with the new subsidies. like you mentioned, for a number of american families, it's going to make a big difference. premiums go down hundreds of dollars a month. it's also important to know, the affordable care act is in open enrollment now. so they can take advantage of these tax credits rolled out pretty much as soon as this american rescue act becomes law. >> that right there is a very big positive. i want to bring in sherry tuesday ler, the executive director of the hunger task force. sherry, this bill extend increased food assistance stamps throughout september, summer. you're on the ground every single day feeding thousands of people. this is not a long-term policy change but it is extending the rescue. if people start to get their jobs back, and it's projected to bring 7 million jobs back, with all of the need for your support start to disappear? >> no, because a lot of people were eligible for food share well before the pandemic. many more people became eligible for food share as a result of unemployment and the pandemic and that food share program or s.n.a.p. will continue throughout the course of the pandemic and six months beyond their eligibility. so we're looking forward to assuring that people are going to get a 15% increase in their s.n.a.p. benefit at least through september. and that's important. and we're going to replace those missed school meals with a program called pandemic ebt. so help is on the way. >> i want to bring in diane yentl, president and ceo of the national housing coalition. diane, this includes more than $25 billion for people who cannot pay their rent, $10 billion for people behind on their mortgage, and billions for more section 8 housing. basically, the money helps them get out of the hole so they can start clean. but once that happens, are people going to be in a position to pay their rents and pay their mortgages going forward? >> no, many won't. i mean tens of millions of renters struggle to pay the rent and keep up with housing cost across the pandemic. they lost jobs, they lost sleep. and many of them struggled to pay the rent even before this. the will add $50 billion in resources to help them get out of the hole they dug. there's $50 billion in rent, utilities and arrears that accrued during the pandemic. this is an historic amount of resources to help right stability for renter's, homeowners. and for some people it will help with homelessness. but much more needed to help the shortage before the loans that existed before the pandemic and after the pandemic. >> with our takeaway, food, housing, health care, this is important help but it's a start. people will need a lot more support after this. ladies, thank you very much. now we will take a turn because the fbi is looking for the person suspected of planting two pipe bombs the night before the january 6th capitol riots. new video shows this person allegedly planting the bombs which were fully functional outside of the offices of the republican and democratic national committees. the former chief of capitol police, who resigned after the riot, said he believes the bombs were planted as a diversion. that's because their discovery pulled dozens of police away from their usual posts, with just about 90 minutes before the rioters stormed the capitol. nbc's pete williams has been digging into this story. pete, it's been two months since this riot happened. why is the fbi releasing this video now? >> public health has been extremely important to the fbi in identifying the people at the capitol and they're hoping now public help can help identify this person. they've exhausted investigative leads. there's no clear video of the person's face. so they hope by showing these videos that show the person's mo find familiar. so there are several scenes, four of them in all. all of them on the fbi's website, fbi.gov. this one, for example, the person on south capitol street, later in the same sequence, put the backpack town and put on what looked like colored sunglasses and take them back off again and move on. the other video show the person at various places in the neighborhood. this one may actually show the person planting the bomb that was outside the headquarters of the democratic national committee because it was found under a park bench right near the dnc. both of those two headquarters are near the u.s. capitol. the hope is somebody will see these things, see what the person is wearing, the person moves, find the mannerisms somewhat familiar. >> explain it to us, the fbi thinks these were just plants, these were diversions to get the capitol police away from their posts protecting the capitol? >> that's the view of the former capitol police chief. there's a couple of questions about this that are unresolved. for example, the bomb was replaced the night before but not discovered just before the riots came to the capitol. why is that? is it a coincidence or something else? the second thing is the bombs were made with ordinary kitchen timers you can set for a maximum of one hour. why didn't they go off? were they intended to? the fbi said the bombs were made of metal pipe like this, one-inch diameter metal pipe with m-caps and timers attached so why didn't they go off? one detail we learned yesterday is they had a home made black powder inside. the fbi has given us additional details what the suspected bomber was wearing, gray hoodie, face mask, nike air max speed turf shoes with a logo like these. they hope that someone somewhere will see these videos and say, i think i know who this might be. >> more clues are coming in every day and certainly the investigation continues. pete williams, thank you so much. we're going to leave it there but you must not go anywhere. we're following breaking developments in minneapolis as jury selection resumes in the derek chauvin murder trial. plus today starting in texas o. 100% of businesses open, no mask mandates. how does a small business owner, how do texans feel about all of this? this is a state that hasn't seen mass vaccinations, not yet compared to the rest of the country. and look at your screen right now, one year ago today i spoke with former national economic council director for former president trump jerry cohen as the stock market was collapsing and country on the brink of the pandemic. he joins me one year later on the recovery efforts, he they too shortsighted? and is this k-recovery ever going to turn into a v? ing to tv don't wait to see your doctor. these could be symptoms of deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot which could travel to your lungs and lead to a pulmonary embolism. which could cause chest pain or discomfort, or difficulty breathing—and be deadly. your symptoms could mean something serious, so this is no time to wait. talk to a doctor right away, by phone, online, for less than the very best. starting today, nobody has to settle so this is no time to wait. because only verizon gives you 5g from america's most reliable network at no extra cost. so you only pay for what you need. the plan is so reasonable, they can stay on for the rest of their lives. aww. 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'. we've got breaking news, the first 3 of 12 jurors have now been chosen in the derek chauvin trial, with jury selection set to resume about 30 minutes from now. busy, busy day. chauvin, of course, is the minneapolis former police officer accused of killing george floyd last may by kneeling on his neck for just under nine minutes. i want to go live to minneapolis where shaquille brewster is standing by. shaq, what can you tell us about those three members chosen? >> stephanie, jurors remain anonymous through the process but we learn a little bit about them as we watch the questioning and listen to the questioning of this jury. we know so far when you look at the makeup, three jurors had been selected, two of them are white men. there's one who is an auditor in his 20s or 30s -- the auditor is in his 30s. he said he saw the clip a few times in news clips and has some unfavorable views towards the blue lives matter movement. and another juror who is a chemist who said he has not seen the video, just stills of it. we also know of one woman who is apparently biracial. she's in her 20s or 30s and during the questioning she was very excited about the prospect of being on the jury. she said she has the uncle who's a police officer and has a good relationship with him. if we step back a little bit from this entire process, these are three jurors out of the 27 potential jurors that have been screened in some way, shape or form. we know many before they even enter the courtroom, have filled out a questionnaire. so many were excused or dismissed from that process and nine of them were questioned inside the courtroom yesterday. what you get is the sense as you watch this process play out, it's not about whether or not these people have seen the video or even if they have opinions, something you hear the defense and prosecution harp on is whether or not they can put aside those opinions and sit on that jury in an impartial manner. remember, we're trying to get to 12 jurors and now 2 alternates, an update the court has given us, so a total of 14 people with just 3 on day one of how slow this process will be, steph. >> there's also unresolved questions about adding a third degree murder charge. what is that all about? >> that's right. this is one of the looming -- this looming cloud of uncertainty that we have over this entire process. and is it really goes to a court of appeals here in minnesota and state supreme court. right now the prosecution has asked the court of appeals to say this jury selection process should be put on hold right now as chauvin and his attorneys appeal that third degree charge to the state supreme court. the judge in this case, the trial judge, is saying we will move forward with the jury selection process until an appellate court, one of those higher courts, tells him to stop. but that is something we continue to wait on. if the court of appeals or supreme court weighs into this, that's just another level of uncertainty we have in this entire trial. stephanie? >> shaquille brewster, thank you very much. we're following developments in the state of arkansas where governor asa hutchinson just signed legislation banning nearly all abortions in that state. the bill only allows the procedure if it will save the life of the mother. it does not provide exceptions for rape or incest. the governor himself expressed concerns that the ban went too far, saying he would prefer to keep those exceptions, but he signed it anyway, adding the real purpose of the law is set the stage for a supreme court fight to overturn roe versus wade coming up next -- you do not want to go anywhere. a year ago, right in this chair i was speaking to former national economic council director gary cohn as trade was halted on wall street. >> i do believe that we are going to need the government to step in and help certain industries and there's certain parts of this country that doesn't believe the government should come in and help certain industries, and the industries can stand on their own two feet. >> one year later that stock market soared while millions suffered. gary will join me after we breakdown exactly what's in this stimulus package and if it's enough to help this country. unt. so you want to make the best burger ever? then make it! that means selling everything. and eating nothing but cheese till you find the perfect slice... even if everyone asks you... another burger truck? don't listen to them! that means cooking day and night until you get... 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for about three years now. people say to me periodically, "man, you've got a memory like an elephant." it's really, really helped me tremendously. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. bike shop please hold. bike sales are booming. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your $75 credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/bike. if you smell gas, you're too close. leave the structure, call 911, keep people away, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. if you see wires down, treat them all as if they're hot and energized. stay away from any downed wire, call 911, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. . right now you're watching history live as the house is debating nearly $2 trillion covid relief bill. markets are also opening right after the nasdaq had its best day since november. and here in the u.s., there have been a total of 29 million covid cases to date. 366 days ago markets were crashing as the world tried to understand exactly how big of an impact coronavirus would have on us. there were just 554 known case of covid in the u.s. at the time. and this is what former national economic council director gary cohn told me on this very set sitting just a couple of feet away from me, which now is hard to even imagine. >> we don't know how long this is going to last. the only thing i know for sure is we will look back on this at some day in the future and say what we could have and should have done. we're going to have to protect the airline industry. we're going to have to protect workers who can't go to work, because, a, their job doesn't exist or, b, they may be stuck at home taking care of someone who's sick and they don't have a salaried -- they don't have a company that's big enough or strong enough to allow them to receive a paycheck. >> well, this is that day. fast forward one year and gary is back. always good to see you. if this bill passes, the united states will have spent more than $5 p 5 trillion on total relief, larger than the gdp beside every country than the u.s. and china. >> first of all, great to be here with you. i wish i was sitting next to you like i was a year ago today. look, i said it a year ago and i meant it when i said it, this is a once-in-a-lifetime, once in a century, hopefully not more than that experience. and this is what federal governments have to do. in times of crisis, in times of pandemics, the federal government has to step in and has to help our citizens through these periods of time. it was -- i guess it was clear a year ago to me that we weren't going to get through this without massive layoffs, without companies shutting down, without people staying home. and when companies cease to have revenue, they almost cease to exist. yes, larger companies can continue to thrive but small companies disappear very quickly and that's the backbone of the american economy, small companies. so we did need the u.s. government to step in and throw money at the situation. i remember coming off show after show begging the federal government to throw money at the situation. look, they did the best they could. we had to respond to a crisis. we had to respond to a pandemic. we did not know what was going on. we did not know how long it would take. we did not know when it would end. we did not know how severe it would be. look, in many respects people are probably surprised it's going on a year later and in many respects i guess we should be fortunate a year later we're talking about the recovery side of this pandemic. so i would give the federal government pretty good marks on this, throwing money at it, giving money to consumers and small businesses, trying to keep the economy as normal as possible. >> one year ago i asked you about the idea of sending checks to the american people. you said it was too extreme, too far. this bill is going to mark the third stimulus check. what do you think about that now? >> well, steph, look, i may have been wrong a year ago. with the length and duration of this pandemic, we may have needed to send money to certain people. and i'm -- i don't want to be too harsh. this is a yearlong people lost their job, enhanced unemployment benefits are very important. look, what i don't want to do now is i don't want to send the wrong message as the economy is getting ready to turn and the economy is getting ready to explode. we saw it in last month's job numbers and i think there's fairly universal agreement among almost all economists, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, that the u.s. economy is poised to explode. and we want people to re-enter the workforce. the number one thing we've got to talk about is how to renormalize going back to work. that's not so easy. to renormalize going back to work, we have to do all of the processes that we undid. a, we've got to get kids back to school. we've got to get the service industry back. so people can feel like they're living their normal life and it's comfortable enough for them to leave their house and go back and enter the workforce. if we don't get people back in the workforce, we're going to be dealing with another consequence of this pandemic, which is massive inflation. it's going to be driven by inflation if we can't get people back in the workforce and that would be a bad outcome of what the government is doing. >> what do you think about today's bill? >> looks, stephanie, there are parts of it that are real essentially and i'm highly supportive off. obviously, we all want to increase vaccinations. we want everyone vaccinated. we want it done today. this is america, we want it done today. speeding up vaccinations is important, testing is important, getting money for schools is important. and many of the other little pieces in there are important. there's 25 billion in there to get restaurants reopened, that's really important. small businesses in america are going to need working capital to re-establish themselves or start new again. but unfortunately, it's not just $25 billion for restaurants. it's every service industry we have in america is going to need some form of working capital. we will have to encourage new entrepreneurs to open up businesses and take the place of those businesses that unfortunately got wiped out in a year of no revenue. they just couldn't survive. there are pieces in this bill that are clearly in the right direction. we're going to have to do more to allow businesses to reopen and thrive and create new business. >> then what don't you like in it? >> look, there's a lot of money going into this bill that is not really driven towards encouraging the economy to normalize. >> like what? >> encouraging the economy to grow and encouraging the economy to expand. we should be all about getting people back to work, normalizing economic expansion, normalizing growth, normalizing job creation, not encouraging people to stay out of the workforce. we want to get people back in the workforce. >> do you think one of the reasons that this is so popular with american people on both sides of the aisle is that we've all become addicted to short-termism in every aspect of our life and getting that immediate money is important but the bill doesn't create long-term solutions. we had bad schools before the pandemic started, just reopening doesn't make them good. >> stephanie, i agree with you. there's a short-termism phenomenon here. as you pointed out in some of your earlier segments today, most of the money being spent in this bill has a very short finite period on it. it's either this year or this year and next year, whether it's housing subsidies or health care subsidies or s.n.a.p. food stamp subsidies or money to schools, it's money that will get spent in a very short period of time. this is going to turbocharge hopefully what happened short term but we need the long-term solution. the long-term solution, as i said, is get the economy open, get the economy normalized and get hiring growing again so people can grow back and live their normal lives. then we've got to discuss these big policy discussions that you're pointing out. we've got to discuss the quality of the health care in this country. we've got to discuss the quality of the education that we're getting in this country. we've got to discuss the issues but you can't do them all at the same time. i think we're trying to do too many things at once. >> you might think of a plan called something like build back better after this. gary, always great to see you, thank you very much. we will turbocharge, short-term solution, but we cannot forget true long-term policy changes to make this country stronger, smarter and better. gary, thank you. coming up -- a major test for reopening, starting today the state of texas 100% open and it's 29 million no 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are they wearing masks? take us to some sidebars in restaurants. >> steph, good morning. businesses are taking it upon themselves to create their own hybrid policy going forward and the governor is saying himself he entrusted texans both on an individual and business level to best how to handle covid right now. that's why in dallas' deep ellum district we are seeing the policies come forward with the end of the mask mandate and expansion to 100% capacity today. businesses saying they will either require employees to wear masks but -- or let customers do as they wish or they're going to keep their policies in place that have been in place for the last several months and that is masks are still up. we do know that some restaurants and businesses have expanded to 100% capacity to try to recoup some of that business lost over the past year but it's going to be very interesting as we kind of watch how the next few weeks go out. covid numbers here in the state are the lowest they've been over the past several months. if they do tick back up, county leaders can come back in, reinstall some of those covid mitigation policies, but that remains to be seen since this is so early on. i did have a chance to speak to several business owners on how they're taking this massive change, big step forward, and here's what they had to say -- >> my biggest concern is that people are going to not take this pandemic seriously. >> there will be a little bit of confusion but in general it lets people take their lives into their own hands a little bit. we just want to keep them safe if they come into our restaurant. >> unfortunately, we've already seen instances of people feeling emboldened by the removal of this mask mandate. we know a mexican restaurant in houston, family owned for more than three decades, announced they were keeping their mask policy in place, and, steph, we know multiple people threatened to call immigration on some of their employees there. a lot of eyes on texas over the next days and weeks to see if these covid numbers stay low. steph? >> as we are thinking about health care workers in that state. morgan, thank you. i want to stay on this and bring in dr. vin gupta, a global health expert. i want to start with texas. texas is 48 out of 50 states in terms of vaccinations but the governor is saying covid governors there are the lowest they've been in months. what's your reaction to that? >> good morning, stephanie. we've seen this playbook before, yes, there's progress across all 50 states in terms of where cases are, which where we want to be, frankly. we want cases to be as low as possible so hospitalizations and deaths are as low as possible as vaccines ramp up. for two reasons, number one, we want to mitigate the loss of life. two, as you know, stephanie, the world knows, there's four of these variants in texas alone. all four have been identified. the longer that we allow those variants to spread uncontrolled, again, we've seen this playbook before, you open things up too soon and you get exponential growth, and this could increase in the matter of weeks. and the longer we let these variants spread, they can change. they have already shown ability to weaken the response from vaccines, or antibodies produced from vaccines, so this is a really tenuous position here. we have 60,000 cases a day and 2,000 deaths just yesterday, stephanie. this is not the time to play loose and fast with these basic common sense public health measures. >> do you disagree with the cdc guidelines that say vaccinated people can hug their kids, hug their grandchildren? because once you start on that path, we quickly get to, let's just open it all up. >> well, this is the balance between the head and the heart. i think the cdc had to show to people that there's incentive here to getting vaccinated, that there will be some degree of normalcy. as you see, stephanie, you will see a version two where i suspect they're actually going to give guidance on safe travel. so i think that's appropriate here. walking back masks makes no sense right now, and the reason why, number one, there's 12,000 deaths from covid-19 in just the last week, stephanie, leading cause of death. number two, and i think your team has this chart on the ready, this chart of expected deaths until july 1st, you will see the green line, for all of our viewers, green line if you can show it, is -- well, i'll wait for the chart to show up here, but basically the expectation here is that there is -- there is -- the expectation is we're going to actually have no deaths or hospitalizations or minimal deaths or hospitalizations by the end of june. if variants continue to spread, here we are at that chart, look at the top line there, the pink line, that's continued death plateauing at about 1,000 a day by july 1st. that's if more governors follow the lead of governor abbott, allowing mask mandates to go by the wayside. that's if variants take a more spread in communities because of removing mask mandates. that is the key piece here. we can be out of the woods back to normal life by the middle of the summer, minimal deaths, minimal hospitalizations but we need governors to follow, hold the line here, continue basic public health measures as we ramp vaccines up. >> you make me want to do a high kick and cartwheel. just a month ago you and i were speaking on this show, i would never have guessed you would say come this summer, we could be getting back to normal. i want to ask about testing, if we had unlimited budgets, it would be a different story. but knowing how budgeting and spending works, if we end up with the majority of americans who are vaccinated in the next foo months, will we still need to budget for massive testing? >> you know, stephanie, because we don't mandate testing in really any situation, i expect the budget that will be earmarked for testing should necessarily decrease because people's behaviors will change. people will not seek out testing the way they did. it's likely if they're sim that maltic, they will want a covid-19 test. otherwise you will see demand decrease. i will say surveillance testing, sequencing for variants should decrease, that should ramp up. but the on-demand testing you see in drive-thrus, rapid testing at schools, that will start decreasing in demand as people get vaccinated. >> all right, dr. vin gupta, always good to see you, especially when you've got some good news. and do not for get, please, join to lives well lived, my colleague nicolle wallace hosts a special hour dedicated to honoring covid-19 victims and their families. that's at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. >> tomorrow my colleague chris hayes hosts a special looking at the last year and hopefully a look ahead, also at 8:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. coming up next, the royal family finally responds to allegations of racism following oprah winfrey's bombshell interview with harry and meghan. live to buckingham palace right after the break. to buckingham after the break. with moderate to severe crohn's disease, i was there, just not always where i needed to be. is she alright? 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>> reporter: oh, yeah, for sure they're spooked, steph. you're right, it's a short statement, a little more than 70 words from the queen. that is the way that she tends to conduct herself, she says as little as possible, i guess in a sense the aim being to stir up as little more controversy as possible. let's go through the statement a little bit. the whole family, the queen says, is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for harry and meghan. carefully worded there, the full extent not saying that they didn't know, just that they didn't realize the full extent of it. she goes on to talk about the racism allegations, the issues raised are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately. one of the headaches of buckingham palace is last week we announced an investigation into anonymous claims that meghan had bullied staff. now they're saying in terms of these race allegations that the allegation that someone in the royal family unnamed talks to harry about what the color of his children -- future children's skin might be, now they're saying they want to deal with that privately inside the family. i think what's happening is there is a change of direction. the queen is trying to draw a line under this. you could say that in the past few days we've seen something of a war between prince harry and the royal family, particularly between his brother and his dad and him and the queen is saying, ceasefire. it's not surprising, steph. when you think about it harry could conduct a week of interviews with oprah winfrey with the secrets of what goes on behind the palace walls and the queen definitely doesn't want that. >> to keir's point they want to deal with this privately inside the royal family, ie, they want it out of the headlines. keir, always good to see you. look at the time, that wraps up this very busy hour. i'm stephanie ruhle, hallie jackson picks up coverage next with more breaking news. any minute now we expect the house to be voting on the $1.9 trillion relief bill, a blil b. i will that will surely save millions of americans in crisis. e llmiions of americans in crisis. - [narrator] at southern new hampshire university, we're committed to making college more accessible by making it more affordable, that's why we're keeping our tuition the same through the year 2021. - i knew snhu was the place for me when i saw how affordable it was. i ran to my husband with my computer and i said, "look, we can do this." - [narrator] take advantage of some of the lowest online tuition rates in the nation. find your degree at snhu.edu. among my patients i often see them have teeth sensitivity as well as gum issues. does it worry me? 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