220-211 with biden looking on from the executive mansion. >> there we go. [ applause ] >> the white house says the president plans to sign the legislation on friday. americans should know this aid they're about to get is from the democrats. that is not a political statement at all. only democrats voted for it. not a single republican in the house or the senate. >> this is the most consequential legislation that many of us will ever be a party to. >> we said if we won those two seats in georgia we would get things done. mr. ossoff and mr. warnock told the citizens of georgia if they were elected, they would make sure that the actual promises made would be promises kept. >> this bill offers one of the largest infusions of federal aid since the great depression. in many ways it redraws our social safety net and thus has been described in terms of the new deal and the great society. it includes those $1,400 stimulus checks, extended unemployment benefits, funds for states and small businesses and school up grades across the country as well as vaccines, testing, tracing. the first direct payments are expected to go out around the end of this month. just hours after the house vote the dow posted a new record closing above 32,000 for the first time. and now the biden white house focuses on selling the benefits of this bill to the american public. tomorrow night the president gives his first prime time address to the nation. >> i'm going to talk about what comes next. i'm going to launch the next phase of the covid response and explain what we will do as a government and what we will ask of the american people. >> on tuesday the president heads to the familiar confines of delaware county, pa, to talk about the benefits of the stimulus package. vice president harris for her part will also be on the road traveling to las vegas on monday, denver on tuesday. meanwhile the senate has just confirmed three more biden nominees. merrick garland as attorney general. marsha fudge as hud secretary, and michael regan as epa administrator. as we mentioned more johnson & johnson covid vaccines are on the way. today the president announced this purchase of another 100 million doses, which another drug company, merck, is helping to produce. and remember because it's one and done with the j&j vaccine that means enough for 100 million americans to get fully vaccinated. this was also the day the state of texas officially ended its mask mandate, a move now pitting the state against some local officials in the same state who want to continue requiring face coverings in public. there's more on that. a report from texas later in this hour. but health experts warn these moves to lift restrictions as covid cases and fatalities slowly decline could have devastating consequences. >> these numbers that have come down have given us a false sense of security. we are going to see a big increase, and everything we're doing right now is literally just kind of walking into the mouth of the virus monster as though somehow we're not at risk. >> there is one other developing story we're following tonight. "the wall street journal" has obtained an audio recording of a late december phone call between donald trump and the chief investigator for the georgia secretary of state, the now former president can be heard urging the state official to hunt for voter fraud that did not exist. >> i won georgia. i know that by a lot. and the people know it and something happened there. something bad happened. if you get to fulton, you're going to find things that are unbelievable, the dishonesty. when the right answer comes out, you'll be praised. you know, we have the date of the 6th which is a very important date. >> this is now the second phone call where trump can be heard begging georgia election officials to find votes. the fulton county district attorney is now conducting as you may know this criminal investigation into trump's efforts to overturn the election results and nothing less. with that let's bring in our lead off guests on this wednesday night. peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times." lisa lerer, a national political reporter also with "the new york times." and eugene robinson, pulitzer prizewinning columnist just to keep things fair over at "the washington post." good evening and welcome to you all. peter, because you have the most ears on the job covering the white house, you get to go first. and a question about where you rank this accomplishment today, this massive bill that's been passed with just democratic votes? and do we have it about right saying this is in a way a redrawing of the modern social safety net? >> well, obviously it's a big deal for president biden to come out of the gate and get what he needs to get through, what he promised to get through in the early weeks. remember there's a deadline of march 14th when expanded unemployment benefits was set to expire. he needed to get it done by then. he has the narrowest of margins in congress and yet still pushed it through. he didn't do it with any bipartisan votes which is something he hoped to do. and you're right this really three bills in one. one is to provide help in the pandemic and the other is to pump more energy into the economy. pouring $1.9 trillion into the economy is a big deal no matter where you put it. and in this case there are worries it could be too much on folks who think it could overheat the economy. certainly going to give a big jolt to economic growth for the rest of the year. and then the third part is what you talked about, the social safety net. you hear a lot from the white house these days this may in fact cut child poverty by half. this is sort of a democratic wish list of programs and spending they would have like to have gotten done in years. now, some of this will expire in a year. so it's only temporary things. they'll have to come back if they want to make it permit they'll have to make a sustained change. it's a big deal to get this done and you can see why they're cheering at this point. >> lisa, great to see you. great to have you back on the broadcast. it's been too long. as i said this is going to make lives better among the recipients of what's in this bill. it's also true that it's biden's story to tell especially since it was just democratic voters. how does biden, however, prevent the republicans from going into the field with their own prequel before his message is fully out there? >> well, right now he's going to go on a sales pitch. that's going to kick off tomorrow evening with a white house address. and then we're going to see the president and members of the administration travel around the country. and i think what looms particularly large in their minds is the lessons learned from president obama's 2009 stimulus bill. and the thinking there is that the president failed to sufficiently sell that piece of legislation and republicans were able to tag it as a bit of a boom that provided some of the fiercest opposition to obama's proposals throughout his time in office. some folks who worked for the obama administration will say that's not quite fair, that president biden has some economic wins at his back. all the economic forecasts look like the economy will keep improving particularly as more people get vaccinated, which will make this easier to sell. it's also more popular than the stimulus was even among republicans. i think that's why although we saw every republican vote against this bill, we really didn't see the party come out with any comprehensive messaging so far at least against the legislation. and in part that's because a third of their voters depending on the poll supported the bill. i had called a bunch of republican voters in the past couple of weeks and i frequently heard people who said that they are eager, republicans who said they're eager to see those checks just as much as democrats. >> eugene robinson, we have a new definition tonight of the word richard nixon is famously rumored to have pronounced, most of us call it hutspa but its new definition is from senator wicker. and here's what he tweeted tonight. independent restaurant operators have won $28.6 billion of targeted relief. this funding will ensure small businesses can survive the pandemic. one problem. he's a republican senator from mississippi. as people instantly pointed out he didn't vote for this but he's selling it back home. does he think his voters are stupid? maybe. he was contacted and a reporter caught up to him. we have his briefest answer to this question. >> i'm not going to vote for $1.9 trillion just because it has a couple of good provisions. >> so couple of good provisions, and eugene, this is where it brings us is do you think there's going to be any regret that the republicans have goose eggs, senate and house on this, that this bill indeed has a couple of good provisions and it's going to end up helping their constituents? >> well, i think that was an expression of regret really from senator wicker. and i think that's -- that makes it potentially easier for president biden to get his message across simply because the republicans don't have a unified message that on the legislation that they think their voters, even their base voters are going to buy. if they go on and on about how horrible and awful it is, that is not going to resonate with republican voters at least according to polls. most of whom support the legislation, there are polls that show most republicans wanted this to pass. to say nothing of, you know, almost all democrats and the vast majority of independents. this was an extremely partisan piece of legislation. and so to the extent that president biden has a challenge in selling it and getting it across, he has the wind at his back. >> peter baker, should we just for now stop any pie in the sky talk of bipartisanship, or will the next test be in infrastructure or as it should be appropriately billed, jobs programs across the country? republicans have traditionally liked a good public works bill. they haven't always liked paying for it. >> yeah, look, infrastructure of course has been the golden shimmer out there for bipartisanship now for years. donald trump talked about infrastructure. barack obama talked about infrastructure. democrats say they want infrastructure. republicans say they want infrastructure, and yet they've never been able to get it. president biden has promised of course he'll be able to figure how to get things done other presidents have. he can work across the lines in ways his predecessors haven't been able to. there's appeal on the part of everybody. now, can they come together to figure out how to divide up that money? can they come together to figure out how to fund that kind of project? that's a big, big question. and i don't think there's any reason right now to suspect they're going to necessarily be able to overcome the polarization that's been holding this up for years in the next few weeks and months. maybe they can. this is one of those areas where there is common ground if they choose to seize it. so far we've seen the parties in washington haven't chosen to seize it in modern times, and i don't know that that's changed. >> lisa, back to your unofficial poll of republicans. they've been four square against this massive bill. and this week at least four square behind dr. seuss and piers morgan. a serious question, how long can they live on a diet of just distraction? >> well, i think part of the issue for the republican party is those are the issues that fire up their base. it is talking about dr. seuss, meghan markle, these sort of new culture war issues different than the gun and marriage issues that we saw decades ago, that really get their bases energized. it's how you can raise money as an upcoming and lawmaker. it's the reason we see so many retirements in the senate, part of the reason. and it also speaks to little intra-conservative media competition where you see these more upstart, more right wing networks coming into fox news's eyeballs and market share about conservative viewers. so it is really hard when the whole conservative ecosystem is really structured around these culture war issues to get a lot of rewards among the conservative base for doing things like working across the aisle on an infrastructure bill. we'll see if that changes. as i said republican voters do like this stimulus bill, so maybe the fever will break and republican lawmakers will see that there is some political gains to be gotten from passing legislation. but given the way that the conservative world is functioning right now, it does seem hard to picture. >> eugene, let me get you on record with the question i asked peter. is it an overstatement to say that one of the things this bill does is kind of a modern day redrawing of what we've come to know as the social safety net? >> i think it does. it represents a significant shift in philosophy, and it's a shift back more toward linden johnson's great society way of thinking rather than the ronald reagan's way of thinking, which has dominated our public life really since the reagan era. this is potentially a shift of that magnitude if it can be sustained. i think this legislation is a really big deal, and i think that, you know, in terms of bipartisanship, look, you can't do anything. and if republicans decide to deny biden the gift of bipartisanship by simply voting against everything there's nothing you can do about that. biden makes a gesture, he makes the offer and then you move forward. i think that sets an important precedent for going forward. but just to answer your basic question, i think this is potentially a really, really big deal for the way this country thinks about attacking poverty, thinks about lifting up the least of us and giving everybody a chance. >> to our viewers because this is an important night we've asked our lead off three guests to stay with us through this break for one more segment. and indeed, coming up a big win for the biden white house for now. but for them it's just the first item on the list. we'll talk about this. will republicans agree to vote for anything this white house puts forward? and later three doctors, three different cities, three different front line battles against one virus in the space of this past year. where are we now? when are we getting out of the state we're in? 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(laughing) (trumpet playing) someone behind me, come on. pick that up, pick that up, right there, right there. as long as you keep making the internet an amazing place to be, we'll keep bringing you a faster, more secure, and more amazing internet. xfinity. the future of awesome. the american people elected joe biden so that we can work together and that's what he's committed to doing. so there are things like infrastructure investment and immigration i mentioned. he's had some meetings in the oval office about some of those issues, and we're going to see what we can work together on. >> so that was jen psaki from just tonight remaining here with us in part of our conversation peter baker, lisa lerer and eugene robinson. peter, first again to you in this segment. we talked about what else biden wants. let's preview tomorrow night. what can he say? what should he say? what does he want to say to this country that is very eager for better days to come? >> well, i think that's one of the things he wants to say is that there are better things to come, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that the passage of this bill will provide money to those who need it and speeding up the vaccine distribution will provide shots to those who desperately need that as well, and that there's a point at which we can see a normal light returning or at least some semblance of it. i think at the same time you'll hear him warn there's a lot of danger between now and then. that just because we're making progress doesn't mean it's time to give up public health precautions like masks and social distancing and so forth particularly for those who have not been vaccinated which is vast majority of the country. he wants to take credit as lisa said. i think you'll begin to see him talk about that more than he'll talk about other steps like infrastructure at this point because he does want to solidify public awareness of what this bill does and reap the political benefit that usually comes from this kind of thing. >> all i know is they need a better word for infrastructure. hey, lisa, how big a potential trip up and there's a real human cost to this issue is the border and immigration? knowing that the forces against biden will get a big assist from the fox media industrial complex. >> for sure, and that is a real problem for the administration. you have this very high number of unaccompanied children coming to the border and the administration is really trying to send two messages at once. don't worry, we're working on a path to establish more legal ways into the country but also please don't come now. and those are pretty hard messages to sell simultaneously in south america and central america. and as a result they've been left open really to attacks on all sides. liberals are unhappy with how the children are being held. they're out of facilities. there's all kinds of restrictions because of the pandemic and it's a difficult situation. it brings up echoes of things that happened during the trump administration that were very traumatic for the children but also for the democratic party and for many people in the country. and conservatives, of course, are eager to blame as they often do the influx of migrants into the country on biden. so he's really getting hit from all sides on this, and you're right it is the kind of issue that republicans are very eager to leverage against him and could do with some success potentially. >> hey, eugene, i want to play for you senator mike lee. he was commenting on fox news about hr1. our discussion on the other side. >> i think i disagree with every single word in hr1 including the words, "but" "and" and "the." everything about this bill is rotten to the core. this is a bill as if written in hell by the devil himself. >> eugene, i know you've written forcefully about the need to pass hr1. there are a slew of republicans and even some democrats cautioning about making great the enemy of the good. cautioning that it's what else is in this bill that is weighing it down, that is putting a mark on its side, and if they could strip out and consider and vote for voting recognizes alone it might be a different story, but i want to hear you out on it. >> well, look, i think the important parts of this bill are protecting voting rights, and that includes things like ensuring that people have easy access to voter registration, ensuring that people have easy and adequate access to the polls, that mail-in voting is going to -- is only going to increase and early voting. and that sort of thing. and to stop or obviate some of the draconian restrictions republican state legislatures are trying to impose on voting across the country. because the one thing republicans agree on it's kind of the philosophy of the party now is that they have to in some way restrict the voting opportunities of constituencies that vote for democrats or else the republicans are going to remain a minority party unless of course they start changing their policies and develop some that actually appeal to voters. but they don't seem to want to do that. they want to do it by substraction. subtracting democratic people of color and young people, democratic constituencies. and that's appalling, anti-democratic, that has to be fought at every level. and this is one important level it has to be fought. so, yes, you could trim away some parts of hr1, and i personally would be -- would be very happy if democrats could find a way to pass through the divided -- equally divided senate a bill that protects voting rights. that's the most important thing. >> we are much obliged to our lead off big three guests tonight. three of the very best from two of the great american newspapers. peter baker, lisa lerrer, eugene robinson. coming up for us, we were in the final few hours of life as we knew it. we just didn't know it on this night a year ago. we have, however, gathered together three of our medical experts to help assess what it is we've just been through and where we're headed. where we're d these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. as your cellphone photography time line has no doubt reminded you already tomorrow will mark exactly one year from the date the world really changed. it was march 11, 2020. that was the day the w.h.o. officially declared covid a pandemic, warning of alarming levels of spread around the world. that's when the nba suspended the remainder of its 2020 season here in the united states after the first player tested positive. that was when tom hanks posted on instagram he and his wife rita wilson tested positive for the virus while filming in australia. thankfully they have both recovered and are back to work. on wall street the market plunged, the dow lost roughly 6% of its total value because traders could see what was coming. then president trump gave an oval office address announcing some travel from europe would be banned. back on march 11th there were over 1,200 confirmed u.s. cases, 37 deaths that we knew of. testing was still an exotic far off notion, extremely limited at the time. and the doctor who is these days a household name offered this warning to members of congress. >> we will see more cases, and things will get worse than they are right now. how much worse we'll get will depend on our ability to do two things. to contain the influx of people affected coming in from the outside and the ability to contain and mitigate in our own country. bottom line, it's going to get worse. >> how remarkable to see a packed hearing room behind him. one year later the united states has now surpassed 29 million cases, and sadly 531,000 souls lost. here with us three of the physicians who have kept us informed on matters of public health over this past year. dr. irwin redliner, the founding director of the columbia university national center for disaster preparedness. dr. stephen sample, an er doc memorial hospital and health care center in jasper, indiana. a volunteer clinical faculty member at indiana university school of medicine. and dr. eileen marty is back with us at long last, professor of infectious diseases at florida international university in miami. in the past she too has worked on global emergency matters with the world health organization. irwin, i'll begin with you with a live picture we found ourselves having not accessed for months at a time. this doesn't look too far from the height of the lock down. this is times square in new york, live picture 11:34 eastern time. doctor, in your line of work that picture means good news. not so for all those trying to make a living in times square businesses. but here's the lead off question. how far have we come in this past year? and here's the subset question. how far have we come in these past 50 days? >> well, it's been a remarkable time, and it's like the slow boil of a frog. you know we're not feeling it as an acute impact. it's happened gradually. but if you were sleeping for the last year and woke up now what you would see is a changed america and a changed world in so many ways it would take a long time to actually describe it. and one of the areas of fallout from all this, brian, i thought it was going to take a really long time to establish credibility in government because we were so misled by donald trump and his people, so much incompetence. i thought it was going to be literally years. but what we found ourselves now is 50 days we have in essence restored confidence in the federal government. and it's not just me saying that. it's every poll is looking at very high numbers of approval for president biden. but from a public health point of view the progress we've made in 50 days is absolutely mind-boggling. you know like he said we're going to have all of america adults vaccinated by the end of may. we do see real light at the end of a very dark tunnel. and i'm uncharacteristically always being the glass half empty person, i'm feeling pretty good we might have a pretty normal looking thanksgiving if we keep this up. maybe even a normal few picnics on labor day, but i don't want to get ahead of myself but say it's looking good. there's good news and also some problems and dangers lurking in the wings that we also need to talk about including will variants get us into trouble? will governors going rogue and reckless, setting back the masking and other public health measures -- those are dangers and a threat to all of us who really want to look at an optimistic view of what's coming up, brian. >> fascinating and comprehensive stuff just there, irwin. dr. marty, speaking of governors you've got a hell of a story down in your state, these allegations that wealthy white donors to governor desantis were given the vaccine way ahead of their place in line, and yet we have to -- we're duty bound to keep having this discussion as a public health matter about equity because of what this disease has done in black and brown communities across this country. >> you're absolutely right. we have to be very careful with equity. and in particular because black and brown communities overall more than other communities are in many front line types of industries and therefore more exposed. they're more likely to live in a housing situation of multigenerational homes and have many underlying conditions because of -- because of their economic situations, because of many of their economic situations. and all of that puts them at higher risk. so we do have to do that. and we're working very hard here in our personal community to reach out to persons of color to make sure that they come in, and we're working with the churches in particular to try and get back more people vaccinated from these lower income places. and i'm very pleased that president biden is pouring over $250 million to the effort to help us get people that are underprivileged vaccinated. >> doctor, talk about your life's work, talk about the toll this has taken on doctors and nurses over the past year and the changes you've seen and your coworkers. >> absolutely. good evening, brian. doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists and er techs and janitors all over the hospitals, all over the country are never going to be the same from this. this is something we've never seen in the public health sphere in our country, and i really consider myself to be actually one of the lucky ones. i have 20 odd friends that work on both the west coast and certainly up in new york city, one right down in elmhurst and queens that was upside down in this so early, screaming the alarm to all of us. and us in the middle of the country who hadn't seen it yet, we were just running around like chicken little saying the sky is falling. but nobody really wanted to hear that from me because it really wasn't feeling here yet, so i think this is something we will be telling our grandchildren and great grandchildren about what we were doing in the pandemic of, you know, 2020. >> all three of these physicians have agreed to stay with us while we fit in a short break here. coming up, the hope that is just around the corner. when we come back. back. sleep from sleep number? because a good night's rest is where muscles recover, and our minds are restored. introducing the new sleep number 360 smart bed. the only bed that effortlessly adjusts to both of you. proven quality sleep, is life-changing sleep. many plug-ins are stuck in the past. they release a lot of scent at first but after a while, you barely know they're working. new febreze fade defy plug works differently. it's the first 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that we can sell all of our policy or keep part of it with no future payments, who knew? we sold our policy. now we can relax and enjoy our retirement as we had planned. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance. we are back and right back into our conversation with these three medical professionals, dr. erwin wed liner, dr. stephen sample, dr. aileen marty. dr. redliner to you again. just today's news was staggering. a 100 million j&j vaccines. that's not 50 million americans. that's 100 million vaccinated americans. absolutely staggering and at such a high pace. what else out there that may be in the pipeline that's giving you hope? >> well, there's three things now, brian. first of all sustaining the public health measures. secondly, this extraordinary progress we're making with vaccines. but the third thing is that merck is finishing research on an oral medication that could be prescribed to a person with covid symptoms that will potentially eradicate the infection. so if we can do that like when you have influenza you can get a prescription for tama flu. we may have an equivalent drug literally around the corner in the next couple of months that could be a total game changer, brian. >> wow, that would be fantastic and would feel a lot more like normal life. dr. marty, i say this knowing perhaps millions of college kids are en route to a beach very close to where you live, so you have our condolences. they're going to fly anyway. that's what they do. a whole bunch of fully vaccinated americans were expecting more guidance on the cdc on travel. were you? >> well, i pretty much agree with the position that the cdc has taken. they're absolutely correct. every time that we've had an increase in travel there's been a jump in cases. and hopefully the amount of vaccinations that we're giving might mitigate some of that impact, but i want you to be very keenly aware that here in south florida, for example, our hospitalization rate has pretty much plateaued at a high level. it's not -- it's not down at all. and so we are turning over patients a lot more rapidly and sending them home sooner. so we have to be very concerned about these people coming, and we're doing our best to get the message out to behave as properly as we can to our community and to the visitors. >> that's disconcerting news indeed. and dr. sample, to you in the midwest. how much and i've asked you this many times but the answer is always interesting. how much vaccine hesitancy are you running into personally, are you hearing about from your colleagues? and is there a better job that can be done on public service announcements, public health education by the feds? >> you know, brian, it's really hard to say. you know, we're doing pretty well in indiana as a whole. we have a republican governor, but he's been fairly moderate. he's not florida. he's not texas, certainly. and i've appreciated his sort of mitigation of covid in the state. as far as hesitancy, you know, the loudest people get the most attention. so i certainly see people who tell me about hesitancies and i educate them through that. we've got over 500,000 people dead in the united states right now largely because of the morons in the facebook comments, right? so that's the people we're trying to reach only some of them are not going to be reachable, so we have to educate around them. what we're going to center to do after this is all said and done, we're going to have to take a really close look at what worked to mitigate this virus and what didn't work. and we're going to need to be honest with people because the inconsistency, you know, of crossing a river and having a completely different set of rules is pissing off people, and they are just spitefully doing whatever they want to do. so when it comes to vaccines it's kind of the same way. we had mixed messaging, there was skepticism. so it's hard to say. but in indiana we're doing pretty well as a whole. >> well, good to hear it. we'll any good news as we can. hey, doctors, as they say in the movies this is not good-bye because we're especially going to continue to rely on you to educate all of us. it is thank you for the public health duty you have done through our air waves to all of our viewers for this past highly stressful year. dr. redliner, dr. sample, dr. marty, can't thank you enough. another break for us. coming up, in texas tonight the attorney general is mocking the mayor of austin because it's texas in the middle of a pandemic. we'll show you this story coming up. 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[♪♪] think you need to buy expensive skincare products to see dramatic results? try olay skin care. just one jar of micro-sculpting cream has the hydrating power of 5 jars of a prestige cream, which helps plump skin cells and visibly smooth wrinkles. while new olay retinol24... provides visibly smoother, brighter skin. for dramatic skincare results, try olay. and now receive 25% off your purchase at olay.com brand power. helping you buy better. coronavirus restrictions in texas officially ended today. the governor has ordered everything reopened, no masks, no problem. except in the city of austin and the surrounding county where officials want to keep their mask mandate in place. the states attorney general ken paxton isn't having it. he gave local officials there until 6:00 p.m. local time to lift their mandates or face a lawsuit. paxton also couldn't help himself. he posted a snarky comment that read, quote, city county leaders must not be thinking clearly. maybe it's oxygen deprivation from quintuple masking. >> reporter: tonight all eyes on texas, back open at max capacity. >> i'm all for opening up the country and i love texas has taken that step. >> reporter: the state's mask mandate over. >> no, it's a free-for-all. >> reporter: business owner kim hunter is worried. the governor says he trusts everyone to do the right thing. >> yeah. common sense is not common. they're not going to do the right thing. >> reporter: texas more than a dozen states without mask mandates. the move letting any business craft their own policy. famed dance hall billy bobs sharing theirs, telling patrons it's your choice. the texas rangers also taking advantage becoming the first proteam nationwide to allow all fans back in the stands, masks still required. in austin the state attorney general threatening legal action after the city superceded the governor's health ordered to mask up. >> it's thesial most effective thing we can do to stop the transmission of this virus. >> reporter: it u.k. variant of the virus is concerning. recent wastewater testing shows its spread through houston. tonight too early to tell. morgan chesky, nbc news, dallas. and coming for us, a final look back where we were one year ago today. back where we were or ago today. start your day with secret. secret stops sweat 3x more than ordinary antiperspirants. the new provitamin b5 formula is gentle on skin. with secret, outlast anything! no sweat. secret. these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. jane seymour hi, i'm jane seymour. now is the perfect time to reveal your smoother, noticeably younger looking skin. announcer is your skin dry, loose, lost its volume, and looks like crepe paper? 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as we've said here before part of our job as we see it is making sure we never forget. we owe that much to the dead and their loved ones, and over1,500 more souls left us just today. so let's take this opportunity to remember what our president back then was saying on this day one year ago. you may remember this particular appearance. he had just appeared himself at a lunch of senate republicans. while in the room he showed the senators an article from his pocket where governor newsom of california had said some nice things about him in print. but here is how the president talked about the virus a year ago. and if nothing else it's a chance to remember the look of pious silent worship on the face of mike pence as his president spoke. >> right now i guess we're at 26 deaths. and if you look at the flu -- the flu for this year, we're at 8 -- we're looking at 8,000 deaths. and, you know, hundreds of thousands of cases but we have 8,000 deaths. so you have 8,000 versus 26 deaths at this time. with all of that being said, we're taking this unbelievably seriously, and i think we're doing a really good job. and again, the task force headed up by the vice president has been fantastic. we're prepared and we're doing a great job with it and it will go away. just stay calm, it will go away. we want to protect our shipping industry, our cruise ships. we want to protect our airline industry, very important. but everybody has to be vigilant and has to be careful, but be calm. it's really working out and a lot of good things are going to happen. the consumer has never been in a better position. >> so how about all those good things that happened, especially you consumers out there? as the man said you've never been in a more powerful position. and that is the man who put out a statement tonight hoping to be remembered and demanding credit for the vaccines that are now getting into the arms of americans. that is our broadcast on this wednesday night as well with our thanks for being here with us on behalf of the good men and women at the networks of nbc news, good night. we want the world to know how great he was. we do not want this pandemic to win. >> these are the faces we've lost. >> he made everyone's lives better. he was just that kind of guy. >> mothers, fathers, grandparents, sisters, brothers and friends. >> he was going to -- you were his friend even if you did something wrong. he was still your friend. >> tonight, the lives they lived. >> he was always thinking of others, all the time. never stopped. >> the love they share. >> it's a love story i won't ever forget. >> the legacies they leave behind. >> he was instrumental in helping people's lives become better. >> tonight, we remember lives well-lived. ♪♪ one year ago a cruel and mysterious threat arrived on our soil. in the beginning it was unclear how long covid would be here and how many people it would steal from us. but in the weeks and months that followed covid moved ruthlessly through our biggest cities and