and this week. now it is time for "the last word" with ali velshi tonight. >> i wouldn't have given it another thought. your conversation with osha really interesting. if osha systematically went through every business in the united states with an inspection, if it were sort of routine, you'd get an inspection about once every 100 years. that's how badly funded it is. and there is, you know, there are real efforts particularly in the time of covid and immediately post-covid to wrap that up and it is being met with resistance from america's corporations. but if it ever matters, in the 50-year history of osha, it matters now that somebody is there to keep those rules safe. thank you for draug attention to that, rachel. >> thank you, ali. they very, very rarely do one of these temporary emergency rules. the last one they did was a asbestos decades ago. if they do one on covid, it will be a huge deal. thanks, my friend. appreciate it. >> it needs to be funded because it costs money to do that. have a great weekend. we'll see you on monday. breaking tonight, the treasury department has started to send qualifying americans their economic impact payments. some will receive those payments as early as this weekend. this is a big announcement at the end of a big week. >> the bill does one more thing, which i think is really important. it changes the paradigm. for the first time in a long time the bill puts working people in this nation first. >> changes the paradigm. how often have you heard that kind of thing? politicians often talk in hyperbole, but in this case it is not hyperbole, it's the truth. the american rescue plan does represent a paradigm shift in american politics. democrats learn from their mistakes and focussed on passing the biggest bill possible on their terms, which is actually almost unheard of. bipartisan negotiations on obamacare you will remember dragged on for months before democrats ended up passing it with no republican support at all. in passing rescue legislation to get out of the financial crisis, democrats and then vice president biden negotiated with republicans and ended up with a smaller bill, which history now shows probably hurt the recovery efforts. so this time, democrats were unapologetic about their goals. they loaded up the bill with policies that favored working bill over the rich and the result is legislation that comes pretty close to matching the seriousness of the crisis we face. and the biggest part of it, the american rescue plan is expected to drive down the nation's poverty rate from 12.3% to 8.3%. that means 12 million americans will be pulled out of poverty thanks to this american rescue plan. one bill did that. it was just last month when american airlines announced that it was sending furlough notices to 13,000 employees. within a few hours of congress passing the relief package the company released course. executives said, quote, to those who had received notices warning of furloughs, those are happily canceled. you can tear them up, end quote. ceo of united airlines made a similar announcement to 14,000 employees. that's 27,000 american workers who will keep their job thanks to this democratic legislation. amtrak has said hundreds of furloughed employees could be called back to work as soon as this month because of this legislation. local transportation authorities in new york and d.c. both said the package would protect against layoffs and service cuts. congress passed a law on wednesdayment and by thursday afternoon, tens of thousands of american jobs had been saved. that's not actually normal. that's not business as usual. it happened because of legislation that not a single republican in either chamber of congress supported. so what do republicans support? brace yourselves. republicans have decided to put their back into the estate tax. they believe that right now in this moment america's richest heirs need a break from taxes. millions are unemploymented, tens of millions are awaiting vaccine, and the estate tax is the hill that republicans have decided they're going to die on. pun intended. mitch mcconnell and half the senate republican congress this week released a bill to repeal the estate tax which applies to the estates of the richest americans after they die. i'm not exaggerating. only 1,900 estates were valuable enough to owe this tax in 2018. over 90% came from the top 10% of income earners. not only will this legislation not succeed, it won't even get a vote. republicans know this, and still they're eager to champion this proposal. ten million americans are out of work and senate republicans are championing the cause of millionaires and billionaires. what's more, it's the first item on their agenda, the first thing that they want to introduce. it is not the 50th agenda item. it is not the 100th. the primary focus for republicans right now as i speak to you is to give another tax break to the country club crowd. if fiddling with the estate tax in the midst of a pandemic and a recession is your best idea, you are clean out of good ideas. this move proves that today's republicans are devoid of ideas. we know that the gop has become the party of no, blocking anything and anything that could help working americans. when they're not the party of no, they're the party of nothing. decrying fake scandals about dr. seuss, pushing for hearings on conservatorships because of a britney spears documentary. i'm not making this up. and talking nonstop about the two stupidest words ever put together, cancel culture. this is not a party of ideas, which is really sad whether or not you are a republican. how wonderful would it be if the two parties could have substantive meaningful policy debates about the issues that matter and how best to address them. right now only one party is doing that. and you know what? they're not about to stop. >> if you take the pieces of this bill and broke it into all the pieces, every one of those pieces standing alone would be viewed as a significant accomplishment. but it's all the work you have done for years to try to get us there. this law is not the end of our efforts, though. i view it as only beginning. >> all right. leading off our discussion tonight sara nelson, president of the national association of flight attendants. and relevant to this particular discussion has been a flight attendant for 25 years. so this is a happy week for her. she's one of the country's premier labor leaders. christina greer also joining us. thank you for being with us on a friday evening. christina, let me start with you because one would assume there are political costs to being on the wrong side of things. at these moments like this, a recession, a pandemic, a moment to come together, one would assume there would have been some efforts on the part of republicans to at least join hands and say we're part of this. when we look back at it in 10 years or 15 years, we were part of the effort to extract us from this after the disastrous administration that got us buried into this over the last year. why are we seeing nothing on the part of republicans? how is it that the estate tax is their number one priority right now? >> right. first things first, ali, i am a daughter of a flight attendant. i just want to give a shout-out to all the men and women who protect us in the air. >> oh, wow. yep. >> but, ali, it befuddles us because so many republicans are so calcified in just working against democrats. and they know that their constituents actually want that. so they're worried about their primaries. they don't want their opponents back home to ever be able to say this person voted with the democrats. and we have seen political science literature, you know, track this quite significantly and substantively where especially white americans consistently vote against their own interests. they vote against health care when they need it. they vote against gun control when it's affecting their communities. there is no surprise democrats always have to start off their presidencies with some massive stimulus to get the country going back again because republicans take all of the money and these tax breaks that do not trickle down to the american people. they give them to the wealthiest americans who vote for them and then the democrats have to come and clean up. time and time again, this is the cycle we see with the executive elections every time we switch from republican to democrat and back to republican again. i think the republicans right now know that there are no electoral consequences for them at the voting booth for voting against the needs of their own people. as long as they can say i voted against democrats and i tried to make particular democrats one termers, they will be rewarded. >> fascinating about that. but thank you for the first few minutes of the show mentioning that the trickle down economics doesn't work. what does work, sara nelson, is something you and i have been talking about probably for a year. that is the idea that if you provide companies with the funds to keep their employees employed because whether it is your colleagues at flight attendants or mechanics or pilots or owners of the company, business suffered through no fault of their own and there is nothing they can do to goose it until this pandemic starts to end. so the bottom line is there is nothing trickle down about that. you need to give the companies money to keep people employed, and that's what we saw this week. >> we did this last march because we have 80% of the workers in the airline industry unionized, so we had enough power to say to the corporations you are not going to get this done without us, so you have to do it on our terms. even under trump and mcdonald regime, we were able to get a workers first package for the aviation workers that made sure that all of the relief went to our paid benefit, that there could be no reduction to our hourly rate of pay and we even put a cap of buyback bets. but it was only 1.25% of the cares act last march. and now these principles have been injected to the rest of this relief plan, and that's what congress has taken up, and that's what president biden is talking about. trickle down is dead and we're going to build from the ground up and get the relief to the working people. >> and yet, christina, the myth continues about the gop being the party of the working people. in fact, at the cpac conference ted cruz was talking about this. he said the republican party is not just the party of country clubs, the republican party is the party of steel workers, construction workers, pipeline workers, police officers, firefighters, waiters and way tress. but that's not how it's looking. >> at at all. i will paraphrase lbj where he said, then you can pick his pockets all day long. i think the republican party has done a great job of looking at their middle class and upper class voters to say, you are better than these immigrants. you are better than these people of color. they have been able to pass policies detrimental to the people in their own party time and time again. we saw that over the course of four years. so, yes, there are a wide breadth of diverse folks within the party economically, but all the policies of republicans over these past -- it's not even four years, these past 40 years have been working against the people in their party except for the folks in the upper echelon. so ted cruz can say that all he wants. this is a man that flew to mexico for vacation and was able to fly right back when he got busted. there is a lack of respect that republicans have for their own voters and republican voters don't see it time and time again even when those policies work against them. >> so, sara, we talked about the fact that you were on a committee, a biden-bernie sanders committee to blend some policies. but before that you were actually at the table as you said last march when you were talking to congress about the niche bill. i guess to the point that this bill was passed without any republican support and, hence, it was probably bigger than it would have been, what's the right approach now going forward? becausewy haven't got a $15 minimum wage in this country, all things that are near to your heart as a labor leader. how do democrats go forward? do they do what you did last march, try and sit down with republicans and car f out something that works or do they go really big, understanding they're not getting republican support at all? >> one thing i want to be really clear about is that we went to the table with the corporations, not necessarily with the republicans. and this was a democratic plan last march. and if it were not for nancy pelosi coming screaming back across the country to stop mcconnell's plan from going forward and shoring up and chuck schumer coming and bringing all the democrats together and stopping that corporate giveaway that mcconnell had put together, then we wouldn't have had those negotiations last march and we wouldn't have been able to fight for the workers first program that we have. we brought capital to the table. so what the president is doing right now is talking about the fact that he is labor's president and that he's putting workers first. and the fact that the democrats move quickly to get relief to the american people, this is very different than what we saw during the great recession. this is targeted at working people. this is actually getting to those steel workers that ted cruz was talking about. let's be really clear. this past month ted cruz did something that he's never done before. he was actually shamed into changing his ticket to come back to texas. he didn't even stand up for his wife or his father in the past when they were disregarded by president trump. >> right. >> but working people are starting to understand that they can hold their elected representatives accountable, and they're doing that and democrats understand that when they actually take action and get help in the hands of people, people are stronger, and they're also going to remember who helped them. this can't just be a battle of words and policies and academics. this has to be about truly getting help to the front lines. that's what this package is doing. it is going to make us stronger for those fights because we have to get this minimum wage passed. we have to do these things. you have to give people the understanding when they vote there actually is a result, and they're getting a result to them. and that will build more and more power. >> thank you to both of you for kicking us off tonight. we appreciate your time as always. have yourselves a great weekend. coming up arizona republicans put together more than 20 voter suppression bills. one arizona republican may have given the game away when he said, quote, everybody shouldn't be voting. arizona secretary of state katie hobs and 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(judith) our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different. so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. the republicans do have one policy idea around which they have united, stopping people from voting. not all people, some people. and many have tried to claim the motive behind this is stopping voter fraud, even though voter fraud is actually virtually nonexistent in america. but in arizona where republicans have put forward 20 bills against voting, one republican may have revealed the real motive. john cavanaugh said, quote, there is a fundamental difference between democrats and republicans. democrats value as many people as possible. republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote, but everybody shouldn't be voting, end quote. say what? who exactly shouldn't be voting, you ask. well, fortunately he answers. quote, not everybody wants to vote. and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they're totally uninformed on the issues. quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes as well, end quote. the quality of votes. okay. for starters, if we are disqualifying people totally uninformed on the issues, then there is that qanon congresswoman from georgia. but there is no education bar that an american citizen has to clear to vote. people don't have to pass a test or prove their knowledge to vote. that, you recall, used to happen. that is literally the reason behind the voting rights act of 1965. that was not actually about how informed on the issues a voter was. so i don't know who john cavanaugh feels is uninformed today, but i'm pretty sure he's not talking about voters who vote for republicans. joining us now katie hobbs. also with us congressman colin allred, a champion of hr-1 and hr-4. welcome to both of you. secretary hobbs, you and i didn't talk that long ago. i didn't think we would have an occasion so quickly, but one of your lawmakers said the quiet part outloud. >> i love it when they do that. i served with john cavanaugh in the legislature for eight years. unfortunately this comment isn't surprising. it is pretty standard kind of thing that he says pretty often. >> congressman, you're a congressman, but you are actually an expert at voting rights and you have worked with this for a long time. i'm sort of puzzled. and i guess i'm glad that cavanaugh said it out loud because that's really the point. the point is the quantity of votes is not what we're looking for. something called the quality of votes is what we're looking for. but under the constitution, it is the quantity of votes. we are looking to make sure 100% of eligible voters can exercise their vote. it is not really a big philosophical argument. it is what we're trying to do. >> yeah. that's right, ali. this is why we have a constitution. it is not any individual's choice as to who will be able to vote or whose votes value the most. this is why these are called rights, and you have the right to vote. whether or not you are informed or not. of course that's not a determination that this gentleman can make. these are the same justifications that we heard in the era of jim crowe. you are seeing the greatest sweeping effort to restrict the right to vote since the era of the jim crowe days. this is an inflection point. if we don't do something, we may very well lose our democracy. i was on the house floor on january 6th when those insurrectionists tried to, you know, get there and stop the democratic process. comments like this are just as dangerous to our democracy as the folks who broke into the house and who tried to assassinate the vice president and the speaker of the house. it is that damaging to talk about who should and should not be able to participate in our democracy. >> but it is this weird equivalency between trying to create access to voting and fighting voter fraud, as if they're opposites. they're not opposites. the same person, like you, secretary hobbs, can fight voter fraud and encourage voting at the same time. let's take a look at some of the specific provisions that republicans are pushing in arizona, including making it harder to obtain a ballot, eliminating vote by mail, restricting early voting. so the point is to make this as difficult as possible. and the failing then becomes one of an individual voter who cannot navigate inconsistent and bizantine obstacles. >> you hit it on the head when you said that we can't have -- we can have both things, access to voting and voter security. and this last election demonstrated that. we saw the largest participation in our country's elections across the country this last year than we have seen in ages. and it was the most secure election that we've had. so that proves that we can have both voter access and security in our elections and, so, i think it's important to continue to push back against this assertion that if you have one you give up the other because that is absolutely not true. and we have demonstrated that. >> congressman, among other things, hr-1 which you are a part of would expand voter regulation. it would expand early voting. it would make mail-in voting universal, which has been very successful in several states for a long time brought in under republicans in some cases. would that be signed by president biden remedy some of these state laws we're talking about in arizona, georgia, iowa and other places. >> in texas as well. and, yes, it would because what we're trying to do is set a national standard so you don't have this patch work in terms of some states it is extremely difficult to vote and others it is much easier. we try to set standards around the things you mentioned there and voter registration, early voting, voting by mail. hr-1 is incredibly important adds an affirmative expansion of the right to vote. it is also as you mentioned at the top of this section important that we restore the voting rights action. you can think about this as the sword and the shield approach where the sword is hr-1 and the shield is the voting rights act where you defend yourself against laws that get through that try to stop folks from voting. that is how you protect our democracy and stop states from preventing citizens from being involved. >> you know this, a, because you are an american citizen, but you were involved in this. i guess what i worry about is in the months after an election, particularly in a place like arizona that joe biden won in 2020 only one other democrat, bill clinton, in 1996 has been able to do that in the last 70 years. do people feel that outrage? or is it one of the things that a lot of people say, well, it worked. we won the election. how do you get people to understand that this is going on under their noses right now as we speak, and it will affect elections in 2022 and 2024 and forever more? >> well, i definitely think that voters here are paying attention. you know, one of the benefits from this last election is that people were more civically engaged. i don't just mean showing up to vote but they were paying attention to the processes going on in our elections. that is a good thing. they are paying attention to these bills that are being introduced, and i think unfortunately because of the pandemic access to the legislature is somewhat restricted. and, so, i think the legislature kind of thinks they're getting away with this because people aren't down here at the capitol in droves, you know, protesting as they normally would be or packing the hearing rooms because it is just not possible. but they are paying attention. and i'm having conversations with people, you know, voters and folks every day who are so upset and want to know what they can do. and i don't think they're going to stop paying attention. this is a slap in the face to voters, and they absolutely understand that. >> it is a slap in the face, and it is an attempt to take away your franchise for which people have gone to jail and people have fought and people have died in this country, in the civil war, in the suffrage movement, in the civil rights movement. this is the whole ball game. thanks to both of you for the work you are doing. katie hobbs of arizona, congressman colin allred, thanks for joining us as well. coming up, michael cohen has been asked to do an eighth interview with the manhattan district's attorney's office. glen kushner is going to join me after the break. ter the break. because i can still make my own 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(trill sound) in the romo household we take things to the max oh yeah! honey, you still in bed? yep! bye! that's why we love skechers max cushioning footwear. they've maxed out the cushion for extreme comfort. it's like walking on clouds! big, comfy ones! oh yeah! washed your hands a lot today? probably like 40 times. hands feel dry? like sandpaper. introducing new dove handwash, with 5 x moisturizer blend. removes germs in seconds, moisturizes for hours. soft, smooth. new dove handwash. re-entering data that employees could enter themselves? that's why i get up in the morning! i have a secret method for remembering all my hr passwords. my boss doesn't remember approving my time off. let's just... find that email. the old way of doing business slows everyone down. with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in one easy-to-use software. visit paycom.com for a free demo. cy vance is closing in on donald trump. his office in possession of millions of pages of trump's tax returns. and jane mayor reports in the new yorker that the pace of the investigation has picked up dramatically. a person who has been extensively involved in the investigation said it's night and day. that's a quote. another source who complained that things had seemed to stall while vance waited for trump to leave the white house and then waited for his tax records said of the d.a.'s office they mean business now. on wednesday, trump's former personal attorney michael cohen sat down with cy vance for the seventh time in a meeting that lasted two and a half hours and has been asked back for an eighth time. reacting to that news, john dean tweeted, i assure you, you do not visit a prosecutor's office seven times if they are not planning to indict those about whom you have knowledge. it is only a matter of how many days until da vance indicts donald and company. joining me now glen kushner. glen, my friend, good to see you. bring us up to speed on what you think is happening. there was a lot of talk about when donald trump finally leaves office, will these things all come home to roost? tell me what you believe is happening with the manhattan district attorney? >> it is funny you said john dean said that he was on the witness side of the equation. >> right. >> and when he hears about somebody meeting with prosecutors so many times it is an indication they're probably moving forward indictment at trial. i was on the prosecution side of that same equation for 30 years, and i can tell you when i was handling cases that would take me a week or two or three to try, i might meet with a witness two or three times to prepare him or her for trial. but when i was in big rico trials i was in trial once for six months, it was quite a marathon. that's when i would find myself meeting with significant witnesses including cooperators six, seven, eight, ten times. it starts to look like that's what's going on with michael cohen. as you mentioned, there have been millions of pages of financial documents, tax records and accounting records from donald trump's accounting firm. and i found an interesting nugget in this evening's reporting when they said that michael cohen's seventh interview was a virtual interview. it was a teleconference. but then for the eighth interview, they said they really need you to come down in person. the first thing i thought of is they need him help, having him plow through probably hundreds or thousands of documents because he knows where some of the financial bodies are buried. and it is a lot easier to sit down with a witness like michael cohen and plow through all that paperwork in person rather than trying to do it virtually. >> and there is another person whose attention they seem to be focussed on. great reporting from "the washington post" tonight. writing that the manhattan district attorney is probing the extent of allen weissle burg's loyalty to donald trump and cross-suit nicing a trump-owned apartment one occupied by weissle berg's son. one person familiar with the investigation said it's aimed at flipping weissle berg, attempting to turn one of trump's longest serving and most important aids into a witness against him. glen, he is not just a long-sering aid. he also worked for donald trump's father. but he's the money guy. he's the accountant. >> yeah. and if anybody is important in a large scale financial fraud investigation, it is the accountant. so you know when you see reporting about the fact that weissle berg's children, his sons were involved in some of the trump businesses and in some of the banking endeavors of donald trump, you can see how they're going to want to cast a wide net. and it is not unusual, ali, if somebody like weissle berg is a really sought after potential cooperating witness and his sons may have some criminal exposure. it is not unusual for prosecutors to perhaps deal away prosecutions of the sons in order to pressure the father to come onboard. so as we say, pressure bursts pipes. and it looks like they might be trying to pressure weissle berg in every way they can. glen, good to see you as always. thank you for joining us and making complicated things a lot clearer for us. glen kushner. coming up, new york governor andrew cuomo still says he will not step down in light of the sexual allegations against him. but chuck schumer and christian gillibrand are joining the growing calls on cuomo to resign. we'll have the latest after this. we'll have the latest after this friday night ♪ ♪ a pair of jeans that fit just right ♪ ♪ and the radio up ♪ get 5 boneless wings for $1 with any handcrafted burger. only at applebee's. meet jeff. in his life, he's been to the bottom of the ocean. the tops of mountains. the er... twice. and all the places this guy runs off to. like jeff's, a life well lived should continue at home. home instead offers customized services from personal care to memory care, so older adults can stay home, stay safe, and stay happy. home instead. 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'cause i do things a bit differently. wet teddy bears! wet teddy bears here! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ antibacterial or moisturizing body wash? definitely moisturizer! antibacterial can i have both? new dove care & protect body wash eliminates 99% of bacteria and moisturizes for hours two for one! can i keep it? new dove care & protect, zero compromise! all right. breaking news tonight, both senators from new york state have joined the chorus of lawmakers for cuomo to resign. in a joint statement, due to the multiple, credible sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, it is clear that governor cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners and the people of new york. governor cuomo should resign, end quote. most of all of new york's congressional delegation has said cuomo should step down. governor cuomo has denied allegations that he touched anyone inappropriately. on a conference call earlier today, governor cuomo refused to resign while taking aim at those same politicians. >> politicians who don't know a single fact but yet form a conclusion and an opinion are, in my opinion, reckless and dangerous. the people of new york should not have confidence in a politician who takes a position without knowing any facts or substance. that, my friends, is politics at its worst. >> joining me now is anna, co-author of "politico"'s new york play book. she's based in albany and covers governor cuomo. thank you for joining me tonight. we saw governor cuomo scheduled a press conference for this afternoon in which he made it clear he's not looking to resign, despite the fact that democratic lawmakers in new york state are calling for his resignation and this investigation into him continues. >> right. you know, it's not been a great week for andrew cuomo but he started it out on sunday saying he would not resign when the first top democrat in the state, senator majority leader said that he should and he ended it out saying that he would not resign when at least a dozen of the congressional delegation also said that he should. so he's stayed pretty true to what he initially said that he would do. >> there is another option for politicians who don't want him in office. that is of course impeachment. if that were to happen and i don't know how much it resembling the impeachment trial we just watched of president trump, but he has 47 members of the state senate who have issued statements suggesting that the governor should resign or somehow step aside, that the number of votes that would be needed would be 46. >> correct. and that process would actually start in the assembly, and the assembly on thursday did do that after a pretty long conference and discussion among members. they started an investigation into cuomo, which would be the first step in moving toward any sort of trial or drafting any articles. how long that will take, we don't know. but both houses have pretty strong consensus that that's the direct they would like to go. >> i want to play something of what he said from that press conference today in which he -- he was asked about whether there could be any misunderstanding of the latest allegation of improper touching of a staff member. let's play what he said. >> is there a misunderstanding where there in your mind was consensual touching taking place in one or more allegations. >> look, it's very simple. i never harassed anyone. i never abused anyone. i never assaulted anyone. now, and i never would. >> what happens at this point? because reporters can ask cuomo whatever they want to ask him. his answers seem to be fairly consistent but there is an investigation going on that is headed by letitia james, the attorney general of new york. do we have a time line of that? do we have any sense of how long it's going to take? >> it's my understanding that that really depends on the attorney general. investigations of these type take anywhere from 14 days to several months. i think that depends on how much evidence arises, whether or not there are new accusations and what exactly they are looking for. i don't know. different people, accusers or the governor are going to define harassment probably differently depending on how it is in their own minds. so how the attorney general and the attorneys she has appointed to lead this investigation decide to move forward with what has already come out into the public sphere i think will depend on them and that will decide how long before we see the results that a lot of people are waiting on. >> thanks for your reporting. anna is the co-author of "politico"'s new york play book. she is based in the new york state capitol of albany. coming up, nikki freed wants to investigate ron desantis for steering vaccination sites to a neighborhood full of wealthy republican donors. she's not the only one. that's next. - oh. - what's going on? 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introducing self protection from xfinity. designed to put you in control. with real-time notification and a week of uninterrupted recording... all powered by reliable, secure wifi from xfinity. gotta respect his determinatio. it's easy and affordable to get started. get self protection for $10 a month. i started the show talking about the fact that the biden leaf package shows what democrats are far. what are republicans for? trying to get to the bottom of that. in florida, two republicans, united states senator who trashed the biden bill, didn't vote for it, says florida should reject and return the funding from it. other is republican governor who trashed the bill and says florida should get more funding from it. governor desantis is mired in a scandal or allegedly using covid vaccines in pay for play scheme. vaccinations given to residents of two zip codes, affluent and mostly white. now the evidence includes text messages. desantis donor who organized the drive texted republican commissioner, gov said he might show up, should try to see if that would help him get exposure here. >> excellent point, '22 is around the corner, reference to when the florida gubernatorial elections take place and he could run for re-election. top elected democrat in florida wants united states justice department to investigate governor ron desantis. agriculture commissioner nikki fried, a former prosecutor. i want to read something from the miami herald about what we're talking about, editoral board. raked in $3.9 million since december, including $2.7 million in feb when he was focusing on the pop-up vaccination sites. residents at wealthy gated community in key largo gave him $90,000 through december. one wrote a check. in january when vaccines were still scarce, ocean reef received 1,200 doses. what more can you tell us? >> this is what is happening in state of florida, talking about two statewide elected -- as commissioner of agriculture, we know how to have a special kind of republican in our state we're growing. what we're seeing is governor paying favoritism to his white, wealthy donors. not only those two incidents but more popping up every day. governor, never had a plan on how vaccines would be rolled out. hodgepodge plan in place and allowing the white wealthy donors to get to front of the line, all the minorities and disenfranchised communities are still waiting for vaccines. as past public defender, seen patterns time and time again, when there's smoke, there's typically fire. never seen corruption like this, why we asked the fbi to get engaged and do an investigation. >> want to look at vaccination data that kaiser family foundation used through march 1st, data from centers for disease control broken down by race. in florida, white people on the right column, 56% of the colleges, 80% of the vaccinations. black people, 16% of the deaths, 7% of the vaccinations. getting vaccinated less than half the proportion to covid deaths. whites at rate of 1 1/2 times. is this something the governor recognizes and says we need to fix this or are we not even at that point to say this is how unequal the vaccine distribution is. >> no, anytime anybody questions him he calls it a joke or blames it on the left-wing media. he's not taken responsibility for how the vaccines were rolled out and inequality of the vaccines, those numbers speak for themselves. your consciousness should be alerting you something is going wrong in state of florida. he won't recognize this, every once in a while throw a bone to minority community and open up a vaccine site but percentage of vaccines given in those communities is significantly less than what has gone into the wealthier communities, exclusive zip codes, gated communities, like-minded individuals. he's using the vaccines as political tool and weapon to favor those supporting him and hurt those opposed to things he's been doing. hurting those communities. this is something -- >> you have -- sorry to interrupt you, delay on the line. you called it vaccine hunger games. want to read another portion from the miami herald. public health experts say the governor's latest executive order requiring medically vulnerable people to get a prescription script adds needless red tape to keep them from their place in line. that's ridiculous. >> 2.8 million floridians don't have a primary physician or health care, where are they supposed to go for the different forms? and lot of our doctors are charging for the forms. putting this red tape in place, disenfranchising so many people of the state without access to it. going back to rick scott, part of the reason we don't have health care access in the state, he's denied taking federal dollars to expand medicaid and governor desantis has continued. >> what happens next? you asked justice department to intervene, any chance they might? >> spent time with the fbi and called on the oversight committee of congress, we're hoping as more facts come out and more pop-up sites continue, and the governor is not changing his course of action, going to be more examples. it's pay to play in state of florida and truly hunger games here in the state. >> commissioner fried, thank you for joining us, nikki fried is agriculture commissioner, thanks for your time. that's tonight's "last word." catch me on "velshi." i want to know whether we can trust the new time line and whether the science supports it. tomorrow morning going to put those questions and more to head of the national institutes of health, dr. francis collins. "the 11th hour" with brian williams begins right now. good evening once again, day 52 of the biden administration, the white house launching a full-court press to tell the american people about the relief headed their way. part of a giant step in lifting the country from the depths of a pandemic. president, vice president, prominent capitol hill democrats gathered in the rose garden to celebrate the package of the $1.9 trillion rescue package. no republicans were present because not a single elected republican voted for it. >> we're going to be traveling the country to speak directly to the american people about how this law is going to make a real difference in their lives. we're showing it's possible to get big, important things done. for the first time in a long time this bill puts working people this this nation first. >> help has arrived america. this landmark legislation will get relief to