47% of trump supporters. dr. fauci this weekend practically pleading with trump who is vaccinated in secret at the white house in january to urge his supporters to get the shot. watch. >> how much of a difference will it make if president trump leads a campaign for the people who are most devoted to him to actually go out and get the vaccine? >> chris, i think it would make all the difference in the world. he is a very widely popular person among republicans. if he came out and said go and get vaccinated, it is really important for your health, the health of your family and the health of the country it seems absolutely inevitable that the vast majority of people who are his close followers would listen to him. i'm surprised at the high percentage of republicans who say they don't want to be vaccinated. i don't understand where that's coming from. this is not a political issue. this is a public health issue. >> the divide is also playing out on the floor of the house of representatives in almost the same numbers. axios reports 25% of members did not get the vaccine or avoiding it. quote, i won't be taking it, the survival rate is too high for me to want it, 25-year-old madison cawthorn and ron johnson speculated the best immunity is probably having had the disease which he did. not none of the doctors or public experts agreed with that statement and facebook long a cesspool of disinformation about the most polarizing political topics in the country finds when it comes to the vaccine a small group is doing a great deal of damage. a research effort by facebook found evidence of overlap of communities skeptical of vaccine and qanon that's radicalized the followers and associated with violent crimes according to the documents. vaccine disinformation is a threat to a desperately return to normalcy where we start with some favorite reporters and friends. white house correspondent for pbs news hour and former senator clair mccaskill and dr. gupta. lucky for us all three are msnbc contributors. dr. gupta, our viewers put science at the center but for the stray cats from other political stripes who might be listening, talk about the safety of the vaccine. >> good afternoon. we have talked about this before but for all of the viewers and those who are concerned about this issue, one of the comments i get is, well, how could it be safe if it was developed in ten months? and the truth here is no other effort, vaccine effort development in history has had every leading scientist, every government, every nonprofit and company focused on an end goal and what we know is that this vaccine is very safe. it is tested on tens of thousands of individuals before the arms of tens of millions of individuals and we know that the incident of severe adverse effect is 1 in a million. so safety is not an issue. what i will say is i was alarmed by two things in the introduction. this notion of immunity that senator johnson referenced. that is not a thing to hang the hat on. every viewer, natural immunity may not protect you for more than a few months. and the variants appears with the first appeared in south africa is you can be reinfected quite easily if you had the old virus. if you have the infection get the vaccine. don't listen to senator johnson. number two, to the young representative, the 25-year-old saying the survival rate is quite high, yes, it is. i have personally cared for individuals that are 18 years of age who have been in the intensive care unit unpredictable, otherwise healthy now on life support so this can affect us all. you can't think you are invincible here. finally, the quickest way to normalcy is a plan to get the vaccine. not just some of us. >> i want to press you on that, dr. gupta. if you look at countries further along in vaccinating the public the most sort of comforting statistic is that the pfizer vaccine cut similar mattic transmission 87% and asymptomatic spread 94%. it seems until we have the spread and the transmission shut down we haven't done all of the public health good that the vaccine promises. >> you're exactly right. i think your team has a chart to reference here. it is that chart here forecast a few scenarios. draw viewers' attention to the pink line at top. that's what happens if we don't have wide adoption of the vaccine which to your point reduces symptomatic transmission and keeps people out of the hospital. we could still very well see the pandemic rage between 1,000 and 100,000 infections a day well into july planning according to president biden july fourth vacations, may not be that way and that's if we don't have wide adoption quickly and that means everybody. regardless of ages. that supposes more governors fall by the way of governor abbott and loosening mask mandates and other initiatives too soon, to allow the variants to evolve and change even more. that worse outcome should be top of mind for everybody here. it could get worse. we could not be passed this by the summer if we let it continue to go unrestrained. >> claire mccaskill, the sound i played from dr. fauci has something i think reveals how focused on science he is and how little fox news he watches. he says i don't know why it would be that 30% of the public, 49% of trump supporters, 47% of all republican men wouldn't be enthusiastic to get the vaccine. i went back today and watched the last four to six weeks of fox news coverage bafrs cli coinciding with when president biden was clear he was indeed going to be transitioned into power for the election he rightly won. fox news shifted from the big lie to sowing doubt about the vaccine. i won't play it but there's coverage that late last night hosts started to attack covid-19 vaccines after biden took the rollout from trump. you live in a battleground state where your neighbors are not all getting the information from tony fauci, some turn on fox news or turn to right wing media. can you talk about the disinformation that's so abundant on the right? >> yeah. it's really interesting. let's look at donald trump. this is a first. this is a product that he can claim as his own. but yet he is not marketing it. now, why is that? typically he would be out there claiming all of the credit for this vaccine and proudly showing how he and his wife were both vaccinated months ago. he said about getting the shot but by and large he is hiding from the issue. why is that? i got a theory. i think he is deathly afraid of being discovered as not the leader of these people anymore. if he came out strongly in favor of vaccination and still these people wanted to believe qanon or fox news more than donald trump then he is really weakened politically. so who's following who now? is he following and trying to hold on to supporters or a leader that can influence supporters? i think the jury is out on that. >> that's so interesting. just to pull that thread a little more tout, if you want to test trump's leadership and test his mojo poll in four weeks after trump makes a daily effort to tell people to get vaccinated and i wonder why no one on the right with the interest of saving lives in their own -- i want those people to live. it is interesting to me that the people that broadcast news with a predominantly right-leaning audience don't have the desire to have the viewers live. >> it is really interesting. my grandmother was a wise woman and she said the way to tell when people don't have power is when they're afraid to use it and i think this is an example of where trump may be afraid to use the power because the power diminished so much he can't get the people across the finish line. i have no explanation why educated people that are broadcasting news on cable would ever discourage people from getting a vaccination. it is incredibly safe and important to the economy, to the lives of family and friends. unless they're trying to hold on to the same audience that trump is trying to hold on to. >> it's so -- literally and figuretively sick stuff. i want to show president biden responding to this topic. >> should president trump help promote the vaccine among skeptics, sir? especially those republicans that say that -- >> i'm hearing a lot of reports from serious reporters like you saying that. i discussed it with my team. and they say the thing that has more impact than anything trump would say to the maga folks is what the local doctor, what the local preacher, what the local people in the community say. so i urge, i urge all local docs and ministers and priests to talk about why. why it's important to get that vaccine and even after that until everyone is in fact vaccinated to wear this mask. >> that's president biden's answer. jen psaki had a hybrid of dr. fauci and the president there. if you dig deeper, donald trump thought he would be safer from a recurrence of covid if he was vaccinated and melania. they just didn't tell anybody. can you talk about their views on the vaccine? >> i think a question that remains is why didn't former president trump and former first lady melania get the vaccinations in public and why didn't they talk about why they made the decision to get vaccinated? what we have seen is leaders, former presidents, dr. fauci, doctors, people getting vaccinated in public to then say this is my body. look at me taking this vaccine. now you go out and realize if i believe it's safe you can believe it's safe. the question to the answer is unclear. i think while president trump, former president trump has said get the shot, he said that once or twice, the big question i think among people who support him and have been following him is he's someone been very vocal to tout something, he's a dealmaker, a showman. in this regard he was not doing this with the vaccine and wanted credit to develop the vaccine quickly but didn't sell it for people to take and hearing president biden talking about the fact that he believes president trump would be less effective than local doctors and ministers that dovetails with my own reporting at pbs and a poll and also hearing that people most feel comfortable if the local doctor or preacher or someone who they feel comfortable with not associated with the government that that person tells them it's okay to do that so what we have is the some ways a problem that president trump in some ways he -- if he didn't create he benefited from, the idea that the government isn't trusted and a dark part of the government meaning badly for citizens, the heart of qanon and conspiracy theories that president trump leaned into sometimes when it was politically beneficial and now coming up with vaccines and people don't trust the government or all the way trust president trump. >> i want to follow up on this topic because there's great new reporting just starting to emerge as the dust settles from the former guy and it gets into what you describe, the disinformation efforts. "the washington post" reports a cdc review identified public health guidance under the trump administration down played the severity of the pandemic. we know from trump that was a strategy from the top and it was a plan to down play it. the same tape acknowledges that young people can die and much more serious than the flu. but with the review identifies are three documents specifically and i remember talking to you and other white house reporters about these white house pushes, trump pushes. one down playing the potential risks or opening up schools. the others are guidelines to open up released last april before that second and obviously third spike. and then another was discouraging the testing of asymptomatic spread. i deferred to dr. gupta and seems that businesses and schools using testing are realitily only looking for asymptomatic spread because people with symptoms know to stay home. >> yeah. i think at the heart of what you just explained, this idea that president trump was both trying to downplay the virus, making sure that people felt like he was in control and not that big of a deal and people trying to attack him politically and now in that same breath convince people that this is a virus that's dangerous enough that they should actually go get in line and get the vaccine. that is a really hard message to have when you have the former issues happening. president trump said over and over this is the flu, don't worry about it. hydroxychloroquine or clorox might cure you and now wants people to take him seriously and that this vaccine is good for you and you should be taking this virus very seriously. it is very hard i think for people especially trump supporters to marry the messages, like the flu in one breath and also something serious enough to putt your body in line to get the vaccine. that's the problem is that president trump told so many people over and over again they shouldn't be worried and now people say why should i worry about it? and then senator ron johnson saying i don't need the vaccine because i had the virus. that's echoed in my reporting. when you talk to the people most hesitant about the vaccine they sound like president trump in march 2020. they sound like people who didn't listen to president trump last couple times saying go get the vaccine. >> which shows information, especially lining with the beliefs, takes a listening time to dissuade people of. doctor, i want to show you something dr. fauci said and i know we focus on what's going on here but people should be aware that in itly they're having another round of lockdowns, variants are wrecking havoc in the vaccine rollout has been slower than perhaps they would have hoped. here's dr. fauci warning that we should not spike the ball. >> we absolutely need to avoid the urge to say, oh, everything is going great. which it is going in the right direction but once you declare victory, that metaphor that people say going for a touchdown don't spike the ball on the 5 yard line. wait until you get into the end zone and we are not in the end zone yet and that's an issue that when you plateau there's always a risk of a surge. that's what the europeans have experienced. >> doctor, it seems that the biden administration and vth harris played a big role in this, they have the infrastructure set out to deal with hesitancy with reasons to distrust the government and especially government science but it seems like no one expected that 30%, that half of the 30% who are reluctant or hesitant would be white male trump supporters. what do we do about that? >> i think we need to lean into story telling. 1 in 3 americans impacted by this virus. number one, tell more stories, make this real about what vaccinations are intending to avert. and leads into we need to be clearer about the purpose of vaccination. it is not intended to avert sniffles or body aches but to keep you out of the hospital and from dying. 100% of the vaccines, all vaccines do that to a tune of 100%. people say i want this, no that. that vaccine, choosing between vaccines is part of the problem and i'll say we have a big problem on the hands here, dr. fauci is right. we are in a tenuous spot. cases are high. 1,500 to 2,000 people die every day and now the headlines of astrazeneca vaccine today that cause a lot of people i think wrongly to say they don't want that vaccine. we are drawing a wrong causeality of blood clots in a small group of people amongst the millions getting the vaccine saying it's relatted. they're not but we are casts doubt on yet another vaccine that's going to keep people out of the hospital. there's challenges ahead here. we need to clear up the miscommunication on vaccine effectiveness to get at the problems. >> that's why we turn to you on days like this. dr. gupta, thank you so much for starting us off. when we come back, how did the far right proud boys stay off the radar of federal and local law enforcement as long as they did ahead of the capitol insurrection? a new report says because some police let them. and caring for unaccompanied teens and children in the u.s. it is not a new problem but now biden is trying to respond just might be. governor cuomo of new york remains defiant today. new polling says he has support of new york voters to continue to hang on. all those stories and more when we continue after a quick break. ♪ 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. we are hoping things will pick up by q3. yeah...uh... doug? 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[ chuckles ] don't get me wrong, i love my rv, but insuring it is such a hassle. same with my boat. the insurance bills are through the roof. -[ sighs ] -be cool. i wish i could group my insurance stuff. -[ coughs ] bundle. -the house, the car, the rv. like a cluster. an insurance cluster. -woosah. -[ chuckles ] -i doubt that exists. -it's a bundle! it's a bundle, and it saves you money! hi. i'm flo from progressive, and i couldn't help but overhear... super fun beach day, everybody. there are new developments today in the investigation into the january 6 insurrection. federal law enforcement arrested and charged two men for assaulting police officer brian sicknick with bear spray and did not determine if it led to his death. both men detained following court appearances today. we are also learning more about why the federal government underestimated the threat. in the run-up to january 6. the white national group of white boys that trump told to stand back and stand by, "the new york times" reports that, quote, the fbi and other agencies had often seen the proud boys as it chose to portray themselves, according to more than half a dozen current and former federal officials. mere street brawlers without the organization of bureau targets like international terrorists. joining our conversation is national security analyst frank faglusi. when i read this reporting in "the new york times" on the radar of law enforcement but not taken seriously i thought of the excuses of robert mueller of conspiracy with russia and couldn't coordinate with headquarters. this is again the incompetence defense it sounds. >> we really seem to have a collective inability to accurately assess a threat when it looks like us, when it is us and when it's staring us right in the face. so we're seeing more and more is blind spots in law enforcement's ability to see the domestic threat. some of them are very, very righteous, valid, legal concerns that have to be wrestled with as we move forward and try to get out in front of it. we need a national discussion and quickly of what we're comfortable with law enforcement monitoring online and whether we cross a line from simply policing ideology which nobody wants to actually policing the path to a flashpoint of violence. the other bigger issue is we bought them hook, line and sinker when they told us we're not violent, just about separating the races, not hurting each other, and white nationalism. people seem to buy into that despite violent outbreaks and beatings on the street. >> i need you to say more about blind spots for people that look like us and i want to pull them out of you. one, is race? two, is it that the proud boys almost wannabe law enforcement forces? >> well, i think we're now getting into layers of nuance which is, hey, let's be real. some groups, oath keepers in particular, are populated with active and former law enforcement, military. there's investigations of whether the officers were at the capitol in the insurrection so it is us means the threat could be the law enforcement folks and the military folks who have to examine the threat. the other is a reality that i am certain that if you switch to the religion and the mission on those folks on january 6 from christianity to radical violent islam and violent jihad as a mission then you're going to see the fbi and law enforcement way out in front of this with informants, undercover agents, wiretaps and probably able to prevent it before it even happened. >> we know that's true. after 9/11 everything that our government did and everything we turned to the fbi to do was built around that theory and that goal. i want to ask about the two arrests today. these are from this intense investigation into how officer sicknick died. julian of pennsylvania and george 39 of west virginia taken into custody sunday accused of using bear spray. officer sicknick suspect he may have inhaled a spray type irritant. it seems that a lot of the heat in the invest is around the events leading up to his death but every indication is that the investigation is still very mump intensifying. >> that's right. these arrests are just part of an investigation that is clearly growing and will be encompassing more and more people. it is very clear from my reporting and from the hearings that have been happening on capitol hill that law enforcement is just getting started coming to identifying the people, who's most to blame, who are the people who are the most aggressive. this officer died after coming back from the capitol so i think there's going to be real questions about how much these two men and others might be able to be charged in his death or whether or not this is something that's going to be really debated about how much they could have influenced him given the fact he died hours later and people want to see real accountability because this officer died, other people passed away. i want to get back to one thing frank was saying and gets to the investigation and now really the feeling of a nsks trying to catch up with time wasted in the minds of some critics. he just said if you change the relegislation of this, as someone that covered black lives matter and protests, i have talked to peaceful protesters visited by the fbi that feel like they were targeted by the fbi and the fbi and law enforcement very interested and on top of who black lives matter was and what the members were doing and a question of the double standard in this group whether or not this group is completed differently than other people including of course violent jihadists but also regular every day black americans in this country who are asking for police accountedability and a question as the investigation goes on how we treated americans trying to have change versus americans who are now part of the what the fbi director said is biggest threat to security domestically and that's white supremacists in this country. >> claire, she's diplomatic. the questions have been answered by ron johnson saying he felt on 1/6 because they're white people that love their country. if they were black lives matter, whoa, he would have been scared. >> you know, it is interesting. it feels like sometimes that this hour i annual so enjoy spending with you on mondays is the ron johnson show. you know? i mean, what is it with this guy? >> not by our design! >> i know! the ron anonjohnson. a gift that keeps on giving. he said the part out loud. >> right. >> that these people were pay tri yots because they look like and if it was black lives matter he would have been afraid. yameesh is right. there's intelligence gathering throughout our history. frank knows this. the fbi had very dark chapters gathering intelligence against civil rights leaders, when we were struggling for our first go at racial equality in this country back in the '60s. it is really important that the fact that the president refused to criticize this group and said stand back and stand by. there is a direct line from the president of the united states saying that on the debate stage as he campaigned for a second term for the highest office in the land and the reaction of law enforcement. yes. is it hard to go after domestic terrorists because of the rules they must abide by in terms of constitutional rights as american citizens? yes. human intelligence is human intelligence. undercover operatives are undercover operatives. knock and talk applies to people in trailer parks in arkansas or west virginia or missouri just as it applies to people who live in urban areas protesting peacefully to try to find racial equality. so we've got to make sure that the standard is the same for both and we are struggling with that one. >> frank, i wonder if you can just speak to the difference of having -- in fairness to christopher wray the most senior law enforcement official in the country he did say all of this out loud. the gravest threat to the homeland security is white supremacy and but the bosses bill barr and donald trump never turn the justice department to the federal government toward the pursuit and thwarting of the plots from those people. what difference can be made by having an attorney general merrick garland that amplifies the wray messages and having a white house who isn't going to as elizabeth newman said refuse to strengthen the hand of law enforcement pursuing and protect the rest of us from these groups? >> it could virtually become a game changer. there's no secret that the groups we have just talked about from oath keepers to proud boys and others were on the president's team. to think that that didn't influence law enforcement decisions opening of investigations would be naive. of it did and i think it played right into the preparation or lack thereof of january 6 at the capitol. these were the president's guys. they said we're sent by the president. that's why we're here. he's with us. that could be a game changer with a neutral party saying we'll open investigations regardless of who's in support of who here because we'll play by the rules and have a list of standards. when this country wants to it can do the right thing and investigate people because of violence and not just ideology. the abuses of j. edgar hoover against the black panthers and martin luther king because he didn't like the ideology. they didn't break laws. there's a memo saying we investigated the black panthers. they serve breakfast to black children and he told them to find something and having the right guy at the right time makes a huge difference. >> i think what you are saying is so important to understand as the investigation into the insurrection proceeds. there's not going to be some secret mem row. it is this climate that you just articulated. they were there at the invitation and direction of donald trump doing what he told them to do. can you talk about how that hangs over everything from the intel to the response of the pentagon to the law enforcement response to the ability to understand how this all happened? >> yeah. it is not just that it's the president's team but also it's the president himself and the way he conducts himself through fear and intimidation and bullying. when you have a secretary of defense who by the way just installed largely to try to make this happen in my opinion to allow for it to happen. people know they'll be chewed out publicly, demoted, ostracized so everybody's walking on eggshells. and nobody can do the right thing even the moist moral people seem pressured to do the right thing when they're intimidated and bullied by this man and allegiance is to the man and not just about who's the leader but picking on the team. you assemble a team as an ag or a fbi director and say remember who you're loyal to. it is constitution. do the right thing even if i'm not. >> thank you for adding so much importance context to all of these conversations. when we come back, herculean task for the biden administration trying to manage the growing influx of families at the border humanely. a live report from the site of one of the facilities that will hopefully alleviate the overcrowding is next. i have the power to lower my a1c. because i can still make my own insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it. once-weekly trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. most people taking it reached an a1c under 7%. trulicity may also help you lose up to 10 pounds and lower your risk of cardiovascular events, whether you know you're at risk or not. trulicity isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. it's not approved for use in children. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, changes in vision, or diabetic retinopathy. serious side effects may 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one of him to, president biden is tasked with fixing the trump administration's efforts to separate families. and its complete lack of preparation and space for them. >> we inherited a real lack of capacity. it is hard to ramp up the capacity. >> we are working to nix the mess of the last couple of years and takes time and clearly a priority for the president. >> the house will take up the protection offen documented immigrants. the biden administration is building temporary shelters. u.s. health and human services is considering a nasa airfield near san francisco as a shelter. that's where we find jacob sob rof. take us through what's happening. >> reporter: i think a lot of people ask what am i doing in the bay area today talking about an influx of unaccompanied my grant children and this is a choke point and there is a humanity crisis at the border. children are kept inside border jails effective. those are no place for children as secretary said over the past couple of days and what the federal government is trying to do is find shelter through the health and human services department and the office of resettlement so that professionals take choir of the children and a proposed temporary inflex site a nasa base up in the bay area and the lawyers talking to children and the horrific conditions they're in right now and a colleague from the national center for youth law met me out here earlier today to talk about this facility and this is what she told me. >> the government needs safe space for the children to be. getting more licensed capacity takes time and the biden administration doesn't have time right now. they have thousands of children at facilities and need to move them out quickly. we are where facilities are needed for a short period of time and need to be careful about the facilities and different under the trump administration for for a long period of time and that is not acceptable. >> reporter: her point there is that the biden administration is faced with a crisis and have to do something and while bringing the children to be at a nasa facility if that's what they do is not ideal but better than keeping them in the conditions at the border right now. >> jacob, this coverage i think you're an exception and yameesh but this is a huge problem. i was part of an administration a few administrations ago that spent six years trying to deal with immigration reform. seem unacceptable they would have solved this. >> you have republicans at the border. i'm not a political correspondent but it is frustrating as a reporter watching republicans go down there and talk about the biden crisis. use the children as political pawns and advocating nothing. maybe they're saying to send them back to the dangerous conditions that they came from in mexico and central america but trying to solve a crisis that's not the way to do it and i think anybody can see that. it is frustrating, discouraging because we have democrats and republicans trying to putt cuds in -- put kids in a better situation but the president and the administration is looking for solutions and republicans are looking for press conferences. >> there's a reason we are not at the border with the republicans because that's exactly what the republicans are doing and they have that, mr. potato head, the vaccine disinformation and children as prons. what's the white house doing in response? >> let's first think about the fact that the lawyers that have talked to the kids describe children who say that they haven't had sunlight for days, hungry, terrified, crying. that is the situation and the biden administration is saying it is unacceptable, heart breaking and emotional and need time to fix this. i pressed jen psaki today and i said how's it acceptable for one day for this to continue? she said essentially we have critics saying this the a problem and people don't have solutions so here you have the biden administration saying we need time and time of course as the lawyer, that person told jacob, they don't have that time. i think the other thing talking about widen it out to large immigration reform there's so many people in this country that are looking to the bill, looking to the legislation for help and not only unaccompanied minors but people living in the united states for decades, livering in the shadows and talked to a mother that has no legal status and the daughter has u.s. citizenship. this is a big problem that the biden administration is trying to wrap the arms around and i suspect they have to break it often and say focus on the kids at the border and maybe other families after that. >> claire, you spent time trying to solve this problem. what is the right next step? >> as i'm sure both jacob and yamiche back me up on this. you're dealing with children that came without loved ones and family. they're alone so you've got to move them and this is where our government has kind of hidden. it goes from i.c.e. control to hhs and the people at hhs are supposed to be placing these children with sponsors. but the problem is you've got to yvette the sponsors. so you're got to hold the children long enough until you find a safe home to send them to and we made discoveries of terrible sponsors that were stuffing these children in trailers and making them work on poultry farms in ohio because no one yvetted the sponsors and put in place more aggressive vetting and takes time to make sure they don't go to an environment to be abused. this is fraught with danger for the children and either you putt therm in a safe facility for as little time as possible and try to make it as humane as possible with sunshine and exercise and nutrition and people watching them that are trained and social workers and putt them in homes that have been vetted but hundreds of children show up at the border every day. >> it's super complex at a policy level and next to impossible at to impossible at a political level. i'm grateful to all of you for talking to us about it today. nbc's jacob soboroff and yamiche alcindor. thank you so much for spending some time with us. claire is sticking around. up next, as of today new yorkers appear based on the polls ready to let governor andrew cuomo finish out his third term. at least, as we said, based on the latest polling. we'll show it to you next. ng we'll show it to you next. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture, now might not be the best time to ask yourself, 'are my bones strong?' life is full of make or break moments. that's why it's so important to help reduce your risk of fracture with prolia®. only prolia® is proven to help strengthen and protect bones from fracture with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. serious allergic reactions like low blood pressure, trouble breathing, throat tightness, face, lip or tongue swelling, rash, itching or hives have 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pay for what you need? i mean it... uh-oh, sorry... oh... what? i'm an emu! no, buddy! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. ♪ do you think governor andrew cuomo should resign? >> i think the investigation is underway and we should see what it brings us. >> new york governor andrew cuomo receiving a political lifeline of sorts there from president joe biden as he continues to face growing pressure from within his own party to step down amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment. now one of cuomo's long-time political allies, vaccine czar larry schwartz, is being accused of calling new york county officials to gauge their loyalty to cuomo. the "washington post" and "new york times" report. schwartz defends the calls, telling the "times" that he never mixed covid response policy with political considerations. cuomo today backing that up in a statement from his acting counsel, saying, "larry would never link political support to public health decisions." joining our conversation is nick confessori, "new york times" political reporter. claire's still here. the thing about this story in addition to president biden's response there which is let's wait for the investigation to come in are these poll numbers. they surprised me, frankly. 57% of new yorkers are satisfied with how cuomo has addressed the allegations. and the question is should cuomo resign immediately? 50% said no. only 35% said yes. cuomo's approval rating has taken a hit. 43% of new yorkers approve down from a high of 56% last month. but the politics of this to me are surprisingly -- suggest that cuomo could maybe, i don't know, politically gut this out? is that what this looks like you to? >> well, look, his great superpower as a politician was always to persuade a lot of voters that he was on their side against albany, the state capital of new york. and remember, he became governor after an incredible period of scandal and corruption and dysfunction in state politics. the reputation of governors was bad at that point. and he came in and said look, i'm going to fix it and i'm going to be practical. and he has done a lot of things that the people of new york have appreciated over the years. and he's enjoyed high marks and strong re-election margins for a long time. the question now is whether skins this scandal, these intertwined scandals of the sex scandal, the sexual harassment scandal, and the covid vaccine and nursing home scandals, are taking aim at his brand, i think, which is being good at governing, at making things up in albany work well so you didn't have to worry about them. that's what i think is really the firewall so far for him, that these current scandals haven't quite cut into that wall yet. >> claire, real quick, does he stay or does he go? >> listen, he's going to try to gut this out. there's no question. but when this investigation is finished, that could be the thing that brings him to his knees. and let me just say, you do not have anyone involved in a public health campaign going anywhere near political calls. that's just politics 101. as you well know, nicolle, politics is about appearances. not necessarily about reality. it was a really dumb move for him to have somebody involved in the covid vaccination effort to call people to try to gauge political support. that's stupid. >> claire mccaskill, nick confessore, thank you both so much for spending some time with us. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a very quick break. don't doe anywhere. we're just getting started. doe e we're just getting started when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa tonight...i'll be eating a falafel wrap with sweet potato fries. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. (doorbell rings) thanks! splitsies? ♪ ♪ oooh...you meant the food, didn't you? my name is austin james. as a musician living with diabetes, fingersticks can be a real challenge. that's why i use the freestyle libre 14 day system. with a painless, onesecond scan i can check my glucose without fingersticks. now i'm managing my diabetes better and i've lowered my a1c from 8.2 to 6.7. you can do it without fingersticks, too. ask your doctor for a prescription for the freestyle libre 14 day system. and visit freestyle libre.us to try it for free. 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. it has to stop. mr. president, you have not condemned these actions or this language. senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. this has to stop. we need you to step up and if you're going to take a position of leadership show some. this is elections. this is the backbone of democracy. and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. someone's going to get hurt. someone's going to get shot. someone's going to get killed. and it's not right. >> hi again, everybody. it's 5:00 in the east. remember that? the warning from that top voting official in georgia, gabriel sterling, was tragically spot on. and more than three months after that call from inside the gop about where the big lie was leading our country, a warning about exactly what would happen as a result of the republicans amplifying a lie and sowing distrust in the integrity of our elections. the carnage that donald trump promised in his inauguration address is a reality. five people including one police officer lost their lives on january 6. and now, now a wave of gop-led state legislatures are marketing voter suppression laws based on that lie that the 2020 election was insecure when we all know that it was. here's chris krebs, lifelong republican and former top cybersecurity official who oversaw the security of the 2020 election. >> there is no foreign power that is flipping votes. there is no domestic actor flipping votes. i did it right. we did it right. this was a secure election. >> trump's former a.g. remember him? bill barr. he declared there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election. which senate majority mitch mcconnell reiterated on the senate floor just minutes before a mob stormed the capitol. watch. >> nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election. >> he wasn't alone. here's former republican presidential candidate mitt romney, later the very same night. >> the truth is that president-elect biden won the election. president trump lost. i've had that experience myself. it's no fun. scores of courts, the president's own attorney general, state election officials both republican and democrat have reached that unequivocal decision. >> but not even the deadly insurrection inspired by the big lie has slowed the wave of gop panic in the face of an electorate that is quite simply just not that into it anymore. cue the cheating and rigging of the game. across 43 states more than 250 new voting laws have been proposed. they include efforts that would limit mail-in and early in-person voting as well as election day voting with constraints such as stricter i.d. requirements, limited voting hours and narrower qualifications for absentee ballots. nbc took a deep look into those numbers. guess what? among the states considering the voting restrictions five are states that president biden turned blue last year and three are large states where he lost by less than five points. all have gop legislatures. and now once again all eyes are on georgia. the republicans' political waterloo and one they're weaponizing to change the rules of the game. our friend "new york times" reporter mark leibovitz writes this -- "the state is a focal point for the nation's persistent voting rights battle as republicans move swiftly to roll back ballot access in what opponents say is a clear targeting of black voters with echoes of jim crow-era disenfranchisement. adding to the chorus georgia's governor brian kemp has become the target of a vendetta by mr. trump who has condemned him for not doing more to deliver or poach a victory for him in georgia in november. this has also made georgia the unquestioned center of the internal disputes that have roiled the republican party since november. mr. trump has seemed intent on making the state a key stop on a revenge tour he has waged against republicans he deemed insufficiently loyal to him. mr. kemp and secretary of state brad raffensperger, chief among them. the gop's dirty effort at voter suppression is where we start this hour. edward haines, editor at large of the 19th is here. also joining us my friend michael steele, former rnc chairman. and the aforementioned mark leeb vick, chief national correspondent for the "new york times." on that great piece of reporting we just read from. lucky for us all three are msnbc contributor. michael steele, i have to start with you. because i know a lot of viewers say this is where the republican party was always going. but yes and no. this is so brazen, this is so blatantly cheating, this is so desperate and pathetic and sad and tragically it seems to be working. >> yeah. it is. you put all the right labels on it. and my buddy mark leibovitz just nailed it. his op-ed just puts it in perspective what's going on and what's really at stake here. you can start with the question to the party. so what the hell are you afraid of? you know, if you put out good candidates, you put out a strong message, you have principles and policies that align with where america is, why do you need to rig the system so you can win? and as we've already seen from the 2018 election, rigging the system doesn't get you the win. and that's really the point here. they're flipping a lot of republicans in the crosshairs unnecessarily. and the price that will be paid is going to be at the ballot box starting in the fall, going into next year. and the truth of the matter is if i'm in one of those states i'm looking at those republicans i elect to the state legislature when the next round of voting comes because those are the individuals the black community should know do not want them to vote. and have made it very clear they do not value that vote. so when those republicans stand up and come to you next year talking about how, you know, y'all go to church on sunday y'all must be conservative, black unemployment is the lowest it's ever been under republicans, remember who gave you access to the ballot box and who tried to take it away from you. >> who is actively trying to take it away. erin, i want to show you some of that jeff duncan, the republican lieutenant governor of georgia, said on "meet the press" yesterday. >> republicans don't need election reform to win. we need leadership. i think there's millions of republicans waking up around the country that are realizing that donald trump's divisive tone and strategy is unwinnable in forward-looking elections. we need real leadership. we need new focus, a gop 2.0 that includes moderates in the middle to get us to the next election cycle. >> erin, he's right. but he's in the minority. and this whole idea of election reform is based on a lie. and i've been part of efforts to look at voter fraud and it is a voting reform and election security -- these are solutions in search of a problem. there isn't widespread voter fraud in america. >> well, you're absolutely right, nicolle. and that's something that we've known. what you're hearing the lieutenant governor say represents kind of that battle for the soul of the republican party that is still very much going on. but listen, we know that the big lie is not a new lie in this country. the specter of voter fraud and the need for election integrity is something that has been around and it was something that former president trump frankly tapped into headed into 2020 and also headed into the 2016 election, which he won but was talking about, you know, possible rigged elections in places like philadelphia, where i am now, where other urban centers across the country, and he brought it up again headed into 2020. and unfortunately for a lot of republicans like gabriel sterling they found themselves in the position of the 11th hour of the election trying to of convince some of their own voters that in fact it was in their best interests to vote because some of the big lie had rubbed off on them and that was kind of an unintended consequence of this ploy, right? that it would dissuade the people that he didn't want to vote for him but also that it was dissuading people, some of the people that they needed to vote for them. so that was a very specific message that was aimed at a very specific set of voters. but you know, i'm somebody who covered the georgia legislature for years and saw them, you know, pioneering voter suppression efforts anew in 2005, 2006 with soert i.d. laws. right? so we know that there is a certain kind of voter suppression that certain republicans have been fine with for a very long time, and we're seeing that rearing its ugly head and being nationalized again across the country. but it is i will say, nicolle, an old fight that is happening in a new day. you're seeing a lot of these black organizers and activists pushing back against this and really trying to hit republicans where it hurts financially with the idea that if corporations are people too in georgia going to places like ups, delta, home depot and saying is this what you support? and letting voters know that if these companies that are based in georgia are going to -- are not going to speak out and condemn these efforts that are unfolding right now in the georgia legislature that there could be consequences for them as well. >> that seems to be, mark leibovitz, the new front in this. but i want you to take me through what you write about in your reporting about georgia. >> basically, georgia is where -- is the ground zero for all of this. first of all, if you think about a state that has received a great deal of attention for its incredibly close elections over the last two cycles if you start in 2018, it was the closest state in the 2020 cycle. donald trump seemed fairly obsessed with it in the sort of post-election period. you have it set up for a rematch between senator raphael warnock, who was just elected in one of the runoffs in january. you have a rematch probably, a grudge match between governor brian chemical. and stacey abrams on the democratic side. that's probably coming up in a couple years. there's just a lot going on in georgia. but it's also really the centerpiece of this voting rights topic because there's a lot of stuff moving really fast through the legislature and georgia is also just this demographic, just like really fast-moving demographic change state. in the suburbs a much younger population than was there ten years ago. it's just changing really, really fast. and it's gone progressively blue over the last two cycles. and as is it continues republicans don't seem to be focused on an answer that as lieutenant governor duncan said was around sort of persuading younger voters or african-american voters or women in the suburbs but rather trying to sort of rig the system in some way that will be advantageous to republicans. and as stacey abrams said to me it's something that might work around the edges but ultimately there's going to be a wave of momentum that develops bolstered by demographic trends over a few cycles that you can't really get in front of by this. yeah, that's what this does to you at this point. voting rights seems to be at the center of what this is about. >> i want to sort of drill down, michael steele, on something stacey abrams has been talking about for about a week. cnbc has some new reporting on it. georgia voting rights activists pressure big corporations to oppose gop-backed ballot restrictions. and i want to read you some of this. "civil rights exact visit groups are turning up the pressure on large georgia companies like coca-cola and delta airlines to oppose sweeping voting restrictions proposed by republican state legislators. the georgia chamber of commerce previously reiterated the importance of voting rights without voicing opposition against any specific legislation. in a new statement to cnbc the georgia chamber said it has expressed concern and opposition to provisions found in both bills that restrict or diminish voter access, continues to engage in a bipartisan manner." if stacey abrams can succeed and activists there and a sort of disinfectant of scrutiny of these laws they are trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist, jimmy carter and james baker looked at election security after the 2000 florida recount, they did not find any. i think donald trump had some guy from kansas that looked at it. he did not find any. the notion that you could make it non-commercial for companies to support republican politicians that are behind disenfranchising largely minority voters seems like a very promising part of this effort. and it should be bipartisan. that should go without saying. >> no, absolutely. look, you go to where the power center is. and the power center in any of these communities is how that community supports the corporate community, the broader kormt community. so the reality is more and more. and i think appropriately so. is if you want to, you know, splay my name all over the place and use my information and i'm buying your products and your services and yet you are standing in opposition to a fundamental right that i have as a citizen in this country, guess what? you're going to pay a price for that. and i'm going to make sure you pay a price for that. so as this effort gets further engrained in the upcoming election cycle which begins this fall, you're going to see more and more companies feeling that pinch and rightly so. you don't get to play the game both ways. you don't get to have me support you by putting money in your coffers and then you turn around and spend that money on candidates and parties and institutions that stand in opposition to something as fundamental as my access to the ballot box. >> erin, i want to play you some of the aforementioned stacey abrams on "meet the press" and the filibuster. >> you know, the senate has done so to suspend the filibuster for the purposes of judicial appointments, for cabinet appointments, and for budget reconciliation. i would say protection of the fundamentals of our democracy which we have seen bloodily debated through the january 6th insurrection certainly counts. and when you look at the 253 bills moving through state legislatures, sadly 50 of them through georgia itself, we know that now is the time for congress to take up the role that it alone has, which is to regulate the time, place, and manner of elections. >> she obviously is a voice with just unique and singular credibility. she puts the fear of god in donald trump. he's blathering on and on about her in that call now under criminal investigation with brad raffensperger in georgia. but will democrats heed her call there on the filibuster? >> you know, nicolle, i think it's so interesting because you're seeing stacey abrams really fighting this fight on multiple fronts, right? continuing to try to register voters, get more people in georgia on the rolls even as she's pushing back under the gold dome, her former purview in the georgia house as minority leader, pushing back against this legislation and trying to shame companies into urging her former colleagues to do the right thing. also, you know, raising the specter that there will be legal challenges should any of these laws get through the georgia legislature in the waning days of that legislative session which is happening even as we speak. but also continuing to put pressure on federal lawmakers to pass voting rights legislation that could counter some of what we're seeing happen in these state efforts across the country. but you know, really the multipronged fight that she is waging in an attempt to preserve voting rights shows that she is both a student of history and somebody who believes that she has inherited that legacy and is attempting to carry that forward in an attempt to continue to expand democracy for not only georgians but really for all americans who have been left out unseen and unheard for too long. >> so from stacey abrams' three-dimensional chess, mark, we go to donald trump's revenge tour. he's going to georgia not to help rebuild the party or unite republicans around any singular goals but because he's mad. talk about it. >> i mean, that is sort of at the center of all of this, which is donald trump's personal grievances against certain officials in georgia for what he feels did not do enough to help him win the election or overturn the election. what is interesting to me from being down there and talking to a number of sort of mainstream republicans, someone who probably agree with what lieutenant governor duncan was saying yesterday, is that there is a weariness among a lot of traditional republicans in georgia with donald trump. i mean, saxby chambliss, the former republican senator from down there, told me that look, the weariness among especially suburban women who are republicans, were a very, very important part of the republican base down there, is very, very real. and the more donald trump is involved in georgia politics in non-substantive matters around like his own personality, his own grievances, it's actually quite counterproductive. it's the kind of thing that drove a lot of those voters to joe biden in 2020 and it's the kind of thing that could absolutely keep republican voters home in the governor's race in 2022. so i mean, look, the more trump is not necessarily better for georgia republicans at this point. it remains to be seen what he will do and whether they will listen to him. >> well, with sabotage clearly on his agenda i'm sure georgians should be prepared to see a whole lot of him. erin haines and mark leibovich. thank you for your reporting on this. erin haines, thanks for being with us and starting us of this hour. michael steele is sticking around for more. when we return, senator ron johnson says he didn't feel threatened when a pro-trump mob stormed the capitol. but he would have been if they'd been black lives matter protesters. he really said that. that story in & chilling new details about the kinds of people johnson didn't feel threatened by is next. plus as stimulus checks hit bank accounts, president biden's taking a bit of a victory lap. and democrats are hoping the $1.9 trillion package will help them punish the republicans who did nothing to pass it. and buck history at the polls. and as spring breakers flock to the beaches without their masks on, health officials are pointing to europe and warning of the possibility of a resurgence of covid cases here at home. 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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. ♪ for nearly a decade, comcast has been helping students get ready. we've connected 4 million low-income students to low- cost, high-speed xfinity internet. we're working with hundreds of school districts across the country to sponsor free internet and laptops. and parents are seeing an impact. and now we're turning 1,000 community centers into lift zones - wifi enabled safe spaces to study. so more students can be ready for anything. i'm trying to do some homework here. after spending much of 2021 spoutding false and discredited conspiracy theories about the january 6th insurrection, wisconsin senator ron johnson took his defense of the capitol rioters one step further last week with this comment on conservative talk radio. listen. >> i'm also criticized because i've made the comment that on january 6th i never felt threatened. because i didn't. and mainly because i knew even though those thousands of people that were marching to the capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote i knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law. and so i wasn't concerned. now, had the tabled been turned, joe, this got me in trouble. had the tables been turned and president trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of black lives matter and antifa protesters, i might have been a little concerned. >> that happened. he said that. yeah. some of them might actually be charged with sedition. but anyway, federal investigators are uncovering more details about the insurrectionists who johnson describes as law-abiding people who just love their country. the "washington post" reports that "a u.s. army reservist arrested on suspicion of participating in the january 6th capitol riot was known to most of his co-workers as a white supremacist and nazi sympathizer who grew a hitler mustache while working as a navy contractor with security clearance." and there's this from politico. "a texas man who joined a mob at the capitol on january 6th told two rioters he had set up a security company as a front to access law enforcement-grade weaponry that could be used to quote take back our country according to private encrypted messages revealed saturday by prosecutors." they also reveal that his behavior before january 6th had so alarmed his own family that at least one member reported him to the fbi, warning he was "going to do some serious damage to congress." joining our conversation is david plouffe, former obama campaign manager and msnbc political analyst. michael steele still here. so before we talk about ron johnson feeling sieve because the insurrectionists who may go on to be charged with sedition, love their country and black lives protesters i don't know, i need to play -- i need to play doc rivers again. he is now no longer with the clippers. he was in this clip. he's now with the 76ers, a basketball fan tells me. let's just watch this again and compare and contrast. >> we're denied to live in certain communities. we've been hung. we've been shot. and all you do is keep hearing about fear. it's -- it's amazing. why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back. >> you know, i'd like for ron johnson to answer that, michael steele. ron johnson would be afraid of black lives matter protesters who did not attack the capitol on january 6th, who did not lead to the death of one police officer with bear spray possibly and two others by suicide. but ron johnson says i'd be afraid if they were black lives matter. >> that would fall on deaf ears, nicolle. let's not pretend that would be an intelligent conversation, one that would be based in empathy and appreciation -- >> but why not demand that they answer for their unintelligent racism? why not demand more from the people -- >> that's exactly -- no. exactly right. but i mean, just to be clear about what you're demanding in return, what the response is going to be. you know, this is a man who's sitting there talking about you know, these people coming up to the capitol and he wasn't afraid of them and he knew they loved this country and would not break the law while they were breaking the law. so let's be very clear about what it is we're talking about. two takeaways from that clip and you just that poez it against what doc rivers said. one is that white people love this country more than black people. number one. and number two, someone like ron johnson's afraid of someone like me. and so it doesn't matter what i say or how i approach this because as doc pointed out, as much as i love you, you won't love me back. and so that's the narrative that we now find ourselves. it's out there in the raw for everyone to see. and now all the rest of us have to digest how we deal with this and how we move forward from this because this is entrenched. this is 400 years of entrenched thinking, feeling, and ideology about someone like me. and so you know, i get it all the time, why are you in this space, sure, i can lead the republican party, it doesn't mean it goes away. right? you have democrats, republicans, independents. you have people who feel this way. so it really speaks to a broader narrative that as a country we have to confront as we move forward. he said the quiet part that's been quiet for a long time out loud. now we have to confront it. >> and i hope, david plouffe, that we're done debating whether or not there is systematic racism in this country. i know bill barr struggled with it. lots of republicans struggle with it. i hope that's over. because there it was. there it was. united states senator was not afraid on 1-6 because the insurrectionists who may be charged with sedition love their country because what? they looked like him? they were white? >> well, nicolle, sadly the debate's not over. i think it's if anything more intensified over the last six to twelve months. you know, doc rivers' comments so powerful. by the way, hopefully the coach of the world champion philadelphia 76ers in a few months. we'll see about that. listen, ron johnson sounds like a senator from alabama in 1921. not a senator from wisconsin in 2021. but make no mistake. michael, so many former republicans, you know, they're in this fight, this is now democracy versus autocracy. it is basically white supremacists are on the rise. not just on january 6th. they're driving -- it is now becoming mainstream. you see fox news personalities increasingly talking about the fight for traditional america. so i think a lot of them are saying the quiet part out loud. so we need everybody who may disagree on a whole bunch of issues but believes that our democracy and voting rights should be sacrosanct and winners of election should govern, that racism is structural and is a continual battle in this country, we all need to stand together because the dividing lines could not be clearer. and i think some of these things that we thought would fade into the shadows of history are right on our doorstep again. and by the way, ron johnson, he says maybe he'll retire, maybe he'll run for re-election. what ron johnson said right there, when you're in iowa, in south carolina and new hampshire in 2023 and republican audiences, it will get applauded. and sadly that's where we are in most of the republican party right now. >> i want to ask you about some reporting from my colleague leanne caldwell. she said that house democrats have drawn the line no, bipartisan cooperation with republicans who questioned the election. democratic lawmakers are each drawing their own lines and some are finding that it means their colleagues whom they once worked with to craft bipartisan legislation but with whom they are now unable or unwilling to collaborate, democrats say for the time being it's about republicans not showing a fundamental belief in democracy and elections." i mean, i usually find sort of unwillingness to collaborate not productive. but in this case, you know, what are you going to collaborate on? these were people that did not agree that up was up and down was down, michael steele. >> right. it's hard. it is very hard. there are some good, good representatives there who are trying their best. i serve on the bipartisan policy center board. and we just acknowledged house and senate republicans and democrats who have tried to forge that space to get the business of the country done. and it does happen, nicolle, somewhat quietly. i think it needs to be made louder. i think of those members who are trying to forge that bipartisan space instead of retreating at this hour need to lean into it. as much as possible. i don't agree with this idea, well, we're just not going to work with the other side because some members don't want to acknowledge democracy. you have to work with those members. but work with and reinforce those that are trying to push this thing forward. this is not a zero sum game. it's not all republicans. it's not all democrats. it's not all of anything. we have pockets in this country right now that are rising up and trying to pull the country in a different direction. what we need now is for all the rest of us to rise up en masse against that. that's both in policy as well as in politics. that's in our communities as well as our country. in order for us to defeat this. it's already been said, we know what the battle is. we know where the lines are. let's lean into the fight and not give that ground. so yes, those members, democrats, i understand where you're coming from. but you know that there are republicans as i hear you say it to me, just like i hear republicans say about those democrats they want to work with. work with them and prove the narrative wrong. >> michael and david are sticking around for more because when we return we'll talk about how democrats are now planning to go on offense. the very popular covid relief package against those republicans who try to stand in its way. that's next. s who try to stand its way. that's next. our bottles are made to be re-made. not all plastic is the same. we're carefully designing our bottles to be one hundred percent recyclable, including the caps. they're collected and separated from other plastics, so they can be turned back into material that we use to make new bottles. that completes the circle, and reduces plastic waste. please help us get every bottle back. sales are down from last quarter that but we are hopingcle, things will pick up by q3. yeah...uh... doug? 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without waste or fraud. >> that was president biden at the white house today launching a week-long help is here nationwide tour to promote the benefits of his $1.9 trillion covid relief plan, the one he signed into law on friday. it's all hands on deck this week. president biden will head to delaware county, pennsylvania tomorrow. today first lady jill biden is in a new jersey elementary school. and the vice president and second gentleman doug emhoff are in las vegas, where she is visiting a covid vaccination site and a culinary academy. and as "the new york times" points out today, democrats and president biden are betting big that the relief plan will be politically potent and that "the stimulus will be so transformational for americans across party lines and demographic groups that democrats will be able to wield it as a political weapon next year in elections against republicans who voted en masse against the package." david and michael are still here. david plouffe, this seems like -- and you've been part of these promotions after a really hard legislative push, you go out and try to sell the plan. i was part of those efforts too. michael steele was part of them too at the rnc. this one seems like the easiest to explain. you have a shot in your arm. you dropped your kid off at school. and your office opened up again because your community is now no longer struggling under covid and your business had enough money to do so. >> no question, nicolle. every democratic member of congress is thinking about doing i hope months of events to support this package, has tens of thousands of people in their district. maybe hundreds of thousands of people who have compelling stories. so the scale of the help here is enormous. but you have to look at thissize as kind of three legs of the stool. first leg is that things are getting better. you know, we see from a health care standpoint cases going down, vaccinations going up, projections that the economy's going to get strong. so this package is going to accelerate if it comes at the right time. because people are going to feel more optimistic both in perception and reality. secondly, republicans who supported the big trump tax cuts were billionaires. the argument against these folks next year will be you thought we had plenty of money to give billionaires huge tax cuts but you didn't think we had enough money to help workers and nurses and schools and give shots in arms. so it's the entire picture here. and as you know, when you're trying to sell something, when people say i'm pessimistic, i don't think things are going to get better anytime soon, back in the financial crisis people said correctly it was going to take months, but people right now can see we're on the precipice of really turning things around. so the fact that not a single republican voted for, it almost all of them supported the huge tax cuts for the wealthy, i think that this is kind of a perfect storm in terms of the ability to really put republicans on the defensive. but you've got to stay at this. whether it's the white house, democrats in congress, their allies, you should be talking about this bill in september of this year, january of next year, may of next year, september of next year. it really is a defining moment. and again, the storytelling opportunities are just incredibly, incredibly powerful in each and every community in the country. >> and michael steele, on the flip side the excuse making is going to be based on this information. it is republicans who in alarming numbers, 30%, say they're unwilling to get vaccinated. that's made up of 40% republican white male trump supporters. i thought the sort of process of understanding how the economy comes back was settled law, if you will, that it winds through healing our country and ourselves and our communities from the coronavirus. no? that's not the truth in republican land? >> no, the truth is what trump tells them it is. and so that's not -- >> well, he got vaccinated. >> yeah. ain't that a you know what. >> it is a you know what. >> and he got vaccinated quietly. right? so he made sure that he was all saved up and ready to go out and do what he needs to do after having contracted the disease because -- the virus because he wouldn't listen to anybody and watching people fall around him. so he quietly in december goes and gets his vaccine. and yet you know, republicans still buy into that crappy narrative that you know, getting vaccinated is not good for you, there's a problem, we need to be sure. well, if it's good enough for trump, people, it's good enough for you. that's the message the party should be saying right now. but they won't because trump is still despite his own personal actions, his political actions are dictating something else. and people within their ranks will continue to get sick and die. you have the governor of texas, mississippi, and now beginning to crop up elsewhere saying let's just throw it all open, let's just throw caution to that trumpian wind and just ride those sails. to what? more sickness and possible death. so the reality of it is, david is exactly right, the political narrative for republicans is upside down from where it was in 2010. in 2010, i know this well, democrats wront defense. they didn't have a message and they didn't have a method around health care. i and others were able to sort of frame the message differently than they want. now the narrative has switched. under joe biden's leadership and the way he's done this they have a strong message going in, followed up and backed up with actions. the defensive part right now is on the republicans who are trying to keep trump happy because you've got to do that as well as trying to mansplain to communities down the road, oh, why we couldn't spend $1.9 trillion for your schools, and your own vaccination and the health of your community but we could do so for the wealthy guy who lives across the railroad tracks. it's a tough narrative for them all around. good luck with that. >> it's ludicrous. david plouffe, michael steele, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. when we return, a single day record for covid vaccinations in this country. but it comes amid new warnings that the virus could surge once more as spring breakers flock to the beaches and covid restrictions get lifted. that story's next. tory's next. 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. t-mobile is upgrading its network at a record pace. when you post your first job we were the first to bring 5g nationwide. and now that sprint is a part of t-mobile we're turning up the speed. upgrading over a thousand towers a month with ultra capacity 5g. to bring speeds as fast as wifi to cities and towns across america. and we're adding more every week. coverage and speed. who says you can't have it all? i'm greg, i'm 68 years old. i do motivational speaking in addition to the substitute teaching. i honestly feel that that's my calling-- to give back to younger people. i think most adults will start realizing that they don't recall things as quickly as they used to or they don't remember things as vividly as they once did. i've been taking prevagen 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. the united states hitting a significant milestone this weekend with a record of nearly 3 million vaccine doses delivered just on saturday. now surpassing 100 million total doses administered. but it comes as airports are seeing the highest number of travelers since the pandemic hit with spring breakers flocking to maskless beaches. sounds like topless but maskless. more dangerous. and new lockdowns in europe as covid cases surge there. let's bring into our conversation msnbc medical contributor dr. kavita patel, fellow at the brookings institute. former obama white house health policy director. someone we turn to to help make sense of all of this. just take me through first the significance of 3,000 shots in arms on saturday, one day. >> yeah. it's -- so when you have millions -- >> 3 million. >> yes. it's a lot. that's the good news. when you have that many vaccines being given and there are 38,000 cases in the past 24 hours, we're getting the ratio correct, nicolle. 10 to 1. 10 vaccines for every case. 100 to 1 in this case. and that's incredible. i do think that we should celebrate when we can. i do also think, though, however, i wouldn't be a good doctor if i didn't remind us that even still with the decreasing cases and the rising number of vaccinations our cases for the past 24 hours, the seven-day average, are at the level higher than what we saw in august of 2020. so we're getting way -- you know, we're getting better, closer to the end of the tunnel but we're not out of the woods yet as i like to say. >> it seems like now would be the easiest time to convince people to do stuff like wear a mask and just stay home and not take a far-away trip and crowd with other people. but it seems like the opposite is proving to be human nature in this country. people are done. can you just talk -- it seems stupid. from a science standpoint what is the importance of getting it right these next sort of eight to twelve weeks? >> yeah. i think the key with -- i know a lot of people have been kind of concerned that the cdc didn't put out updated travel guidance and people are traveling. three big things. number one, it's critical that we do everything possible to not have these variants, which we know are more infectious and more deadly, kind of pose like these outbreaks and hot spot risks. and number two, we know that when people travel, nicolle, they're not traveling just within 100 miles. they're getting on planes, trains, automobiles. they're going to and from areas where case rates of the virus could be going from low to high, high to low. traveling with all these variants. and then the third is that we generally follow trends that we're seeing in europe. we don't have to. and we're certainly doing more vaccines than part of europe is. but europe is experiencing thei vaccines than europe is. but europe is seernsing their own surge. we have literally followed europe three to four weeks like clockwork. that's does not need to happen, but one thing is true. when we see the variant that originated in the uk, when it reaches about 50% of cases, all countries go through an exponential rise. that's what we want to avoid. so the next four to six weeks are critical to avoid that scenario. all you have to do is turn on any, u station and you'll see they are talking about lockdowns again. they are restricting travel and experiencing their own surge. italy, which we saw the deadly scenes out of at beginning of the year, they are having some of the same flashbacks to previous surges. we need to avoid that. >> it's terrible to see them going through this again. just concerning to see the pictures of spring breakers. you want to say wait three more months. thank you so much for spending some time with us. when we return as we do every day, we'll remember lives well lived. y, we'll remember lives wl lived. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ comfort in the extreme. ♪♪ the lincoln family of luxury suvs. it's a thirteen-hour flight, that's not a weekend trip. fifteen minutes until we board. oh yeah, we gotta take off. you downloaded the td ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets? yeah, actually i'm taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. excellent. and you have thinkorswim mobile- -so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. you two are all set. have a great flight. thanks. we'll 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circle, and reduces plastic waste. please help us get every bottle back. so the year she turned 18 in 1974 nancy smith graduated high school, joined the air force, fell in love with her recruiter, married him and adopted all three of his children. that's a lot for a young woman to handle. but nany followed her heart and prued time and time and time again that she was very much up for the challenge. she helped raise a wonderful, loving family. while also achieving great success in her award winning military career. she retired from the air force as a senior master sergeant in 2002, but her good work was not done yesterday yet. realizing the great need for veteran employment, housing and support, nancy enrolled at harding university and in her 50s she graduated with a degree in social work and began a new career as a beloved veterans liaison in central arkansas. a few years ago she retired in order to be at home with her husband. in december they both got sick. john recovered quickly but 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"beat" starts right now. >> hi, thank you so much. welcome to "the beat". we have a big show tonight. president biden touting his historic covid bill. news on confusion on how to deal with something. and also tonight i'm thrilled to tell you soledad o'brien joins us live this this upcoming segment. plus there are charges now officially in the death of capitol hill police officer brian sicknick. that important story later. we begin with president biden heading out on his tour. he's going to go to multiple states along with vice president harris and their partner. a landmark stimulus bill has been stopp