0 what's going on? i want to talk to you. what's going on? police are on the way. his dad says go back, i am not going back there. i'll go from buford around the homes, and that's what he does, he drives around. now, his dad is back in the truck. his dad is old and infirm. he's sitting on this bench in the back of the truck. drives all the way around thinking i'm not going to go back into this mess down here. i'll drive around, and when he drives around you've now learned about this dog leg, that black line essentially is the dog leg. you can't see past it. travis tells you the first thing he sees is mr. arbery doing a u-turn right there at the crest of that turn. what does he do? he watches. does he drive at him? no, does he try to tackle him? no? does he point a shotgun at him? no. does he yell at him. no he's trying to assess the situation in a reasonable, prudent fashion. then he drives across the dog leg, comes to the end of the street and he sees mr. arbery again with this truck, again, with this truck, tangled up with this truck in what looks like, again, aggression at the truck. so travis stops. he stops. he's thinking to himself why is this guy not running through this open yard, this is is a -- satilla right here. this is holmes, this is where he sees the truck. what is with it that this guy is not going this way, and who is that truck? what's happening? instead, they both run around travis back up around the dog leg. travis says, okay, i'm watching. i'm looking. i'm going to pull forward, stop in my car at the end of the street, and i'm just going to take up a spot right here. i'm going to take up a spot here. i know that he's currently not over here. i know he's not behind me. i can see my house right there. i can see up satilla drive and i'm looking up holmes. i'm just going to take up residence right here, and i'm going to watch to see what happens next because maybe this guy will come back, and we can stop him or maybe he'll just keep running that way. maybe he'll keep running that way, and i can tell the police i'm pretty sure he's not this way. i'm pretty sure he's not over here. he's not there. he's headed that way. what he doesn't know is that mr. arbery is turning around up on the other side of the dog leg, and this is where our video picks up with roddie bryan. by now it should be clear, travis doesn't even know where roddie bryan is. to say that roddie bryan's turn up there and to follow him back, travis has no idea what's happening behind the blind side of that curve, and still doesn't know who this truck is and why this gentleman is interacting with him in the way he is. this is what's happening undeknownst to travis. travis mcmichael's truck, it isn't there, it's because it's all the way back down holmes near satilla. the state is going to play the recording that you heard of mr. bryan turning, driving and revving and doing all this stuff. this will be the third interaction that mr. arbery will have at this truck. and mr. bryan is freaked out to say the least, so freaked out he drops his phone, this is where the phone drops and goes pitch black for about a minute. and in this time, you'll hear sounds. you'll hear engine noise. you'll hear turning. you'll hear shifting. you'll hear seat belts clanking. you'll hear the three-point turn eventually where he says i'm going to head back that way. what you don't hear on that phone even after audio enhancement, even after any kind of working with audio specialists and digital specialists, you'll never ever hear any yelling and no communication between travis or greg. the state wants you to think that it's at this moment greg mcmichael drives by and says -- >> and good day this is andrea mitchell in washington. we're going to briefly step away from the defense's closing arguments in the trial of the three men accused of killing ahmaud arbery in georgia. and turn to wisconsin where officials at the children's hospital, doctors there are now briefing reporters about the victims from sunday's horrific scene in waukesha where a -- >> and we'll read them off to the team at the end. they are going to start with some opening comments. >> hi, i'm the chief medical officer at children's wisconsin in milwaukee. last night our community was impacted by the tragic and intense incident at a holiday parade in waukesha, wisconsin. our prayers and thoughts are with the victims and loved ones during this very tragic time. the children's team responded with their head and their hearts to provide the care and support to children who were injured, their families, and our teams. while we always hope this will never happen in our community, as region's pediatric trauma center, these are events that we prepare for. some basic patient information is that 18 children were brought to the children's wisconsin emergency department last night. my colleague and his call, amy drendall for the children's emergency department and trauma center will share more about our initial response and mike meyer, the medical director of the pediatric intensive care unit will provide a summary of the patients currently in our care. we will not be answering questions regarding any specific conditions of the patients. i'd like to express a sincere note of gratitude. i want to emphasize and express thanks to the community for the effort and their response. that begins with the gratitude to our law enforcement who responded to the incident and was able to secure the incident. i want to commend the efforts of the emergency medical services responders and other local hospitals who successfully stabilized patients before transporting or transferring kids to be cared for by our pediatric specialists. and we'd offer our support and gratitude to the teachers, the staff, and all the school districts who will be supporting kids and families who are involved and impacted at this event. the injuries from sunday night will go well beyond the physical and will take time to heal. we all must continue to lean on each other and to encourage those impacted to reach out and use the resources that are available to them. each of these injuries impacts the family, friends, and a larger circle beyond those immediately injured. with that i'm going to turn it over to dr. amy drendell, the medical director of our emergency department and trauma center. >> thank you. as an emergency doctor, we're trained for these types of incidents, but you never want to experience them. i want to start by sharing my sympathy to all those who have been directly involved. children's wisconsin is a large pediatric emergency room and we are uniquely equipped to support an event like this. sadly, like many communities our region has experienced mass casualty events in the past but none in the recent history involving such a large number of children. law enforcement promptly informed us about the incident soon after it happened, and we received our first patient at 5:30 p.m. yesterday. beginning at that time we activated our trauma surge plan calling in nurses, doctors, surgeons and other team members to help support the care of these children. 18 kids were brought to our children's emergency department ranging from ages 3 to 16 years of age, which include three sets of siblings. injuries ranged from facial abrasions to broken bones to serious head injuries. six of these patients were sent to the operating room last night, and two additional patients are undergoing surgeries today. roughly around 9:30 last night the patients that we saw were triaged and being sent to patient care units and the children's emergency department started to transition to normal operating conditions. i'd like to echo dr. gutzeit's appreciation for the first responders who were fantastic. we all have a role to play in this situation, and i'm proud to be a part of this community and how it responded so well to the needs of these kids. with that i will turn over to dr. meyer, the medical director of the critical care unit here at children's wisconsin. >> dr. meyer, you are on mute. >> good morning, you would think after this many months of zoom i could figure this out. but thank you. dr. drendel, as said, we're immensely appreciative and thankful for the response of our community. the medical response started on scene with bystanders, ems, and then our community partners in other health care organizations before the children arrived here at children's. as we've stated, as children's wisconsin has the largest pediatric intensive care unit within the state of wisconsin. we have 72 icu beds, and like our emergency department, we immediately began preparations to receive patients once we were notified about the incident. from a patient standpoint, there were 18 patients who came to children's and ten of them were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit. i'll briefly go through their conditions, but will not share any specific details about individual patients. currently we have six patients who we list in critical condition, three that are in serious and one that is in fair. we also have eight other patients that are listed in fair condition that are not in the intensive care unit and are in other units within the hospital. as dr. drendel noted, i think it is very important and it really responds to the family of this situation is that there's three sets of siblings that are currently hospitalized within children's, and this is unique and truly demonstrates the devastating effects of this on our community. mental health support has been activated for our families, our children that are involved in this, and also our staff. social work, mental health teams and our chaplain teams are all actively rounding in the intensive care unit as well as other units in the hospital, and it is amazing to watch them and our medical care teams work as a single team to help our families and our children. im immensely proud of the teams that we have here at children's and i'm amazingly proud of the community that we serve in and that we live in. >> okay, and we are going to take questions now in the chat. before we do that, i just want to note that children's wisconsin has established a mental and behavioral health support line for families who need emotional support. that line will be active at noon today. that number to call for emotional and mental support is 414-266-6500, and that will also be pasted into the chat so that you can grab it. okay, let's start with some questions. so dr. drendel, we have some questions about the initial response to the incident last night, yet. can you talk about what that meant for our teams and what it looked like? >> thanks for that question. we have a search response, a disaster type response that we practice and as part of the care that we provide in our emergency department. the initial notification gave us the time to bring together the nurses and doctors and providers that would be needed to be able to take care of the large number of patients in a short period of time. and our team was ready to receive those patients. i would like to point out the patients were extremely well cared for in the field at the initial hospitals. the stabilization was exceptional and these kids got fantastic care from start to end. our team responded well and we were able to transition them to the specialty care that we provide here at children's in a way that should provide the best possible outcomes for these children. >> okay. and we heard last night that potential blood donations were needed. can anybody speak to whether or not we need blood donations currently at children's wisconsin? >> thank you for the question. yes, blood is always needed. it's a precious commodity, and during actually even the normal operations in a day-to-day basis, blood is valued and appreciated because of the blood products that are necessary to do the complex care for patients that are at children's. i would say in situations like this, there can be exceptional needs for blood, so if anybody's interested in donating blood, contact the local blood donation centers and please take advantage of that. >> and to reiterate, if someone wants to donate blood they should go to their typical donation site? >> correct. >> have any of the patients been discharged or are all 18 still in the hospital? i think dr. meyer addressed this. dr. meyer, do you want to jump in on that? >> yes, thank you for the question. as of right now, two children have been discharged. we are currently making determinations about the ongoing care of the children that are in the intensive care unit as well as the other carriers in the hospital, and would anticipate that discharges will go through in an orderly process as we continue to assess injuries as well as the mental health and well-being of all of the patients involved in this. >> okay. for the patients that we saw, have we made contact with the family members of those patients at this point? >> yes, the children's wisconsin staff have made contact with each of the families, or families for each of the patients, and have provided support for those families during this very challenging and tragic time for them. and that will be an ongoing connection point to guide families through what resources they need during this time. >> okay. dr. meyer, this might be a tough one. i'm not sure if you were able to answer it but do we have any information about which groups of people were admitted to our hospital here at children's wisconsin. i know that, you know, there were different marching bands and dance teams. do we have any information about who those people were that were admitted to children's? >> unfortunately, much of those individual pieces are still being sorted out. there was a wide variety of different participants in the parade from some of the groups that have been identified in the news that were present and were potentially involved. i would say that this has impacted a great number of members of our community and the groups that participated in the parade. >> okay. and then dr. drendel, did you receive patients who were conscious and understanding of what happened last night? someone from media is asking if we have patients who really understand what happened. >> we received patients with different levels of injuries. some were conscious, some were not conscious. their experience and recollection of the events isn't clear to us based on our emergency department evaluation, but will clearly be a part of our ongoing care here at the hospital. >> i'd like to emphasize, this is one of the unique aspects of a pediatric organization that has all the resources to provide support beyond the exceptional care that the rest of the teams do. it's providing with social workers and other child life specialists, other specialists who can wrap themselves around the family, provide the support for the patients and understand the needs of the child depending on the chronological age and development of the child. >> okay. do we know if -- this will be for dr. drendel. do we know if the children were transported by ambulance or driven by civilians or a mix of both? >> i would say the vast majority of the patients that we saw arrived by ambulance. i think most of them came from the nearby facilities, waukesha both initially evaluated these patients and identified them as patients who needed a higher level of care and transferred to our facility for ongoing recessation and management. >> and as a reminder as we're taking questions, we won't be able to speak to specific patients or patient information. we can just give those general updates. someone asked about our facility answering mental health services. dr. gutzeit, do you want to touch on that again? >> yes, we really appreciate the emphasis on the need to support patients and families beyond the injuries that have occurred. so we have behavioral medical specialists that are available and able to provide emotional and mental health services to those who may need them. ashley had mentioned a number and if contact is available, and we would strongly, strongly encourage people to utilize those resources. the needs may vary depending on the time line. some people may need resources immediately, some at a later point in time. having access to those resources is absolutely critical as we've learned through these mass casualty and other significant events that occur. >> okay. and just to reiterate again, the children's wisconsin team has established a mental and behavioral health support line for families who need emotional support. that line will be active at noon today. that number is 414-266-6500. okay. so i think this one would be for dr. drendel. you've mentioned that a patient was admitted around 5:30 last night. do we know when the last patient was admitted? >> we continued our disaster response between 5:30 and 9:30 last night where the vast majority of patients arrived. however, we continued to receive patients throughout the evening as transfers from other facilities until late into the night. so i believe our last patient arrived around midnight so the patients continued to arrive as their injuries were identified and the ongoing care needs were identified that here at children's we were able to provide. >> okay. and to reiterate, those patients, the reason it took them so long to get to us is because they were admitted to a different hospital, checked on and transferred to children's for care. >> that's right. >> okay. looking through some questions here, let's see if we have any that we haven't answered yet. can you talk to -- let's have dr. gutzeit address this one. can you talk to the importance of having quick response teams there, teams like ems and people trying to take care of the patients before they got to children's wisconsin? i think we touched on it earlier. >> yeah, and i would like to reiterate that, dr. drendel spoke very well about the appreciation and gratitude we have to those first responders and other hospitals that provided tremendous support and exceptional stabilization of patients that is so critical, especially in the first few minutes after an event like this. providing that stabilization allows the child the best opportunity to have the best outcome, and so the teams that provided that support, whether it was in the field or at other hospitals outside of children's wisconsin did an exceptional job, and the patients that were transferred to children's allowed the team there to pick up that care and continue on the trajectory of care that was necessary as dr. drendel mentioned. >> yeah, i'd like to reiterate, the ems providers responded at the highest level in the care of these children. it was phenomenal. very proud to be a part of this community. >> okay. i'm going to give dr. gutzeit a chance to do a quick closing after this. just wanted to reiterate that we have that mental and emotional support line for families at 414-266-6500. for updates from children's stay tuned to our social media accounts as well as our website, childrenswi.org. and dr. gutzeit, i'm going to toss it over to you for closing. >> first of all, i'd like to thank everybody for attending this conference today and for the questions that were asked to provide as much perspective as we could at children's wisconsin here in milwaukee. it's important to understand as we've mentioned several times, and keep in mind the impact these events have on the community, and i want to emphasize that the resources that are being made available to the school districts by the state of wisconsin, by the school districts and by children's wisconsin are available to those who need them. i'd like to encourage people again to use those resources, and i'd also like to thank the community for their tremendous outpouring of support to the staff and providers and all of childrens who are caring for the kids during this very, very difficult time. the words of encouragement on social media, the offers to donate blood, the offers to offer food to our staff while working diligently and tirelessly to provide exceptional care to patients is genuinely appreciated. this is a community tragedy, and we'll respond as a community. so we'd like to thank all of you for that support. >> okay. thank you, everybody. we will be sending out a drop box link that has a recording of this for your use. all right, thanks, everyone. >> and we've just heard from three doctors at the children's hospital in milwaukee reporting that 18 children were brought in from that horrific incident. the event last night. 18 were brought in, two have been released, ten are still in intensive care. of those ten, six are still in critical condition, three are in serious condition, one is in fair condition. but right now we know that of those 18 two have been released. we are now going to return to brunswick, georgia, to the defense closing arguments in the arbery trial. travis told you understanding that what he could have done differently that day would mean that ahmaud arbery was still alive, he told you i know that. i know that i killed somebody. me, him and our families, we will never be the same, and he carries that with him every day. the murder charge along with the felony murder charge intentional acts is what those are broken down to. intentionally choosing to commit a crime that either intends to take the life of somebody or ultimately takes the life of somebody. the only time in this case where life was in danger was at the very end of holmes when mr. arbery chose to cut that turn and go all the way across the front of that truck. every time they encounter each other on this road, three times in front of roddie bryan's house, two times at the end, two times down here. if he wanted to kill him, that's just a nonsensical argument. this was not about taking someone's life that day. mr. rubin mentioned to you in his opening statement about duty and responsibility. and i agree with that. travis felt a duty and responsibility. he's felt it when he served in the coast guard. he's felt it to his community, and he felt it on this day the 23rd of february, and he felt it during this trial when he took the stand and testified. he felt it was his duty and responsibility to do that. the state too has a duty and responsibility. they have a responsibility to be honest with you, to incorporate all of the facts and take on their burden. the state spent two-thirds of their opening argument saying what we were going to say. it was like two kids getting in trouble and the first one that gets to the parent and said so and so did something. and the parent needs to say, well, hold on a second, let's hear from the other child. they have a duty to you to prove under the law that travis at the time he raised that gun was not in fear. that at the time travis shot mr. arbery as he came across the front of that car and held a gun and punched him, that he was not in fear of receiving a serious injury or death and had a duty to prove to you that when travis stopped to talk to ahmaud that he did so to commit a felony of aggravated assault. every time you walk in your neighborhood and somebody pulls up in a truck next to you and says hi or hey, they've committed an aggravated assault or a false imprisonment? where's the evidence of that? the last duty that is here is yours, and this is a very, very tough. you all understand and i will not belabor the lengths that we have gone to to meet you, to understand who you are, to understand your background, to understand the thoughts that you have about certain things and the way that we communicated with each other for several hours to arrive at the point where we felt in our hearts and our minds that you all would carry the banner of the duty and the responsibility that is yours as jurors. this courtroom is sacred. it is our last place for truth. it is where we pull it from the witnesses if we have to, and we present it to you, and we ask that you hold it dear and that you accept your duty to not erode the law as you sit here and think about what the law allows a citizen to do. it is going to take courage. it's going to take courage to set aside what you think and feel, what may be trying to penetrate you from other sources that you have tried to do your best to avoid, and to focus on the bare facts of this case that have been captured on photograph and on video and have been testified to in this courtroom. it will take courage. and every count in this case, you're going to be asked to make a decision about each person accused, travis mcmichael will have his form, gregory mcmichael his and roddie bryan his. and you will be given the option on every one of these charges for not guilty or guilty. the evidence that's been demonstrated to you i think is overwhelming, but it doesn't come without hardship on you, consequence for these families. i think the evidence is clear in this case. travis had spent nine years in the coast guard, search and rescue, policing the water sometimes 200 feet offshore, going into situations that were very difficult. working with law enforcement, reaching out and extending his hand as firefighter law enforcement officer combination. for the first time in his life, travis is now in those waters. he is now the one who needs help. our goal here has been to do everything we can to dive into those waters, to search for the truth, to pull it from the icy depths and to raise it to the surface, and we have done that. we have done that with travis mcmichael. we have carried him to the surface to you, and now the choice is yours. will you do as he has done in the past for others. will you reach out your hand and extend it to travis mcmichael and pull him out of those waters? i think if you've heard anything that i've said, there's only one decision, he's not guilty on all charges. thank you all for your attention. >> thank you. yeah. thank you. all right, ladies and gentlemen, we are at a point we're going to break for lunch. we'll break for an hour. it's -- or just a little bit under. we're going to reconvene at 1:30. again, until all of the closing arguments have been made and you have received the final charge of the court, you are not to discuss this case amongst yourselves. so -- with that instruction and all of the other instructions i've given you, enjoy your lunch. we'll see you back here at 1:30. >> all rise for the jury. >> and the judge has just given a lunch break to the jury and the rest of the court. defense attorney jason sheffield giving his defense closing argument for his client, travis mcmichael. sheffield's argument follows a closing argument this morning from lead prosecutor linda dunikoski. joining me now is former federal prosecutor paul butler and nyu law professor melissa murray. melissa and paul, paul, you take it first. we heard the defense attorney making his case, the prosecution its case. give us a quick summary. >> in closing statement, the prosecutor schooled the jury on the law of self-defense. you can't start the fight and then claim you were just defending yourself. if you create the situation, you are responsible for the consequences. all mr. arbery was doing was jogging when three white guys in pickup trucks started chasing him. they never told mr. arbery why they were trying to stop him that day. they never told the police anything about a citizen's arrest. the prosecutors want the jurors to see the citizen's arrest defense as an after the fact justification by defendants who are trying to beat a murder case. >> and melissa, let's talk about the defense argument just now. how compelling was that in counterpoint? >> well, i think the defense is trying to counter the prosecution's statement that a citizen's arrest really needs an underlying felony, and there was none here. and the defense forcefully countered that by suggesting that simply by entering that unoccupied home, ahmaud arbery was committing burglary, which does not require anyone to actually take anything from the premise under georgia law. they emphasized that. citizen's arrest would give them a very potent defense hire here. the law has since been repealed in georgia. more than that, the defense has taken great pains to paint travis mcmichael as the kind of person who would not take a life unnecessarily. >> and thank you, thanks to both of you very much. obviously this case is going to continue with the continuation of closing arguments from the other defense lawyers at 1:30 when they reconvene. then the judge's charge to the jury. we don't know if it's going to be going to the jury today or starting tomorrow. and now let's go back to the wisconsin community still reeling after the horrifying event that turned a traditional holiday parade into a nightmare. joining me now is jim kavanaugh, form atf specialist in charge, and an eyewitness, and alderman in nearby west alice, wisconsin, who was marching in the christmas parade with the waukesha county democrats. first to you, first of all, i know you were with family members. you were walking back to watch the rest of the parade after you completed your route. tell me how your family is doing, how are you doing? >> thank you for having me. and thankfully my family and i, we are safe and accounted for. my friends as well who were with me at the parade. but today less than 24 hours later, we're still feeling pretty shaken, still feeling pretty raw and in disbelief of what happened yesterday, but thankfully we're safe at home now. >> and tell us what you saw. what was the first thing that you saw that made you realize this horrendous incident was taking place? >> yeah, so i'm a conditioned -- candidate for wisconsin state treasure. i had just finished marching the campaign route. my family and i and my campaign manager, we decided to circle back to main street where the parade was happening to catch and watch the rest of the parade, the marchers, performers. as we were walking back towards main street, that's when i saw the suv barrelling down the parade route, and then all of a sudden heard a loud bang. and immediately deafening cries and screams from people in attendance and who were participating at the parade, and all of a sudden chaos. it was truly horrific. i think something that was also really scary is that there was so much unknown. nobody knew if this was an accident or a deliberate attack, so people were running in every direction. people crying leaving behind their belongings, grabbing onto their kids, calling out the names of their loved ones and their children and really checking on each other, and that's where we really realized how traumatic and how tragic the situation was. people cleared out, and that's when i saw what looked like people were lying in the middle of the street, lying still, lying lifeless, and then police came in, first responders came in, ambulances came in and secured the area. >> angelito, how old are your children or other family members? >> yes, so i was with my mom, and then i was with my brother and my sister, and my sister's boyfriend and the campaign manager. >> and they're doing as well as could be expected? >> that's right. we're still processing, decompressing from everything that we witnessed yesterday, everything that we experienced because it was the last thing that we expected. before the tragic incident, it was a very celebratory, very happy, very joyful occasion. coming together in person celebrating the holidays, and it was the last thing that we expected that such a mass casualty event would happen in waukesha. >> of course. well, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. jim kavanaugh, you've experienced these kinds of events, but they're never anything you can understand. does it seem to be, from what you know of the person who's been at least considered a person of interest here, does it seem to be that this followed on another potential crime and that he was getting away from it? what is your expert opinion? >> yes, that's right, andrea. you know, the motives for violent crime -- these are my own motives i've developed over the many years, is greed, revenge, hate, power, and escape. those are the five major motives for violent crime. had is escape. this motive is a criminal escaping justice. so the reports from nbc reporters is that maybe he was in a fight, a knife fight, an altercation or a stabbing. i've been to stabbings, and i'm telling you they're very bloody events and the perpetrators the participants often have blood all over them, even if it's coming from a victim they've stabbed or they may get cut themselves, and they often run with the bloody knife. this guy might have been in the car, bloody knife, blood all over him. you saw the police barricade at the parade route, busted through it. the officer fired and then he was going to do anything he or they to get away when he ran over these fan members in an act of cold-blooded murder for the motive of escape. >> jim kavanaugh, thank you so much for being with us. as we continue to try to find out exactly what happened, meanwhile here in washington, president biden is renominating republican jerome powell for a second term to be chair of the federal reserve saying that powell showed decisive leadership bringing the economy back from the pandemic and will be steady -- a steady hand going forward. at the same time he is naming a progressive favorite to be powell's vice chair. his long awaited decision as inflation has been increasing rapidly, and the fed is likely going to have to put the brakes on and raise interest rates, a politically unpopular decision. joining us now is steve liesman and the former chair of the white house council of economic advisers. steve, does this renomination make sense to you in terms of the markets? and confirmation, the likelihood of confirmation for powell? >> yeah, i think it does, andrea. so nice to see you. i think it's a political -- it's going to be a win for the president in the sense that it's going to be a lot easier to get powell confirmed, getting some republican votes than it would be for brainerd who i think he still could have had confirmed, but it would have been more of a struggle, economically i think it makes sense because there's a continuity to it that i think the markets are applauding today. they know what the policy has been laid out by powell and the market just likes that kind of certainty, it hates uncertainty. one other aspect i think that is important is i think president biden has broken something that could have become a new tradition that was begun under president trump where he just didn't reappoint former fed chair janet yellen, now his treasury secretary because she wasn't -- at first he said she was too short. the other thing hefbs he was not a democrat or not a republican. it could have been a tradition that continued and the idea really reinforces or. >> it does seem that barring something we don't know, he will be confirmed, but jason, you do have to navigate the political mine field of the progressives, the democrats elizabeth warren has said it's no secret i oppose jerome powell's renomination, i will vote against him. and she claims he would not be strong enough and not as strong as brainerd in terms of regulating the banks. what is your take in terms of the overall economy with inflation obviously the most pressing immediate challenge. >> yeah, i agree with everything steve just said. this is continuity. it's respecting the institutional independence of the fed, which has served our country really well by reappointing someone what was picked by a republican. it's important that this is the two of them being announced together. normally you just announce the fed chair by themselves. the vice chair is a really important job. both of them have really put maximum employment center to what the fed does. now, i think they need to do some recalibrating to handle inflation. i think there's some moves the fed's going to need to make there. this will free them up to do that. and finally, i would say on regulation, chair powell has said he would defer to the vice chair for supervision. that's another pick that president biden has. i hope he makes that pick by the end of the year. it will be an important one. that will be the person who really decides how banks are regulated, and i have no doubt they're going to toughen up the regulation from what you saw under president trump. >> and jason, there are a lot of vacancies. this is an unusual period. he's got a lot of slots to fill there. it's a seven-member bed board. >> yeah, there's three more that they can name by the end of the year, and i hope they do, and that we should look at this as what the board of governors looks like. as a whole, the set of expertise, representation, all of that is important, even more important is some recalibration of policy to make sure they're doing more to get inflation under control. all of that, though, should work together and be complementary. >> and steve liesman, that is politically difficult, challenging, especially going into the midterms because that involves some pain. >> it does, and i think it's an interesting time from a lot of respects. the fed chair is going to have to pivot to containing inflation, and the idea of whether or not this ends up being what the fed chair has hoped it's going to be or forecast it's going to be. transitory, i think that idea is it's fading, it's going to go away on its own without the fed having to be tougher and take away some of the pandemic stimulus. i think speaking politically, andrea, a little bit out of my area of expertise here, but who knows, this may be the start of something of a pivot of the president towards the middle. he ended up, as you know, really not going with the progressive wing of his party on this no, ma'am -- nomination. he can put brainard in the vice chair position. a bit of a compromise there. picking the more centrist, the person who's going to get more bipartisan support, maybe this is part of a pivot by the president when it comes to economic policy. >> i think you've got that exactly right, so it is in your area of expertise. steve liesman, because you've got a pretty good sense, and that's where we're going next. thank you so much. a big day in terms of economic and monetary policy, obviously. and coming up, big change is likely for the president's social spending plan. what could be on the chopping block? this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. reports" on m.