leadership this year because of her criticism of former president trump. a top house aides as minority leader kevin mccarthy is threatening to strip committee assignments from republicans who accept appointments from pelosi to that new select panel. there are a lot of questions about covid-19, the new variant, the delta variant, what to do, masks going forward. let s try to get some answers of where things stand tonight on the pandemic. joining us is u.s. surgeon general dr. vivek murthy. general, thanks for being here. glad to be with you, bret. bret: let s start with the delta variant and we ve heard a lot about it and how serious is this and if you re vaccinated, should you be worried about this? i m glad you asked, bret. i am very worried about the delta variant. this is a version of covid-19 that is far more transmissible than any variant we ve seen to date. some data indicates it may also be more dangerous.
claiming that alabama was in the storm s crosshairs long after it was in the clear. now a white house official is telling the washington post, quote, it was trump who used a black sharpie to mark up an official national oceanic and atmospheric administration map which he displayed during an oval office briefing on wednesday. the official adds, quote, no one else writes like that on a map with a black sharpie. so what s the mood in the white house been like? well, here s washington post reporter ashley parker a short time ago. i was over at the white house today, and, look, what house aides will tell you privately, they wish the president would stop tweeting about alabama. it s not particularly helpful. but this is also at this point somewhat routine. there was not panic or mayhem or scrambling. it was basically business as usual. also new reporting about the statement released by the president s homeland security
aides today who are already back in washington work on finding a way to end the shutdown because they know at the end of the day these workers who are not going to point to trump, they re going to point to everybody on capitol hill when it s all over. what do you make of this news from the president saying he s going for groundbreaking of the wall before his state of the union address. he didn t have the funding for the wall yet. which is why it s a perfect opportunity to tell you i m going to be marrying jennifer lawrence. it s not in the cards. i haven t even met her. he doesn t have the wall. the reality of it is this, the president realizes or actually nobody s even talking about the biggest hindrance to the wall. he could get all the funding right now but it s eminent domain. which means the government has to seize private property. it s 1254 miles. 1154 miles are privately owned.
her there, she was there since day 1 of the campaign, since before that even. i ve only met her once, but very kind. you said an extension of him. she was a nicer version of him if she was an extension of him i have to say. david, what olivia just said in the post hicks area it s a vast unknown for his aides who worry the president will unravel without her. do you think there s a real shift we re about to see here? i think it depends whether he finds a successosuccessor, some house aides are encouraging him not to appoint a new communications director or a new chief of staff. which is dumb. for 40 years presidents have had directors and strong chiefs of staff. in both cases you want the
that s obviously the view of the senate financial committee republicans as well. during the senate markup process, democrats were questioning what does this obamacare individual mandate have anything to do with the tax reform bill? keep in mind, it was the supreme court that ruled that the obamacare individual mandate could exist because it was viewed by the supreme court as a tax. however, with senate republicans putting this in their measure, the courtship of senate democrats could be over. here s chuck schumer. to take away people s healthcare and to raise their premiums to lower the top rate, which is what president trump suggested, is so against what the american people want. that again, they are just headed for failure. all right, neil. when you look at the schedule, house republicans, the house side, they re set to vote on their bill on thursday. their bill does not include an individual mandate repeal. senior house aides tell box