good morning. thursday, march 11th, 5 a.m. exactly in new york. i am christine romans. president biden gives his first primetime address to the nation tonight. the american rescue plan becomes law when he signs it tomorrow. he calls the measure a historic victory for the american people. there are stimulus checks, unemployment help, tax credits to lift children out of poverty. money for schools, states and local governments. support for schools and small businesses. more, help with rent, money for vaccines, internet for kids stuck with remote learning. bottom line, a lot of help for the poorest americans. biden is now armed with his first major legislative achievement. cnn has new information about what we will hear from the president tonight. our congressional reporter daniella diaz is live. good morning, daniella. now the president taking this on the road. reporter: that s right, laura. president biden is going to talk to americans directly tonight in the primetime ad
measure. ro kiana calls it an ideological revolution on behalf of justice. which is this, is this covid relief, or some epic anti-poverty measure? when we announced the american rescue plan, we had a set of very specific goals. one to provide the resources to get shots in people s arms and support a national vaccination campaign, provide the resources to get schools open so we get parents back to work, and provide families and businesses with the relief they need to make it to the other side of this crisis. and if you look at the legislation that the president will sign tomorrow, it does all three of those thin things in a direct and aggressive way. we re going to be able to now accelerate the national vaccination campaign. we re going to be able to provide the resources finally so schools can accelerate the reopening, and we targeted the relief in this package to those who need it most. the people who need it most are people who are working families who are struggling to m
to socially distance but recognize that they need to point forward with the vaccines coming online, numbers dropping and less deaths. the president will talk about that. emphasis most certainly on what he s about to sign in a few minutes. keep an eye on, also, the administration launching into a blitz to sell and message this proposal. importance in their minds what this $1.9 trillion brings to the table. the president they announced yesterday will make a trip to pennsylvania tuesday and next week the president and vice president will be heading to georgia as part of the effort to talk about this profeposal. why does it matter? georgia and the two democrat whose hailed from that state because of runoffs, $ 1.9 trillion wouldn t have been possible. because of this, the president is able to sign his cornerstone proposal. phil mattingly, thank you. covering the white house for us. it is remarkable for president biden to be signing such a sweeping piece of legislation just seve
everything we had in this bill. and i believe, and i think most people do as well, this historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving working people in this nation, middle class folks a fighting chance. that s what the essence of it is. now, this signing today comes exactly one year after the world health organization declared the covid-19 outbreak a pandemic that has since claimed nearly 530,000 american lives. it has crippled the economy and really changed life as we all know it. tonight, the president will assess where the country has been and chart our path forward in his very first prime time address. and our cnn senior white house correspondent phil mattingly is with me with more on that in just a second. but we know the president was initially planning on signing this thing into law tomorrow. why the change? they got the bill. [ laughter ] simple as that. without wandering down the rabbit hole of enrollment and engrossment pro
folks, people who built the country, a fighting chance. the white house says the $1,400 checks if many americans are stand landing in bank accounts as soon as this weekend. the law includes a boost to federal unemployment benefits and more funding for coronavirus vaccine and testing programs. later tonight, biden will deliver his first prime time address to the nation as president of the united states to chart a course out of this def devastating pandemic. almost 33 million fully vaccinated, which is the gad news, but not to mention, the nation is still down almost 10 million jobs. and as cnn phil mattingly reports, the white house plans to try to sell this new legislation to every corner of the country. i m going to have a lot more to say about that tonight and the next couple of days. reporter: for president joe biden, a day of major moments. this historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country. reporter: with major challenges still ahead. bi