drugs in his dealings with young women. also they have looked at whether any federal campaign money was involved in paying for travel and expenses. this comes on the same day gaetz added a new attorney to his case who has sig isn't experience in white collar cases. news continues. i'll hand it over to chris for cuomo "prime time." >> good to see you. hope you had a good easter. we have a key player in the gaetz situation tonight so people are going to want to see that. i'm chris cuomo. welcome to "primetime." whether you celebrated easter or not, may this season of renewal and rebirth fuel this season for all of us. i was supposed to be off, but we were able to bring you something and it was critical to a big story, in fact, both big stories in the news tonight, there george floyd murder trial and the scandal surrounding congressman matt gaetz offer very rare and surprising aspects today. gaetz, as you heard coop say, wrote an opinion piece denying he's paid for sex, denying he's slept with a minor as an adult himself, and vowing to stay in office. while he was busy invoking drain the swamp language and playing the victim of the media, including me, what was very surprising is what he barely mentioned -- the extortion plot against him. he said that was what this situation is really all about. tonight, you may learn why he's gone quiet about the extortion case. in a tv exclusive, we have the man accused by congressman gaetz of extortion. that man's name is bob kent. and he tells a very different story about his dealings with the gaetz family and about how serious the allegations are against the representative. that's coming up. and you will want to hear what he says. first, we already heard and saw something shocking today. it happened in the george floyd murder trial. the accused, former officer derek chauvin's own former boss, the minneapolis police chief, the man who fired chauvin and three other officers the day after floyd's death, actually took the stand and called their actions completely wrong and illegal. in a moment that i have never seen by another top cop in a trial, he refused to give chauvin any cover for the 9 1/2 minutes floyd laid dying underneath his knee. the chief testified chauvin absolutely, that's his word, violated the department's neck restraint policy, and he called what we have all seen on that tape murder. >> once there was no longer any resistance, and clearly, when mr. floyd was no longer responsive, and even motionless, to continue to apply that level of force to a person proned out, handcuffed behind their back, that in no way, shape, or form is anything that is by policy, it is not part of our training. and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values. >> how big was that for the prosecution? how will the defense deal with it? we'll take that up. >> we also got the first real look at what this case could come down to, which is the science. prosecutors are trying to get a jump on any doubts by calling an er doctor to the stand who worked on floyd and got briefed by paramedics when they brought him in. >> did they say to you for purposes of caring or giving treatment to mr. floyd that they felt he had suffered a drug overdose? >> not in the information they gave, no. >> did they tell you in the information they gave that they felt that mr. floyd had had a heart attack? >> no. >> the takeaway there is not an overdose. says that doctor. and not a heart attack. that's also key because a heart attack can happen when there's a blockage problem around the heart, which the defense may argue. now, here's what the doctor found instead. >> there was no obvious significant external trauma that would have suggested he suffered anything that could produce bleeding sufficient to lead to a cardiac arrest. and so based on the history that was available to me, i felt that hypoxia was one of the more likely possibilities. >> and hypoxia has an explanation for cardiac arrest meaning oxygen insufficiency. >> correct. >> and doctor, is there another name for death by oxygen deficiency? >> asphyxia. >> lack of oxygen, says the doctor. who declared george floyd dead. or as floyd put it so many times, i can't breathe. let's turn to the law enforcement and policing specialist, the better minds, elliot williams and anthony barksdale. good to have you both. elliot, how big a deal for the prosecution is it to have the chief of police saying it wasn't right. it was illegal, it was murder. >> well, chris, even starting with the fact that the chief of police is even testifying in the first place is itself significant. very rarely does someone at that level of the police force ever testify in a criminal trial. so number one, that's profound. then of course, the fact that he laid out what the standards and policies were for the minneapolis police department, and said they were clearly violated is itself significant. as you and i have talked about, this is early, there defense still has to present their case, and we're just seeing the prosecution's case here, but i have a hard time believing the defense could at any point put forward a witness as certainly not the chief of police or a witness of that level of stature. this was big. we never know how these things are going to come out, but that was incredibly credible, incredibly believable testimony today. >> one of the attempts of pushback will almost certainly be, look, they had to do this. the way george floyd was, they had to use force to actually de-escalate. the prosecutors anticipated that, and the chief took it on. listen. >> sometimes de-escalation includes the use of force. the use of force can be a de-escalation tactic. >> thinking of your example of displaying your weapon, and so i don't have a lot of knowledge in terms of physical force being used to actually de-escalate a situation. but the threatening use of force or threatening verbally, i'm more familiar with that. >> that was the defense trying to say, maybe they had to do this. the chief gave them no help. significance, elliot? >> well, you know, the question that didn't show up there at the very, very end, the prosecution comes back on redirect and says, well, look, yes, sometimes you need to escalate to de-escalate, but you actually have to be safe, right? and so a police officer can't escalate a situation without actually paying attention to the safety of the circumstances around them. so for instance, one of the examples they used today was, you might pull out a gun, which is itself an act of escalation, but you're not going to fire it at the person as a means of just making everybody safe. you might use a neck restraint, but you're also not going to use it to a point that you put the person's own life in danger. so it was a poorly used analogy by the defense, and the prosecutor exploited it when they had a chance to clean it up. >> you have gotten several head nods from a man who knows the job very well at the highest level. former acting police commissioner in baltimore, anthony barksdale, always a pleasure to see you, sir. >> thank you. >> seeing the chief on the stand, is that something you can ever remember seeing in something of this magnitude? >> chris, i'm saluting the chief. his testimony was magnificent. the prosecution is guiding their ship very well. the defense, i think they need to look for a plea deal. i really do. the effort to try to make the chief appear that he doesn't know the street, doesn't know the job, it backfired today. >> now, on the medical side, commissioner, i wanted your take on this. obviously, the prosecutor is worried that there will be doubt spread that floyd was not as strong inside as he appeared to be outside. and they had an e.r. doctor there, and they were really trying to get to this idea of you know, what could have killed him? what would have made his heart react the way it did in this situation. let me play a piece of sound about this. >> was there anything that you looked at to determine whether or not the cardiac arrest was likely or unlikely to be related to mr. floyd having had a heart attack? >> a lot of that is based on the history that we received from paramedics. there was no report that, for example, the patient complained of chest pain or was clutching his chest at any point. or having any other symptoms to suggest a heart attack. that information was absent. >> commissioner, the e.r. doctor left open, rightly so, the door a couple times on the idea of information i was presented with. information i knew at the time. do you believe the defense has an opportunity there to say, but if you had known that his heart was like this, and if you had known that he had all these things in his system, might you have felt otherwise about it? >> chris, we could guess at that, but what we do know is that chauvin kept his knee on the man's neck. that's what we know. let's use the body cams. you and i talked about this before. the body cam is a wonderful tool. let's look at what we all saw on that body cam. so they can try to play the shell game and say, oh, this caused it or that caused it. but i am a firm believer that it was the knee on the neck for nine minutes that caused mr. floyd's death. >> so if the officers respond, commissioner, we had to. excited delirium, excited delirium. they teach us about this. the drugs, the drugs made him almost superhuman. he was going into a state where it took all of us just to keep him calm. >> chris, they got handcuffs on him. handcuffs. when you're cuffed, it's over. if they wanted to move to hobble him, then sobeit, get the leg shackles there. hobble him, but that's not what happened. when he is cuffed, when a suspect is cuffed, you have won. all he had to do, if they couldn't control him at that point, is hit the radio, say sarge, we need you up here. can i get more units up here? that's it. these excuses, these games that they're playing, i'm sick of them. let's get this trial done. let's get this conviction. >> one of the officers mentions excited delirium. he was a more junius officer. you do a little homework, you get the brooks institution. they did a study. they say the idea of excited delirium has been disproportionately applied to black people. first used in 1985 to explain a series of sudden deaths in cocaine users while primarily in police custody. what's the force of it? >> again -- >> commissioner, let me get elliot. you get last word. >> the only people who seem to be believing that are the defendants here, or at least the defendant here. every single individual who -- eyewitness testimony is inherently unreliable, but every single witness, i think you have 21 people who have testified, not all eyewitnesses, but every one is saying remarkably the same thing, and no one is seeing this question of excited delirium. so yes, the defense ought to put forward their best case, to the extent they can, but it's just flying in the face of reason. this is as the commissioner is saying, every individual who is testifying is saying pretty much the same thing, and all of these failures to care for floyd, all of these questions about his condition, they're going to weigh on the reasonableness, which as we talked about, chris, is the legal term here. it's were the actions reasonable? and the mere fact that it's clear that the officer's conduct or at it's appearing the officer's conduct is so outside the bounds of reasonableness, starting with the commission's testimony and all through, it's hard to see how the defense overcomes that, they have to just win over one juror, but it's hard to see. >> commissioner, last quick word to you. >> excited delirium, we started training for that in the '90s in baltimore. if somebody is complaining, and they're cuffed, you sit them up. you get them up so they can breathe. it was clearly, clearly excessive force, and they did not do the right things in this horrible, horrific incident. >> elliot williams, thank you, as always. commissioner barksdale, always a pleasure. good to see you. the best for the season. >> chris, thank you. be well, both. >> all right, the matt gaetz scandal has been so bizarre, and until now, confusing. who is bob kent? who is the man accused by gaetz as being the real wrongdoer here? remember, that's what gaetz was telling you. not so much in his op-ed. really, you have to focus on this guy. it's not about me. it's about him. here he is. why is he on tv if he's in so much trouble? what's his deal? where did he learn all these details about what gaetz may be facing? his first tv interview, next. struggling to manage my type 2 diabetes was knocking me out of my zone, but lowering my a1c with once-weekly ozempic® helped me get back in it. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic® ♪ my zone? lowering my a1c and losing some weight. now, back to the show. ozempic® is proven to lower a1c. most people who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. and you may lose weight. adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. ozempic® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. don't take ozempic® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it. stop ozempic® and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or an allergic reaction. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. tell your provider about vision problems or changes. taking ozempic® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may increase low blood sugar risk. side effects like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. once-weekly ozempic® helped me get in my type 2 diabetes zone. ask your health care provider how it can help you get in yours. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic® ♪ you may pay as little as $25 for a 3-month prescription. (upbeat music) - [narrator] this is kate. she always wanted her smile to shine. now, she uses a capful of therabreath healthy smile oral rinse to give her the healthy, sparkly smile she always wanted. (crowd cheering) therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. at walmart, target and other fine stores. therabreath, it's aliens are real, alright. there's just too much evidence. but ghosts? not so much. i mean where's the proof? show me the data. ooh, iced tea! kill weeds not the lawn with roundup for lawns products. we have a cuomo primetime exclusive for you now. an insider in the matt gaetz story talking for the first time on television. a man who had details of the sex crime investigation that still aren't public. and told the gaetz family before any of it had made the news. he's also the guy that congressman now says was extorting his family. bob kent, who is he? he's a former air force intel officer. he says he's risking his own career that depends on him flying below the radar by even putting his name in the middle of this, but he has nothing to hide. let's get after it. bob, welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me. >> let's just take it head on. did you believe that mr. gaetz would give you money for your calls in finding bob levinson because he thought you could fix the case against his son? >> no. when i met with mr. gaetz, he was very clear he was not interested in funding the project, but he did offer to have his son contact the president of the task force. >> when he said we get extortion attempts all the time, do you believe that gaetz believed that you were threatening him with details of what you knew that would be exposed if he didn't help you? >> no. because i didn't have any details about his son. i stopped him immediately and explained this was not an extortion attempt. and i said, look, this is a legitimate offer to help rescue robert levinson. i showed him the two videos i took last summer or that my team took last summer of robert levinson. i explains how we tried to rescue him in july. and said look, i said that operation fell apart. i lost four people. i said we had no budget. but we believe there's an opportunity to get him out from the top down this time, but it would cost quite a bit of money. >> you put a lot of this in writing, which would have been very dumb, especially for somebody with an intelligence background if you were trying to extort. you say the fbi has contacted. have they made it known to you that you are under investigation for extortion? >> they have not. they brought me in to discuss the situation. and i am cooperating. >> when you say the situation, what situation? >> they asked me about the meeting i had with don gaetz. >> did they also ask you about what you knew about the congressman and his behavior? >> they did. and i said -- i told them the same thing i told you. i just heard rumors about the congressman. i didn't have any specifics about his behavior. i hadn't seen any videos about him or pictures about him, but i did hear rumors. >> i'm ask you about that in a second. let's go to the direct proof so you can explain it. mr. gaetz text message from you. i would like to talk with you immediately about the current federal investigation and the indictment that is about to be filed against your son. i have a plan that can make his future legal and political problems go away. you sent that text message? >> i did, yes. >> why did you put it that way, that there is an indictment about to be filed against his son, and why did you tee up the legal problems? >> matt gaetz was in need -- or if the allegations are true, he's in need of goodwill from the government. i'm a sponsor to fund the rescue project. >> saying the indictment that is about to be filed, what if people take that to be an implied threat? >> there is no threat. i don't have anything to do with the indictment. i don't have anything to do with the investigation into matt gaetz. >> what was your point in telling gaetz's father about what you had heard about the trouble that his son was in? you could have just went to him and said help bob levinson. if we find him, it will be good for your son. you could have left it at that. you didn't. how come, mr. kent? >> i wanted to meet with matt gaetz. i believe he had the ability to raise the money quickly, and yes, i did put that in there as a teaser, because as i said, mr. gaetz was in need of some good will, and we worked with multiple people over the years. and all of them have been in similar situations. a lot of them have been facing indictments or all looking for goodwill from the u.s. government. >> one of the things you have circumstanceally without getting too in the weeds against you, is one of the guys who you were working with on this and approaching the gaetz has a criminal record. for being a fraudster. why would you be associated with somebody like that? >> so i was contacted by david mcgee in october. and he asked me to meet with somebody, which steven offered, because he wanted to help with levenson, and believed he could get him out. after the rescue attempt fell apart in july, i had no contact with dave after that. i said sorry it didn't work out. we went forward. he wished me the best of luck in my future endeavors. then when he contacted me in october, he asked me, is it possible -- is levinson still alive and is it possible to rescue him? i went back to the network and asked the question. they said yes, we think he might still be alive. we can't do it the way we did last time. we have to do it from the top down this time. when dave vouched for steven, that was good enough for me. >> i know, mr. kent. you find some of these questions frustrating. but you do understand, gaetz has put you in a pickle here, because he has taken the situation of your soliciting help with the father as the indication of what the scandal really is here. that people are missing the ball. it's not about him. it's about you and your associates trying to extort him with behavior you know isn't criminal. your response. >> my response is, if mr. gaetz really believed that, he could have kept this quiet and gone to the fbi. instead, he exposed the levinson family to additional grief, and he's capitalizing off that and trying to direct attention from himself. the entire time i have been involved in this, i have never once met with the levinson family, spoken to anyone from the family, and the agreement i had with david mcgee was that our work would remain confidential and secret. specifically not to cause any additional stress to the levinson family. robert levinson is a constituents of matt gaetz, and you know, the congressman just made the levinson situation worse. if he is alive, he is directly impacting his predicament right now. >> in a letter that you sent, you said the fbi became aware of compromising pictures depicting congressman gaetz and an election official involved in a sexual orgy with underaged prostitutes in florida in an unrelated investigation into public integrity. subsequent information has resulted in congressman gaetz becoming a target of a widening investigation into serious underaged sex trafficking, political corruption, public integrity, and other criminal allegations. gaetz makes this seem like it is much more narrow than you suggest here. how confident are you in what you are told? >> so you can never be confident of rumors. those are just rumors that are rampant in north florida among the legal and journalist communities. >> pretty specific. >> that's what i was hearing. >> i hear you, but, like, were you surprised you had such detailed information of a federal investigation before it was ever made public? >> i don't have any information on a federal investigation. those were just rumors that were circulating. >> and again, for the audience, why did you pass them along to mr. gaetz? what was your intention? you said it's a teaser. what does that mean? >> i believe that don gaetz had -- i believe that gave don some motive to want to work with us, to try to get back levinson. the person who gets back levinson would get a tremendous amount of credit from the u.s. government. i wanted to stay anonymous and thought maybe matt gaetz would be the face of the thing, but i needed to raise a large amount of money in a short period of time, and don gaetz is a person who has that ability. >> gaetz says his father was wearing a wire. are you concerned about what he has on you on tape? >> i hope the father was wearing a wire. >> you hope he was wearing a wire. >> yes. >> were the federal authorities interested in your description of what was going on in terms of what you knew about the investigation? >> they did ask me what i knew, and i don't know anything about the investigation. everything i knew was based on rumor. >> what do you want people to know, if they are assessing the matt gaetz situation, and your name is coming up as a possible mitigating factor for him. what do you want people to know? >> as a possible mitigating factor for who? matt gaetz? >> maybe it's not so bad for matt gaetz. maybe these guys were out to get him. maybe that's as big a part of this as anything else. >> we weren't out to get matt gaetz. we were out to rescue bob levinson. >> there was no attempt to extort, no threat, no demand. >> no threats, no demands. the opposite. when i left, the last thing i told don gaetz is you'll never hear from me again. i'm not a threat to you or your son. i'm not going to talk to the press, i'm not going to say a bad word about him. i thank him for his time. the next day, he sent me a text. offering to have his son contact the president. i texted back, no thank you. and a week later, he was calling up to meet with david mcgee. >> have the federal authorities told you don't leave town, asked you to surrender your passport, told you to stay in contact with them on any kind of regular basis? >> no. >> do you anticipate any problems coming your way because of your dealings with the gaetz family? >> i do not. >> other than having to come on a show like this. bob kent, i understand and i appreciate you taking this opportunity. you didn't have to do it. and i'm thanking you for doing it to help give some clarity to a very confusing situation. >> one thing that i think is important is that don gaetz sincerely, i mean, he knew i was sincere. and that i believed that levinson is alive. i showed him the videos. i explained what happened in the past, and he -- knowing that, they still went forward and did what they did and exposed the levinson family. >> understood, and again, thank you for taking the opportunity. >> thank you for having me. >> all right. so that's bob kent. who do you believe? him or gaetz? which may feel the bite of the law sooner? and will matt gaetz's party save him from the jaws of political fate? we're going to bring in a better mind who knows this story well. there he is, smerconish, next. hi guys! check out this side right here. what'd you do? 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[music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [triumphantly yells] [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today. the harry's razor is not the same. our razors have five german engineered blades designed to stay sharp, so your eighth shave is as smooth as your first. and we never upcharge you for high quality. harry's. available in store and at harrys.com. my cholesterol is borderline. so i take garlique to help maintain healthy cholesterol safely and naturally. and it's odor free. i'm taking charge of my cholesterol with garlique. now, remember, as we have said from the beginning, two things can be true at the same time when it comes to matt gaetz and this scandal. he could have a legitimate investigation going on as to whether or not bob kent and this other men were trying to extort him, or the doj felt compelled because they had a congressman saying that's what it was, and at the same time, he had problems of his own subject to the findings of an investigation, which i have always said is the basis for our understanding. you have to know until the investigation comes out, you don't know. all right. now, let's get a great mind in here. michael smerconish knows the law, he knows the story. in fact, he's the one who told me, you should take a look at bob kent. i think there's something for him to say. smerconish, you were right. i find him credible on these points because he would have to be crazy to put these things in writing and come on tv and say the same and do the dance with the feds if he was trying to extort thesis people. >> i think it was a phenomenal interview. and i think that your cross-examination did viewers a service. and actually did kent a service, because to put him through the paces is to let people really draw determination of their own in terms of whether they find him credible. here's what i think might be going on. kent is caught up in a search for robert levinson. he has reason to believe that the former fbi agent has not passed, as the trump administration apparently told the family, but he's alive and being held captive in iran. as he's working on that, gaetz gets himself into trouble. the two have nothing to do with one another. but kent sees opportunity in gaetz's father being a deep pocket who could write a check. he's willing to give matt gaetz the glory if in fact levinson comes home alive. meanwhile, gaetz sees opportunity in trying to conflate all of this in the minds of americans, goes on tucker carlson, points a finger at the guy that you just interviewed, and hopes that people can't keep their eye on exactly where the three-card monty lies. it seems to me that one really doesn't have anything to do with the other. kent has nothing to do with whether gaetz is involved in some sexcapades. >> but he does have a lot to do with whether or not you should pay attention to anything else. one thing that i'll highlight in the text from him to gaetz, i accept your theory. i have a plan that can make his future legal and political problems go away. is there any legal reckoning of where that is an implicit threat? >> no, i don't think so. an implicit threat would be, i have photographs of the young woman with the hula hoop who is naked and i'm going to drop those unless you do x, y, or z. i don't see any element of extortion in this. look, this project homecoming script that your guest had a hand in devising, if you and i went to hollywood and pitched this thing, they would say it's too fantastical. but there's a story here. they were trying to say matt gaetz, you can be politically rescued if you're the hero in bob levinson, but i don't see an implied threat if gaetz doesn't go along with it. >> in terms of implied threats, those photos that matt gaetz supposedly showed on the floor of congress to colleagues, he got ratted out by his own. we know they weren't democrats because if he had shown them to democrats, they would have ratted him out a year ago, whenever he showed them. >> great point. >> is this the first time we're seeing republicans go bad on one of their own. not the qanon lady, who by the way, qanon, a big thing is sex trafficking. she's backing gaetz, who is accused of sex trafficking. i don't know how that makes her a qanon loyalist, but do you think gaetz may have pushed the bar or pushed the line too far with his own party? >> i don't think anybody is going to throw him under the bus. not within his own party. >> somebody ratted on him about the photos. that could get him out on an ethics violation. >> your observation is excellent. you wouldn't think he would be crossing the aisle to show whatever photographs may or may not exist on his phone. i think republicans are content to let it happen but do not want to have fingerprints on it. why, chris? for fear of the base. they don't know, this guy has been so close to president trump, they don't want to antagonize the base by being someone who played a role in taking down a gop flame thrower. >> fair point. and as michael and have both been saying from the beginning, you know nothing until that investigation gives us the facts, unless they can be independently verified and any politician who asks for action before the investigation is playing politics. you know what silence is deafening right now? from trump, the mentor for his protege, matt gaetz. let's see when he weighs in. smerconish, thank you for the tip, thank you for the analysis. appreciate you. >> thank you. all right. tonight, we're learning interesting news about covid. that variant first spotted in england is now in every state across the country. we're still in a war with the virus. people are going to get sick. they're going to die. and they don't need to. however, there is encouraging news in this fight. next. a cfp® professional can help you build a complete financial plan. visit letsmakeaplan.org to find your cfp® professional. ♪ it doesn't happen often. everyday people taking on the corporate special interests. and winning. but now, the for the people act stands on the brink of becoming law. ensuring accurate elections. iron-clad ethics rules to crack down on political self-dealing. a ban on dark money. and finally reducing corporate money in our politics. to restore our faith in government. because it's time. for the people to win. when we found out our son had autism, his future became my focus. lavender baths calmed him. so we made a plan to turn bath time into a business. ♪ ♪ find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com oh no... i thought i just ordered tacos. nope!... ramen... burgers... milk from the store, and... ...cookies? wha, me hungry! here, i'll call some friends to help us eat. yeah, that good idea. get more from your neighborhood. hey yo, grover! doordash. as we continue to return to classrooms... parents like me want to make sure we're doing it safely. especially in the underserved communities hardest hit by covid. trust me, no one wants to get back to classroom learning more than teachers like me. using common sense safety measures like masks, physical distancing, and proper ventilation. safety is why we're prioritizing vaccinations for educators. because working with our local communities... we will all get through this together, safely. all right. listen up. more than 4 million americans got a covid vaccine on saturday. alone. that brings the average to more than 3 million shots a day. nearly 19% of americans are fully vaccinated. more than half are over 65. so we can catch up to other countries who started off right, like chile, which has vaccinated about 20% of its population, and israel, fully vaccinated more than half, but we also see what happens if we stray. the uk began vaccinations a week before the u.s., but only about 8% of the people there are fully vaccinated. with the good there's also the bad. and the ugly. experts say that more dangerous uk variant is now in every state here. more than 15,000 cases are fueling a new surge. for the fourth straight week, covid cases are up. the big hot spots, michigan, minnesota, massachusetts. what does that mean for another surge? unclear. >> at this time, we really are in a category-5 hurricane status with regard to the rest of the world. in terms of the united states, we're just at the beginning of the surge. we haven't even begun to see it yet. >> i don't think it's going to be a true fourth wave. i think we have delayed the point at where we can get it behind us for the summer. with the rate of vaccination we're having now, we're vaccinated 4 million people a day, that's probably going to reach 5 million people a day. >> look, here's what's clear. rising cases are being driven by younger people. >> we are learning that many outbreaks in young people are related to youth sports and extracurricular activities. according to cdc guidance, these activities should be limited. i understand that people are tired and that they are ready for this pandemic to be over. as am i. please continue to hang in there and to continue to do the things that we know prevent the spread of the virus. >> problem is, we develop the opposite covid culture. we thought the kids were less vulnerable, so we were less restrictive on them. you have seen the scenes at the beach. venues getting too crowded. too many people without masks. spring travel is likely making things worse. the tsa is seeing new records, screening more than 6 million people since thursday. remember, the cdc says even if you're vaccinated, travel should be avoided. new research offers added perspective on why we can't be reckless. nearly 40,000 kids have lost a parent because of covid. black kids, disproportionately affected. no one, especially a child, should deal with the reality of irreparable loss. isn't that enough for us to do our part? do you know who is suddenly a fan of cancel culture. retrumplicans, who just got into a fight with them? corporate america. since when? chris cillizza says there's a truth that's not being told here. what is it, cillizza, with your good looks? next. ♪ ♪i've got the brains you've got the looks♪ ♪let's make lots of money♪ ♪you've got the brawn♪ ♪i've got the brains♪ ♪let's make lots of♪ ♪uh uh uh♪ ♪oohhh there's a lot of opportunities♪ with allstate, drivers who switched saved over $700. saving is easy when you're in good hands. allstate click or call to switch today. hi guys! check out this side right here. allstate what'd you do? - tell me know you did it. - yeah. get a little closer. that's insane. that's a different car. -that's the same car. - no! yeah, that's before, that's after. oh, that's awesome. make it nu with nu finish. aliens are real, alright. there's just too much evidence. but ghosts? not so much. i mean where's the proof? show me the data. ooh, iced tea! kill weeds not the lawn with roundup for lawns products. quote. economic blackmail to spread disinformation. that's what senator mitch mcconnell is calling the choice, by some u.s. corporations, to oppose the gop-sponsored law curbing voting access, in georgia. his comments, follow mlb, the major league baseball, decision to pull its all-star game out of atlanta, this summer, because of the law. on the surface, looks like corporate america has fallen out of love with republicans. but looking deeper may reveal a truth, not told. tnt, because it's dynamite. chris cillizza is here. how so? >> okay. so, yes, it is -- it is clear, there is some break between corporate america and the republican party. long-considered allies. no question, there's some break there. we saw it after the january-6th riots, chris. we saw it on immigration, with donald trump. donald trump is not the chamber of commerce's version of a republican. but, let's not get too far over our skis here, because why? yes, delta, eventually, supported the mlb pulling out. but that i's only, after, they faced significant pressure. and it's not clear what, if anything, it's going to do affect their corporate given. coke. all the corporations that condemned january 6th, never -- never -- their corporate pacs would never give money to members of congress, who voted on the electoral college, who voted to -- to object to it. my view here is that, you are getting -- what you are getting from corporations is they're doing the pr thing. they are under public pressure. they're doing it, for that reason. they're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart. they are doing it because they come under public pressure and they do it. and i will come by that cliche with this one. follow the money. let's see, how much money winds up being given, or not, chris, to these candidates. because, remember, that is the way these corporations buy their access, buy their window into lawmaking. lobby. i am skeptical that corporate america and republicans have made a final-and-complete break. though, i do acknowledge, the trump version of a republican is really different than, let's say, the paul ryan version of a republican. >> well, if president biden tries to raise the corporate tax, the only home these businesses have is republicans. mitch mcconnell may be talking the talk right now but he is not going to walk the walk of raising taxes on businesses. >> that's the thing. we can talk about corporations and republicans falling out of love with one another, and we should. it's -- it's a story line. truth not told in that is rubber meets road. you are going from a 21% corporate-tax rate, to a 28% corporate-tax rate. to fund joe biden's infrastructure plan. trust me, corporations are not going to say, well, this was the immigration thing and the january-6th stuff and mlb. no. they are going to look at their bottom line and they are going to say, wait, our tax rate is going up 7% under the one guy, in the one party. and the other party is fighting that infrastructure bill and saying they shouldn't raise the corporate-tax rate. you know, i hate to be so bare-knuckle, bottom-line oriented, but that's how business and politics works. so give it a minute. hit pause on the corporate america and -- and the republican party falling out of -- let's see what it looks like in three months and six months, as joe biden's trying to get that big, infrastructure bill with that tax hike included. and my guess, is corporation is going to be on the side of mitch mcconnell. >> is it also a tnt, a truth not told, that cancel culture is bipartisan? that, you know -- >> yes. >> as did-- as is often the cas the right does a better job beating the left with its own stick than the left does at beating the right with its stick of choice. but aren't we very much seeing the republicans in cancel culture right now? >> donald trump putting sort of cancel culture, up front, in the party, which you have seen continue even after he's not president is no one called for more people to be cancelled. more corporations to be boycotted. than donald trump. i mean, that -- that was his mo. it was -- he would tweet out -- >> i think we got cancelled by him, didn't he come after both of us? >> exactly. italian chris's getting cancelled. i -- look, that's the thing. it -- it's only cancel culture, when it's a thing that you think should be part of the culture, right? it's all situational. it's a good call, if it goes for my kid's baseball team. the umpires are biased if it goes against my kid's baseball team. not that much changes, from middle school and high school, chris. and this is a prime example of that. it's good, it's bad when it's something that's bad politically or you don't agree with. >> we just heard republican of utah punishing political opponents. although, i don't know that republicans are really corporations' political opponents. i don't buy that. i think it is a pr thing. but then, georgia does what? it pulls its fuel discount from delta for what they did. >> that's right. >> that is a republican governor that did that. >> and by the way, mike lee, tweeted today. >> that's also cancelling. tnt, with cc. the truth not told, tnt, cause it's dynamite. cillizza, thank you. we'll be right back. >> thank you, my friend. tex-mex. tex-mex. ♪ termites. go back up! hang on! i am hanging on. don't mess up your deck with tex-mex. terminix. hi. the only way to nix it is to terminix it. dignity. this thing you can neither see nor measure... ...but that demands the return of small moments illness attempts to steal. ♪ dignity demands a rapid covid test, ♪ because we all need an answer to move forward. ♪ dignity demands your heart stays connected to your doctor, so you know it's beating as it should. ♪ it demands a better understanding of your glucose levels, so you can enjoy movie night. ♪ and knowing your baby is getting the nutrition he needs, no matter how you choose to feed him. dignity is not effortless nor easy. at abbott, we fight for it every day, developing life-changing technologies. because dignity demands it. ♪ when traders tell us how to make thinkorswim even better, we listen. like jack. he wanted a streamlined version he could access anywhere, no download necessary. and kim. she wanted to execute a pre-set trade strategy in seconds. so we gave 'em thinkorswim web. because platforms this innovative, aren't just made for traders—they're made by them. thinkorswim trading. from td ameritrade. 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