heads to to florida. a full page ad from the "new york times" from the post popular democrat on the planet, the former first lady michelle obama. we begin this hour with the coronavirus and its staggering across-the-board disruchts the numbers are simply numbing. the united states is now averaging more than 100,000 new infections daily. that leading workers to call out sick at record numbers. up analysis estimates more than 5 million americans could be stuck at home ice late over the coming days meaning, of course, disruption across the economy. today in chicago some 340,000 students missing school for a fourth consecutive day as the teachers union and the city continue to fight over safety and reopening. their alliance cancelling thousands more flights over the weekend as covid outbreaks among workers continue, and the health care system is teetering. nearly one in four hospitals report critical staffing shortages. cnn's senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is live with more on that impact, the stress on the health care system. elizabeth? >> john, you know, we've focused so much during the pandemic on the coronavirus killing people or putting people in the hospital, and, of course, that's the right focus, but i think we didn't think enough about what happens when you get a variant that is incredibly transmissible and maybe it doesn't kill people or put people in the hospital in huge numbers but so many people calling out sick. these headlines say it all. for example, a hospital in kansas staying nearly 900 staffers out sick. hospital workforces are being depleted, exhausted, hospitals having to scramble in order to take care of their patient and these numbers, john, they say it all. take a look at the cases in this country going up, up, up, up since the end of december and, you know, health care workers, they are out in the community just like the rest of us. now take a look at this map. john, you and i have talked about this many times over the past two years. i don't think we've ever seen it this red. so many states. dark red, ten states slightly is lighter shade of red. they are having some data issues but when you have numbers like that it's inevitable that you'll have staffing shortages at hospital. >> far too many reds on that map. >> pfizer and moderna are working on omicron-specific vaccines. what does that mean? >> what that meechgs is pfizer says by march they should have an omicron specific vaccine and moderna says they will be going into clinical trials soon so this is important but it does beg the question what if the omicron has ripped through the public by then? we don't know if omicron will stay around or when it compaction and it should be back against other variants even though it's designed for other variants, how useful it would be would remain to be seen. john. >> elizabeth cohen, thank you for the important updates. stay in touch throughout the week. that map you just showed. georgia would be red if they had the data and 50 states heading in the wrong direction. with me is dr. jonathan ryaner, professor of medicine at george washington university. elizabeth cohen goes through the numbers and shows the headlines. you're in the hospital most days, tell us the personal toll we're seeing. one in four hospitals withy is seer staffing and shortage issues. >> yeah. it's a dual problem. first of all hospitals throughout the mid-atlantic and northeast are filled with covid patients, not just covid patients but filled with patients. in maryland, just about every hospital in maryland is at capacity. we heard over the weekend 40 hospitals in new york have been asked to kill elective procedures and this is at a time when staffing is being hit hard by absences. nearly every day i go to work another member of my team is out with covid. now fortunately everyone has done great. but it -- this is happening in hospitals all over the united states which have already been short of staff. now they are being hit by people having to isolate at home appropriately, and it makes taking care of non-covid patients also extremely difficult. >> and so let's listen to dr. walensky for a bit. we're at a moment where, yes, the blessing, if you will, is that omicron appears to produce less severe infections but the course is the overwhelming number of cases is just overwhelming. dr. walensky makes the distinction that it's bad everywhere except where you and i have talked about before, listen. >> up to 40% of the patients who are come in with covid are coming in not because they are sick with covid but because they are coming in with something else. >> we do know that people who are vaccinated are still protected about 70% against infection, especially if they are boosted. so the people who are ending up in the hospital, the people who are ending up very sick with omicron are the ones who are unvaccinated. >> you hear that point at the end, dr. reiner. we've discussed it many times before. the up vaccinated are at higher risk of more severe disease and if you look at the data, the percentage of americans who are fully vaccinated, hovering around 62% forever. just been a stagnant flat line. why is it not breaking through that getting a vaccine and getting boosted at least protects you from severe illness. >> a large part of the media, conservative media, has not promoted vaccines. the former president of the united states who has taken credit for inventing the vaccines has not promoed the vaccines. another big problem in this country is that relatively few people have been boosted. only about a third of people who are vaccinated and eligible for boosters have actually booten boosters. and i think we've done a version very poor job at messaging that so we don't have a fully immunized country. we, have you know, maybe 50 million people who are vaccine naive right now, and this is incredibly contagious virus. if you are unvaccinated now, you will acquire this virus. it's just a matter of time. this is not just sort of hoping for the best and you're likely to be able to avoid it. if you are unvaccinated you will get covid, and the people who are dying right now, and there are 1,500 people a day who are dying from this infection, are almost entirely unvaccinated and it's a completely avoidable death. >> and so you just talked about the stress you see every day at your piece of the health care system. we can show you some head lyons. chicago public schools cancel classes for a fourth day and los angeles unified school district requiring all employees to testify negative. 6 up,000 students in that system. 50,000 test come back positive. new york city schools so far haven't had to close. that school, you talked about health care. you see that in any business and people coming in sick or people short staffed when you go to the grocery store no matter where you are. where are we heading in the sense that some projections do believe by the end of the month or early next month omicron will have peaked. are we supposed to ride it out or what should we be doing? >> well, we're going to have to ride it out, but what i -- what i would love to see our leaders in our heart-hit places like new york and like d.c. and all across the country. i would like to hear our leaders basically level with the country and say, look, this virus is very hot right now. we've never seen numbers of cases like this in the entire two years of this pandemic and if you can work from home work from home the next couple of weeks until the viral load in your city goes down. it will be safer to go out and it will help protect your health care system so that if you're having a heart attack or a stroke your hospitals will have the capacity to take care of you or somebody you love. you know, let's not have forced lockdowns, but let's ask the public to participate in trying to keep these numbers down. and when i walk out of my hospital every evening and walk to my garage i walk past a packed bar, and it's just this incredible sort of cognitive dissonance in our society. on the one hand we're struggling to put down this historic once in a lifetime pandemic while at the same time people are telling you, that you know, we're open for business. i hear the mayor of new york this weekend say, look, new york is open for business. we want meetings and we want our schools open which is all great and that's all our goal but we have to acknowledge that we live in the real world and the real world now is there are a million -- over a million cases a day in the united states if you look at the cases from home tests that are detected by home tests and so we can't have life that is normal now. we will get through this, and i do expect that probably over the next few days we'll start to see some hints of cases dropping in places like d.c. i think we already see the beginning of that, but it's going to take hunkering down for the next month for us all to get through this. let's have our leaders level with the country and tell them that we have to do some difficult things for the next several weeks. >> dr. reiner, as always, sober thoughts but as always i'm grateful for your expertise and insights. thank you, sir. just talking about angst in the american workplace. both chambers of congress returned to work this week. two dozen or so lawmakers have disclosed breakthrough cases including just today. the fear is those numbers will soar once congress is back in session and there's already remember a sharp partisan divide over masking and other covid precautions. melanie zanona covers capitol hill. this debate is back up, new proposals on the table. >> a lot of concern about a spike in cases as lawmakers and staff return to washington this week and we've already seen a number of cases increase. alexandria ocasio-cortez, john katko and ben klein have all recently announced they had positive covid diagnosis seize so congress is stepping up its health protocol providing k-95 matches instead of surgical masks and there's efforts to get rapid at-home tests available for offices and offices are being encouraged to telework as much as possible but the challenges for congress, john, as you know is that each office is its own sort of little fifedom and they are under no obligation to adhere to a lot of this guidance. they can set their own policies, and we've seen a lot of republican lawmakers who have been really resistant to some of these rules including the masking, which is required on house floor but not required anywhere else in the entire capitol complex, and one other point that i want to bring up here is that republicans have also been a lot less transparent about their vaccine status and their code of diagnosis. we reported bill posey who has been critical of proxy voting and has spread vaccine misinformation, he's actually been using that proxy voting system in the last few weeks of last year and told gop colleagues because he himself had covid but he did not publicly disclose that so it just goes to show that the cases in congress could be even greater than we know. >> and we could use say a unified example from the congress but getting that i think is a pipe dream. appreciate the fresh reporting. up next for us, the united states and russia sit down for day long talks. the goal, prevent a russian invasion of ukraine. 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(giggling) your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire ready to turn your dreams into plans and your actions into achievements? explore over 75 programs and four-week classes at national university. your future starts today at nu.edu. . today an important meeting between russian and u.s. diplomats about ukraine. united states and europe says they won't negotiate with a gun held to their head. the american secretary of state outlined an off ramp for putin and will shoot it if he plans not to take it. >> there's a dialogue in diplomacy to try to resolve some of these differences and avoid a confrontation. the other path is confrontation and massive consequences for russia if it renews its aggression on you a crane. >> let's get some important insights from leon panetta, the former defense secretary, former cia director and former white house chief of staff. >> grateful for your time. one of the biggest questions on the table here, and you have more experience than most to try to read there is vladimir putin there to listen. is he truly looking for an off ramp or is he looking there just to have some talks and then he can start into a prove sghags do we know? what does he want? >> you know, i think that vladimir putin is trying to decide what exactly he wants from all of this as well. i don't think there's any question that as secretary blinken said there are two paths here. this is a dangerous moment between russia and the united states and our allies. we can either work out a negotiated settlement here over the next few days or it can wind up in military confrontation with all the consequences that will result from that. so it's very difficult at this point i think to even begin to anticipate which direction putin is going to take. >> you look at secretary blinken. number one, the united states is going to be in lockstep with its nato allies across europe and is keeping in constant touch with ukraine about security assurances and the like. a lot of people go back to the obama administration and say obama was not tough enough on putin when putin went back into ukraine and donald trump for four years pretty much gave putin a path. do you see from this administration at least a right approach? are they taking in your view the right tougher approach? >> i think they are taking a much tougher approach in trying to make sure that we're united with our allies in what steps we'll follow if they do in fact invade which is a series of very tough sanctions that could virtually cut russia off from the rest world and really harm their economy. secondly we have the capability of using cyber to screw up their infrastructure and impact on their economy that we're continuing to reinforce forces in nato and continuing to build up our forces there which is important and then lastly we're providing defensive weapons to the ukraine. we've provided javelin missiles. we provided grenades and machine guns. hopefully we can provide some stinger missiles as well. those missiles that were used to fight russia in afghanistan. we need to show that we are committed to making clear that they will pay a price if they decide to invade, and i think we've done a good job at that. >> as you know, often when two such high-level delegations sit down. there's often weeks of work in advance and there's general framework of what we'll discuss. even if they don't discuss big progress there's a big discussion on confidence-building measures. from the "new york times" it seems like both strides going in with a lot of uncertainty. the senior russian official warned the united states had, quote, a lack of understanding of the kremlin security demands and there was questioning of whether russia was serious about de-escalating the situation. is there a danger in sitting down not knowing what the other side's line is? >> it's a situation where frankly both sides are going to test each other are and to term how serious they are about what they are threatening to do. russia will prod the united states and our allies as to just how serious we are about implementing the tough sanctions and taking these steps against them and you're going to be testing whether or not russia is serious about the military invasion so there's going to be a lot of words exchanged. there's begun to be a lot of threats exchanged but the clear thing is whether or not in that room there is an effort to try to see if there aren't areas where we can find agreement that can deal with some of the concerns of russia and also deal with some of the concerns of the united states. i think that opportunity is there. the real question is whether or not putin is going to allow his negotiators to find that consensus. >> that is the question at the moment. leon panetta, grateful for your time. we'll stay on top of these conversations. we'll see and get a readout and see where we go from here. thanks for your time. appreciate it. >> 19 dead, including nine children. we're standing by live for a live update from the new york city on the horrific bronx apartment building fire. that's next. a quote today. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! 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through that 19-story apartment building. you see it right there on sunday. 67 people were injured and the mayor says many of them are in life-threatening conditions. a space heater is being blamed for that fire. cnn's brynn gingras is live for us in the bronx with the very latest. b brynn? >> reporter: yeah, john, we've seen so many residents taking a look back at the scene at this building behind me, honestly saying a prayer and thinking about many family members, neighbors who have lost third loved ones, and they are heartbroken and in addition to that there are people lucky to be alive at that moment and they are coming back to the building because they need to get inside and get medications and get anything else they can grab from their homes even though they know full well that the lives are destroyed and that it swept through the fire building. you can see daniel nigro as well as the fire marshal here on the scene and waiting for the mayor to join in. we'll likely get a very big update and there's still so much updates, one about the doors, the ones kept open that was going throughout the fire allowing the fire to circulate throughout the billing. a lot of people want to know is there a mechanical malfunction that caused the door to stay open. not only the one to the apartment but also the one to the stairwell. the fire was contained to that apartment. the smoke went up and people tried to escape and became suffocated and blinded by the heavy fire. that's the fire code, also the fire alarms. we were told by many residents coming to the scene today that the fire alarms are always going off and it's sort of like second nature. they don't even think about it. a lot of people didn't respond to this fire because they heard the fire alarms going off again and didn't think that it was actually a fire. they saw smoke coming underneath their door and that's when they realized this is a serious deal. a lot of questions that will be asked by the makers and we hope to get a lot of answers that we haven't been able to get yet and devastating for the community including the top leaders who will get answers to when they start at 1210:00. >> we'll go back to new york and the fire officials begin to speak. thank you very much. let's move on to an important story here in washington. jim jordan now defying the house select committee. in a four-page letter on sunday congressman jordan said he had no relevant information and he raised questions about the panel's fairness. the letter was a response to a committee request for cooperation. with me now to share their reporting and insights cnn's nia malika herderson, melanie zanona and jackie kucinich from "the daily beast." nia, we'll start with you. jim jordan acknowledges he spoke to donald trump on the day of the insurrection so how can he say he has no relevant information? that's not his decision to make. >> not at all. he spoke with the president as you said, a big proponent of the big lie and a big proponent also of this idea that vice president mike pence at the time had something to do with the outcome of the election, that he could in fact overturn it so i think the next question is do they subpoena him, right? this is sort of a voluntary please come in representative jim jordan. he, of course, said no. will this escalate further to where they compel him to come in and what would his reaction be there. >> go back in time and a rules committee meeting back in october. this came up. jim mcgovern said you talked to the president that day a lot and you wanted to overturn the election and then have a different line. >> are you willing to tell the select committee what you know about events leading up to, during and after that. >> i've got nothing to hide. i've been straightforward all along. >> what happened jackie, to i've got nothing to hide? >> i think "actually came and he doesn't feel like he's anyone an explanation, but there is a question on whether they even can subpoena jim jordan. i don't know that that -- that that has been -- i note committee is looking into it, but i don't know that that question has been answered because he is a sitting member of congress. but we also know that he was involved in the -- in -- as nia point out but in the days before the insurrection, he's in the text messages with mark meadows trying to have the legal -- this bogus legal basis for mike pence being able to overturn the election and these are just the things that we know about. also still unanswered what, this means for someone like a kevin mccarthy who also we know spoke to former president trump on the day of the insurrection, and if these numbers are not required hand never tell their stories, that's going to be a big hole in potentially in the committee's final report and that's problematic for everybody. >> and melanie, jackie right there hits on a big question. the committee deserves, you know, praise for the scope of it search talking to state election officials, going high up the trump chain of command, inside the white house and within the campaign and the republican party, but this testimony from members of their own, members of their open like jim jordan and others could be critical. is he the test case of will the committee force cooperation from sitting members of congress? >> right. i think that's the big question face the committee right now. are they willing to subpoena a sitting member of congress? i mean, it would be unprecedent as jackie pointed out. there are a lot of legal questions. i'm sure it would be challenged in court but an insurrection on the capitol is also unprecedented and that's what the thinking is with a select committee. it would be a dramatic escalation of tensions. republicans have already threatened retribution if they go down this road, but i really think that we are, you know, gearing up for a major showdown between these republican members of congress and the select mitt commit and jim jordan initially was supposed to be on this committee. this was kevin mccarthy's pick before speaker pelosi rejected him and now you can see why asking for his koorp reyration shows why he's a witness and he's an important part of the investigation. >> i'm sorry, i want to take everybody up to new york city. this is the mayor eric adams. >> members of the fdny, ems, law enforcement -- >> we've lost audio from the scene there. we're having technical difficulties. we'll take you back to that event as soon as we can. in the meantime, a quick break. we've fixed the audio issues and let get straight back to mayor eric adams. >> we sat down with the principal and the teachers and just wanted to have a private moment to let them know that we are here to support them as they go through this tragedy. they shared just personal notes of these children and it was something that we heard universally. each child that we lost is how much they smiled, how much they brought life to the school, and not only did this fire leave a burning pain in the hearts of the people in this community but it has left a burning pain in the children and the teachers and the faculty of this school. we were -- we will support these schools in every way possible in the coming months, educators, students, staff, all of them, and all of them realize they are going through a traumatic moment, and we want to be here for them. it is clear that these families and the entire community is receiving support from across the country. just a few moments ago i received a call from president biden and he has made it clear that whatever we need, the white house is going to be there for us. he has just sent a very strong message that this is on the radar of the entire globe with what has happened here. the consul general of the drub sick here with us, and his team, this is a global tragedy because of the bronx and new york city is representative of the ethnicities and cultures across the globe, so everyone is feeling the pain of what we are experiencing, but i would tell you this, and i say it over and over again. we're going to get through this moment. we're going to get through this moment, and we're going to get through it together, and this tragedy is not going to define us. it is going to show our resiliency as we hope the families through this. in the middle of such pain, we have witnessed such a high level of heroism. from the hospital staff to doctors to nurses, the administrators who are already going through crises with the pandemic but also with this high level of heroism with the first responders, the ems and firefighters. i would say this over and over again, watching them go in the building and even without having a full air tank still pushing through the dark smashing and rescuing families in this building. our firefighters, our first responders really showed why it is imperative to give them the support that they need, and i want to thank commissioner nigro for just really leading this charge yesterday, being out here throughout the day, leading his men and women to do what was needed to save as many families as possible. and to every grieving family, 8.8 million new yorkers see you as their family members and we are here together to push through this. and so some clear messages that we want to send. one, for those who want to help, please do not drop donations off to fire stations or ems stations. let them do their jobs. there are real outlets. our elected officials are here, drop them at the offices and other facilities that we will put in place if you want to do so. if you want to help financially we have the mayor's fund to advance new york. every dollar raised will go directly to the family members that are involved, so this way we can help families in a real way. and if we take message from this, commissioner nigro has mentioned several times, close the door. close the door. that was embedded in my head as a child watching the commercials over and over again. we're going to double down on that message. my conversation with the chancellor this morning. we're going to send out communications to all of our schools and state that we want our chirp to receive the same level of reenforcement. muscle memory is everything, and if we can drill that in, we can save lives by closing the doors, not only in the city but across the entire globe. this painful moment can turn into a purposeful moment as we send a right message of something simple as closing the door, and we want to really thank all the community's leaders that are here in this community, a large member -- >> the mayor of new york city, just his at the time day on the job, eric adams facing a major early challenge, a devastating fire in the broempingt the mayor revised the death toll. he says the medical is now changing the numbers, 17 killed in that horrific fire, nine adults and eight children. cnn's brynn gingras is there on the scene. an important update from the mayor. the change in numbers is important and the mayor consistently saying the test, is and president biden called him as well, for the community to prove that it will stand with those families. >> reporter: yeah, that's right. this is something that we're hearing echoed as well in the only now from the president but from the governor of new york saying she's going to put a line in the budget for these families. also, of course, the city is giving their services. the red cross, too, is helping house a number of these families and obviously talking to some of the victims who came back to the scene today, to come back and put in the feeling of surviving this or losing a loved one. they are banding together. they are deciding like they are having family meetings as one person told me to just figure out how to rely on each other of they have been so grateful. one quick thing though. you heard the mayor say let's make this painful moment a purposeful one, to close the door. that's something that they want to spread the where had on in the only in the communities but in the schools as well to make it a muscle memory to help save lives. >> appreciate the live report from a horrific scene in the bronx. thank you so much. ahead for us, another big test of the united states. voting rights dominating his push to -- announcer: tired of pain radiating down your leg and lower back? get relief finally, with magnilife® leg and back pain relief. and get living. available at your local retailer. a giant test for president biden this woke as he visits georgia with the goal of reinvigorating the democratic push for voting rights. derick richmond frames it this week, double down, kicking it into another gear. going right not belly of beast or ground zero for voter subversion and suppression. two democratic voting bills are stalled in the senate. if republicans continue to block them, they will try to change the senate rules, but at receipt of two democrats oppose such a change, and there's enormous pressure on president biden to somehow resolve the democratic divide. the panel is with me. i'm going to start with you. the point on the president is self civil rights activists down in georgia said, mr. president, please don't come unless you have a deal. a civil rights leader and advocates. we reject anything that does not include an announcement of the finalized voting rights bill. the president doesn't have such a plan. >> this appears to be yet another speech. the president gave a speech in june on voting rights and gave a speech as well in july on voting rights and nothing has changed in terms of what joe manchin or kyrstin sinema would do in terms of a carveout in terms of the filibuster so this could be deja vu all over again for president. he's essentially bringing a speech to what is a knife fight, and you've seen this all across the country in states like texas, states like georgia where republicans have been very successful in rewriting the voting rules in their states to make it more difficult to vote, and also make it where the state can actually overturn the will of the people and wrest control of the counting from different countishes so, you know, this is going to be a speech that's going to be much watched but i think it's going to leave a lot of civil rights advocates as well as progressives very disheartened about voting rights in this country. >> this effort and the president getting help yesterday in the "new york times." at the top of the show i called it the most popular democrat, and that's michelle obama. a full page ad fighting for our vote. if you look at the specifics there, recruit and train volunteers throughout 2022 and register a million new voters. they do organize 100,000 americans to lobby congress toy seepgsly push for it but recruit lawyers. commit to educate voters. that last part, commit to educate voters on how to vote safely in their state. part of it is a push for legislation but if we fail let's make sure we educate democrats about the changes in their states. >> well, right, because there is a sense of reality that -- that it is unlikely that they are going to be able to have a legislative change in the near future because of the resistance to changing the filibuster and because there aren't enough democrats to break that filibuster, so this is kind of the next best thing, but there has been some dissatisfaction before this saying the biden administration up until this point hasn't pushed hard enough or taken seriously as they have build back better or even the infrastructure bill that did pass both houses of congress, so the fact that they are kicking it into gear now i think is giving some hope, but there is an acknowledge president. you saw that from the former first lady, that is this is going to be an uphill claim and they will have to figure out other ways to make progress. >> chuck schumer has to bring this to the floor and find ways to make change because the democrats demand it and many leaders think there's not been enough so far. what happens if manchin and sinema and a couple others don't change their-mile-per-hour, is there a plan "b" or "c" or "d" and some republicans open to let's fix the electoral college act. is that a possibility? >> first of all, these votes are going to fail. there are not the votes right now to pass the reforms without republicans and not the votes among democrats to change the rules so it is going to fail. i think once that happens we could potentially see movement on a much more modest reform, the elect call count act which outlines the process by which the state uses to certify the electoral college vote. i think you're seeing republicans warm up to that because they are worried about the change in the filibuster. once they see there is no other options we could potentially see them come together on something more modest like that. >> watch how that plays out. everybody stand out. two very different republican senators make the same weekend decision 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(birds chirping) ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ (phone beep) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (music quieter) ♪ (phone clicks) ♪ ♪ subway's eat fresh refresh™ has so many new footlongs. refresh! here's how they line up. we got the new chicken & bacon ranch, new baja steak & jack, and the new baja chicken & bacon, aka “the smokeshow”" save big. order through the app. ready to turn your dreams into plans and your actions into achievements? explore over 75 programs and four-week classes at national university. your future starts today at nu.edu. two senior senate republicans announced over the weekend they will run for re-election this year. one of the races in battleground wisconsin could loom large in the mid-term fight for senate control. the incumbent there, ron johnson, a trump ally and frequent peddler of conspiracy said he wanted to retired and decided the stakes are too high. >> and i think this country is in trouble. i think democrats in power in washington have put us on a very dangerous path and i'm in a position to help improve things. we need the truth and, unfortunately, the truth is being censored today at an alarming very disconcerting rate, and so i -- i'm just one of those truth-tellers >> i'll come back to that in a minute. senator john thune is the other republican ending the 2022 suspense. thooup is the number two in the republican leadership and his announcement included this. salk deserves a strong senator who can deliver and i'm the senator to get that done. ron johnson says he's a truth-teller. not exactly. >> a conspiracy theorist, proponent of the big lie and believes all kinds of crazy things about covid and the vaccine but he's a true trumper. i mean, when i saw this announcement that he was going to run for re-election, no real surprise there even though he said he wouldn't run. it makes sense. makes sense in the only for 2022, also for 2024. i mean, is he someone who sees himself when he looks in the mirror as someone who could run for president, particularly if donald trump doesn't run in 2024. there are all sorts of people, people like ron desantis and greg abbott who are trying to fill that void should there be one if trump doesn't want to run in 2024 so running in 2020 makes sense to set him up and possibly for 2024. >> if you look at the landscape here, the cook political report does it this way. 34 seats up, one leans dem. the wisconsin sit is a tossup and thune seat solid republicans but even if you're mitch mcconnell, even though ron johnson is a tossup state you don't like uncertainty so you hike your incumbents saying i'll go again. >> exactly. the landscape is looking better and better for republicans. mitch mcconnell and others in the party worked really hard to get john thune and ron johnson to run again because typically you would rather have an incumbent than an open seat but in the case of ron johnson democrats actually, a rare instance where they potentially wanted the incumbent to run again because of all the things he's done with the big lie and covid misinformation. they think they can really beat him in this state. a huge battleground that went for trump in 2016 and went for biden in 2020. a very tough race in wisconsin. >> john thune actually thought about retiring tells you a lot about that he could be the heir to mitch mcconnell. the number two right now and has had to deal with months of this from the former president. mitch's boy, donald trump calls him, among other things. that was part of it. he was thinking about should i just get away from this, but he decided to give another run. >> yeah. not just mitch mcconnell played a very big role in keeping john thune just where he is not only because of his strength in the conference but also as stated it's a lot easier to have an incumbent in there, but at the same time while trump has blustered a lot about john thune, it doesn't seem like anyone has stepped up that could really give him a real challenge, so this might be one of those cases where trump talked a good game but at the end of the day john thune has a pretty good chance of staying right where he is. >> and mitch mcconnell has learned from recent elections, sometimes his friends disappeared, he's happy to keep john thune on hand. appreciate everybody coming in. listen to our podcast. don't forgot that. download "inside politics" wherever you get your podcasts. busy news day. stick with us. erica hill picks up right now. good afternoon. i'm erica hill in for ana cabrera. the loss of america's best-known tv dads is in shock. actor and comedian bob saget was found unresponsive in his hotel room. he was just 65. best known as danny tanner on "full house" where he gave out advice for eight seasons and some that we could use today. >> talking about it, that's what helps me. talking about

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