News, the president is speaking out about trumps behavior, whether he should get Intelligence Briefings, whether he would vote to impeach if he were still in the senate. I ran like hell to defeat him because i thought he was unfit to be president. I watched what everybody else watched, what happened when that crew invaded the United States congress. But im not in the senate now, i will let the senate make that decision. Should former President Trump still receive Intelligence Briefings . I think not. Why not . Because of his erratic related to the insurrection. What is your worst fear if he continues to get these Intelligence Briefings . I would rather not speculate out loud. I just think that there is no need for him to have that Intelligence Briefing. What value is giving him an Intelligence Briefing . What impact does he have at all other than the fact he might slip and Say Something . Tonight the latest reporting from the New York Times says trumps defense lawyers, bruce castor and david schoen, have, quote, worked feverishly on friday to get up to speed on the case and prepare for the trial. It adds that they had yet to learn anything about how the trial would operate, including its schedule, how much time the defense would have to present its arguments and the rules for entering evidence. Im in shock were starting tuesday and we have no agreement for how any resolutions will be put forward, mr. Schoen said in a telephone interview. We have no rules, no agenda, no time frame. There is no possible way this is consistent with due process. Politico reports that trump allies are concerned about the Public Relations blowback from the trial as democrats layout the events of january 6th methodically. Quote, some of his most ardent supporters fear the trial could further damage his reputation. The democrats have a very emotional and compelling case, said former white house chief strategist steve bannon. Theyre going to try to convict him in the eyes of the American People and smear him forever, though, of course, that ship may have already sailed. As all of this unfolds, joe biden today took his first flight as president on air force one. In this case the smaller version, the 757 version of the aircraft for the short flight over to delaware. The president is refusing to back down amid opposition from republicans who want to shrink his nearly 2 trillion relief bill. He said his strongest message yet that he is willing to move forward on his Economic Relief plan without republican support. Both the senate and house have signed off on an initial version of a budget plan that would begin turning bidens proposal into real legislation. Speaker pelosi and House Democrats met with biden today. She says she wants the house to pass its version of bidens plan within a couple of weeks. The economy remains anemic after nearly a year of this pandemic, just 49,000 jobs were added to our economy in january. Were still down 10 million give or take, something biden took note of today. It is very clear our economy is still in trouble and im going to act fast. I would like to be i would like to be doing it with the support of republicans. If i have to choose between getting help right now to americans who are hurting so badly and getting drive bogged down in a lengthy negotiation or compromising on a bill thats up to the crisis, thats an easy choice. What republicans have proposed is either to do nothing or not enough. The president said today he wont budge on the idea of 1,400 stimulus checks, but tonight he signalled his proposal to raise the minimum wage to 15 may not, in fact, be part of the final bill. I am prepared as president of the United States on a separate negotiation on minimum wage. But that may not be in your American Rescue plan . No, i put it in but i dont think it is going to survive. Meanwhile, the administration is stepping up its effort to get more americans vaccinated. Today Yankee Stadium officially opened as a mass vaccination site in new york. The president has signed off on a series of initiatives to use the Defense Production Act while Invoking Fema and the u. S. Military in stepping up vaccinations. Pentagon sending over 1,000 troops to various sites across the country. Today the cdc director said the u. S. Is beginning to see a decrease in cases since the postchristmas peak on january 8th, even though numbers remain dangerously high. We now know the full toll of this pandemic, but you may recall what Journalist Bob Woodward wrote, that there were early signs back in 2020 when Trumps National security adviser told the president way back on january 28th, over a year ago now, quote, this will be the biggest National Security threat you face in your presidency. This is going to be the roughest thing you face. Well, meanwhile this is what the public heard. Were working very strongly with china on the coronavirus thats a new thing that a lot of people are talking about. We only have five people, hopefully everything is going to be great. I want to emphasize that the risk to the American Public currently is low. You have an experienced, first class, the worlds best Public Health care system infrastructure and professionals looking out for you. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat. And we all saw how that went. On february 5th, 2020, one year ago today, democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut sent this out on social media expressing his concerns. Quote, just left the Administration Briefing on coronavirus. Bottom line, they arent taking this seriously enough. Notably, no request for any emergency funding, which is a big mistake. On february 7th, trump revealed to bob woodward that he knew just how lethal this virus was. It goes through air, bob. Thats always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you dont have to touch things, right . But the air, you just breathe the air and thats how its passed. It is also more deadly than your you know, your even your strenuous flus. This is deadly stuff. With that lets bring in our leadoff guests on this friday night. A familiar face to us around here, nbc news veteran alexandra jaffe. She is these days a political reporter for the associated press. Jason johnson, campaign veteran and journalist, contributor and professor of politics at morgan state university. Dr. Patel, clinical physician, former senior policy aid during the ohm administration. She is now a nonresident fellow over at brookings and is among our medical contributors. Good evening and welcome to you all. A special welcome to you, alexandra. I would like to begin with you. As we all know, impeachment could not come at a busier time for this brandnew administration, and here comes the clicheriddled question to you about whether or not the Biden White House can walk and chew gum at the same time. Absolutely. It is the question theyve received for the past, you know, month, even before biden came into the white house, and they have repeatedly insisted that they can. Theres every indication that they can. Biden has a packed week next week. He is heading to the nih on thursday, the Defense Department to meet with the secretary of defense on tuesday, and a Vaccination Center on monday. While thats happening, his legislative agenda is moving forward on capitol hill even as half of the day will be spent on this Impeachment Trial. The house is working on markups of the covid19 bill. Senators are already talking about amendments to that bill. So despite the fact that much of the nation will be focused on impeachment and, of course, you know, the news cycle is going to be dominated by impeachment, joe biden and democrats on capitol hill are working to move his agenda forward. Jason johnson, i have one for you. One of the president s Impeachment Lawyers was on fox news tonight and was asked about the prospect of all these videos of rioters, insurrection, looting, the taking of our capitol, how they could possibly counter that in defending the president. Ill play for you his answer. Well talk about it on the other side. Theres an awful lot of tape of cities burning and courthouses being attacked and federal agents being assaulted by rioters in the street, cheered on by democrats throughout the country and many of them in washington using really the most inflammatory rhetoric thats possible to use, and certainly there would be no suggestion that they did anything to incite any of the actions, that certainly there wasnt any anyhow. But here when you have the president of the United States give a speech and says you should peacefully make your thinking known to the people in congress, hes All Of A Sudden a villain. So you better be careful what you wish for. So, jason, what do you make of that legal audio visual strategy . The second question, do you have any indication the outcome this time will be different from last . Well, i will get to the second question first, brian. No, the outcome is not going to be any different. Republicans will not vote to impeach donald trump again. They will give a bunch of speeches. They will say theyre disappointed. They will say theyre unhappy and they wont vote to impeach him. But i have to say on the scale of My Cousin Vinnie to Jackie Childs with really bad lawyering, it makes sense five people already dropped out of trumps Legal Defense team. Here is the thing. The argument that you can distract the public by saying that protests last year about the murder of george floyd are somehow similar to a president of the United States who spent twoandahalf months lying about an election and then gining up a crowd to attack the capitol, a crowd that consistently said they wanted to hang mike pence, a crowd where we have video of people saying, we are doing this for donald trump, people picking up phones saying lets call trump and tell him were here, i dont remember anybody protesting last summer saying, were doing this for nancy pelosi. I dont remember anybody protesting about Breonna Taylors death and saying we are doing it for chuck schumer. If the argument is to somehow claim democrats have done the same thing donald trump did, thats going to fall upon deaf ears. Maybe it will satisfy some of the right wing maga folks but they werent going to change their minds anyway. Theres no chance that anybodys mind is going to be changed to defend donald trump based on the defense his lawyer was laying out tonight. Doctor, please take us into the territory of what is still an uncontrolled pandemic officially. I read today that if this current pace of vaccination continues, it will take us seven years to get where we want to get. But if i asked you to give us a positive report on the effort to stop the spread, could you . Yeah, brian, actually there are glimmers of hope. You are right, we do need to accelerate vaccinations, but to give some context, yesterday we did about ten times as many vaccinations in a 24hour period as there were coronavirus cases. So there still are too many new cases of coronavirus, but theyre coming down as you mentioned. And then we are Getting Better and better news from manufacturers. Johnson johnson filed for an emergency authorization yesterday. It looks very likely that they will receive fda authorization in the next week or so, and that will give us, brian, an incredible number of onedose shots that are highly effective and can be an incredible kind of tailwind for this vaccination. And then on the heels of that we are looking at probably getting even more promising data from novavax and other manufacturers behind that. So youre correct. On the current path it would take us a long time, but were about to see through new manufacturing as well as what the president is invoking from the Defense Production Act some real ability to get to that precious Herd Immunity sooner than we think. Alexandra, i know in your job you get to write the first draft of history, especially at the associated press. I also know you know recent political history, so thats how ill load up this question. Whats the downside of President Biden getting this Relief Package with not a single republican vote . It has been done. Well, the risk is that he poisoned the well for future legislative negotiations with republicans, which weve already heard republicans warn, you know, you push this through without any bipartisan support, then the rest of your agenda may be dead on arrival. Biden has laid out a pretty ambitious agenda after this covid aid package. We are likely to go into an infrastructure package. He wants to get work done on climate change, on health care. And so it makes things that much tougher if republicans say, you know what . You werent negotiating in good faith from the start. It also raises some questions about his brand. Joe biden has built a political band over decades as a deal maker and a person who genuinely believes in bipartisanship. Thats how he came to be known as Vice President , thats how he was known during his time in the senate, and thats how he ran his campaign. Even on Inauguration Day he promised to unify the country and to work across the aisle. So i think some voters that were won over by that pitch may be wondering if, you know, this is the president that they hoped he would be and maybe wonder if he has broken some of those promises. There could be political ramifications if he pushes things through unilaterally. That said, it is worth noting this package has widespread support. We have seen polls showing americans overwhelmingly support it. So the optics, he is pushing forward a plan that americans support and clearly need. It is pretty positive for him at this point and it may insulate him from any political fallout. Jason, you are going to think you are the lucky recipient of the video daily double but i have another one for you. This is mtg from today. Well discuss on the other side. Im fine with being kicked off of my committees because it would be a waste of my time. Now i have a lot of free time on my hands, which means i can talk to a whole lot more people all over this country, and i can talk to more people and make connections and build a huge amount of support. Im going to be holding the Republican Party accountable and pushing them to the right. So, jason, for bringing home the bacon to her congressional district, when you take away Committee Assignments there goes the bacon. So not so much on running for the folks back home, but fundraising, yes. Building her own personal stardom, yes. Do you think Kevin Mccarthy views this as a problem or kind of a secret asset . You know, mccarthy probably thinks it is a secret asset but we have to look at the history of this. The history of this is sarah palin. It becomes a selfaggrandizing thing for the individual that doesnt really manifest in improved votes. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not going to flip anybodys seat in 2022. Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to raise a lot of money for herself, but whether or not she becomes something beneficial to the Republican Party, i dont think thats going to happen. Look, her antisemitic, her racist comments, the fact she cant bring anything home to her constituency, the fact she was threatening cori bush, the fact she refused to apologize for anything she did, the fact she mainstreamed qanon, which is basically a White Nationalist death cult, none of those things will be beneficial. If the republicans had even a lick of common sense, what they would be thinking about is for all of the years that they tried to demonize nancy pelosi and all the years they tried to demonize aoc, ilhan omar and the squad and Everything Else like that, thats what is going to happen to them with marjorie Taylor Greene. If they let her go running around the country with free time, idle time is of the devil. Everything she touches she will ineffect. Not just with covid because she wont wear a mask, but she is going to infect them with the qanon stink. But mccarthy cant control them, so he is going to let her run wild. Doctor, lets talk about not wearing masks. The state of iowa back to your bailey wick, is ready to go back to the old days, lifting restrictions, lifting public occupancy rules, lifting mask requirements, gathering limits as the Des Moines Register puts it today. We are oing to sound like a scold if we say isnt that the fastest way to fill up Emergency Rooms and perhaps force another lockdown . Yeah, brian, i mean this is now so clearly been demonstrated countless times from the Republican Convention to rallies to Grocery Stor