can you give us a status update on where things stand this morning with this crisis? >> well, this morning i understand we have about 3 million people without power around the state of texas. we were at 5 million people at one point, i think. here in my city in austin about a third of the austin energy customers are without power. we're just not getting enough power from the state, from the grid. i'm in a community right now that is not only cold, but it is also scared and frustrated and confused and angry and i share in that. the grid has failed us here. we need better answers from the state as to when the power generation is going to come back on. what i'm hearing is that it could be that that doesn't happen until things thaw here and that could be another two or three days. >> which i think to many people they feel like that is an unacceptable timeline. i'm going to get to in a second, mr. mayor, the issues of how this happened, but continuing with what's happening right now, people are taking desperate measures. we've seen reports in texas of people getting in their cars, right, to try to stay warm, bringing grills from outside in, creating issues with carbon monoxide, with deaths and injuries from that. what do you have to say to people in a crisis like this who are just trying to survive, they're trying to stay warm, trying to keep their kids warm. >> yeah, there are people in the state making horrible life and death decisions. we can't have people taking grills and that kind of stuff or using their ovens for heat. here locally we're having people call in, we have warming stations and shelters that we're opening up in the city, we're taking in people. we have a lot of people in the community that are volunteering to help to drive people from where they are without power into a safer place, but it's hard because with this weather the roads are real difficult in our city, but it is horrific that people are forced to make that choice. >> there are also people, you know, who are wondering in cities in texas and around austin who are under water boil mandates who are thinking should i believe filling up my bathtub in anticipation for more of those coming in, at the same time a lot of people in your city are without access to water. are we in that kind of a situation in texas? do people in your city need to be filling their bath tubs just in case? >> well, not at this point in austin. the last word that we've gotten is that we have enough power in order to be able to keep the water processing continuing and i hope that we're able to sustain that. the only party that's out, there's some rural municipal utility districts, but that hasn't happened in the city yet, but because we're sending power to those places to maintain water, that means we have more and more residences that are not coming back on line. >> so let's talk about the grid because i think that giving some context to folks here is important. texas, of course, is the only state with its own independent supply basically, its own grid. right now there is this one/two punch. major demand during this deep freeze and the power plants that didn't produce power when people needed it most. josh lederman writes wind and solar are fairly small slices of the state's energy mix and they played a minimal role in this power shortage according to utility officials. it was the state's largest grid that said it was traditional sources that drove the failure, coal, nuclear, natural gas. that's the context here. a couple of questions for you. how did this happen, how did the texas grid fail so badly and what can you as the mayor of one of the key cities in the state do about it? >> well, it failed because we have a system that wasn't hardened and ready for sustained weather at 18 degrees below zero, but we need to start taking a look at extreme weather situations. it's not as unusual as it used to be. this is the third time this has happened in the last -- every ten years it seems to be happening now so we have to do that, but texas worked to hard to come up with a deregulated utility system where the focus was on just providing power at the lowest possible price. i think there's been a disincentive to make the investments that are necessary around the state for generation in order to be able to provide at times like this. the suggestions we're hearing that this is related to renewable energies are just not true as you point out. >> but it's the governor who is talking about it. i mean, one of the things you saw on fox news was governor abbott seeming to blame green energy at least in part for what happened. i want to play you a little bit of that. >> this shows how the green new deal would be a deadly deal for the united states of america. texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy such as natural gas and oil and nuclear as well as solar and wind. our wind and our solar got shut down and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid. >> is this a moment in texas when leaders in that state and frankly nationwide should take politics out of this situation? do you believe that what you're hearing from the governor is useful and how do you work with him on this? >> i don't think it's useful at all and i was real surprised to see that. we've lost 30 of the megawatts power, only 4 of that are renewable energy. to interject that measure of politics when the focus should be on turning back on the power, we need plans to be operating, to be able to get power back. we're doing everything we can here locally to conserve as much power as we can. we have people that have been out of power for over 50 hours now, but to have conversations where the suggestion is that this is due to choices about renewable energy is just not -- it's not helpful and it is also not true. >> mayor steve adler of austin, texas. mr. mayor, thank you very much for being on with us. i know a lot of folks around the country are thinking of your people there in austin and around texas today. thank you. i want to go to nbc's morgan chesky who is posted up now in texas. morgan, talk us through what you're seeing on the ground. i know you know texas very well. nobody expected to see this and nobody expected to see it for four straight days like this. >> reporter: yeah, you're absolutely right, hallie. texans are used to unpredictable weather but typically it moves in and 24 to 36 hours later it moves out. what makes this unprecedented is the sustained level of cold that we are seeing. we are now in our fourth straight day of subfreezing temperatures here and that's led to a lot of scenarios that people couldn't have even conceived as recently a week ago. we have seen ponds freeze over, streams that you can walk on and as a result of that unprecedented drain on the power supply here those outages that officials will call rolling outages, but what i personally have endured to mean maybe 15 minutes of power followed by 24 hours without. so an incredibly frustrating scene playing out in realtime in texas. we know at last check 3 million households still without power. we are still below freezing. in north texas in dallas where i am right now we may not rise above freezing until friday and that's why we are definitely not out of the woods just yet. a fact you can hear firsthand with some of the residents in the southern part of the city. i had a chance to speak to earlier. take a listen to what they had to say. >> how much power have you had in the last three days? >> okay. so that's probably total of maybe four hours. >> four hours in three days? >> four hours in three days. >> we're huddled under all the blankets that we have, it's 45 in our house. >> she hasn't been able to eat regularly and take her medications. >> and that gentleman you just heard from, steve rivera, he had to move his wife from their home, roll her across the street in her wheelchair through the snow to a neighbor's home because they were the only ones they knew with a fireplace that they were able to keep somewhat warm with. the thermostat inside his house, hallie, when he left read 38 degrees. he's one household out of about 3 million without power. >> it is dire straits for people in texas. morgan, thank you for being on top of this. i know you're living it, reporting it, we appreciate all that you're doing for us. thank you. vice president harris in an nbc news exclusive interview is saying that the biden administration will do all they can to help texans. in that first live network interview since taking office right here on the "today" show this morning she's also saying something else, that schools need to reopen as quickly and safely as possible and that starts with making sure teachers are vaccinated. watch. >> teachers should be a priority along with other front-line workers and we're going to make them a priority. i believe that 22 states, i believe, have prioritized teachers in terms of vegass. >> but they're not vaccinated, is it safe for them? >> well, i think that we have to decide if we can put in place safe measures. this is why it's so important we pass the american rescue plan. >> nbc's kristen welker is at the white house, i'm also joined which errin haines, an msnbc contributor who interviewed the vice president last week in her first print interview since leaving office. kristen, let me start with you here. there is some news out of this. the vice president stressing the need to prioritize teachers in getting vaccinated, saying that the biden administration believes that's the priority although the cdc has not issued other guidelines as it relates to teacher vaccinations. she also said that she believed that had to happen as a condition for reopening schools. >> that's right. and, look, she was pressed over and over again, hallie, by savannah about whether or not the cdc should have been more specific as it relates to teachers. and as it relates to reopening schools more broadly, for example, they essentially say that states can reopen or schools can reopen in states where it's tied to the rate of infection in communities. so under that metric as savannah pointed out as many as 90% of schools might not be able to reopen. the subtext to some of the exchanges was some frustration on the part of the vice president. i followed up with some top officials here to ask if the administration is frustrated that there aren't clearer guidelines coming from the cdc about how to reopen schools, and the response, hallie, is essentially, look, they are trying to follow the science and the science is not always black and white and it's about finding what is safe and what is expedient. but going back to that bottom line that it is the goal of the administration and of president biden to reopen a majority of schools within the first 100 days. as president biden said overnight, five days a week, not one day as was stated last week. now, the president was pressed on all of this, including when can people who want a vaccine get a vaccine? that timeline shifted as well. it was initially the spring, now the president, dr. anthony fauci, say it's the summer. take a listen. >> we came into office there was only 50 million doses that were available, we have now by the end of july we will have over 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single american. >> reporter: so, hallie, that is the new benchmark and, of course, one of the challenges is not only going to be the manufacturing and the distribution, but convincing people that it's safe to take the vaccine and that's what administration officials are going to be focused on in the coming week, hallie. >> kristen, thank you. errin, let me go to you now, vice president harris on that exclusive interview over on nbc pushed for approval of the biden covid plan by march 14th. that is the deadline that the administration wants to hit. we were told on this show yesterday by one of the lawmakers working on that bill they feel like it will go next week, be introduced next week. there are some on the left who say the white house isn't moving fast enough, pointing out on this day in 2009 was when then president obama signed the big economic stimulus bill then into law. how do you see the president and the vice president navigating this? >> well, hallie, they were not dealing with an impeachment trial in 2009, certainly there have been other things, other priorities that congress has had to deal with and you can believe it because what is time in the pandemic right now, president biden and vice president harris were sworn in literally a month ago today. so they are still very much trying to it seems like wrap their arms around the pandemic response, but you see them now on the other side of this impeachment trial really just flooding the zone and talking about the need to pass this pandemic relief package, which is something she conveyed to me with a tremendous sense of urgency in our interview at the 19th. what she said then was that she felt like she was still optimistic about the need for -- i mean, the prospect for bipartisan passage of that relief and that they needed to go big and needed to, you know, pass as much of that $1.9 trillion proposal that the biden/harris administration wants to see for an equitable response to this pandemic, but it is -- they are marking up that bill, you know, right now, that that's what lawmakers are doing and it will be interesting to see kind of what the final bill ends up looking like, but the american people you saw the frustration, so many parents asking questions last night of teachers of president biden and vice president harris saying today that, you know, she wanted to see teachers vaccinated, but also wanted to see schools reopen safely and as soon as possible and as many as possible. so, you know, i think the american people and, you know, those of us that are continuing to kind of ask these questions are holding this administration accountable because this is their pandemic now even though they have only been in office here for a month. >> you make the point there are so many teachers, so many parents who are specifically focused on this issue of reopening schools, of vaccinating teachers, of making sure that schools are safe but also getting kids back into school. i'm assuming you had a chance and might have heard some of the sound we played from vice president harris this morning over on the "today" show talking about that. it is the priority she says for her and for president biden to get teachers back in schools, yet there does seem to be this push/pull between what the white house is talking about and the recommendations from the cdc in some ways. >> that was absolutely some of the -- some of what you heard in that interview with savannah and why she was pressing vice president harris because, you know, the cdc guidelines to the point that kristen was making earlier under those guidelines 90% of schools across this country would not yet be ready to reopen under those guidelines and the cdc is saying that teachers being vaccinated is not necessarily a requirement for schools to safely reopen. vice president harris echoed the president's desire to have schools reopened and to look at, you know, how communities are faring as part of that equation, but also said, you know, she -- both she and president biden both big fans of teachers and talked about how they need to be considered to workers, how they need to be vaccinated as part of the formula for a safe reopening. >> errin haines, always good to have you on. thank you for joining us and for your time this morning. coming up, a new grenade in the gop civil war lobbed by former president trump and landing at the feet of mitch mcconnell. what our sources are saying about where the party goes from here after donald trump called the senate minority leader a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack. and later a state with one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the country, no you one of the top states for vaccinations. we're live with an exclusive inside look at how the state is doing it despite temperatures 25 degrees below zero. despite tem5 degrees below zero honey honey? 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but what have you been doing for the last two hours? delegating? oh, good one. move your xfinity services without breaking a sweat. now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today. now to the latest and most explosive break yet inside the gop in the post-trump era as donald trump rips up ronald reagan's 11th commandment you should not speak ill of fellow republicans. he is speaking ill of mitch mcconnell in a scathing statement saying mcconnell cannot win and neither can republicans if they stick with him. the ones political odd couple now turned republican rivals. in the gop civil war a new grenade lobbed by the former president. >> president trump is the most consequential republican in the party. if mitch mcconnell doesn't understand that he's missing a lot. >> that's after donald trump blasted senate minority leader mitch mcconnell as a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack who doesn't have what it takes, accusing democrats of playing mcconnell like a fiddle and suggesting republicans will not win again if they stay with him. the lengthy eight-paragraph statement the most significant sign yet of the republican party's split in the post-trump era after an impeachment trial in which mcconnell voted to acquit the former president but still blamed him for the siege on the capitol. >> january 6th was a disgrace. american citizens attacked their own government. president trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen. didn't get away with anything yet. >> mcconnell following up with an op-ed in the "wall street journal" attacking donald trump's unhinged falsehoods and telling the paper his own priority is getting candidates who can actually win in november, which may or may not involve trying to affect the outcome of the primaries, but the former president says he may get involved in those primaries, too, on the opposite side and back rivals who espouse making america great again. the battle lines pitting two political peculiar opposites against each other, donald trump impulsive and brash, mitch mcconnell disciplined, intensely private. their relationship strained at the start. >> i'm very disappointed in mitch. >> but eventually morphing into public displays of unity. >> we've been friends and acquaintances for a long time. >> especially after mcconnell helped reshape the judiciary by working to confirm more than 200 federal judges during the trump administration including three supreme court justices. >> i know tough people. he's tough. he's kentucky tough. >> their tension now highlighting the core question in this gop split, should the republican party separate from donald trump or embrace him? let me bring in nbc's leigh ann caldwell from capitol hill. it does seem like it is still the party of donald trump. look at the acquittal from the impeachment trial over the weekend, the local backlash to the senators who did on the republican side vote to convict, you've got recent polling a bunch of it showing that gop voters largely still favor donald trump and even senator mcconnell in that new interview, leigh ann, is saying he thinks trump could potentially still be a constructive part of the political process ahead of 2022. what are you hearing from your sources behind the scenes on where this goes? >> reporter: so, hallie, the impeachment trial and the former president's acquittal many republicans were hoping that that was going to end the drama starring donald trump, but we all know the former president and he has other ideas. he likes to be the center of attention and he made it very clear that he plans to be that, leading into the 2022 midterm elections, which is why this has real life consequences in the republican party. what this division is doing. and it's forcing some republicans instead of unifying to take sides on what the future of the party looks like. let's listen to what senator lindsey graham a trump ally said on fox news last night. >> to my republican colleagues in the senate, let's try to work together, realize that without president trump we're never going to get back in the majority and to president trump, you're going to have to make some changes. >> reporter: i don't think that the former president is going to change much, that's wishful thinking from senator graham. while this gop civil war is happening, there's also a biden administration -- or biden administration agenda that is simultaneously happening as well. that's what most republicans would rather be focusing on, opposition to the biden agenda where policy can unify republicans, including this covid relief bill that republicans say is too big, too expensive and not targeted enough. but the former president continues to pledge to want loyalty in the upcoming midterm elections and from the republicans instead of unity which is what the minority leader mcconnell is calling for. >> leigh ann caldwell, thank you. speaking of the biden administration and the way that they have been handling all things related to donald trump, we're going to tell you what vice president kamala harris in that exclusive interview had to say about potentially prosecuting the former president. y about potentially prosecuting the former president. >> do you think that president trump should be criminally charged? and a reality check on the president's july goal for all americans to have access to a vaccine. a february of the fda vaccine adviser board is joining us live after the break. e adviser board is joining us live after the break. 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>> well, i wouldn't plan for anything just yet. i mean, let's see how this goes. there are certainly a lot of good signs. i mean, you have on your site that, say, roughly 28 million people have been infected that's just the number of people that have been tested and found sob infected. if you do antibody surveillance studies it's three to four times that, probably at least 80 million people in this country exposed to the virus who have been protected at some level. that's 25% of the population. that's good and i think that may be one of the reasons we're seeing this decrease in hospitalizations and cases and deaths. if we can get this vaccine out there, i think the hardest part right now is mass production. i think we're getting better at distributing and administering it as your segment just showed, but i think we will have to mass produce this vaccine which is not easy. as the old saying goes the hardest part of making vaccines is making vaccines. these are biology calls, they are not easy to make and characterize. i do think we're getting there. i am optimistic by the summer everybody who wants a vaccine will be able to get one. >> when you talk about the production piece of it sounded like dr. fauci was already factoring in expected doses from johnson & johnson's vaccine. is there anything that could happen to speed things up specifically on that end, on that production end at this point? >> it's not easy to speed things up on the production end. these aren't like men's shirts. >> right. >> you can't just take the -- >> get some more sewing machines in there. right. >> it's hard to do this. you should go to a bio processing plant sometime and take a look at what happens and how the fda basically has to validate every aspect of that procedure because the worst thing that could happen is you would make a batch of vaccine that would be less than safe, as safe as these vaccines are. that's what keeps me up at night. what's that's what keeps me up at night. you don't want to scare people about this vaccine because vaccines are our only way out of this pandemic. you want to make sure that things are done right. do it efficiently, do it as quickly as possible, but don't in any sense cut back on the safety systems that are put in place to make sure that everybody batch of the vaccine is the same. >> so speaking of that, the j & j vaccine comes before the fda advisory committee that you are on next week. can you give us inside into questions you're planning to ask? do you think this is fairly straightforward, the hearing we are going to see next week? >> we are specifically told not to comment on the data that we are given to look at before we have this meeting for obvious reasons. i guess they ask that because they don't want anything to affect the markets. >> i just mean nor broadly for you, yes. >> no, i think, you know, they are certainly just looking at the press release data that we all look at this is a single-dose vaccine that's refrigerator stable for months which is going to be advantageous, especially for places like the ones you just showed in rural areas that are generally underserved that don't have a retail pharmacy nearby. i think there are -- having one dose is an advantage. again, we will see what the data look like and so will you because you will be able to look at all the data we look at, it's an open meeting, a completely transparent process. >> as part of our plan your vaccine push on msnbc we're taking in questions from people at home who are sending them in, stuff that they want to know. i want to ask you one of the questions that came on twitter from a user. they ask, can we more realistically presume that coronaviruses will always be with us, different variant strains, but never completely eradicated, and that we'll keep needing booster shots every year or two to keep the death rate lower? what's your sense of that right now, dr. offit. >> certainly there are four straps of human coronavirus that have been with us since they were first identified in the 1960s no doubt they were around before that. human coronaviruses account for 15% to 20% of the respiratory infections we see coming to our household every winter. it's fair to say that this one isn't going to go away. the goal is when do we get to the point where we have so few hospitalizations and deaths we're comfortable living the life that we used to live and that will happen. i really do thing as president biden said that by the end of this year we are going to be able to live the life we lived before this and it's because of vaccines. vaccines will be the hero of this story. >> dr. paul offit, with he so appreciate your time. we always love having you on the show. we'll see you next week. remember our interactive and internal liesed state by state guide has everything that you need to help you figure out when and where to get your covid vaccine. we've got a qr code up on the screen, we just put it away, we will bring it back up, you will see it throughout the day on msnbc. all you have to do is go, put your phone up there, take a picture t takes you right to the site. get customizable alerts to let you know when you're eligible to get the shot in your state. it's a really great resource, a lot of us here at msnbc are using it ourselves personally. take a peek. a quick update from the white house here in washington. president biden has just arrived at georgetown university where he will be receiving his ashes for ash wednesday today. the president will meet with labor leaders later this afternoon on the american rescue plan. we will keep you posted on his movements throughout the day. when we come back, what former president trump is now threatening to do to republicans who are not loyal to him. but first, take a look at this, the trump era in atlantic city also over now, ending this morning with 3,000 sticks of dynamite. trump plaza hotel and skas know demolished this morning. huge cloud of dust, a lot of cheers. tickets to see the demolition of the hotel formerly owned by the 45th president went for as high as $575. the 34-story building was once one of the big gaming destinations in atlantic city. destinations in atlantic city. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching ...the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant™ with tremfya®, adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ...can uncover clearer skin and improve symptoms at 16 weeks. tremfya® is also approved for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tremfya®. emerge tremfyant™ janssen can help you explore cost support options. good morning! this is where everything started. the four way is engulfed in history. you're sitting in the place where giants ate. the four way is the heart and soul of the community. ♪ >> man: what's my safelite story? my truck...is my livelihood. so when my windshield cracked... the experts at safelite autoglass came right to me... with service i could trust. right, girl? >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ we are nearing a failed state in texas and it has nothing to do with god or natural disasters, it has everything to do with the leadership and those in positions of public trust who have failed us. that of course was former texas congressman beto o'rourke on who he thinks is to claim for what is happening for the crisis in texas. i want to take you back there with our reporter from affiliation kxas allen na quillen. can you give us an update from the situation on the ground where you are? >> reporter: hi, yeah. hallie, i was born and raised in texas and i have never seen anything like it before. our low temperature yesterday got all the way down to negative 4 and it froze up a lot of what we already had on the ground including these large chunks of ice, now this morning with the latest snowstorm it is covered in snow and it is what drivers are driving on this mornin outa one issue we are dealing with, water supply issues is another. if you take a look at this video there are pipes bursting left and right across texas after days of constant freezing temperatures. pipes are bursting, flooding homes, apartments and businesses and it's before firefighters can even arrive in time to turn off the water. power failures at water treatment plants are leading to boil orders and supply shortages. roads, of course, are still slick and covered with several inches of snow and ice in some areas. the electric reliability council here in the state that manages the power grid, they are also continuing to struggle to get energy flowing and right now those power officials still have not made it clear on when they can get power and heat back to millions so of course much of the state remains below freezing at least until friday so we are still not out of the woods yet here in texas. hallie? >> alanna quillen, thank you so much. turning back to politics and that exclusive interview with vice president harris. we've talked about what she said but it's what she did not say about the former president that's getting some attention this morning. bart of that first national network interview as the topic of form be president donald trump's acquittal and potential criminal liability came up. watch. >> do you think that president trump should be criminally charged? >> you know, right now, savannah, i'm focused on what we need to do to get relief to american families and that is my highest priority, it's our administration's highest priority. >> but you are a former prosecutor so i have to ask you is that a strong case against the president a criminal case that mitch mcconnell had raised as a possibility? >> i haven't reviewed the case through the lens of being a prosecutor. >> with me now is the co-founder of punchbowl news. good to have you on. >> good morning. >> so vice president harris very disciplined in that answer, that came sort of at the end of the interview after ten minutes of discussion on the covid relief plan, on getting teachers vaccinations, on reopening schools, et cetera, and what you didn't hear vice president harris say was i'm looking at this through the lens of a vice president who wants to get covid relief done. do you see this as the biden administration largely staying on message by ignoring what's happening in the republican party and to you, based on your reporting, is that the right strategy here? >> yeah, i think it is. i think -- i mean, i think biden and harris are, you know -- their number one goal is this covid relief bill and the number two -- legislative goal. the number one goal they have is vaccines, getting out vaccines, getting them out as fast as they can, ramping up production. i mean, biden was asked about this last night in wisconsin, was asked about the justice department, he was asked about trump, you know, he ducked the question, vice president harris ducked it today. i think they're being very, very careful. they realize if they say anything the discussion becomes biden said this about trump, you know, he should be prosecuted or harris said it about trump he should be prosecuted or not prosecuted, whatever their response is, and i think that's a trap for them to get into that discussion. i think that trump would jump all over it and that would be -- that would become the story, then that's what we would be talking about. >> i was reporting and talking with some sources on this sort of gop civil war and i had one person say, listen, yeah, republican party really is divided, they're going to try to say democrats are divided but democrats are talking about things like how much student loan debt to cancel. >> right. >> so let's talk about that because that was something else that president biden made news on overnight, talking about this plan from some progressives to cancel basically $50,000 in student loan debt. he doesn't want to go that high, he's talking more like $10,000, you had alexandria ocasio-cortez firing back saying arguments against that plan do not hold water. that they have so keep pushing basically. you can see it on screen here. how does this play out? what is your sense based on what you're hearing from lawmakers and folks on the other end of pennsylvania avenue? >> i think there are democrats on the hill that were not happy with this answer at all from president biden. i was at that press conference where chuck schumer and elizabeth warren and other members of the squad, ilhan omar, rashida tlaib were out there pushing for this. this is something that is very big knot only with the progressive movement but in the minority community as well because they pointed out that minority students and folks who -- minority members -- part of the minority community with college loans are really hit harder by this. so this is not only, you know, a big issue politically, you know, for the broader country, but also inside the democratic party. so i think on the hill i think you're going to see a push now to try and move legislation on this and see if they can force the white house into some kind of action. i was surprised, to be honest, how firm firm biden's no was. chuck schumer is pushing on it. >> thank you so much for being with us. appreciate it. after the break, despite what the world health organization says, our new nbc news exclusive reporting on why the u.s. and other western countries are not ruling out a lab accident as the origin of covid. that reporting right here on msnbc next. free. it's gentle on her skin, and out cleans our old bargain detergent. tide pods plus downy free. safe for sensitive skin with eczema and psoriasis. pick up like a pro. just order on the subway app and it's ready to go with contactless curbside. turkey sub in a hot tub! now get 15% off any footlong when you order in the app. back now with another nbc news exclusive. sources inside u.s. intelligence telling us the united states is not ruling out that the emergence of the coronavirus was the result of a lab accident in china. the world health organization said they do not think covid originated from a lab in wuhan. but the u.s. and others say the issues around china's transparency make it tough to say anything conclusive. let me bring in keir simmons. all over this exclusive story. why are u.s. officials skeptical of the findings from the w.h.o.? >> reporter: what this is about is whether china is being fully transparent about the early days of the coronavirus. our reporting, which suggests the u.s. has information that has not yet been made public about what may have happened inside china. among the sources we have spoken to, a spokesperson for the office of the director of national intelligence says the u.s. government is examining the intelligence. to the world health organization team, investigating covid-19, it says it originated from animals most likely. american and western government officials say the united states still isn't ruling out other possibilities, including a research lab accident. many scientists say that's unlikely. one western intelligence official telling nbc news, the u.s. has substantial intelligence that has not been made public about action the chinese government took related to the lab designed to obscure the origins of covid. >> that lack of transparency, the lack of being forthcoming is a profound problem. it's one that continues. >> reporter: in january, former secretary of state mike pompeo alleged researchers at a wuhan lab had covid-like symptoms as early as fall of 2019. w.h.o. say they see no evidence. china's case count in december of 2019 is 174. >> infections is probably higher. >> reporter: investigators say china did not yet provide enough specifics about those early cases. instead, they released more general data. >> in the ideal world it would go through patient by patient. we didn't quite get to that stage. >> reporter: two of the government officials who spoke to nbc news tell us the information the u.s. has about china's actions is significant though inconclusive. the question this morning is, will that information ever be made public? hallie? >> that's a good. keir simmons, live you for that. thanks for watching this hour of msnbc live. highlights on twitter. plus our latest reporting throughout the day. see you back here tomorrow. for now, craig melvin is picking it up after the break. e break. e? enough, crohn's! for adults with moderate to severe crohn's or ulcerative colitis... stelara® can provide relief and is the only approved medication to reduce inflammation on and below the surface of the intestine in uc. you, getting on that flight? back off, uc! stelara® may increase your risk of infections, some serious, and cancer. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection... flu-like symptoms, sores, new skin growths, have had cancer, or if you need a vaccine. pres, a rare, potentially fatal brain condition, may be possible. some serious allergic reactions and lung inflammation can occur. lasting remission can start with stelara®. if you've been financially impacted by covid-19, janssen may be able to help. if you've been financially impacted by covid-19, (sam) gamers! he who is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. take fuzzywuzzy28. blamin' losses on a laggy network. only one or two. verizon 5g ultra wideband is here, the fastest 5g in the world, with ultra... low... lag! stop blaming the network and start becoming the best gamers in the ga-- that escalated quickly. 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