hospitality sector. it's good to see some of those come back. but if you look under the hood of this you also saw that in february we lost nearly 70,000 educator jobs at the state and local level. and as you say, the challenge of long-term joblessness, which is one of the hallmarks of this crisis, is not getting better. so what we really need to do here is we need to provide relief and support immediately in those areas of the economy that we know are struggling so that we can get the trajectory of this recovery up significantly. >> to that point democrats say that is what is in this bill and it will help precisely those people. that includes unemployment benefits extended through september, a third round of direct stimulus payments, $1,400 going directly to people making $75,000 or less, single parents with kids earning $112,500 or less and couples making $150,000 or less. the bill includes $350 billion for state and local governments, $130 billion for schools, $160 billion for vaccine distribution. tax credits for families that experts say could cut child poverty in america nearly in half. the bill is also overwhelmingly popular. polling shows 62% of americans support it. but republican lawmakers say it is too expensive and it is not geared directly toward covid relief and that we're already turning a corner. >> we're already on track to bounce back from this crisis. we're going to come roaring back and mostly not because of this bill. in fact in some ways in spite of this bill. >> the white house chief of staff points out that at this pace without relief it would take until 2023 to get all of those jobs that are lost back. so that brings us to the performance of all of this. senate majority leader chuck schumer says he has the votes to pass the bill. republicans know it is very likely to pass. and yet gop senator ron johnson delayed the bill by forcing senate clerks to read all 628 pages of the bill out loud. that took ten hours and 43 minutes. "the washington post" philip bump estimates that nearly 900 americans, 900 americans may have died of covid in that time. now the so-called vote-a-rama in the senate where republicans can offer an unlimited number of amendments they know are likely to be voted down, but doing so could further drag out the vote and delay things for days. senator rand paul says he hopes that it goes on for, quote, infinity and that brings us to the bottom line from democratic senator chris murphy. >> it's a little hard to listen to my colleagues claim that this bill is too expensive when they were willing to spend the exact same amount of money in 2017 on tax cuts for their wealthy corporate and millionaire friends. now all of a sudden, when democrats are in charge of the white house, when a democratic majority leader sits here in the united states senate, $1.9 trillion is too much money to spend. democrats took control of the white house and took control of the senate. all of these things which were categorized as covid relief in march are no longer covid relief. you're just supposed to think of these as extras. >> joining me now is nbc news capitol hill correspondent garrett haake, "washington post" white house bureau chief ashley parker, politico chief economic correspondent ben white and former rnc chairman and msnbc political analyst, michael steele. everybody, welcome. so, garrett, this bill is not locked down. there's a lot that seems like it's still up in the air with further late changes being made. this is aside from the delay tactics. what's going on? >> yeah, not a lot of voting in this vote-a-rama so far, just drama, and most of it centers around the unemployment insurance provision. it was one of the last pieces of the bill to come together over on the senate side. so much of this is in flux. the news i have now will probably be dated by the end of this segment, but it boils down to this. democrats reached a deal fairly late in the process to expand those unemployment benefits into september, basically get them past the august recess but at a lower rate of about as $300 per week but perhaps not every democrat is on board with that change and there's some discussion about when those benefits could expire. this is the challenge of a 50-50 senate. if republicans hang together and democrats hang together, democrats win on those 50-50 votes. but if a democrat likes the republican plan, republicans win on that vote. so there's a lot still up even this late in the ball game. >> how long could this take, garrett. there was talk, i heard this from leigh ann caldwell today, of over 100 amendments being proposed. >> there were more than 250 amendments proposed by lunchtime. in the last vote-a-rama there were about 900 proposed but only 40 got voted on. this will essentially go until the minority party, in this case the republicans, decide they have extracted enough pain to let this pass. in the senate the minority party has fairly limited options to change the course of big legislation but they can slow things down dramatically if they choose and everything we've seen so far is that is what republicans have chosen to do with this bill. >> in slowing things down dramatically, ashley parker, what is the strategy? why do that? >> well, you can use that to make a point, to take time to debate these amendments and changes and focus attention on them. republicans, as garrett said, are largely the ones who are slowing this down, using the tools and leverage they have. but i would point out that there was also a vote on the minimum wage, on trying to put that $15 minimum wage back in and that was something that was important for democrats to highlight, that it was generally a democratic priority. one interesting thing that came out of that is you had a lot of house progressives being frustrated with senator manchin and senator sinema. you saw people on record, democrats did vote for it but seven democrats and one independent did join republicans saying they weren't comfortable for whatever reasons, and the reaches varied, in having a $15 minimum wage in this covid relief bill. >> in the entirety of this bill, once it finally does get through all of these amendments and get to the final stage of voting, ashley, what's the likelihood that it's going to remain a down-the-line vote, democrats for it, republicans against it? is there any room for any republicans that we might not have been talking about or might not be paying attention to voting for this bill? i'm thinking of lisa murkowski. >> i was going to say we have been paying attention to her, but there were some last-minute changes to this bill that would benefit certain states and specifically alaska. these were changes that gave more funding to lower population states like alaska, gave money for tourism, gave money for seafood producers. i was in the briefing room and put the question to jen psaki, were these changes made specifically to try to get senator murkowski to a yes? did president biden sign off on them directly? unfortunately she did not answer, but in those changes you see that sliver of hope that they might be able to peel away perhaps one republican for this bill. >> really interesting. so ben white, we had the jobs numbers come out today and republicans are using them to say, hey, listen, things are not as bad as they were. we don't need this covid relief. the white house says those job numbers are not actually as good as they look so you have these competing narratives. give us a full picture from an economic standpoint, though, are where we are in this recovery. >> yeah, i'll try to give you the correct narrative without partisan spin. they're good numbers, 379,000 is great. much more than we expected this month. a lot of them in hospitality and leisure, restaurants and bars reopening, that's good. those were jobs that were not coming back very quickly. good to see them coming back. but you had brian deese and ron klain's comments and they're absolutely right. when you look at the number of jobs we lost, which was over 20 million, we're still 10 million short of getting those back. if you think of where we would be absent covid it's more like 11 million. and the real jobless rate if you consider the number of people who left the labor force during covid, particularly among women, the real jobless rate is closer to 10%. so this is good. this is a good number. it does not suggest that we are anywhere close getting back to where we need to be, and there are people that still need help, that need these unemployment benefits extended, that could use these stimulus checks. i'll just say quickly that it's true that we are in slight danger of pouring too much gas on an economy that could heat up later this year, but the risk is much bigger that we don't do that enough. >> can you expand on that a little bit more, the risk of inflation some economists are warning of. >> the 10-year yield going up a little bit, still very low by historic standards. but the basic idea is the economy is set to really rip in 2021 if we do these vaccines and people get back to work and everything opens back up and we do another well, another 2 trillion onto that and you might start to see inflation, prices going up, because there's a lot of demand built up, supply is choked off. the fed, jay powell, others, say, look, we're going to get a little inflation, that's fine. it's not going to last very long. the supply will come back online. so it's not unreasonable to worry a little bit about the markets expecting inflation and inflation to arrive in the form of higher prices for everything you buy, but it's not going to explode. we're still way, way short of inflation we've had historically so the argument is stronger on the other side, don't worry about inflation, get this pamg done, help people that need help and we'll see. if there is some inflation and the fed needs to deal with it, they have the tools to do that. >> the reward outweighs the risk. >> most likely. >> michael, this is from tripp gabriel in "the new york times" talking about what republicans have been doing. donald trump did very well with blue collar workers in the last election, but since then republicans have done very little to offer them anything and democrats are facing universal opposition from congressional republicans to the package, which is chockful of measures to benefit struggling workers a full year into the pandemic. instead gabriel writes republican officials following mr. trump's own example are exploiting the cultural anger and racial resentment of a sizeable segment of the white working class but are making no concerted effort to help these americans economically. what do you make of that, michael? >> i think that's a very accurate description of what the play has been for at least the last two cycles. certainly we saw the early emergence of that in the 2018 cycle when it was playing to and i would say preying on the fears of folks having caravans of brown-skinned individuals coming across the border. this cycle it was, you know, letting white women in suburban america know, oh, they're coming to your neighborhood, watch out, be careful, i alone can protect you. so this cultural narrative, this playing on grievance, this playing on the fears, the racial fears that are not necessarily anchored in racism per se, but exploit that narrative to the degree that the republicans have, and we see it now in places like georgia and elsewhere with the legislation on the back end of the election with respect to voting rights is a carrying card. what the party is not putting out a counterajepd -- agenda to what joe biden wants. you don't want to spend $1.9 trillion. lay out what you want to spend and how do you take care of those blue collar workers in your backyard who by the polls are showing 59% of republicans like, over 75% of americans like, what is your counterproposal. but the narrative plays and works right now if i can prey on your fears. that's how i keep you anchored to my heel. but the reality, katy, is simply this, and this is what the article points out, those voters are going to be looking for results. they're going to be looking for solutions. and if the only solution on the table is, as we see in the covid plan, what joe biden is putting on the table and they like that, guess where they go. that's the challenge and the really gnarly point of 2022 given the narrative that we see playing out right now and trump is dictating that narrative for the gop. >> michael, the point also was made in that article that republicans know that this bill is going to pass. they expect to benefit from the bill passing and to only really feel any pain if they stopped the bill from passing. so i don't know, pushing back on the idea that voters will be looking for results. maybe they're looking for results. they'll see some results but they won't necessarily reward the democrats for it, considering that donald trump, and i know it's a mixed bag, but donald trump did gain voters in 2020. >> yeah, but you've got to look at why he gained voters. everybody is going off of this narrative, oh, they gained all these voters. well, let's understand why. you know what was driving that gain was the police narrative, that the democrats had an irresponsible answer for, along with some other variables that may have been closer to the ground. so i think you're right in the sense that, you know, the party is going to try to ride this and, you know, take the credit, even though there is no effort in sort of reining the horse. but the reality is how the democrats then on the other side of this speak about this. right now joe biden has the upper hand of the narrative. the polling is reflecting that. that's not going to benefit republicans. that 70 some percent is not going to, okay, we'll give republicans credit for standing in the way. >> michael steele, thank you very much. ben white, ashley parker, garrett haake, everybody, thank you. stay tuned, because, yes, this vote is being debated and amendments are being proposed, but there still are some changes that could come. it's still a moving target. still ahead, one of three women to accuse new york governor andrew cuomo of sexual harassment details the day she says he crossed the line. >> i thought he was trying to sleep with me. the governor is trying to sleep with me. and i'm deeply uncomfortable and i have to get out of this room as soon as possible. and later, as states prepare to reopen, a warning from the cdc director about attempting to return to life as usual. we're not there yet, and we have been -- we have seen this movie before. when prevention measures like mask mandates are rolled back, cases go up. >> first, though, he was a state department aide appointed by former president trump with top security clearance. now he is under arrest for his role in the capitol riot. pain hits fast. so get relief fast. only tylenol rapid release gels have laser-drilled holes. they release medicine fast for fast pain relief. tylenol rapid release gels. we were alone when my husband had the heart attack. t he's the most importantt fo thing in my life.. i'm so lucky to get him back. your heart isn't just yours. protect it with bayer aspirin. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. 1 in 2 kids is under hydrated. ♪ plant-powered creative roots gives kids the hydration they need, with the fruit flavors they love. and one gram of sugar. find creative roots in the kids' juice aisle. four, five, turn, kick. we got chased by athese wild coyotes!r. they were following her because she had beef jerky in her pocket. (laughing) (trumpet playing) someone behind me, come on. pick that up, pick that up, right there, right there. as long as you keep making the internet an amazing place to be, we'll keep bringing you a faster, more secure, and more amazing internet. xfinity. the future of awesome. next monday, roughly two months to the day after the january 6 insurrection, lieutenant general russel honore is expected to brief bipartisan members of congress on his security review of the capitol. this since we learned a former trump administration aide now faces charges in connection with the riot. former state department official federico kline was arrested yesterday, but one congressman is pointing the blame at kline's paws. eric swalwell has filed a civil lawsuit against president trump and a handful of his allies. he alleges the insurrection was a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendant's false and incendiary allegations of fraud and theft and in direct response to the defendant's expressed calls for violence. on behalf of the former president, trump senior advisor jason miller called the lawsuit a witch hunt and congressman swalwell, quote, a low-life with no credibility. joining me now is nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. so, pete, i'm going to call you justice from now on because that is your beat. pete "justice" williams tell us more what we know about this former state department official? >> well, there's a hearing for him right now in federal court. he's having his initial appearance by phone from a jail cell where he has been since last night when he was arrested. he's 42. feder ico kline. he was a campaign aide on the trump campaign and got a low-level political job at the state department right after the president took office. he stepped down january 19th, the day before the inauguration. so as these photos depict, the fbi says he was repeatedly tusseling with capitol police and metropolitan police. the fbi put out this picture, this wanted poster if you will, asking for information about him, looking for information about people who had assaulted capitol or d.c. police officers. they said -- in one of the pictures you'll see that, that he had a police shield that he used to try to keep the door open on the west front of the capitol to that tunnel and prevent them from closing the door and used it to push against officers and repeatedly, they say, he assaulted officers. so he was charged after the fbi got tips from two people. one person who dated him and a second person who worked with him at the state department. now he's been charged with five counts -- or six counts, rather. three are felonies. the maximum charge for this is 20 years. obviously he's not going to get anything near that if he's convicted because it would be his first offense. but it is a serious charge and the first charge of somebody we know that was in the trump administration involved in these riots. >> really interesting. pete williams. pete, thank you very much for joining us. and we've got some new reporting on the efforts governor andrew cuomo's top aides took to conceal the number of covid-19 deaths in nursing homes. and one year into a health crisis that changed our world, ali velshi spoke with medical workers who were there from the beginning and are still fighting on the front lines of covid. their insights, next. network at a record pace. we were the first to bring 5g nationwide. and now that sprint is a part of t-mobile we're turning up the speed. upgrading over a thousand towers a month with ultra capacity 5g. to bring speeds as fast as wifi to cities and towns across america. and we're adding more every week. coverage and speed. who says you can't have it all? sure, your health insurance tells you to see a doctor but, um, look around. these days it's not that easy. you're telling me. but humana helps make it easy. human care gives you tons of ways to talk to your doctor: phone, computer, in person, or tablet. hey jean! hi! this is just a quick follow up. your numbers are looking great. you don't even have to put on shoes. ooo! easy peasy. you like that, huh? mhm. humana. a more human way to healthcare. riders, the lone wolves of the great highway. all they need is a bike and a full tank of gas. their only friend? the open road. i have friends. [ chuckles ] well, he may have friends, but he rides alone. that's jeremy, right there! we're literally riding together. he gets touchy when you talk about his lack of friends. can you help me out here? no matter why you ride, progressive has you covered with protection starting at $79 a year. well, we're new friends. to be fair. eh, still. if you smell gas, you're too close. leave the structure, call 911, keep people away, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. if you see wires down, treat them all as if they're hot and energized. stay away from any downed wire, call 911, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. there is good news in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. the country is vaccinating a lot more people, and we are doing it a lot more quickly. the daily rate is now 2 million people a day. so what comes next for those millions of now vaccinated americans? we expected to get new guidance from the cdc this week, but it has been delayed because, as the cdc says, it needs more time to make that guidance even more clear. still, some states are beginning to roll back restrictions, prompting the cdc director to give this warning to everybody today to stay the course. >> cases and deaths are still too high and have now plateaued for more than a week at levels we saw during the late summer surge following six weeks of steady declines. this is why i'm asking you to double down on our prevention measures. i know the idea of relaxing mask wearing and getting back to everyday activities is appealing, but we're not there yet. and we have seen this movie before. >> joining me now is dr. ammish hidalgia. so the cdc was going to release this guidance but they are delaying it because they don't want it to be not clear about what they recommend, which is that everybody stay the course. >> yeah. i do think that what we're going to see is likely a conservative approach from the cdc where it's probably going to be something if you're vaccinated and with somebody else that's vaccinated, those types of interactions are okay. you're not going to see the cdc saying everybody can take off your mask and rightly so. you're also going to see guidance on what vaccinated and unvaccinated people can do when they're mixing. what we're seeing is we're getting a lot of data. it's taking some time for the public health guidance to catch up. so we are probably going to see a conservative approach from the cdc but many infectious disease specialists might be a little more bold. we want people to get this vaccine and show them their lives change when they get this vaccine and it is the path to normalcy, but it's going to take some time for the guidance to reflect all of that data. >> as we wait for this guidance and people ask you what they should do when they have been fully vaccinated, what is your advice? >> i tend to be a little more tall ranting. i take the harm reduction approach to this knowing people will take risks and the vaccine will substantially decrease their risk. so two people vaccinated on the same schedule, there's no danger for them to get together, to do anything, to go back to their normal life. i do also think when you're vaccinated, you are very highly protected from symptomatic disease and you're not likely to end up hospitalized from this so it might make all of these activities and risk calculations that you've been making, going to the grocery store, indoor dining, getting together with people, all of that is safer when you've had the vaccine. so do as much as you think is your risk tall lance kind of affords you, but know that it's not 100% and you're still making some risk calculations. i think that's the way i've approached it. but it's different for each person and how they think about how much risk they're willing to take. but i think these vaccines are life-saving and they decrease the spread of this virus, we're getting more and more data. so i do think we're going to get there, it's just going to take some time. >> so we've been talking a lot on this program about the j&j vaccine and every single medical expert we've had on has said the same thing, that the j&j vaccine is just as good as pfizer and moderna and perhaps even better because it was tested with these new variants when pfizer and moderna were not yet. we have the mayor of detroit who says that he has rejected an initial allocation, declined an initial allocation of the j&j vaccine this week because he says moderna and pfizer are best and he's going to do everything he can to make sure the residents of the city of detroit get the best. this is pretty confusing, considering this is not at all the guidance from anybody in the health world. >> i agree. this is just another example of politicians getting involved in scientific and public health decisions and really mucking it all up. so i think he's wrong. he should be taking that johnson & johnson vaccine. the detroit citizens should demand that he take that shipment. we know that this vaccine works highly effectively on what matters, serious disease, hospitalization and death. you can't take efficacy numbers and compare them apples to apples against moderna and pfizer when they didn't occur at the same time and there were different prevalences of variants so the idea that the johnson & johnson vaccine is inferior is completely wrong. the u.s. catholic bishops conference also maligned the vaccine. i'm sort of sick of everybody going after the johnson & johnson vaccine. all three of these vaccines are highly effective. that's what we want people to take, whichever one is available to them. >> thank you for coming on and clarifying that. we always appreciate it no matter how many times we hear it. this u for being here. coming up, can you remember what you were doing a year ago when covid-19 was declared a global pandemic? staffers at newark beth israel medical center can. newark was one of the hardest cities in those -- hardest-hit cities in those early days. nbc's ali velshi visited a hospital to hear what it was like. >> i can remember a leadership role at that moment, that nursing administrator turned around and she just reminded everyone, she said this is what we do. this is what you went to school for. this is what we're going to do now. we're going to get back into these rooms and help as many people as we can. and i'm in security. so i'm not medical, i'm not on the clinical side. but at that moment i was like i'm all in. i'm all in on whatever you want me to do. if it's in my, you know, capability, i'm going to be here to help any department. i went from assisting in the morgue to basically running the morgue with a bunch of my fellow officers. and the things that you had to see down there are things that are sketched into your mind and into your hands forever. >> joining me now is the host of msnbc's "velshi," ali velshi. ali, tell me more about what you learned. >> it was incredible, katy. you've done this probably better than anybody on our network, where you have sort of held a real empathetic space for these health care workers. we've heard them talk throughout the year. but nick who we just heard from is not a health care worker, he's a security guard. we just talked to all these people from the hospital about what their lives were like. some of them had toddlers at home. some of them had ill parents. some of them have not seen their families for the better part of a year. but they went in there, like nick said, ready to do what they had to do to fix this blight on society. one of the people i spoke to wearing the red jacket in that shot, rochelle mitchell, she does environmental services for the hospital. those are the people that keep the supplies on hand, who keep the place clean. she was talking about the personal losses that every single health care worker has felt over the last year. listen to what she told me. >> there's a co-worker that she checks in with me daily. and i didn't see her for several days. she would never go home without stopping by my door to say have a good night, see you tomorrow. and when i didn't get that for a whole week, i started to question and i knew she had other issues. i thought, well, maybe she just was sick and really didn't have covid. and we had a candlelight here for all the employees who passed away. that's when i learned that she passed away, and that was one of the hardest things for me to deal with as an individual. >> katy, they're professionals. there wasn't a dry eye in that group. everyone had lost someone, everyone had suffered, everyone had missed a year of milestones with their family, and still they came in every day and faced risks. many of them said, look, when we signed up to be a doctor or a nurse or medical worker, we didn't actually think we were putting our lives at risk. it's not what we signed up for. but still they did it every year. katy, you remember in the early days here in manhattan at 7:00 every night we would open our windows and clap for those people. it doesn't happen so much anymore, but they're still fighting this thing in massive numbers every single day. at least fortunately now a number of them are vaccinated, so they're a little safer about doing it. but may we never, ever, ever forget these people, katy. >> we stopped doing it over the summer because things started to get so much better here in new york. >> yeah. >> but as these numbers plateau and hopefully doesn't get worse, that is a good reminder for all of those -- >> yeah. >> -- for all of what those health care workers are doing. ali, since it's been a year and there are new variants out there and there's still all this disinformation, how are they feeling mentally now? are they still ready to continue to work every single day? >> you know, this conversation that i had with them was the first time they had been invited to talk about it with anybody about what it's been like. almost every one of them broke down in telling their stories and they didn't think they would. it's heavy. it's really, really heavy on them right now. it's not over, but the vaccination for many of them is a big game changer. they're pretty clear that it will be many, many months -- >> ali, sorry to interrupt you. hold on, ali, hold on. president joe biden is speaking right now with his most senior economic advisers about the jobs numbers. let's listen. >> at that rate is would take two years to get us back on track. we have 1 million fewer educators than we did this time last year. we've lost 400,000 small businesses. all of those empty store fronts aren't just shattered dreams, they're warning lights that are going off at state and local budgets being stretched because of the lack of tax revenue. and some of last month's job growth is a result of the december package, but without a rescue plan these gains are going to slow. we can't afford one step forward and two steps backwards. we need to beat the virus, provide essential relief and build an inclusive recovery. people need the help now. in less than two weeks, enhanced unemployment benefits will begin to expire for 11 million people. at least 7 million kids don't have enough food to eat on a regular basis. 13 million people are behind in their rent. and the rescue plan is absolutely essential for turning this around, getting kids back to school safely, getting a lifeline to small business and getting the upper hand on covid-19. that's what we're going to be talking about now, so i thank you all for coming on in. thank you. [ overlapping speakers ] >> thank you, guys. >> so president biden making the same point that brian deese made this morning that is, yes, those job numbers are good, but listen, there are a whole lot of people who are out of work, who have suffered and who need more relief right now in order to get the economy back to where it was much more quickly. ali velshi, i know you play in this world too, but i do want to go back to what you were saying about those health care workers, about just the stress of doing this for a year and how do they feel today? >> well, so they all had remarkable specific wishes about what they think about in the future. that security guard whose clip you played before i came on, nick, he's delayed his wedding two times. so his wish for post covid is to get married. others are wishing to see their families and to not put them at risk. so it was the story -- i interviewed six people, katy, but as you know this is a story of, i don't know, 600,000, 6 million frontline workers in this country, all of whom went through that same experience. we just have to always remember they didn't ever not come into work. they got told one day this disease is here in our midst and you're just going to keep coming back day after day after day and fighting it in numbers that you have never seen before. the woman who runs the icu there, a doctor, this woman, said to me, you know, she would normally expect to write maybe two death certificates. there was one day she wrote seven. so this is going to be something none of them will ever forget. but like the rest of us, let's hope we never forget it but that it makes us better in the end, it makes us more resilient and makes us understand what we are capable of. >> i think a lot of us will be suffering from ptsd and those on the front lines of this might potentially be hardest hit. ali velshi, thanks for bringing us that. it's important to remind everybody it has been a year. you can catch more of that special covid one year later special this sunday on "velshi" and you can see ali every single weekend morning right here on msnbc 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. eastern. coming up, pope francis is making history with the first papal visit to iraq ever. what's he doing there? what kind of reception is he getting? also new york governor an andrew cuomo is facing dueling scandals but a new poll shows a majority of new yorkers do not want him to step down. stay with us. do not want him to step down. stay with us because there are options. like an “unjection™”. xeljanz. the first and only pill of its kind that treats moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, or moderate to severe ulcerative colitis when other medicines have not helped enough. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections, like tb and do blood tests. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms, or are prone to infections. serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra may increase risk of death. tears in the stomach or intestines and serious allergic reactions have happened. needles. fine for some things. but for you, there's a pill that may provide symptom relief. ask your doctor about the pill first prescribed for ra more than seven years ago. xeljanz. an “unjection™”. more than seven years ago. verizon believes everyone deserves the best. that's why we start with 5g from america's most reliable network. verizon 5g is next level. then give families plans to mix and match. so you only pay for what you need, with 5g included at no extra cost. you get so much more than just a great network. and offer the best in entertainment on select unlimited plans like disney+, hulu and espn+. with a galaxy s21+ 5g when you buy one. there's no reason to settle for less than the best. only from verizon. just moments ago, new york legislators passed a bill to remove governor andrew cuomo's pandemic emergency powers. it comes along updates in the two separate controversies surrounding the governor today. "the new york times" and "the wall street journal" are both reporting that top aides to the governor rewrote a report on covid-19 in nursing homes to hide the true death toll from last spring. a senior advisor to the governor said the data was left out because it could not be verified. and two of the three women accusing the governor of inappropriate behavior are also out with new interviews detailing their allegations against him. cuomo denies one specific allegation that he kissed former aide lindsay boylan but has apologized for other comments that he has made that he says may have unintentionally made his accusers uncomfortable. joining me now with more is nbc news correspondent anne thompson. so, anne, what's the latest? >> reporter: good afternoon, katy. as you said, the state senate just passed the bill that would repeal governor cuomo's emergency pandemic powers. the assembly is still debating that move. this as the governor continues to be pummeled by those dual scandals. the one involving the charges that he sexually harassed younger women, three of them, and then of course that he and his administration hid the real number of nursing home deaths. new pressure from both scandals facing new york governor andrew cuomo, as a new report in "the new york times" alleges his top aides altered his state health report in june 2020 to conceal the number of nursing home residents who died of covid-19. the cuomo administration's initial public count excluded residents who died in hospitals. at the time cuomo was making plans to write a book on his handling of the pandemic for which he had won widespread praise. a senior advisor now responding to nbc news that the hospital data was left out after the state health department could not confirm it had been adequately verified and said it did not change the report's conclusion. this as two of the three women who claim cuomo sexually harassed them are speaking out. >> without explicitly saying it, he implied to me that i was old enough for him and he was lonely. >> reporter: 25-year-old charlotte bennett was an executive assistant to cuomo. she told cbs news she had a disturbing conversation with the governor in his office on june 5th. >> he asked me if age difference mattered. he also explained that he was fine with anyone over 22. i thought he's trying to sleep with me. the governor is trying to sleep with me. and i'm deeply uncomfortable, and i have to get out of this room as soon as possible. >> reporter: when asked for comment, cuomo's spokesperson referred us to wednesday's press conference. >> i never, ever meant to offend anyone or hurt anyone or cause anyone pain. >> reporter: and the governor's apology. >> i was apologizing to the young woman who worked here who said that i made her feel uncomfortable. >> reporter: an apology bennett does not accept. >> he has not apologized for sexually harassing me and he can't even use my name. >> reporter: another former aide, lindsay boylan, said the governor made inappropriate remarks during her tenure and gave her an unwanted kiss. today boylan says i'm really not focused on punishment. i'm focused on accountability. now, in the past, governor cuomo has denied lindsay boylan's accusations. as for the accountability she seeks, well, everybody is looking at the state attorney general's independent investigator, but at this point no independent investigator has been named and when one does, what i'm hearing is this is an investigation that's going to take months, not days. katy. >> anne thompson. ann, thank you so much. joining me now is the managing editor for the albany times union overseeing the capitol bureau and investigations. brendan, thanks for being here. first off, this vote to revoke the governor's emergency powers, does the governor have to sign off on that? >> he does not is my understanding because the legislature can take this action unilaterally. he is not disputing this, even if he did have to sign it, because he has said throughout and his office has said throughout this that the legislature could always overturn any of his executive orders. they could just convene and do that. but this really represents something more serious where it's a power play by the legislature to, i think, regain its footing with the public and say that we are now restoring things to the way they were pre-pandemic. >> what about this report about the nursing homes, this idea that they were -- they were artificially deflating the number of deaths in order to what his accusers allege, in order to make the governor look better as his national profile was rising? >> right. and what i did not see in those stories is that that aspect is being -- is one of the focuses of the u.s. attorney's investigation that's ongoing, was the handling of that data and whether or not it was manipulated. was it manipulated when it was u.s. justice department last year. we don't know that. the governor has declined to disclose their correspondence with the justice department. it would be interesting to know. the administration stands by their assertion that they did not turn over any doctored numbers to the justice department or not. we'll see where that leads for sure. >> and on the other thing, the allegations of inappropriate behavior, charlotte bennett's allegations, you write they should have been referred to the governor's office of employee relations for a formal investigation, according to interviews with state officials familiar with the results. were they? >> they were not. that's according to the governor's offices. his chief counsel's own statement that it was handled by a special counsel within the executive chamber. under an order that he signed about three years ago, it mandated that any allegation, any sexual harassment allegation must be referred to the governor's office of employee relations where it would presumably undergo a separate investigation. this seemed to violate the rules that apply to other state agencies and offices and authorities. and it is clear that it may not have been, it may have been a way to keep it in house. and as a former affirmative action officer said to us, you can't just transfer a victim to a new position to resolve what appears to be a pattern of behavior. >> you know, if you're not disturbed by those allegations, you've certainly got to have questions, i'm not saying you're not, but you have to have questions about the handling of the nursing home data. lots of questions there. thanks so much. i appreciate it. up next, inside the pope's three-day visit to baghdad. the first ever papal visit to iraq. is tito iraq i'm a performer. always have been. and always will be. never letting anything get in my way. not the doubts, distractions, or voice in my head. and certainly not arthritis. voltaren provides powerful arthritis pain relief to help me keep moving. and it can help you too. feel the joy of movement with voltaren. is now a good time for a flare-up? 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there were advisers inside the vatican, people close to the pope who were suggesting genetically, one would think, that he should postpone this trip. it's not right. there is a pandemic. he could draw crowds and the very real safety concerns. but so far it has been going very well. he's been getting a very, very warm reception. and people aren't just happy to see the pope here because that's a shot in the arm. because it is a boost of confidence in his country that perhaps they are finally coming out of. so civil war, and they're able to pull off something of this magnitude. but also, the message that he is bringing with him really resonates here. because this country had hundreds of thousands of people die. often die in very brutal, close-up, intimate ways. executed. heads cut off. in sectarian religious violence. and they had enough of it. they want to move on. most people want to reach out across the religious lines. and i spoke to the president of iraq who of course is officially hosting the pope and he thinks it could be a turning point, especially after what iraq has been through. >> in coming here, his holiness at this time, it is a very, very important message. as he and i, his holiness and i were talking, the significance of iraq, mesopotamia, the birth place of abraham, this is a place we need to say not only for the iraqi people, we are all the descendants of abraham, the prophet of all prophets. the faithful. not in the name of god, not in the name of religion, we need to co-exist. >> reporter: this trip is not just about expressing peace and love and reconciliation. it is also about encouraging christians in this country to stay. christians here once numbered 1.5 million. they're down to only a few hundred thousand. they were persecuted by groups like isis. so having the pope come here is an expression that he's with them. he understands their pain and he wants the community to survive. >> so interesting. richard engel reporting from iraq. thank you. that will do it for me today. if you are going out, wear a mask. if you're staying in, ayman mohyeldin picks up our coverage after a quick break. erage after a quick break. elity. and with a scenario that makes it a possibility, she'll enjoy her dream right now. that's the planning effect, from fidelity. 1 in 2 kids is under hydrated. ♪ plant-powered creative roots gives kids the hydration they need, with the fruit flavors they love. and one gram of sugar. find creative roots in the kids' juice aisle. ♪ irresistibly delicious. ♪ ♪ pour some almond breeze. ♪ ♪ for the maestros of the creamiest-ever, ♪ ♪ must-have smoothies. ♪ ♪ it's irresistibly delicious.♪ ♪ more almond breeze, please! ♪ ♪♪ dad, i'm scared. ♪♪ it's only human to care for those we love. and also help light their way. ♪♪ it's why last year chevron invested billions of dollars to bring affordable, reliable, ever cleaner energy to america. ♪♪ why walgreens? 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