take the dough. you can be sure that all of their states and communities will be benefiting from this, and they won't be complaining about it back home. >> the republican party clearly adrift in the absence of donald trump. and without a new plan, they're returning to their greatest hits. on that familiar set list, culture wars. a recent example, senator ted cruz's new fund-raiser. he's now signing copies of dr. seuss' book "green eggs and ham," and it can be yours for a $60 donation. that is not policy. that's not making american lives better. it is distraction in lieu of governing. what senator cruz ignores is it was dr. seuss' estate that made the decision to stop publishing six books due to their racist and insensitive imagery. but it doesn't matter if it fires up the base and helps those voters forget that you didn't want to partake in legislation that would send them desperately needed relief, all while reducing childhood poverty by nearly 50%. next up, a tune you might recall because it never really went away. fearmongering over immigrants. in fact, senator bill cassidy is erroneously blaming president biden for the recent influx of unaccompanied minors at the border. >> when people think they can get in, they begin sending their unaccompanied child on a train ride across mexico, where she may be kidnapped and trafficked on the hope that they're going to be waved through at the border. this policy is leading to this surge. that is unmistakable. >> and then of course there's the voter suppression. the brennan center for justice found more than 250 bills sitting in 43 statehouses that would restrict access to voting. as graeg sargent at "the washington post" puts it, the republican strategy is hiding in plain sight, saying they can plausibly take back power through voter suppression and anti-majoritarian tactics while entirely withdrawing from the conversation about how to tackle our major crises. on one side, you have a republican party lost without trump, unable to engage in governance, and instead deeply focused both on distraction and on serious efforts to undermine democratic participation. and on the other side, democrats focused on legislating, currently refusing to take the political bait being dangled across the aisle. is this the new reality of american politics? with me now, fernand amandi, the host of the strange days podcast. and michelle goldberg is a "new york times" columnist and msnbc contributor. good to see you both. michelle, republicans are focusing on culture wars to distract from the fact that they didn't vote for the covid relief bill. it's paid off for them in the past, using culture wars as a distraction, as a way to gin up their base. is it different in your opinion this time? >> no. i mean, you know, donald trump ran on culture war. culture war has been the thing that has united the two -- look, the republican party is basically a coalition of plutocrats and, you know, white -- not just white people but largely white people without college degrees. and the thing -- they don't have kind of common economic interests. they often don't have common economic policy preferences. so culture war is what unites that party. and you see in the party right now increasing divergence around serious economic issues. you see some openness to things like a child tax credit or, you know, kind of greater economic family support. what unites everyone in the republican party, particularly now that just kind of slavish fealty to donald trump isn't what can unite them all, is this, you know, resentment and kind of panic about what they often call cancel culture. >> i think to michelle's point, part of where that is all bearing out is in watching some of these republicans who did not vote for this legislation try to claim credit for it, right? they've seen the polling. they know that this is popular. but this is the only way to maintain their faux populism, right? to both vote against it and then pretend as though they were the ones who are offering some sort of relief. >> that's exactly right, alicia. fundamentally why are they doing this? because they know that their biggest fear right now is a republican primary. so they have to play this culture war to at least do enough not to enrage donald trump and the trump wing of the party, which might end up in a primary challenge. but, look, let's face it. over the next couple of months starting this weekend, millions of americans are going to start to receive a $1,400 stimulus relief check in their bank accounts from joe biden and the federal government while at the same time, millions are going to start to receive a lifesaving vaccine from this pandemic that has bedeviled the world, again, courtesy of joe biden and the democrats. so while the culture war 24/7 diet might have worked in good times when you really had a way to pivot off of it, to did that now against the backdrop of the pandemic really seems like bad politics. and i think the people that understand that more than anyone else are those in the biden administration, in particular ron klain, the chief of staff. he was there in 2009. he saw some of the mistakes that the incoming democratic administration made trying to work with a party that they thought might be operating in good faith. i think the calculus and the die has been cast. it's now clearly a bad-faith party, and they're just going to push the accelerator down and try and keep racking up legislative wins that will give the message to the american people that government does work, and it works best when the democrats are running the government. that's a horrifying proposition for the republicans. >> to your point about ron klain, that's part of why you see this redefinition of what is bipartisan, looking at bipartisanship through the ens of what voters report. last week you had senator roy blunt to become the fifth republican senator to announce he's not going to seek re-election. i wonder what that tells you about the future of this party. >> i think the future of this party is marjorie taylor greene. it's madison cawthorn. it's basically people who -- it's government by trolling. it's people who kind of have communication staffs rather than policy staffs. and the thing is, though, none of this would work if you -- if this was a party that needed a majority of votes to govern. but that's why i think it's so important that you look at the voter suppression piece of this. >> yeah. >> as the other side of this story because their plan to retake power is not just culture war. it's culture war plus perpetual minority rule, you know, that is already, you know, somewhat baked into the structure of our government but really exacerbated by gerrymandering and this, you know, ferocious campaign against voting rights, which is like nothing we've seen since the end of reconstruction. >> right. and that is why, fernand, my question becomes where that all leaves democrats. if you have some culture war that is signaling, they for now seem to be ignoring that and choosing instead to focus on legislating. you have this piece of the culture war that you and i think i know is particularly interesting, which is this fearmongering around immigrants, specifically immigrant children who are currently showing up at our border. then there is the third piece that michelle just referenced, which is the voter suppression. it does seem like the complicated part of this for democrats is that some of this they need to ignore as a pure distraction, and some of it they need to deeply, deeply engage in as a full frontal attack on democracy. >> well, that's absolutely right. but the way to deeply engage in it, to your point, is to use the tool they have, which right now is total control of the legislative and the executive branch. there is legislation that is now in the house, house resolution 1. i think it's called "for the people" act, which would very much go towards taking on the anti-democratic, anti-voter efforts that the republican party are doing in states that they have control and have legislatures that they control. it is imperative that the democratic party do that. how do they do that? three words -- kill the filibuster. we see more and more every day the idea of the filibuster's removal, allowing the democrats to do all of those things it wants because unfortunately in this moment that the country finds ourselves in, we do have to chew gum and walk at the same time and fight against a pandemic, and the democrats really need to press down while they have the legislative levers. that might change in 2022. it won't change if they keep racking up those legislative wins that help the american people and strengthen our democracy. >> fernand and michelle, thank you both for spending some time with us. next, a covid turnaround in seattle, once the center of america's outbreak. no more. mayor jenny durkan will tell us how they did it. plus congressman raul ruiz is here to talk immigration and what's realistic about the house's new push for reform. and later, it's more than just a murder case. how the story of sarah everard in the uk is hitting close to home for women across the world. today dr. fauci said he wishes former president trump would do more to encourage his supporters to get vaccinated. polling shows republicans are less likely to get the shot. fauci thinks that if trump used his influence, it would be, a quote, game-changer for the vaccine rollout. paris could be headed for another lockdown. medical planes are transferring patients out of paris to other hospitals to open up more beds. nfl star and new orleans saints quarterback drew brees has announced his retirement today. over his 20-year career, brees made the pro bowl 13 times, won a super bowl, and set the nfl record for most career passing yards. and a big congratulations to our colleague rachel maddow. tonight she won the grammy for best spoken word album with her audio book "blowout: corrupted democracy, rogue state russia, and the richest, most destructive industry on earth." for more info on how you can listen go to msnbc.com/blowout or visit your local bookstore for a paper back copy. more american voices after the break. the radio up ♪ get 5 boneless wings for $1 with any handcrafted burger. only at applebee's. tired of clean clothes that just don't smell clean? 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>> i think the investigation is under way, and we should see what it brings us. >> the president's comments moments ago come as new york governor andrew cuomo remains defiant against demands for him to resign, including from new york's senate delegation chuck schumer and kirsten gillibrand. so far eight women have come forward with allegations. governor cuomo denies them. a year ago washington state was ground zero for covid in america. leadership across the state understood the gravity of the situation and took swift action. the governor and mayors delivered a unified message to control the virus, and it paid off. "the new york times" reports seattle now has the lowest death rate of the top 20 metro areas in the u.s. listen to this. the rest of the country matched the same rate, we could have saved 300,000 lives. the city's mayor, jenny durkan, joins us now. thank you for your time tonight. i want to start with vaccines. your sitting helping lead the way this weekend. the field event center transformed into what your office calls the largest civilian-run vaccination site in the country. wow, look at that. how does this move ramp up the goal of reaching herd immunity? >> it's such a tremendous effort by everybody to do this, and it's going to be critical to our ability to fight this virus. for me, it was really -- it was a moment because just about a year ago, i was in that exact same facility as we set up an army hospital because at the beginning of the pandemic, the projections were if we didn't move swiftly, we could have tens of thousands of people sick in a very short period of time and our hospitals could be overrun. and that was such a time of heartache, and now we're at a moment of hope, and we're really hopeful that this facility, which we did 2,000 yesterday, once we get more vaccine and if the white house is listening, cities will take it directly. we will be able to do over 20,000 a day. >> what lessons did you learn from sort of those early days of the pandemic? what stuck with you as we began to climb our way out of this? >> i think we learned some really critical issues that we did locally, but the nation could benefit from. first was ground your response on the science and the research and the public health information. it's so critical because you're fighting a disease. second is have a unified voice as leaders so the public knows what you are expecting of them. and also be very transparent about what you do know, what you don't know, and what you expect people to do. but i will say the main reason i think that we have been successful here is because of the great sacrifices that individuals and businesses have been willing to make. people stepped up and did what was really hard, and i tell you, everyone has suffered in the last year. >> when you talk about following the science and then you talk about the role that business plays, it brings me to this question, which is that there are now states that are ending mask mandates, reopening with no restrictions ahead of cdc guidance. what's your message to people who are eager to get back to some kind of normal? >> you know, we are already to get back to normal, but we are so close. we don't want to go backwards now. and this virus is still there. it's growing, and the only way that we can fight it is to stop the transmission. and one of the most effective ways we have is wearing a mask. most people have not been exposed to the virus, which makes them susceptible to it. you know, if you're talking about a fire, we're the kindling. stop the virus by keeping distance, washing your hands, and wearing a mask because with the variants here, we're in a really dangerous time right now. we've seen other countries that started to, you know, open up. the variants have taken hold. you see paris and london and italy have to go backwards. and i think for all of us, we do not want to have to do that again. >> we've been talking a lot of course about the american rescue plan signed into law by president biden. we've been speaking with federal lawmakers, but i wonder for you helming a big city, what does the relief that is forthcoming mean? what is it you are most interested in, in that piece of legislation? >> this is the difference between american cities recovering and not recovering. i can't tell you how important this has been. and i will say that, you know, i it's not just cities that are run by democrats. i was on a call recently with the white house with cities from across the country, red states, blue states, and the message was unified. we need help. we need to help our small businesses and our workers. we need to get help in the downtown areas and recover, and this relief package is going to be critical to getting us through because we're not out of the woods yet. people are still going to need to have to pay their rent. so this rental assistance is going to be critical. in western cities, homelessness is significant. we need help there. but in order to recover as a country, our cities have to recover, and we couldn't do it without this package. so i'm very thankful that they acted in washington, d.c., that the president showed his leadership, and i think this will be the difference between america coming back or not coming back. >> mayor durkan, thank you so much for your time tonight. next, a reality check from the border. we go to texas as fema prepares to help with a recent influx of unaccompanied migrant children. plus what will happen this week in the house to advance president biden's promises of immigration reform? congresswoman raul ruiz, chair of the hispanic caucus, will join me. and later, a new lease on life. a man sent to prison as a juvenile here with how his story highlights the dire need for criminal justice reform. n... ...to experience lexus. the invitation to lexus sales event. lease the 2021 nx 300 for $359 a month for 36 month's, and we'll make you're first month's payment. experience amazing. feeling sluggish or weighed down? and we'll make you're first month's payment. it could be a sign that your digestive system isn't working at it's best taking metamucil everyday can help. metamucil psyllium fiber, gels to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down. it also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. so you can feel lighter and more energetic metamucil. support your daily digestive health. and try metamucil fiber thins. a great tasting and easy way to start your day. trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin' high you know how i feel ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel ♪ [man: coughing] ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day... ♪ no matter how you got copd it's time to make a stand. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good ♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. it's time to start a new day. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy. and save at trelegy.com. to support local restaurants, we've been to every city. including little rock and even worcester. and tonight... i'll be eating the chicken quesadilla from...tony's tex mex...in... katy. 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