and so the risk is making sure people understand just how important this is. >> but in a political blow to the white house the most prominent politician leading the crusade for voting rights, georgia's stacey abrams and other activists there are not showing up today for the president's big speech. and another challenge to democrats, republican house leader kevin mccarthy is now threatening to strip january 6th select committee member adam schiff of chairmanship of the intelligence committee if republicans take control after the mid-terms. i'll be joined this hour by congressman schiff to get his response. but let's start with the latest from the covid hearing. nbc capitol hill correspondent leanne caldwell joining me now. give us highlights from this morning. >> reporter: there were a lot of questions from administration officials not only about the efficacy of vaccines, testing, also about isolation periods as well. we know those are the newest guidelines about how long to isolate if you can track covid at five days, and of course as expected there was the back and forth a contentious discussion between senator rand paul and dr. fauci. senator paul has repeatedly attacked dr. fauci about the origins of the virus, and today it was more focused on why he says dr. fauci dismissed epidemiologists who tried to -- who disagreed with mr. fauci, and dr. fauci says rand paul is never faced in fact and he says what says has real life consequences. let's listen. >> what happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue is that all of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there, and i have life -- threats upon my life, harass sments of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me. on december 21st a person who was arrested who was on their way from sacramento to washington, d.c. at a speed stop in iowa. and the police asked him where he was going, and he was going to washington, d.c. to kill dr. fauci. and they found in his car a ar-15 and multiple magazines of ammunition because he thinks that maybe i'm killing people. you are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain. >> reporter: so senator murray, the head of that committee, pointed out that republicans who are attacking dr. fauci, they're distracting from the point of the hearing which is to get information out and try to guide the country through this pandemic, andrea. >> well, that was really an explosive response, but it's been months and months of being tormented, frankly, by this criticism particularly from senator paul who we should point out is a doctor. he's an ophthalmologist, so that's one of the reasons why i'm sure it's so distressing, but i guess you can understand that dr. fauci has just been accused of being personally responsible for the death of 800,000 americans in the question leading up to that. thank you very much. let's turn to the pressure on hospitals across the country. during the response to yet another surge in cases pushing care providers to their breaking point. what are you hearing from leaders? >> reporter: hey, andrea, that for many of them, particularly smaller, rural hospitals they simply do not have enough staff to entirely deal with the demands that they are facing. this hospital was one of 40 in new york state that have been ordered to temporarily stop any nonessential elective surgeries because 90% of their bed capacity is full. we've spoken to doctors at this hospital and others who say that the staffing issues they're seeing, there are a few different factors at play. they say in some cases they are running into issues where health care workers, their staff are testing positive for covid-19 and have to stay home. i spoke to a doctor at this hospital just this morning who actually had to step in and operate yesterday evening because one of his colleagues tested positive for covid-19 and couldn't perform the surgery. then on top of that they've seen a lot of people leave the health care industry because they're burnt out from the stress and the demand of this pandemic, and there already was a nationwide nursing shortage before the pandemic even began. what's happened since the pandemic began is it's exasperated those issues. also when you're looking at hospitals right now they really have two groups of covid patients, if you will, coming in. they have patients admitted solely because of covid-19 and need high levels of care. the majority of those patients still are unvaccinated, but there's also this group of people testing positive for covid-19, and they don't have major symptom. they come in for something else, but that alone adds staffing problems because when you have a high number of patients coming in whether they need high level of care or just covid positive who need to isolate and separate differently, all of it creating really big burden on some hospitals particularly small ones. >> thank you very much. and dr. peter hotez, doctor for vaccine development at texas children's joins me now. i want to ask you about the question of the cdc and of course dr. fauci by the senators and even from senators who are not typically they're not rand paul, some who are more moderate senators who have not been hostile before. >> there is some credibility gap from the cdc but i think it's important not to conflate that with the attacks on prominent u.s. scientists. let's break it down into components. component one is the fact that the far right anti-vaccine aggression has caused 200,000 americans since last june to lose their lives because they were defiant of vaccines, so there is -- and this is coming right out of the cpac conference. vaccines are instruments of control or they'll take your guns and viables away, quotes from the united states congress. so the attack on tony and dr. fauci today, it's not all just tony. it's myself and a few other key u.s. scientists is all part of that. and it's not random. it's intentional. it's meant to discredit scientists and discredit american scientists. dr. fauci was right in the way he responded. having said that, there are some issues with the centers for disease control. they've come up small so many times in 2020 in terms of missing the entry of the virus from southern europe to ignite the epidemic and never getting the genomic testing under way, never measuring vaccine effectiveness. so this is an going problem. and here is what really needs to be said are there some epic fails at the centers for disease control, and it's unrealistic to think that any one new director can come in and fix this it needs the full on support of the president and white house, and so far they've not released publicly unless there are things going on behind the scenes, they're not been willing to modernize the changes at the cdc which urgently needs to be modernized. >> let me get back to what we were also talking about initially because i didn't mean to defend the senators in particular -- >> no, i know. >> what dr. paul was saying dr. paul accused dr. fauci of being personally responsible for the death of 800,000 americans, all of that that led to that, and i'm not sure how we can heal that rift and get people to finally get vaccinated which is the core of the problem especially with this highly transmissible variant. >> that's right. and those who are defiant of vaccinations are strictly along a partisan divide. you can show this in the red states, and you can make these very strong associations statistically between percentage of conservatives, those who voted for donald trump, and those who are defiant of vaccinations. and, you know, this is one of the toughest things as a biomedical scientist, a physician scientist i've ever had to talk about because all of our training says you don't talk about republicans and democrats or liberals and conservatives. they're speeds to be above all that. but i don't know how to talk about it without talking about it because it's just so obvious from studies done at m.i.t. and the kaiser family foundation done at "the new york times" it's a strict partisan divide. and it's a killer. 200,000 vaccinated americans die from anti-science aggression. >> we all knew from the beginning n95s or kn95s are better than the cloth masks. but now there seems to be a lot of data especially with this data you need to be in the better masks. if they're expensive they might be harder to get. is there a supply chain problem? is there a cost and equity problem? >> i think it's a little bit -- i think it's a little bit of everything and also the fact the surgical masks were holding up okay against the previous lineage but omicron has come off the rails because it's so highly transmissible up there with measles. and so playing catching up with this level of trance miscibility now mandating kn95s and k95s has been a challenge. >> thank you so much, dr. hotez. and thanks for all the context, and we really do feel for all of you scientists who have been at the long end of the attacks here instead of people thanking for your service. >> thank you, andrea. i appreciate that. and the russian end game, troops on the borders while talks stem from the kremlin, and the white house's plan to counter putin. that's next. r putin. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ we hit the bike trails every weekend only pay for what you need. shinges doesn't care. that's next. shingles doesn't care. we've still got the best moves you've ever seen good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but, no matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age increasing your risk for getting shingles. so, what can protect you? shingrix protects. you can protect yourself from shingles with a vaccine proven to be over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect 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to the tensions over ukraine today as 3,000 russian troops have reportedly begun live fire exercises close to the ukrainian border. this comes just a day after russian and american officials forced to have those talks in geneva on the massive buildup of troops. despite positioning 100,000 troops on the border in ukraine russia said on monday it has no interest in invading. >> we believe the threat of invasion is real, and we are determined through a combination of deterrence and diplomacy to avert that circumstance, to defend ukrainian territory and sovereignty. >> joining me now are ben rhodes, rick stengel, a former member of the biden transition team, former secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs in the obama administration and fiona hill from 2017 to 2019. she served as deputy assistant to the president and is the author of the celebrated book "there is nothing for you here finding opportunity in the 21st century." chosen by "the new york times" and i think some others as one of the best books of the year. fiona, what does vladimir putin really want? do you have any way of disturbing and divining what is he up to? >> what he's up to at the moment is getting biden's attention. i think starting off with this live fire drill making sure we don't breathe a sigh of relief after the meetings. i think as jake sullivan just said he's certainly holding out the prospect of military intervention. if the talks don't proceed in the direction he's hoping for, the direction he's hoping for is getting many russian commentators have said this, some absolutely iron clad guarantees that nato will not expand any further, nato will certainly not admit ukraine, georgia and many other soviet states. indeed he's hoping now as has become clear from some of the commentary including from his own deputy foreign minister said that nato will, in fact, push back or pull back on some of the forward deployments and some of the positioning of military -- it's made since the 1990s. and there are also elements of push back on u.s. missile deployments, intermediate range nuclear forces, tactical nuclear weapons, the intercontinental ballistic missiles, and most importantly u.s. conventional military placements. so really in many respects russia is pushing for a redo of the last 30 years since the end of the cold war. >> and ben, what is the administration's strategy here to prevent that from happening? certainly it's a nonstarter to them -- to nato entry. and there's no indication that ukraine is anywhere close to becoming a nato member. the president said that himself in brussels. he was there last june. so this is almost a manufactured crisis maybe to putin's advantage. >> yeah, i mean there are really two elements as jake sullivan said to their strategy. they're trying to send a very clear and specific message to russia that there will be a cascading series of consequences if you move further into ukraine. you'll actually see the potential expansion of nato as you've had in sweden potentially talking about joining the alliance. you could see more deployment of nato forces into eastern europe, the thing putin says he doesn't want to have happen. you could see the cancellation of that very important pipeline into germany and you could see very stringent sanctions and export controls to cut off the russians acknowledging military sector from some vital elements and on and on. that's the deterrent side. now, the question is if you're not able to agree to these russian demands, what do you talk about? like transparency around military exercises, like adjustments to the deployment of missiles that are the kind of things the united states is more than willing to talk about and that the united states will also want to broaden this conversation to bring in issues like cyber and other 21st century threats frankly we could use a better dialogue with russia on. the question is can you send a strong enough deterrent message that russia is incentivized to basically engage in ongoing diplomacy for the sake of security issues. when he cliepbes out on a limb like this he may need to take some action to validate his political standing back home. >> that is really the worrying issue. rick stengel, in terms of diplomacy something you were an expert on, so how do we compete with the megaphone that putin has? he's got all of his officials out there. they're on camera. they're talking. they're spinning. they're threatening with a little bit of -- and they're making impossible demands. and what we hear is jake sullivan and, you know, ned price from the state department but wendy sherman but we don't seem to have all the forcefulness we seem to be having in making sure the allies know publicly that they have our back, we have their back. >> if you saw the other day after the first day of talks deputy secretary sherman was out there at the same time as the russians. during the trump administration we didn't give read outs of conversations with putin, and there were times during the obama administration where the russians would come right out after talks and have a press conference and we wouldn't. i feel in terms of public diplomacy and even countering disinformation we headed them off at the pass this time. i mean, we had hundreds of meetings with the allies before. you know, that slogan about no negotiating about you without you is part of the vernacular. we've ben -- jen psaki i think it was yesterday said let's be prepared for russian disinformation after the talks and the russians wen apop lecktic about it. i think we've been doing much better than we have been, and i think we're out there in a way we certainly weren't during the trump administration. >> that's true. >> -- and making the allies feel secure. >> i didn't mean to interrupt, but i was saying we haven't been as much as a television presence. over there, you know, we've seen lavrov's press secretary, we've seen all of them. all of the top officials from the kremlin have been talking quite a bit and very, very publicly. that's all i'm saying. an incredible time when they were in the office and the russian ambassador, and i was in the state department, and we were the ones, you know, telling them at the state department this was happening because it had all been announced -- done by trump and the russians without anybody else being aware of it. >> i'd say there are other ways of communicating other than television these day. and we're on social media, on facebook in ways we hadn't been before, and i think the whole point is trying to reach audiences that we didn't reach before. >> okay, fair point. to be continued, rick stengel, fiona hill and ben rhodes. thanks to all of you. and boycotting the president, some georgia democratic activists now refusing to attend the president's big voting rights speech today in atlanta. we'll explain why next. this is an treea mitchell reports on msnbc s an treea mitc report oh my 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lewis' former district, in georgia. the white house would hope this event would show democratic unity ahead of martin luther king day to have several votes coming upchuck schumer has scheduled. but several voting rights activists are going to skip it because they view the president's pushes as too little, too late. joining me now is eugene daniels. let's talk about stacey abrams and a lot of the other georgia activists. he's going to the king center, going to be with the king family today in john lewis' district bringing down all these black congress members on air force one, and stacey abrams her schedule is too busy or his poll numbers are too low and she's running for office. >> that is what the president said getting on marine one was that basically their schedules didn't match up. but let's be very clear this is as you outlined a huge speech for the president in the state that stacey abrams has been fighting for voting rights, right? so it doesn't look great for this white house she's not going to be there no matter what they say the reason for that is. when you talk to georgia democrats and voting rights advocates in the state they say why are you coming here? we're all onboard with voting rights. we know we need to change the filibuster. we know that voting rights legislation needs to happen now and we're running out of time. but the white house clearly sees all the symbolic and they're a practical location for the speech, right? georgia has been described as ground zero on voting rights because of some voting restriction laws that have been passed there, where john lewis fought and died, martin luther king was also born and fought there. that is how the white house sees it. but you're right, the push back or at least some of the absence of these key georgia voting rights legislation is obvious and not great right now. >> and you've got two key senate seats there. control of the senate starts and ends in georgia. and georgia has passed restrictive legislation all ready. >> yeah, absolutely. >> and georgia of course is where the president himself is under investigation for pressuring local officials to come up with 11,000-plus votes and try to overturn the election fraudulently, allegedly. eugene, but a major day, a voting rights speech but no plan to actually get it passed. thank you so much for being with us. and joining us now is the cochair of american bridge 21st century and the former massachusetts governor, deval patrick. you're such an advocate for voting rights legislation and you said we need to dial-up the heat. how does the president do that if he can't get stacey abrams to show up for a speech in her home state? >> look, i share her frustration. i'm sure the president is frustrated. i'd start off by being frustrated not a single republican in the senate and i think the house as well has been willing to stand up to something so essential and that's fair access to the ballot. i think the more important question today is where are those members, the folks who have the vote? where are the members of the democratic party who are in the united states senate if we cannot get enough republicans to come along, are they prepared to stop hiding behind the filibuster and to change the rule for this case at least so that we can -- we can have a participatory democracy? >> you know, what i keep trying to figure out is what is the plan? what is chuck schumer's plan? what is the president's plan? because until they have enough votes to change the rule and they've got amy klobuchar and other committee figures with them today -- until they can change that rule in the senate they can't get this passed. >> is certainly seems that way. and i don't pretend to understand the mysteries of the senate. i do know a little bit about the history of the filibuster rule as you do, andrea, and i'm sure many of your viewers. it is a fundamentally undemocratic device to enable a minority of votes to thwart the will of the majority. and if it ever has any value it certainly can't be said to have any value in the case of fundamentals around democracy itself and access to the ballot. so if we cannot have republicans stop hiding behind the big lie about the last election and step up in terms of federal oversight to ensure fair elections everywhere, they won't come along, then it seems to me all democrats including the ones who have been hold outs to this point, and that is my friend senator manchin and senators sinema to join in a vote to change the rule. that has to happen. and as i say, look, i have never understood why it is the senate can't do more than one thing as a time, why it was this couldn't be moving at the same time build back better was moving. as i say the mysteries of the senate belong to the senate. but right now the american people deserve confidence in their democracy. that is important to us. it's, frankly, important to our power around the world and what we project around the world. this has to happen and has to happen now. >> you're absolutely right in terms of the foreign implications. president xi is watching, vladimir putin is watching and a lot of our allies are watching what they they see as the failure of american democracy on january 6th and now the failure of congress to do something about it. deval patrick, as always it's a real pleasure seeing you. thank you, sir. >> good to be with you. thank you. and the stalemate of the high level talks with moskow. officials bringing no ease to the tensions as 100,000 russian troops remain positioned on ukraine's border. how is this going to play out? we'll talk to a real expert, former defense secretary and cia director leon panetta is next. you're watching andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. is next. you're watching andrea mitchell reports on msnbc mm. [ clicks tongue ] i don't know. i think they look good, man. mm, smooth. uh, they are a little tight. like, too tight? might just need to break 'em in a little bit. you don't want 'em too loose. for those who were born to ride there's progressive. with 24/7 roadside assistance. -okay. think i'm gonna wear these home. -excellent choice. the u.s. and russia remain deadlocked after more than seven hours of talks in geneva of course about the deployment of u.s. troops and nato troops in europe. joining me now is leon panetta. secretary panetta, great to see you. as we noted earlier russia is reportedly holding live fire drills now near ukraine a day after the talks. what message is vladimir putin trying to send? >> well, it comes right out of putin's playbook, trying to ratchet up pressure as he is deploying forces, continuing to deploy forces even as he negotiates and making some very unrealistic demands in terms of concessions with regards to nato. i think -- i think at this point the most important thing the united states and our allies in europe must do is to maintain a position of strength here in opposition to what putin is requesting, with a hope that through these negotiations over these next few days that he'll be willing to resolve this on a negotiated basis. but the united states and our allies in europe must remain strong if we are to be able to come out the other end here. >> do you think we can count on our allies, on germany and other allies especially when they're watching what's going on back here in this country? >> i think, you know, our allies at this point seem to be very much in sync with the united states, and that's important. i think secretary blinken visited germany and made clear that our allies have to be together. in some ways it's interesting that what putin is saying about nato, what he's doing right now is producing the very result that putin doesn't want, which is that the united states and our allies in europe are more unified. they're getting stronger. they're deploying forces in nato, and as a matter of fact there are countries now seeking nato membership like sweden and finland. that just represents the very opposite of what putin is trying to accomplish. >> now, let me switch gears on you and ask you about north korea because kim jong-un has launched another missile, this one a ballistic missile, landed in the sea of japan, but i'm told by sources, credible sources and experts on this is the important thing about this missile is he is really gaining on achieving that hypersonic missile. this was mach 10, ten times the speed of sound. but most importantly the reentry vehicle was a maneuverable vehicle which moved laterally, which makes it harder to evade our missile defenses. as a former defense secretary and cia director you know far more about this than i could ever possibly, so give me your take on it. >> this is a dangerous step. kim jong-un if he develops a supersonic missile that can avoid our defense systems, that represents a real threat to the united states, to the region and for that matter to the world. we're dealing with an awful lot of danger points right now, andrea, not just in russia but in north korea, in iran, in china. and with regards to terrorism, there continue to be danger points out there. and i -- i think the only way to confront all of these danger points is for the united states to build strong alliances with our allies because ultimately that's the best way to confront our adversaries is through a unified and strong approach that represents a position of strength and not weakness. >> since the president's election and even before that north korea has rejected any efforts at negotiations and has continued to make advances, important advances also on submarine launch missiles. so how do we control his nuclear program? we've reached the point we can't declare we're in favor of a nuclear-free north korean peninsula. we've reached the point of a nuclear power. he is one. >> i think the challenge here is try to develop an approach that reduces his nuclear arsenal and that tries to open up some kind of negotiations that will deal with the economic problems, the serious economic problems that north korea's facing, the serious covid problems north korea is facing and the other areas that could be part of a negotiated approach. but the problem is that kim jong-un just like putin and just like xi only respond to strength. and so it's very important for the united states to make very clear we're going to maintain a presence in south korea, we're going to maintain a strong alliance with the quadcountries in that region. we're going to maintain a strong alliance with south korea and japan, and we are going to have a strong military presence in that part of the world that is prepared to confront them if that's what they want. those are the messages we have to send if we even have half a chance of trying to be able to ultimately negotiate some kind of resolution. >> i want to briefly ask you about the fact the faa has confirmed now they did a halt on all flights, so there was a ground halt within minutes of this launch. now, they're not saying there's a linkage. they're just saying it was a matter of precaution. we don't believe their missiles can reach the continental united states at this point even out there in california on the coast, in fact. but this is extraordinary the faa did halt all take offs and actually landed planes. all nights were taken down for at least 15 minutes. >> like i said it's an understandable precaution because the fact is that north korea continues to work on intercontinental ballistic missiles. they are improving their missile capability. we know they have nuclear weapons. they represent a threat. and once one of those missiles takes off it's not always clear just exactly what direction that missile is going to take. and it's for that reason that the kind of precautions that the faa took are understandable. i can't tell you how our military has to be fully prepared to respond to those kinds of missile launches because we, too, are not particularly aware of whether or not the direction of that missile could very well be directed at the west coast or directed at some of our other assets in the pacific. so for that reason we have to be able to respond effectively. >> i was looking for reassurance, mr. secretary. i'm not sure i got it, that we don't exactly know how to track these things. okay. there we are. >> yeah, we follow it. we follow them, but i have to develop -- i have to tell you that they are developing new capabilities that are challenging some of our abilities to be able to defend against those kind of missiles. that's a reality, and the united states is going to have to continue to work very hard to be able to respond to that threat. >> a very serious comment. thank you very much, former defense and cia director, leon panetta as always. threatening to shake-up key committees if the balance of power shifts in november in ways that would be unprecedented. we'll talk to the chairman of the house intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff. that's next. intelligence intelligence committee, congressman i could use some help showing the world how liberty mutual customizes their car insurance so they only pay for what they need. (gasps) schiff that's next. did it work? only pay for what you need ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ spider-man no way home in theaters december 17th republican leader kevin mccarthy is making new threats to strip key democrats in their committee assignments if his party takes back the house. if he becomes speaker of the house, which is most likely, you know, if they do take back the house, at the same time mccarthy is defending marjorie taylor greene and paul gosar, they had been stripped of their assignments because of dangerous conspiracy theories and violent social media posts and threats. joining me now is the highest ranking democrat that mccarthy is threatening intelligence committee chairman adam schiff who is also on the january 6th committee and led donald trump's first impeachment. congressman, it's no surprise that you are being targeted i suppose for this kind of retaliation, but in having covered the house, i'm quite surprised given that it is not even parallel to anything that has been contemplated against a veteran member of -- former chair, if you were dethroned, if the republicans take over. what's your response? >> well, i mean, the two are not disconnected, that is, what marjorie taylor greene and paul gosar want is really important to kevin mccarthy right now. he not only defends the qanon base of his support, but he's terrified of losing it, and so marjorie taylor greene is calling for vengeance, so kevin mccarthy is calling for is kev mccarthy will do whatever donald trump tells him to do, and far apart from committee assignments, that means that kevin mccarthy will vote to overturn the next election, next presidential election if donald trump loses again. he voted to do so the first time and he will vote to do so again, only this time if he should ever be in the majority or be speaker, he has the ability to carry that out and that is such a real and direct threat to our democracy. kevin mccarthy can never be allowed to become speaker and in that sense i think the midterms are really an election in which democracy itself will be on the ballot. >> one final point on this is when democrats took over you didn't remove devin nunes as the ranking republican, even though you and he had been adversaries during all the years when he was chair. >> no, of course not, and, you know, i think the break in precedent here is that mccarthy has been unwilling to hold his own members to account. as we saw in the past with others, whether they were democratic or republican speakers, they would hold their own members to a certain ethical standard. mccarthy hasn't done that. so it's fallen on the democratic party to enforce some ethics involving when members glorify violence or death threats against other members or engage in dangerous conspiracy theories or racist rhetoric or conduct, but mccarthy has broken that precedent and will he break other precedent? it really depends on what his qanon base wants and even more importantly what donald trump wants. >> let me ask you about mike pence because "the new york times" is reporting that the former vice president is annoyed, disillusioned with the committee as it seeks to question him. how concerned are you that he won't cooperate, because you may well not have the legal tools to try to get him to cooperate. >> well, i hope that he will be willing to cooperate. you know, i suspect, though, that his decision won't be based on whether he likes the committee or doesn't like the committee or likes something the committee said or doesn't. i think he's trying to figure out politically how it impacts him. i don't think that should be the predominant consideration, it ought to be what's best for the country. mike pence knows that he is a material witness, efforts to overturn the election he was the target of many of those targets, he was the subject of death threats, they had a noose outside the capitol, gallows for him, because he did his constitutional duty, because he refused to capitulate to donald trump's demand that he ignore the constitution and essentially decertify the election results. so i think he understands very well what's best for the country, what he's trying to figure out is what's best for mike pence. i hope he will do what's best for the country. >> we're hearing something very different from another republican, republican senator mike rounds, saying that his party should tell the truth about the 2020 election after he was attacked by former president trump in recent days. take a listen to senator rounds' comments. >> i think as republicans we owe it to tell the truth and i think integrity matters. and so, in my opinion, if we want to keep the confidence of our supporters and our voters, then we have to be honest with them. >> and the less than a minute that we have left, can you respond to that? >> well, he's absolutely right. the truth matters, integrity matters. if the republican party is going to have any future it has to get back to being a party of ideas and ideology and not this anti-truth cult of the former president. so i think he's spot on and i think it will also not only be important for the republican party, it's important for the country that both parties be whetted to the truth and stop tearing down, in the case of the republican party, public confidence in our elections because that leads to political violence as we saw on january 6. >> adam schiff, congressman, thanks for sharing with us today. appreciate you being here. >> thank you. and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow us online, on facebook and on twitter @mitchellreports. chuck todd is with "mtp daily" starting right after this. is w" ugh starting right after this. switching wireless carriers is easy with xfinity. just lean on our helpful switch squad to help you save with xfinity mobile. they can help break up with your current carrier for you and transfer your info to your new phone. giving you a fast and easy experience that can save you hundreds a year on your wireless bill. visit your nearest xfinity store and see how the switch squad can help you switch and save. get $200 off a new eligible 5g phone when you switch to xfinity mobile. talk with our helpful switch squad at your local xfinity store today. if it's tuesday, president biden prepares to give a major speech on voting rights in atlanta this afternoon as democratic activists grow more frustrated with the lack of progress on the issue. and the white house right now still lacks a plan to get legislation through congress. plus, surging covid cases and hospitalizations hit record highs again. in the u.s. thanks to omicron. as dr. fauci and the cdc director rochelle

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