her full response in just a moment. meantime, the committee has a lot more on their hands. a trove of trump white house documents surrounding the attack. the national archives began turning over those records just hours after the supreme court rejected donald trump's claim that they were protected under executive privilege. and that is not all. there is fresh reporting from "the washington post" about a coordinated effort led by rudy giuliani to overturn the election results in five key states by helping to justify alternate electors that would cast a state's electoral college votes for trump, not biden. one of the reporters on that piece will tell us how far giuliani went and about the trump electors who refused to go along with him. on that same subject of alternate electors, more breaking news, this out of georgia. the fulton county district attorney has now asked for a special grand jury to investigate any coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections in that state. joining me now is nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, nbc news capitol hill correspondent leigh ann caldwell, and university of alabama law professor and former u.s. attorney joyce vance. she is also an msnbc legal analyst. we have a lot of stories to go over right now but they all fall under the banner of the 2020 election and the effort to either subvert it or to overturn it in some places. leigh ann, we'll start with the latest bit of news and that is the committee wanting to talk to ivanka trump. ivanka trump's spokesperson responding. when i read that response, it didn't immediately address what they were asking which was to come talk to them. >> it didn't, katy. it's been a big week for the january 6th select committee. i know pete is going to talk about the supreme court. as far as ivanka trump is concerned, the committee sent her an 11-page letter outlining what they want to hear from her and in that letter, they detail some of the previous testimony that they've already received from some of their witnesses, including keith kellogg. they quote -- he was in the oval office on january 6th with ivanka trump at one time when the former president, donald trump, was on the phone with former vice president mike pence and they detail some of the discussion in this letter, where the former president was pressuring mike pence to overturn the election in congress later that day. and the committee says that keith kellogg said that ivanka trump turned to keith kellogg and said, "mike pence as a good man," after pence rejected donald trump's attempts to have him influence or overturn the election. now, as far as ivanka trump's response, you're absolutely right, it gives no indication of what she's going to do. a spokesperson to ivanka trump tells nbc news that she just learned that the january 6th committee issued a public letter asking her to appear. as the committee already knows, ivanka did not speak at the january 6 rally. as she publicly stated that day at 3:15 p.m., any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable, the violence must stop immediately, please be peaceful. and so this is a very detailed letter. notice that they did not subpoena her. they have just asked her to come and speak with them. and we'll see how this plays out. the chair that have committee, bennie thompson, told reporters earlier this week that they have asked phone companies to turn over phone records of eric trump, another, obviously, trump child who is closely involved with the former president and was around him that day. so this is perhaps just the beginning in trying to get the people closest to the former president, his family, to come and speak with the committee, katy. >> all right. so we have that, now let's talk about all of the documents the committee now has at their disposal. they've been wanting these white house records now from the trump white house for some time, pete. it has wound its way through the courts and the supreme court has said no, they're not protected by executive privilege. what does this mean? >> well, the court, all the court really says is, it's not going to block the production. what's left of the former president's executive privilege frankly is now a bit of a muddle. it was pretty clear what the court of appeals said. the supreme court said, you know, the court of appeals had a lot of opinions about that but that's what the lawyers call dicta, it's not a formal holding of the court, or so says the supreme court. obviously the only thing the court acted on was the former president's request not to turn the documents over while his case is on appeal. so it's pretty clear, however, if they're not going to block production of the documents, they're not going to hear his case. so i think as far as he's concerned, this matter is pretty well resolved. it seems pretty clear to me that if the committee asks for more documents and the president again asserts executive privilege, he would probably not be successful. and i also think that this undercuts the ability of former trump officials to be able to say the committee has no legitimate purpose, and because of executive privilege, we can't cooperate. >> what about what's happening also in georgia, fulton county, pete? convening a grand jury to investigate what was happening down there in 2020. >> asking for a special grand jury. the prosecutor there says she has opened an investigation into whether there was illegal meddling in trying to change the results of the election, interfere with the conduct of the election. but she wants the judges there to appoint a special grand jury. now, under georgia law, that grand jury would serve for a year. she says it probably wouldn't get started until may. but she says the reason for this is that she's asked a lot of people for information and they all say we're not going to answer your questions unless we get subpoenaed. and she notes, by the way, brad raffensperger, the secretary of state, saying much to that effect on "meet the press." that's an exhibit in her request. so now it will be up to all the judges in fulton county on whether to impanel this special grand jury. it would then allow the prosecutor to get subpoenas, to require people to testify. it can't actually return indictments. it can recommend charges. and then she would take it to the next step. >> asking for that special grand jury, thank you for clarifying that. let's also bring in amy gardner, a national political reporter for "the washington post." amy, you're on the byline for the rudy giuliani story and the alternate electors out there in five key states. what exactly did rudy giuliani do and what about these electors who, as you say in this headline, that balked? >> so what we learned from talking to numerous republican officials, former trump campaign officials, people who were inside the president's legal team, is that rudy giuliani was driving this strategy to put alternate slates of electors in place in seven states. what they were saying at the time was that it was necessary as a contingency in case the campaign won some of the few remaining legal challenges that were still outstanding. but what we now know more than a year later is that the very existence of these slates of electors and their meetings in state capitols in these states was used in the subsequent weeks to try to persuade mike pence and members of congress that there was a choice to be made by congress on january 6th, the fact that there were dueling slates of electors meant that republicans could choose the republican slates. so that's new. what's also new is some of the original nominators for trump in these states within the willing to go along with that plan and balked. part of the scheme that rudy giuliani was on top of was finding alternates who were willing to serve as around the slates even though in all seven of these slates the sitting governors had already certified the biden electors whose votes would count. >> i thought it was interesting that michigan attorney general dana nessel says this wasn't just political free speech, she's calling it forgery. >> these slates of electors actually sent a certificate of vote to the national archivist, asserting they were the true electors and their votes were the ones that should count in the electoral college count on january 6th. and that is the part that i believe attorney general nessel is focusing on when she accuses these folks of fraud. >> joyce, a lot of different stories here, but they all fall under the banner of the 2020 election. if you can, try to tie all this together for us and what this means about the gathering of information about what happened in 2020. >> you know, sometimes when you're a prosecutor pursuing a complicated case, there's a moment where all the different lines of your investigation begin to converge upon themselves, and you get a clear picture. this is particularly true in conspiracy cases. and although the january 6th committee obviously is not prosecutorial, they do not have the ability to indict a case, they have this legitimate legislative purpose of seeing whether laws surrounding certification of our elections need to be updated. and that's how all of this evidence comes to light. but katy, to the point of your question, one has to wonder if this doesn't add additional urgency to doj's work, the work that merrick garland explained on january 5 would be unfetterred by who was involved and what sort of position of power they might have occupied, because this information about the slates of electors is very interesting. could it be a crime in and of itself? perhaps. but what looks really likely to me is that it's part of the ongoing conduct in a conspiracy designed to interfere with the certification of joe biden's win in 2020. and what we see happening with the request for ivanka trump's testimony is this notion of the need to get to the person closest to trump, because she's really the one who has intimate knowledge about what he knew. was he aware that this conduct, and particularly putting together the slates of electors, could have been illegal in the sense that it was pressuring mike pence to violate a legal duty he had to accept the results of the electoral college? what was trump's ultimate intent on january 6th? and this 11-page letter that many of the folks on the panel have referenced, it also contains a lot of very detailed, pinpoint information, talking, for instance, about trump's failure to control the crowd when it became clear that it was his targeting of mike pence that whipped the crowd into a fury. whether or not trump had conversations with folks trying to get extra support to the capitol. ivanka trump would be a key witness in a prosecutorial exercise. she's certainly important to the legislative effort of the january 6th committee. all of these different lines of investigation appear to be converging now. >> let me ask you this. if the committee chose to subpoena ivanka trump, how successful could they be, considering what the supreme court just ruled based on tonight's attempt to use executive privilege for those documents that the national archives had? >> so this opinion from the supreme court yesterday is i think a powerful suggestion that executive privilege claims will not prevail and that the court in essence has made this calculus, that getting the truth about january 6th is sort of the ultimate goal here. could there be additional litigation? sure, people could try to quash subpoenas. but i suspect the courts will dispense with that fairly quickly and order testimony now that they've seen the court's ruling. i think the bigger question is what happens with witnesses who were defiant and will the committee refer additional cases to doj for prosecution, knowing that the committee has already done that a couple of times, and that the supreme court has weighed in, this may actually give impetus to witnesses who were on the fence and encourage them to testify voluntarily or to comply with subpoenas. the january 6th committee, frankly, has worked at remarkable speed, and we're now seeing them get success that eluded earlier congressional committees that were looking at wrongdoing by the former president. >> joyce vance, thank you so much for all of that analysis. and everybody else, thank you as well. amy, leigh ann, pete, we appreciate it. ahead, the biden presidency one year later. steve kornacki breaks down what americans are thinking from the pandemic to the economy. also ahead, president biden tries to clean up on ukraine. p e >> let there be no doubt at all that if putin makes this choice, russia will pay a heavy price. >> what he said yesterday during his white house news conference and why it rattled both washington and ukraine. and later, from emergency to acceptance. how parts of europe are reassessing how they handle covid. e reassessing how they handle covid. when i break a long run, i'm talking long, long. that's why i use old spice triple protection sweat defense. [announcer] there he goes. old spice works harder for longer. hey derrick man, you gonna be much longer? it's gonna be a minute, minute. hey derrick, quit playin'. derrick! real cowboys get customized car insurance with liberty mutual, so we only pay for what we need. -hey tex, -wooo. can someone else get a turn? yeah, hang on, i'm about to break my own record. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ today president biden clarified comments he made about how the u.s. would react if russia invades ukraine, after ukraine's leader pushed back at biden's suggestion in a white house news conference yesterday that a, quote, minor incursion, his words, might not merit a full scale response. here is what president biden said yesterday, followed by what he is now saying today. >> russia will be held accountable if it invades. and it depends on what it does. it's one thing if it's a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, et cetera. >> i've been absolutely clear with president putin, he has no misunderstanding. if any, any, assembled russian units move across the ukrainian border, that is an invasion. it will be met with severe and coordinated response. let there be no doubt at all. if putin makes this choice, russia will pay a heavy price. >> 100,000 russian troops are currently positioned along ukraine's border. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel is in kiev. >> reporter: it's clear that u urain -- ukrainian officials, the ukrainian government, are upset, frightened by what they heard from president biden. president biden suggested more than once that the u.s. sees a difference, that he sees a difference between a small russian military incursion into ukraine and a major russian invasion of this country which he said would trigger massive economic responses and economic sanctions from the united states and european allies. the ukrainian foreign minister this morning said that there can be no difference and there must be no difference between an incursion and an invasion, that a russian military action is an invasion and an invasion is an invasion is an invasion. the ukrainian president said there is no daylight between washington and kiev, that the two governments are aligned, that nothing has changed of this but you don't issue a statement that nothing has changed unless you're concerned that the impression is that something has changed. the white house itself issued a clarification after president biden spoke, saying that there is no difference between a small incursion and a major invasion of ukraine, because the white house and ukraine and nato allies don't want to give the impression that president biden gave a green light to vladimir putin to do a minor military action, to take a piece of ukraine, and that that would not trigger a massive response or the same level of response that a major invasion of this country would be. it comes at an extremely sensitive time. the u.s., nato allies, and ucontai -- ukraine, are trying to convince russia to withdraw the 100,000 troops that russia has stationed on three sides of ukraine's borders. when you're entering into negotiations, which started here in kiev yesterday, are continuing today in germany, will continue tomorrow when the secretary of state meets the russian foreign minister in geneva, you'll want to have the strongest, most united position possible. and it seems that in this poker game that is happening between the u.s. and russia, president biden may have revealed a few too many cards. >> richard engel in kiev, thank you. joining me now is msnbc military analyst and retired four-star general barry mccaffrey, who served as a member of the national security council. thanks for being here. richard just ended his report with that president biden may have shown his hand. >> i think richard is entirely correct. i think what president biden may have done is just blurted out the truth, the internal discussions of the nsc on what we're going to do. but it was a mistake. he did seem to green-light a limited incursion. i think the russians are unlikely to want to fight street to street. they may want to seize a land bridge from crimea into the danbas. it was painful wanting the nato secretary general try and claim we have a unity front. we don't. the germans just denied uk military aircraft airtran sit flying lethal weapon aid to the ukraine. we're in a mess, and putin is a risk-taker and is on the verge of military action in the ukraine. >> i know there are people out there that are wondering this, which is, why should americans care if russia wants to take back part of ukraine? ukraine is not part of nato. why would we need to get involved in a conflict there? >> well, i don't think we do need to get involved in a conflict there, and i don't think we will. you're correct, quite correct, they're not part of the european union, formally. they're not part of nato. they're a land bordered with belarus, a satellite state, and the russians. we've already seen that the russians seize a good bit of terrain. so i don't think we're going to fight for it. but i do think there's a principle of international law. there is an example to the world community, you know, the chinese undoubtedly are watching the u.s. reacting carefully. what would the u.s. do if we moved to seize taiwan with military action? so we've got a problem. we do not want sovereign borders to be open to military invasion. that's what's at stake here. and we're going to try and deter it through political, diplomatic, economic, and covert action means. but not with u.s. military power. >> general barry mccaffrey, thank you so much for coming in and clarifying all that for us. it is certainly a complicated situation out there. general, thank you. coming up, the cia releases a new assessment of havana syndrome, the mystery ailment that has so far sickened hundreds of u.s. diplomats and spice. spies. but first, steve kornacki will tell us how americans really feel about everything going on right now. americans really feel about everything really feel about everything going on right now mm, smooth. uh, they are a little tight. like, too tight? 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>> yeah, a couple of ways of looking at it, katy. you mentioned the headline there, the 43% job approval rating. one thing to do here is put this in the context of biden's recent predecessors, where were they at this same part, the one-year mark of their presidency. here was donald trump a year into his presidency, he was actually under 40%, a few points worse than joe biden is right now. then you go back to barack obama before trump, and obama was actually up at 50% at this point, better than where biden is right now. obama's trajectory was heading down at that point in 2010, but still you can see he was at 50%. biden is right in between where trump and obama were at this same point. the ominous political sign there, though, for biden and for democrats, is that both trump and obama saw their party suffer pretty difficult midterm elections. and there is biden with a number that's right in range with where trump and obama were. another way to look at this here, let's break down that approval rating. you can break this down by race in this case. one group we'll be paying extra attention to in 2022 politically, hispanic voters. you can see biden, where he stands with historic voters at least in our poll right here. remember, in 2020 there was more of a shift than i think a lot of folks were expecting away from the democrats, toward trump, toward republicans, among hispanic voters. one of the questions heading into 2022 is, is that a trend that's going to continue, is that going to intensify at all? are democrats going to be able to improve? so we're going to be keeping a close eye on this. all polls that we get heading into the midterms, two specific issues here tell the story of what biden is up against when it comes to public opinion. this is how biden has been doing in terms of his approval rating on the economy, in our nbc polling. you can see early in his presidency, slightly more than 50% approved of how he was handling the economy. you see how that's gone down through the course of the year. inflation has become a big story in the last few months. and here now in our new poll, biden at just a 38% approval rating on the economy. and the one that i think jumps out even more when you look at it, katy, it's the issue of the pandemic, of the coronavirus. again, at the beginning of his presidency, early last year, merely 70% of the public approved of how biden was handling the coronavirus. it was his strongest suit politically at that time. that number came down through 2021 and now look at it in our poll, for the first time in our polling, joe biden is under 50%, well under 50% when it comes to how he's handling the coronavirus. and a majority there, 53%, say they disapprove of how he's handling it now. >> peter, greg sargent of "the washington post" had an opinion piece out today that i thought was interesting, pulling out some old mitch mcconnell quotes about denying the party in power and the president any sort of victory because it allows washington to look dysfunctional and if it looks dysfunctional, the people in charge get held accountable for that, and right now the people in charge are not the republicans. so given those statements, given that mcconnell is still the majority leader or still in power among the republicans, the minority leader, i mean, i wonder, is this administration doing enough to place the blame for its lack of success on the other side? >> well, you heard the president come out last night at his press conference and try to do that. he came out with two basic talking points. one, things are better off than you think they are, he cited a number of things he thinks are accomplishments, how the economy is doing better, how he got two big, important bills through congress last year even if he didn't get build back better. the second point was to go after the republicans, saying, okay, what do they stand for? they don't agree with what i want to do but what are they for? his point is all they do is say no. that's a point democrats would like him to make more often, take the fight to republicans. after all it wasn't just joe manchin and kyrsten sinema who tanked the filibuster reform last night, it was all 50 republicans. as you point out, with greg sargent's column, this is not a new position for mitch mcconnell or the republicans yet the president came into office last year saying he was uniquely qualified to get past all this. he said last night he misjudged, he didn't realize how adamantly opposed republicans would be. who would be surprised by that? that's the nature of today's politics, there's a tribal moment today where you're either with us or against us, blue versus red, you cannot assume you'll be able to get support from the other side and you have to calculate accordingly. he seemed to have overestimated, by his own account, his ability to work across the aisle. now the question is, is it worth it? is there more he can do? a lot of republicans said he didn't even try, mitt romney said he hasn't gotten a call from president biden, mitt romney would be one republican you would have thought he would reach out to on these issues. is it worth still trying to make any bipartisan progress or do you just give up and look for a different way? >> he might get mitt romney, murkowski, who knows, but can he get ten republicans to vote alongside him? because that's what he needs, ten republicans to pass major legislation, unless they're doing it through reconciliation. all right. so in talking about the numbers, again, and approval rating, and how americans are feeling, rev, when you're talking to other civic leaders, who is getting the blame for what's happening in washington? is joe biden getting the blame? after all, he did sell himself as somebody who could bridge the gap. or is it the other party? >> i think the other party gets a lot of the blame. but i think that a lot of people feel, including me, that joe biden should have used his bully pulpit earlier and stronger. we have been pushing all summer for him to come out against the filibuster. he finally did, and he did it very well, but he did it very late. i think he needs to get back out into those communities, talk to those communities, meeting with those leaders. i think he had maybe one, two at the most, meetings even with civil rights leaders since he's been president. he needs to partner with people that partnered with him. the perception was that he was reaching out so much to the republicans that he was reaching beyond the base supporters that put him and vice president harris in office. he needs to be more friendly to those that were his friends and be the spokesperson for their interests. the republicans have dug in with eight years of being barack obama's vice president, he should know these people are not flexible at all. and the fact that he was once one of them means nothing to them. they feel the only way they can get back in power is to undercut people's rights to vote, protection of voting, and other things. and he's not going to convince them otherwise. he needs to dig in and fight. the whole thing of extending an olive branch to people that are definitely not open to that is a waste of time, and you lose your friends by seeing them constantly watching you play to your enemy rather than befriend those that put you there in the first place. >> i don't have any time, but if you could answer it quickly, rev, does he suffer the consequences of this at the polls, do democrats suffer at the polls, do they get the same turnout they got in 2020? >> i think that they're on the precipice of that happening. but it's not too late for him to turn it around if he goes from being a conciliator to an advocate, i think people will storm the polls, saying that, wait a minute, you tried to deny us this, we may not have been able to get 60 votes but we're going to take this one more time, despite the fact that you put impediments and put in a senate that will give us our voting rights. it's according to whether the president helps to lead that charge. >> reverend al sharpton, peter baker, and steve kornacki, everybody, thank you very much. and a new cia report says havana syndrome is not the result of hostile foreign powers. instead the agency said it found, quote, plausible alternative explanations for most of the health incidents experienced by u.s. diplomats abroad. but the mysterious symptoms are severe in some cases. and the administration has stressed that those suffering need proper medical care and support. also in a letter today, secretary of state anthony blinken said, quote, those who have been affected have real stories to tell. their pain is real. there is no doubt in my mind about that. seeming to disagree with what the cia is saying. also coming up, the biggest little city in the world is quickly becoming one of the least affordable cities in america. the housing crisis that has hit nevada. first, democrats lost their fight for a talking filibuster. but why did they want one in the if i were? 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>> the senate is built almost entirely on consent. so much little stuff that happens in the senate could require a vote. but instead, it requires everybody to look around and essentially say, we'll do this by unanimous consent. everything from setting up the breaks they take in the middle of the day to go to lunch or to adjourn for the end of the day could require votes. and to make this process simpler, they've set up the system, and it's moved this way over the entire lifetime of the senate, to agree that you're only going to really have that debate when somebody forces the issue. by and large people can communicate to their majority or minority leader's office and say, this is what i believe, and the senate tries to work around that. it is those customs that have grown kind of ingrained in the way the senate does business. >> those customs have made it so that it's just so easy to not get anything done. at one point it was made so it would be easier to get more done. and now it just seems like nothing, at least not the major stuff, is getting done. garrett haake, garrett, thank you so much. do you have something to add? i saw that face. >> i was just going to say, sometimes this works to the minority party's advantage almost always, but especially for the way the modern republican party is set up, if you're the democrats, you're progressives, you want to do big stuff. it's much harder. if you're conservatives and you're goal is to keep things as they are, the system works great for you. it is designed to make it harder to do big stuff, which only one party largely wants to do right now, and i think that's worth thinking about in the context of all this. >> very worth thinking about. i'm so glad you added that. garrett haake, thank you so much. today's county to county report takes us to nevada. reno might be called the biggest little city in the world but it is also becoming one of the least affordable cities in the united states. despite the pandemic, wages are up in washoe county with companies like tesla and microsoft bringing new tech and manufacturing jobs to northern reno. seems like it's good news. but while it's led to an economic boom, an influx of new workers has sent housing prices soaring. joining me now from reno, nevada, is nbc news correspondent guad venegas. guad, what's happening out there? >> reporter: katy, it's interesting how you can talk about a place that has very low unemployment rate, 2.9% unemployment rate, booming economy, lots of jobs here, but it's too expensive to find housing. washoe county has grown tremendously because of the industry, because of the companies that have come here and hired. it also created a lot of professionals that come here, it created a demand, right? so you have people from california, for example, moving in to washoe county, buying some of the homes here. so eventually what happened is, if you go, in the last ten years, 2011 to 2021, the prices of homes, as you can see there, went from $150,000 for the average single family home to half a million dollars, that's how much the prices have increased. if you look at the cost of rentals here, it's gone almost 100% up. so it's becoming unaffordable for people to live here and be able to pay for rent. this has to do with a shortage, more people coming to the area, less places available for someone to live in. it's not only affecting the people that, say, work in the service industry. we spoke with a young college graduate who works full-time. she has a good job, so does her husband. they've been saving up money trying to buy what they call a fixer upper, something in expensive that they can work on, and it's just been impossible. she was so frustrated that she started crying when she told me what it's been like. >> it's just harder to live here, really. you know, and successful. i mean, growing up it's -- makes me feel like graduating college was the number-one thing, you know. as soon as you graduate college you get a good job, and that's it, you know. it comes with buying a home and kids. there you have it. the american dream, you know. but it's just getting harder and harder to live here and be -- to really maybe live anywhere. >> reporter: so there's an immediate need for more housing, both apartments, affordable housing, and homes. builders are working on it. developers are doing what they can. but the supply chain issues have affected them. they have constructed buildings, homes, twice as long as it used to. a lot of the materials are taking longer to get here, so those are the issues. so you need more housing or maybe the companies could also raise the wages which we know is very difficult to happen. that's the situation here. >> thank you so much. it is a beautiful country up there as we can see from that backdrop. understandable why so many people would want to live there. thank you so much. up next, here to stay, inside europe's shift from fighting covid to living with it. fighting cov tido living with it several european countries are changing how they respond to covid surges, now shifting to a strategy of living with it. spain's prime minister says his country's exploring how to treat it as endemic instead of treating it as a pandemic. in other words, treating it more like the flu. neighboring portugal is following suit, and in britain, prime minister boris johnson is dropping the mask mandate and covid passport policies next week. with me now is dr. megan ranny, associate dean and professor of emergency medicine at the brown university school of public health. doctor, thank you. let's talk about the numbers they have in spain and portugal. over 80% of the spanish population is vaccinated. roughly 90% of the portuguese population is vaccinated. we have 63% here in the u.s. and a much larger population than any of those countries. is it possible to do the same thing here when we have a 63% number? >> so there are two parts to the answer. the first is since last summer when delta variant came to the united states and demonstrated that vaccines were not going to be our only way to get to the other side of this pandemic, that covid was going to keep circulating despite vaccination, since that moment last summer, we have known that we were going to need a plan to learn to live with covid. we were going to have to figure out ways to monitor it, to handle surges, but to accept it as part of the background of daily life. unfortunately, we have not put that plan in place. we have continued to react instead of being proactive in figuring out how to contain it. and as a result, we are still seeing right now over 1,800 deaths a day across the united states. so might we get to a point where we say that covid is endemic in the united states, where it's not causing surges of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in states across the country? we may get there, but we're sure as heck not there yet, and it's a combination of the fact that our vaccination numbers are low and we're not doing any of those other things that the european countries have put in place so effectively, rapid testing, masks, and so on. >> the proactive aspect of this. what can we put in place starting today -- what can we get in place starting in the near future to get to the endemic stage? >> so the first thing is we have to stop the bleed right now. we have to stop people from dying at this moment which is about increasing our staffing and surge capacity in hospitals across the country, putting mask mandates in place in places where there are surges, and improving testing capacity and ventilation. then there's what do to do over the next weeks to months. that's really about getting vaccines and boosters in arms. it's also about improving our data systems. many of the european countries have much more robust public health systems that watch the data and are able to test and deliver preventive care than we have here in the united states. lastly, we have to have plans in place for when surges happen again. we don't want to be starting from the back foot over and over again when new variants emerge, when the same variants surge during winter or summer months. we need a plan in place today. >> dr. megan ranny. thank you so much for that. let's get that stuff in place so we can all start to move past this. that is going to do it for me today. hallie jackson picks up our coverage next. our our coverage next. no canceling. (laughs) flexible cancellation. kayak. search one and done. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ with a bit more thought we can all do our part to keep plastic out of the ocean. [bacon sizzles] [bacon sizzles] ♪ [electronic music plays] ♪ [bacon sizzles] ♪ [electronic music plays] ♪ san francisco was a beacon of hope for my family to reach the middle class, and i've been helping others ever since. when the pandemic hit bilal was right there, helping restaurant workers make ends meet. in the obama administration, bilal worked tirelessly on innovative policies. the status quo isn't working. bilal is the best shot we have for meaningful change. i'm bilal mahmood, and i know our city can become a beacon of hope once again. ♪ got my hair ♪ ♪ got my head ♪ i'm bilal mahmood, ♪ got my brains ♪ ♪ got my ears ♪ ♪ got my heart ♪ ♪ got my soul ♪ ♪ got my mouth ♪ ♪ i got life ♪ some significant breaking news as we come on the air. two thank you very muches, two development -- trumps, two headaches. in georgia we heard from the former president himself about the news that a d.a. in that state is requesting a special grand jury now to look into mr. trump's attempts to try and overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election in georgia. she says witnesses refusing to cooperate. we're live in georgia along with our team for what this means and who should be worried. also breaking this afternoon, ivanka trump responding to the january 6 committee after lawmakers asked her to cooperate. they're not trying to force her, at least not yet. this