we begin in georgia where all eyes of the country have been ever since the georgia bulldogs brought home the college football championship last night. well tonight, though, all eyes are on georgia as the place president biden today chose to go full force behind a pair of bills on voting rights that have enormous meaning in the state in the wake of the 2020 election. also, of course, nationwide. where a number of states, including georgia, have passed laws restricting opportunities to vote. the two bills in question are opposed by senate republicans, however, at least two key democrats do not want to change senate rules so they can pass by a simple majority. so today, in atlanta, the president broke with his own reluctance on the matter, and issued this challenge. today, i m making it clear. to protect our democracy, i support changing the senate rules, whichever way they need to be changed, to prevent a minority of senators from blocking action on voting rights. so, i ask e
call yet for the senate to change its rules on the filibuster in order to get two stalled voting rights bills passed. he says he s tired of being quiet, this after apparently having quiet conversations were months with members of congress about voting reform. i m tired of being quiet. sadly, the united states senate designed to be the world s greatest deliberative body has been rendered a shell of its former self. we must find a way to pass the bill. we have to change the senate rules, including getting rid of the filibuster for this. ironically, tired is exactly what his reporters seem to be feeling, some in his own party are growing zpaegtd voicing frustration that biden hasn t done more to get these critical pieces of legislation he just referenced through. the freedom to vote act, the john lewis voting rights advancement act, especially members of the african-american community who, full recall, were promised this after his election. the african-american community s
have you ever missed 360 ? you can listen to our podcast. go to cnn.com/podcasts. search for anderson cooper 360. the news continues. let s hand it over to laura coates and cnn tonight. good to see you. i am laura coates. welcome to cnn tonight. the big headline is president biden s clarion call for congressional action on voting rights. this, of course, hundreds of miles away from the u.s. capitol, which has been a big point of contention for many voting rights advocates who chose not to stand beside him in georgia today. they say they want to see action, not just talk. and many are wondering if this conversation is coming in too little, too late, even if we re not yet a year into the biden presidency. we ll hear more about that issue in just a moment. still, the president, a self-proclaimed creature of the senate, delivered his loudest call yet for the senate to change its rules on the filibuster in order to get two stalled voting rights bills passed. he says he s
Um, and yet, the only thing that came out of senator rand paul and, to some extent, senator roger marshal, were ad hominem which does nothing but distract from what we really need to be doing. we have a pandemic that everyone knows like now is like a tsunami on us. we are going to have close to a million people a day getting infected. and we have close to a million people who are going to die 850,000 people dying. and instead of using it in a constructive manner, they re distracting it with things that are patently untrue. so, i i can t explain that, anderson, except what i brought up at the hearing that it clearly is politically motivated. there there he is he s raising money for his campaign by making me the villain. he calls me a polarizing figure. well, if you call me a murderer
Someone has made, unfortunately, a large, giant check and he thought this was going to be this big kind of, you know, extraordinary reveal. that s what whoever prepared that question for him had told him. and then, when you answered it, he didn t know what to do because that there was no followup for him and he was unaware that that s public information. and then, he just it just went downhill from there. um, that wasn t even about science. i mean, how difficult is it to address the actual pandemic when it s these kind of questions being asked at a hearing, obviously, with great setup and this is what his staff has been preparing him to ask? well, that s the whole point, anderson, which i said. it was so counterproductive to what the intent of the hearing is. the hearing is we are dealing with a catastrophic pandemic that has already killed over 850,000 americans. and there was good faith on both sides of the aisle, and many of