this hatred, indeed all forms of hatred including racism. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. you can always follow me on twitter and instagram at wolf blitzer. you can tweet the show at cnn sit room. erin burnett out front starts right now. out front next, republicans reward a qanon follower who indicated support for executing democrats. is the gop becoming the party of qanon? plus he warned someone was going to get killed by trump's attacks on the free and fair election, and he was right. the former top georgia election official gabe sterling is my guest. and more cases of covid variants discovered in the u.s. the biden administration warns there is no stockpile of vaccines. let's go out front. and good evening. i'm erin burnett. out front tonight the party of qanon. tonight the republican party is

doubling down and giving credence to a group that is a megaphone for dangerous and deadly conspiracy theories. most of the 211 of house republicans are silent tonight over congresswoman marjory taylor greene's past comments supporting the execution of prominent democratic politicians. instead, greene, a qanon supporter has been given a seat on the education and labor committee. and that should alarm everyone, all of us. for one she tried to make a name for herself by suggesting the 2018 massacre of a high school in parkland, florida, was a false flag, in other words a planned event. a planned event to kill kids. and then posted this video in march 2019 where she's seen confronting a survivor of that shooting, student david hawk. >> david, why are you supporting the red flag laws? if scott peterson the resource officer had done his job,

then -- why are you supporting red flag gun laws that protect our second amendment rights? and why are you using kids as a barrier? do you not know how to defend your stance? >> there really isn't anything to say you guys. he has nothing to say because he's paid to do this. guess what? i'm a gun owner, i'm an american citizen and i have nothing. but this guy with his george soros funding and major liberal funding has got everything. i want you to think about that. that's where we are, and he's a cowered. he can't say one word because he can't defend his stance. >> so that was marjory taylor greene going after a teenager who lost 14 classmates in a horrific school shooting. tonight in an unapologetic statement to cnn she said i was going from office to office in the senate to oppose the radical

gun control agenda. that's not all there is from greene, by the way. if you're not familiar with her, you should be familiar given how she's being promoted now with her extensive track record in the land of conspiracy. >> it's odd. there's never any evidence shown for a plane in the pentagon. >> there is an islamic invasion into our government offices. >> never any evidence of a plane flying into the entgon. this person is now a sitting member of congress with a position put there by leadership. and then comments unearthed by our own k-file like, quote, the stage is being set, we must be patient. that comment responding to a comment about hanging former president obama. and that comment actually forced house minority leader kevin mccarthy to respond. i want to be clear actually it

was his spokesperson who responded. the spokesperson says, quote, these comments are deeply disturbing and leader mccarthy plans to have a conversation with the congresswoman about them. we don't know when that conversation is going to happen. maybe mccarthy is putting it off until he's back from florida because he's heading there tomorrow to meet with former president trump. perhaps he's trying to make up to get back in trump's good graces. because remember he blamed trump and backtracked and said trump had nothing to do with it. the house minority leader is about to go and meet with the former president who not only embraced qanon but also marjory taylor greene. >> right here from northwest georgia. oh, boy, i don't want to mess with her. no, she's great. this one, i never, ever want to have her as my enemy. marjory taylor greene. she's so unbelievable.

also joining us tonight are georgia representatives marjory taylor greene -- i love marjory. >> so trump says he loves marjory. and trump and green are in lock step when it comes to the lie trump told the war, the lie that inspired his followers to attack the u.s. capitol. >> make no mistake this election was stolen from you, from me and from the country. we won in a landslide. this was a landslide. >> we aren't going to let this election be stolen by joe biden and the democrats. president trump won by a landslide. >> the republican party right now is the party of trump, and trump's big lie about the election being stolen is a core tenant of qanon. and for those republicans who want to still hope that this is just going to go away, it isn't. qanon is not going anywhere. it's coast to coast. and arizona the republican party voted saturday to sensor cindy mccain and two other prominent republican officials because

they crossed trump. in oregon the state republican party is fwooiing into the conspiracy theory the capitol riot was a false flag. in this case false flag meaning an attempt engineered by trump's opponents to make him look bad. and in virginia the leading republican gubernatorial candidate amanda chase who calls herself trump in heels says the attack on the u.s. capitol was justified and says this about the rioters. >> the people i met were patriots who love their country and drove from as far away as california to witness history, which they hope would be overturning of the election results. >> this is the kind of thinking and talking that the republican party is embracing by its silence and by putting people who say the election was stolen on committees. and they're playing with fire. we all saw what happened at the capitol. and now the department of homeland security issuing a bulletin this week warning of more potential violence from domestic extremists who may be

emboldened by that attack. manu raju begins our coverage live tonight from capitol hill. and you're getting some new details about a private conversation that leader mccarthy who we know is heading to meet with trump. we know obviously puts greene on this committee, but a conversation that he just had with his members. >> reporter: yeah, and on that same call, erin, actually marjory taylor greene spoke up and said she planned to donate to the republican cause to take back the house majority to the teen of $175,000 i'm told by multiple sources on the call to give that money to the national republican congressional committee assigned despite these disturbing comments that even the house republican leaders office says these comments are disturbing and that he plans to have a conversation with her. now, on the same call mccarthy called out his members for attacking one another. greene has been criticized by some fellow republicans including adam kinzinger of

illinois who has urged his party not to follow the type of politics greene epouss. on the other side republicans close to donald trump, trump defenders are going after liz cheney, the number three republican for her vote to impeach donald trump. she joined nine republicans to do just that over the charge donald trump incited the insurrection that led to the deadly violence on capitol hill. mccarthy i'm told from multiple sources told his colleagues to, quote, cut that crap out. his argument they're focusing on each other, attacking each other over twitter and that effort will undercut their efforts to take back the majority. instead he wants them to focus on democrats. whether that will work is still an open question and how far he'll take it also an open question. donald trump is angry at the republicans who voted to impeach him. some of trump's former allies traveling out to wyoming to

rally support against liz cheney. so whether he has any success in that remains to be seen, but it's a sign of the tension that's still building within his party, erin. >> certainly is, and they believe and they feel to still show if he willty to a man no longer president. manu, thank you very much. i want to go now to gabriel sterling. you all know gabriel well. he's a lifelong republican, georgia's voting system manager. became a household name when he stood up to president trump's lies about election fraud in georgia. i really appreciate your time so congresswoman, greene, who i pointed out on tape now an elected member of congress says the election now was stolen, and she's now on this committee. she has harassed you on twitter. she called you a moron, idiot, little gabriel because she blamed you for the loss of the

trump senate seats. how concerned are you about people like -- >> she's duly elected by the people of the 14th district and there are primaries that can happen and i think her continued behavior may invite a primary, and she may well hold onto that. that's the will of the voters, but we need to have -- i feel for leader mccarthy trying to hold a caucus like this that has marjory taylor greene on one side sending out wacko stuff. but she gets encouraged because she gets literally thousands of donations from across the country. and liz cheney on the other side trying to be responsible and do some of these things. i don't know i would go the same way liz cheney did, but she has every right to do it. leader mcconnell said the crowd's inspired by trump's lies -- he didn't say trump's

lies but i think we all know what he was talking about. we need to get to a responsible phase and the president remains angry and the real issue is there's millions of republican voters who are trump voters who want to believe in their heart it was stolen from them, and they can't process that it wasn't. >> right, now of course they only believe that because he told that to them and it was amplified as mcconnell said by people in positions of power. on this issue of kevin mccarthy, right, he says -- his office says marjory taylor greene's comments are deeply disturbing and he plans to have a conversation and at this point he hasn't. you mentioned the donations and money, but i'm curious as you speak as a lifelong republican who's disgusted by this stuff as a lot of republicans are, why do you think party leaders are kowtowing to this, are scared of

people like people like congresswoman greene and qanon? >> the reality is trump and this strong base and populace they have -- for years there's always been sort of governing group, a populous group and they interchange sometimes what they focus on. you can't win one without the other. there's far left loony tunes people out part of the democratic party with different conspiracy theories who are part of that coalition, too. this particular one is being led by a former president of the united states. and should be held to a higher standard and should be more conscious of the things they say can undermine a democracy. >> i'm going to say he was

perfectly conscious of what he was doing when he was undermining democracy. >> he can be aware that it's wrong so maybe that's where the disconnect is. >> mccarthy is going to florida tomorrow to kiss the ring of trump even now even though he's no longer in office, and this may be part of the reason why. let me just play mccarthy after the riot happened he called it like it was and then let me play what happened. >> the president bears responsibility for wednesday's attack on congress by mob rioters. >> do you believe that president trump provoked. >> i don't believe he prevoked if you listen to what he said at the rally. >> i also think everybody across this country has some responsibility. >> what do you think happened there? he completely backed off. >> i think as elected officials you can say things and try to get the nuance of it to get by. like i said he has an unenviable

job to try and lead a caucus very divided right now between, listen, there's a lot of republicans who know this election wasn't stolen. there's a lot of them know the president lied about this. they're doing something to give you confidence back in this, and they're trying to get their legs under them. january 6th was a wakeup call, and i think it really let a lot of air out of the balloon of the conspiracy side of this. there's people out there normal every day americans believing some of this stuff, and they're like this is what it leads to, this is little nutty. so i still think with time some of the air will be let out of this balloon and people will get back to rational regular governing. and the problem we have is we're so polarized and the president plays on that, he am joys that. and he still has a base in this party. like i said i think over time some of that will change, but you can't as republicans get in a position where we totally disregard one side and never win

an election again and democrats win everything. that's not something that is smart thing to do, and this worshipping at the alter of no compromise and owning the libs is unproductive in the law world. >> it is, but i want to remind everyone as you're saying now you had no fear all the way through of saying these things were lies. so i want to make a point that can be done by republicans because it was done by some republicans including you. and you actually a moment i remember and i think many of our viewers probably remember well, when you went on national television, you said this. >> mr. president, stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed. >> you said that on december 1st. so then there were people killed, right? people killed at the capitol. the department of homeland security now is issuing a threat

due to the ongoing potential violence saying domestic ectremists could be emboldened by what happened at the capitol. you said it was going to happen and then it happened. people died. >> this was the worst-case scenario people had in my head. when i was talking about it originally you can see that happening, but then you think there's no way that happens and then it happened. i hate being right. i'm disgusted i was right. we have to get back to a place where we can have disagreements but the other side is not going to set you on fire. that's true for republicans on the far right and democrats of the far left who believe democrats are essentially evil, and they get fed into and i think covid has fed into this because we dehumanize people, because we're not around people as much anymore. we only listen to people and we never get opposing views or humanize those people. people are allowed to disagree. and and we had the best system in the world or we still do.

all the institutions are there, but we're only as strong as the individuals in it. and it never occurred not to follow the law and do the right thing. >> i just want to be clear the sound bite was based on the things the president was saying and whether what he said and they said, whether he bears responsibility, which mcconnell has said he does and mccarthy said he did until he didn't. you're mentioned by name in the documents. you are and your exact comments are there. exactly what i just played, and president trump had every reason to know that incited by his statements thousands of people would engage in actual violence. elected officials warned of his rhetoric and then they have your exact quote. would you be willing to be a

witness at the impeachment trial? >> i have zero desire to go to d.c. to be part of anything. i've got a job down here in georgia i have to do, but of course if, you know, it comes to that i don't know if i have a choice ibthat. in fact, nobody's even talked to me about that so i haven't contemplated it. >> now you know you're in those documents. i appreciate your time. thank you very much as always. >> have a good night. >> all right, you too. and next the biden administration warning it will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine can get one. plus one democrat now working on a resolution to censure trump. will that really fly if conviction won't? and a cnn exclusive. we're going to take you to ground zero of the coronavirus strain that dr. fauci calls ominous. and we're literally in the town where they believe this muten variant started. the horror inside the hospitals there is unlike anything doctors have seen so far.

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could never be me. this as the senior advisor to president biden's covid response team also warned during their first virtual briefing that covid is bare when it comes to vaccine. >> it will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one. any stockpile that may have existed previously no longer exists. our practice is to maintain a rolling inventory of two to three days of supply that we can use to supplement any shortfalls in production and to ensure that we are making deliveries as committed. >> kaitlan collins is out front. this is another warning things are going to get worse before they get better. this is day after they said over the next three weeks we're going to increase supply over what you thought you were going to get, but now they're warning they're pointing the finger at the trump administration for that. >> yes, they are. so yesterday you did see this optimism talking about the doses

and commitments they secured from the companies that are making the vaccines and that are actually being distributed now. we are so far off and that's what they made clear today in this first coronavirus briefing where they made a concerted effort to put the experts out there, and notice president biden was not on that briefing answering questions about the pandemic. instead they just had his top covid advisers taking the questions, and they said there is basically no stockpile. people have been asking lately how much vaccine does the federal government actually have its hands on, and they kind of skirted the question, and there's only two to three days of supplies in that, and they said they're distributing it basically as they get it. and they said that's not the picture a lot of people have in their minds right now. you're really seeing them exemplify that. and of course that time line of when those restricts or who can

get a vaccine are falling away. biden said the other day he believed it could be by spring and his advisers are saying today it could be a long time. and one other thing he should note they pushed for today is to get congress to approve a proposal biden has put forth, that rescue america package they want to get put forward and passed right now. it is struggling to get bipartisan support on capitol hill, but they said that will be key to how the next few months go, and of course they're judging they're response, they've inherited this pandemic and we will hear from these advisers again on friday in another virtual briefing. >> kaitlan, i want to go now to the doctor of public health. we have a special report coming from the epicenter of brazil.

what people are going to see there is pretty horrific in terms of the hospitals right now. do you think we're really in a race against time here when it comes to these variants which they're more transmissible. they're going to be favored by natural selection. >> yes, erin, first of all thanks for having me on. we are absolutely in a race against time. we are in a race against these variants becoming dominant in the u.s. the one i'm most worried about in the short run is the u.k. variant which in some 20 some odd states already and spreading, and obviously we've got to do the regular public health stuff the mask wearing and social distancing. but the big thing we've got to do is get vaccines into arms, and that's going to be the big push from the administration in the days and weeks ahead. >> you know president biden said states are going to get a 16% increase in doses and obviously this is based on population and i suppose it depends state by state, but the states are getting more, and they're happy about it.

the democratic governor told me he sees this as glass half full. >> we'll have to run the exact math, but we'll be talking about approximately 100,000 doses for the following weeks. still just a small step in the ramp up, and we hope there's several times that as we get into march. it's going to take an awfully long time at these levels to end the pandemic. >> dr. jha to be specific just with the state of colorado he's going to go from 83,000 doses a week for just the next couple of weeks to 100. he needs more than 300 to even get close to where he is. it's an improvement but nowhere near where we need to be. >> absolutely. so there's two parts of this. first is that we were promised by operation warp speed even by november, december that we'd essentially have 100 million doses by the end of january. we're obviously not going to be anywhere near that. so that's sort of the problem is

we're much further behind than what we thought we were. the biden team is trying to do what it can to ramp up production, but none of this can move on a dime, so we've got to keep pushing and get the vaccines out thereinto peoples arms. that's the other part of this. the distribution's got to get better. >> let me ask you in terms of we talk about the mutations, and we've all discussed the math that's something that's 50% more transmissible is much more exponentially more deadly than something 50% more deadly over the short-term because it's spreading more quickly. but we have been told there were hopes specifically with the u.k. variant that vaccines would be effective. we talk about these ominous strains as fauci called brazil and south africa, and today, you know, a study comes out saying the virus is traveling in a direction that could ultimately lead to escape from our current therapeutic and prophylactic interventions directed to the virus spike. that's pretty scary.

>> yeah. so let's take a look at the big picture here. we do have these variants. more variants will come up. what can we do? if we want to prevent more variants and viruses escaping, the most important thing we can do is reduce the number of infections because every infection creates more opportunities for mutations and for more variants. so the single biggest thing we can do is slow down the pandemic, slow down the infections. obviously vaccines are an important part of that. i still remain pretty hopeful the vaccines we have today are going to get us through this time period. but we do need to start planning for what happens if they don't, and i think the vaccine makers need to start making additional variations of their vaccines to be able to deal with these variants coming up. >> i guess the reality is we're faced again with so much we don't know. if you get one variant is there another variant? so much we just don't know. i really appreciate your time as

always. >> thank you, erin. and with so many questions about all this please join tonight a coronavirus town hall with anderson and sanjay. it is tonight at 8:00. next, impeachment trial plan "b." a top democrat has another idea tonight for holding donald trump accountable. could it work since it appears conviction won't? and concerns growing with lawmakers as they leave washington. are they safe at home from extremists? w exactly which parkg lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't. let's take care of business. at&t.

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impeachment trial, senator kim kaine doing an interview today where he offers more details on a censure resolution he's working on with republican senator susan collins. he said it would seek to bar trump from ever holding office again without the conviction vote. take a listen to senator kaine. >> it would find that president trump gave aid and comfort to the insurrectionists who attacked the capitol. under the wording of part of the 14th amendment of the constitution, section 3 anybody who participates in an insurrection against the constitution or gives aid and comfort to those who do is barred from ever serving in office again. >> all right, out front now gloria borger, our chief political analyst and john avalon. senator kaine, this is really interesting idea. they basically are saying they

know they're not going to get the votes, to two thirds require frd a copviction. we've all been told again and again that was a prerequisite for a simple majority vote. what senator kaine was telling margaret, happens to be your wife, that he thinks a censure vote would be enough because it accomplishes the same point of saying trump did this so then they could prevent him from holding future office. this actually could be possibly very significant. >> it could. and look, this is sort of a cut to the chase backup plan. but the threshold wouldn't be two thirds, it would be 60 votes. and this resolution would achieve what many of them hope to achieve which is to basically say this was an insurrection against the constitution, the president aided and abetted it under the 14th amendment, that means he can't hold office. first of all this would need to be adjudicated by a court later, but a strong statement and a threshold they feel they can

hit. and that's what's so significant about the conversations. >> we saw from the constitutionality vote yesterday they may only get five. this would shoot for ten. you've got a democrat and republican working on it together, that they think this might achieve what they had thought was unachievable. >> right. and as a sen like democrat of delaware chris coons said today he found interesting because it has some element of accountability. there's a question of whether it's legally enforceable. >> right. >> and that's a big question. and the second question is timing. when would you do it? would you just sort of throw up your hands and say oh, never mind, we're not going to have this impeachment trial, we're not going to have a trial whether to convict. i don't think they can do that at this point. i think they're pretty far down the road. so the question is if this fails as people expected it will, then would you say, okay, there is

this plan "b" and we want to prevent him from holding office again in the future? >> of course, you know, john, with all of this comes just the political risk of it, right? if you fail once and you possibly fail again because the vote threshold would get to the 60 and they don't currently have tat, so it's all a gamble. >> i think frankly those votes some said they wanted to debate the constitutionality. this is still a very serious act by any standard. incitement of insurrection by a president after an election. and for those republicans saying we all need to get over it like ted cruz did the other day, move on, you know, it's divisive. what's divisive is inciting an insurrection against the capitol. >> i do think you're going to have a lot of democrats who say that it is too much of a slap on

the wrist, that it's not legally enforceable, that you've got to go through this impeachment trial and see if you can convict. and even if you can't convict, the fact that you had that trial means it was important enough. and if you then go to censure, it's going to mean like, oh, maybe it wasn't that important. so there are lots of discussions going on about this now because it is very interesting as you and john point out. the question is really what would it mean? >> right, well and also, of course, one would say president biden made the point originally not being that eager on impeachment maybe because he saw some of this. you're going to end up with some really difficult choices and put in corners. so thank you both very much. appreciate it. and next three veterans now indicted for their role in the deadly riot as prosecutors reveal alarming details about their alleged plot to overturn the election. plus we take you to brazil where a new strain of

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breaking news, the justice department indicting three people associated with the oath keepers. it's an anti-government extremist group. for their alleged role in the insurrection at the u.s. capitol. and prosecutors tonight are revealing new details about their coordination.

and this coordination keep this in mind goes back months before the attack. evan, the federal grand jury indicting three people in the this. all three of them are u.s. veterans. those are the pictures that we have. what are you learning about their planning that the feds are saying goes back months before the attack? >> yeah, that's right. it goes back according to prosecutors to november 3rd. that's when they first started communicating. and now according to prosecutors they've recovered text messages. they have recovered some of their walkie-talkie communications, some of their facebook messages as well as they were trying to get ready. they even have information apparently that they did some military-style training in some kind of basic training class in ohio to get ready to come to d.c. another one went to a basic training class, another military training class in north carolina before they traveled up to

washington. now, according to those documents you could see in the videos that prosecutors have that they're walking and they're coordinating with hand signals. they are wearing paramilitary gear. they belong to a group called the ohio state regular militia and a sort of self-styled paramilitary group, and they have a lot of anti-government views. you know, one of the things you hear from watkins in one of these messages prosecutors have recovered, she says if trump activates the insurrection act, i'd hate to miss it. this is part of, again, they were stashing -- according to proces prosecutors weapons at a hotel so they could have it in the building. >> thank you very much. let me just ask you one other question here before we go because some lawmakers i understand are having safety concerns when they travel outside of washington, d.c., and

they're being told that by federal authorities who are worried about their safety. can you tell us anything about that? >> yeah, you saw that warning from the homeland security department, and i think part of that is this concern about members of concern. the concern is especially for member of concern who did not support the president's big lie on january 6th that when they go back home to their zriks and they have to have events -- for instance, they're doing townhalls, that there could be threats to their lives. obviously we've seen that before and it is a scary prospect. so they're adding security for some of these folks and we've seen arrests recently for threatening family members like hakeem jeffries from new york. we've seen additional security for the lawmakers once they make their way home. once they get home obviously there's going to have be additional security from local police in those jurisdictions. >> evan, thank you very much.

and next the disaster, and it is a disaster. a humanitarian disaster unfolding in brazil i there is a new coronavirus strain that may be reinfecting people. this is the one dr. fauci says is deeply ominous. this is a cnn exclusive. our matt rivers is actually there. you're going to see that. and also we'll then tell you about the former first lady and what she is doing next. (burke) at farmers, we know how nice it is to save on your auto policy. but it's even nicer knowing that if this happens...

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identified in brazil. okay, and by the time it's identified it's there, it's spread. and it is taking a deadly toll. matt rivers is there at the epicenter out front. >> reporter: the tense quiet outside the small hospital in brazil can change so fast. an ambulance suddenly pulls up in front of the medics desperately trying to save her, but a hospital source told us she died soon after this video was shot. the woman was the third covid patient to die here this morning alone. the overwhelmed hospital is a small example of a massive outbreak here in brazil's northwest, the epicenter known as the gateway to the amazon. the city of about 2 million is replete with scenes like this, patients packed into unsanitary hospitals with a startling lack of ventilators or even just

oxygen. recover ry is a marriage in the deadliest month of the pandemic by far, many here are simply waiting to die. this doctor says we have 15 patients and there is two beds. it's difficult to say we choose who lives and dies but we do try and save the ones with the best chance to live. health officials at all levels have shortcomings and doctors and nurses are doing the best with the little they have but they have been here before. in april and may last year the health care system collapsed for the first time during the first covid-19 wave. some studies suggest 75% of the city got the virus. thousands of newly dug graves marked the cemetery but even those aren't enough. that's why the government is quickly building these, so-called vertical graves. they're basically coffin size sections that will stack on top of one another and doing it this

way because they're running out of space. by the time this project is done, they will have built 22,000 vertical graves to meet the expected demand. e simply believe that herd immunity would prevent another round. despite many warnings from experts that that might not be true, brazil's covid skeptic president said there wouldn't be a second wave. things opened up. life got back to normal and then came a new covid variant, p 1 a perfect storm. >> i'm usually not an alarmist about these kind of things and i'm concerned what we're seeing in brazil right now. >> reporter: a recent study found two-thirds of recent infections are caused by the variant prompting fears this variant spreads faster. back outside the small hospital, we meet this woman. her brother has been inside with covid for weeks in desperate

need of better care that doesn't k exist here. next to the hospital a refrigerated container was brought in to store bodies. take our cry for help to the world she tells us, tell them this system is killing brazilians, people that can't get into hospitals are dying. half way through the interview we had to pause. there was a new suspected covid patient arriving. crying as he's admitted. because everybody here knows what can happen once you go ins inside. >> incredible reporting. matt, what are you able to tell us? i know this will become so crucial about these cases of reinfection? >> reporter: well, we're actually outside one of the hospitals we showed you footage of from the inside. scientists here have identified at least one case where somebody

who was infected positively with this new variant had antibodies from a previous infection. there is a risk of reinfection but scientists say two things. one, it's too early to draw anything conclusive from that and two, it does appear vaccines will still work. i can tell you, erin, this very ya -- variant has been found in the u.s. this week and a lot of people here would say take this seriously. look what happened here. >> thank you very much. next, melania trump is making plans but for what? one of the worst things about a cold sore is how it can make you feel. but, when used at the first sign, abreva can get you back to being you in just 2 and a half days. be kinder to yourself and tougher on your cold sores.

tonight, former first lady melania trump hiring staff and setting up a post white house office in palm beach. her intention is to maintain her loosely defined be best initiative. kate bennett joins me now, and kate, obviously, it was not really clear what be best was when she was in the white house but now melania trump wants to keep it going, not dropping it. what are you hearing? >> that's right, erin. be best was a very sort of conas

a rule l-- convoluted platform, we know what they are but others may not. we have to think about the way first ladies put these things out. nancy regan used mr. t for just say no to drugs. melania trump did none of that, no print interviews at all or talk shows at all during her four years. she wants to extend this be best platform that is helping children. there are different ways she goes about that. one is through social media, cyber bullying, people latched on to that because of the president. another is general health and well being and another is helping kids affected by the opioid crisis in this country. it's unclear yet how exactly she will take the platform that she was often challenged communicating with while in the white house and prolong it into something after the white house but she has established an office. she's hired three people that worked with her at the white house. director of operations who is

now her chief of stat at her new office and senior advisor and someone else helping her with administration and operations work. so this is certainly something she's focused on. many first ladies do establish an official after the white house but we'll have to wait and see whether be best is something she can communicate to the public and work on in a way that's more efficient than she found it during her four years at the white house, erin? >> kate, thank you very much. and thanks to all of you for joining us. cnn's global town hall "coronavirus facts and fears" starts now. ♪ ♪ good evening. welcome. i'm anderson cooper in new york. >> i'm dr. sanjay gupta. welcome to the cnn global town hall, "coronavirus facts and fears." it's our 25th since the pandemic began. it the first since the biden administration and been seen around the world on