hello, everybody. welcome to a special presidents' day edition of "inside politics." i'm john king in washington. thank you for sharing this special day with us. the president trump impeachment is over, leaving the biden administration able to move for covid relief. president biden is participating in a cnn town hall. thursday he heads to michigan and a pfizer plant producing the new coronavirus vaccine.

yesterday the covid number was 64,000. that's hopeful, the lowest number since october. we'll have more on the relief deal and the pandemic numbers in a few moments. first, though, to the republican party and its huge dilemma. how long to accommodate the twice impeached former president? remember, donald trump lost the house for republicans, lost the senate for republicans, lost the oval office and then brought an insurrection to the united states capitol after two months of post-election lies. a weekend senate acquittal shows most republicans remain unwilling or unable to move on from mr. trump, for now, anyway. and censors of senators that supported president trump remains firm. we are also told the former president will be more active since the trial is over. that will annoy those who see him as toxic and wish he would go away and go quietly.

lauren fox, julie hirs hirschfeld-davis. seven in the senate voted to convict, but others like leader mitch mcconnell vote to acquit, but then they come out and savagely attack the former president, saying he is responsible for what happened in the capitol. how do they handle that straddstraddle that, if they're not willing to acquit him? >> they are not willing to acquit him, and the senate leader wanted to make sure he was breaking clear and repudiating the president, but yet he also voted to acquit him. you saw those seven republicans who were really willing to vote their conscience, is the way they described it. if you look at the common thread among them, it's really that for

whatever their reasons, and they had slightly different reasons, they don't fear the retribution from donald trump that the rest of the party does. so you have a critical mass of republicans that are in a real dilemma. they don't want to be seen as tied to the president, but they also know they can't completely divorce themselves from him, and given he's saying he wants to become more involved and more vocal, they know how perilous that could be. >> and julie, that is the big question, what does he mean when he says he wants to be more involved and more vocal? the "wall street journal" says this isn't enough, you need to push him on the sidelines. they said, mr. trump may run again but he won't win another election. the republicans are moving past the trump presidency. it's easy to say that, and he did lose by 7 million votes, but fewer than 50,000 votes in a few states and donald trump wins the electoral college, so we don't really know if he's gone, do we?

>> we really don't, and the spectrum of things he can do as he mounts some form of comeback is pretty wide ranging right now. it runs from running for office himself to being really active in primary challenges against some of these republicans who moved against him, or it could simply be out in public, doing interviews, using something like twitter news. he is angry at some of these republicans who have moved against him, but i think it's very uncertain how active he will be and for how long. >> right, but as long as he is around, there is a debate about what to do, and lauren fox, you spend most of your time on capitol hill. the republican leader mitch mcconnell says one thing. his senior member lindsey graham says something quite different. >> president trump's actions

preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty. >> he got a load off his chest, obviously. but, unfortunately, you put a load on the back of republicans, that speech you will see in 2022 campaigns. >> senator graham among those who say, we're not going to get power back in the house or the senate unless we embrace mr. trump and try to keep him as a republican team player. good luck with that. senator mcconnell clearly not willing to break from his membership. he knew the majority of senate republicans were going to vote to acquit. he stayed with them. but then he said the house democrats proved their case. >> that's exactly right, and he made a very important point, john, which is that he views republicans and trump specifically as trying to use his supporters as what mcconnell called a human shield, essentially from any criticism, because the fear is always if you criticize former president trump, you risk losing his voters. and they are needed if

republicans have a future in winning presidential elections and trying to take back the house majority in 2022. that is the balance. how do you woo the voters that the president brought into the fold, brought into the tent of the republican party while moving forward in a way that trump is not the face of your party? that's the challenge here. that's going to remain the challenge for the next several years. >> and what is, julie davis, first to you on this. how do you test this? we have watched state party after state party who in the house voted to impeach or in the senate voted to acquit. is the north carolina republican party going to say even though richard burr is retiring, they were the first to acquit. and bill cassidy explained the situation this way. i think the force wanes. he said the republican party is more than just one person. he said, i made this decision because american citizens should not be fed lies about an

election fraud. there should be a peaceful transfer of power. he said it angers the heck out of me, that being president trump's conduct. how does this play out, and i guess it plays out in different ways in different states? >> i think it does. we'll see some of it play out in congress, frankly, the next couple months the way people vote on certain things, and if former president trump is making his voice heard about these things, we'll see if republicans stay in there or not. it's important to know that the censure of the state party, and we're seeing it from the senators who voted to acquit him and the seven senators who voted to impeach him are seeing a lot of blowback from the party level. a lot of this will play out in primaries, and i think the bet that mitch mcconnell is making, the theory that he has is if you show people a different way that's viable and appealing to them that there is a sense of possibility that somebody other

than a trump-centric candidate, somebody who models him or herself in the image of the former president could prevail in some of these primaries or some of these places and that's the only way they're going to win some of these critical races, and we'll see that state by state, district by district if that plays out. >> julie, it's fascinating. we just saw mitch mcconnell who votes to acquit and then gives a blasting speech saying president trump is a horrible human being who shouldn't be involved in the party anymore. it's kind of hard to connect that, but we'll call it a straddle. mitch mcconnell voted to acquit and then said this to the hill. as you can tell, there is some support that will never go away, but i think it's a shrinking population and probably shrinks a little bit after this week. are they guessing, these republicans, that because of the insurrection -- there is no question a majority of americans supported conviction. but the question for republicans is what about the voters in your state? number one, what do they think,

and number two, are you ready to stand up and defy them? >> it is a bit of a guess for republicans, but i also think they look at a couple benchmarks to say their guess is an educated one. as you noted, john, the race was close in several key states, but biden did surpass trump and it did appear trump lost some support among republicans, among independents who are more likely to vote against republicans, and certainly we've seen the shift in the suburbs. if you are in a state, in a district with a large percentage of suburban voters, you are very closely watching what happened there and seeing that those voters have moved away from your party. but we don't really know what the impact will be going forward, we don't know when trump gets back out there if he will be a turnoff for some voters or if he will be a motivator for some voters, particularly in a primary. that's when this really becomes a challenge because you are talking about more of the hardened partisan voters, and that's where some of these

republicans are worried about that real challenge from the wing of the trump party. >> the place we will see it immediately, lauren, is where you wake up on capitol hill. we'll have to wait for the 2022 primaries, we'll have to wait to see if the president wants to make a comeback in 2024. as the biden agenda goes through, you saw the divide among house republicans. the pro-trump house republicans furious at anyone that crossed him. the senate seems to be a little different. do we expect recriminations for the seven, or will they move on? >> i think the republican senators will move on. i talked to senator cramer of north dakota. he gave pretty eluding comments to me as well, saying he thought it would be harder for even himself to support trump in the future. and i think that's really the question to kind of understand what is trump's role? many of them know that they can't completely forget trump, that he can't completely move on from what trump might encourage them to do on policy or how he talks, but there aren't many who are going to be willing to

support him as their nominee moving forward. and i think that that is going to be a delydelineation and may that's what you see between the senate republicans and the house republicans. that's because they're more gerrymandered, and that's different when you're in a state that you have to win the election in, correct? >> senator cramer among them, go home to your state, tell them he lied to you. for months he lied to you, those that supported him for months, and we should have stood up to those lies sooner. that's one immediate test they could do if they wanted to. we'll continue the conversation in just a minute. julie davis, thank you for joining us. julie pace and lauren will stay with us. biden plans to get his covid relief through congress. now that the trial is over, not soaking up so much attention in washington. that won't change for 7 days. an offer that they can put toward their new car. some people can't believe our friendly advocate

will come to them as soon as tomorrow. drop off their new ride and whisk their old one away. because we make trading your car unbelievably easy. all so you can say... told you so. experience the new way to trade in your car with carvana.

your grooming business is booming. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base. claim your seventy-five-dollar credit

when you post your first job at indeed.com/groomer this is day 27 of the biden

presidency, and he hopes a new beginning of sorts. the impeachment trial of his predecessor, donald trump, is now over. team biden says there are no more obstacles to speedy action on the administration's nearly $2 trillion covid relief package. the republicans are complaining that the white house is too big. but most of the country sees things its way. >> we have many republican mayors, we have republican governors, we have more than 50% of republicans in this country. 46% are trump supporters. we're going to keep moving on in a bipartisan manner, but we're not going to fail the american people. >> the president will be in the role of, you might say, traveling salesman this week. he joins a big cnn town hall tomorrow night in milwaukee, then he goes to michigan on thursday to tour a pfizer plant. on friday there is a g7 virtual meeting with leaders.

julie pace and lauren fox rejoin me. house democrats are working on a bill. house democrats could vote on a covid relief bill by february 22nd. the week of march 2nd is when the senate gives it up. they need to really get it done several days before that to help the states with all the implementation. this is why joe biden ran. he said, i'm the guy that knows how to make washington work. here's your test. >> absolutely. this is the kind of moment that joe biden envisioned when he was running for president, that he wanted americans to envision him in this role. he thinks he can get this done and most certainly will be doing it maybe with only democratic votes, maybe they get a few republicans to get on board here, but this is going to cross the party line process. he feels the republicans are with him on that. he feels more than anything americans want to see a big package. they want to see money going to vaccine distribution, to schools, to state and local

governments, and they care less about exactly how he gets that done but more about the fact he does get it done. i don't think you'll see the biden white house wasting a lot of time at this point, in part because they do have those deadlines looming, and they know that biden's ability to get something through and get money flowing from washington is going to be much of what he's judged in on these opening weeks of his presidency. >> and yet, lauren fox, you write about this on cnn politics.com. to get those votes requires bipartisan discipline. nancy pelosi has a 5-vote margin on this bill. when the virus was so paralyzing for the country, the americans came together to make a bill. the scrutiny on democrats is more intense, so they need to convince competing fractions

within the democratic party, we're doing this. you can't get your little piece, you can't get your little piece, we're doing this. >> that's exactly right. pelosi has a 5% vote in the house. schumer has no room for error. he cannot lose a single democrat on this package assuming no republican is willing to vote for it. that is tough, because you already had someone like kyrsten sinema come out and say she will not support a package that includes the $15 minimum wage. that becomes sticky, especially if there is a package with that $15 minimum wage in there, or they vote to take it out because it doesn't support the move for this process. that's going to be a problem, it's going to be a problem for progressives, and i think that will be a challenge for democrats moving forward. joe biden has campaigned on being a unifyer. the question is can he unify his own party? >> and part of the way to do that, julie pace, is for the

president to hit the road, and say the country needs this. i want you to swallow your pride and your policy, democrats, because this is what we need to do. we think of this 100-day window as important for any new president. a big town hall in wisconsin and a pharmaceutical vaccine plant in michigan. not coincidental that he's picking those states. >> not coincidental at all when you look at the way joe biden won the white house. this is critical and what we expect from presidents in these moments. hitting the road, trying to rally public support, saying, hey, i'm out here pitching this and i have americans with me here. this is, again, what joe biden believes he is in office to do right now, to try to rally a majority of the country, not all of the country, but a majority of the country behind his proposals and work it through the halls of congress. and he feels at this moment that at least on this package that he

can see the way forward. i do think it's a big question of when we get through this what else in his agenda he will have running room to accomplish, but in this moment the biden white house is feeling pretty confident about their ability to see that bill on his desk by the middle of march. >> i think you raised a critical point. i think there is no doubt the democrats will stick together on the first big challenge of the biden presidency. they may not be happy about every piece of it, but they'll stick together in the end. julie pace, there is room for bipartisanship there, we'll see about the price tag. the president has a plan for gun reforms. he has an immigration plan. climate change, criminal justice reform, voting rights. in the senate, for most of those things, he would need some republican support, and those are issues, most of those issues have been in the inaction bin for 25 years now. >> that's exactly right. i'm thinking clearly about this gun proposal, and he wasn't very specific in what he laid out. but getting rid of assault weapons, universal background

checks, these are ideas that have been popular in the past, but getting republicans on board, we haven't seen any proof of that, right? they have polarized on that specifically. immigration is another one where trump really changed the playbook of how republicans talk about that issue. you see people like senator marco rubio who supported a bipartisan bill a few years ago really distanced themselves from anything where you would see the legalization of millions of immigrants who are already in this country right now. >> there is a republican senator on the ballot in 2022 who is thinking about one word: primary. that's what that one is about right there. lauren fox, thank you for your reporting, julie pace, thank you. coming up for us, the covid case count is down and the new biden plan for getting kids back to school already generating

some controversy. (doorbell rings) excellent as a local access show, we want everyoyone to support local restaurants. right cardi b? yeah! eat local! (trill sound) good morning! yeah! this is where everything started. the four way is engulfed in history. you're sitting in the place where giants ate. the four way is the heart and soul of the community. ♪

♪ limu emu & doug ♪ hey limu! [ squawks ] how great is it that we get to tell everybody how liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? i mean it... oh, sorry... [ laughter ] woops! [ laughter ] good evening! meow! nope. oh... what? i'm an emu! ah ha ha. no, buddy! buddy, it's a filter! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪

it's moving day. and while her friends are doing the heavy lifting, jess is busy moving her xfinity internet and tv services. it only takes about a minute. wait, a minute? but what have you been doing for the last two hours? delegating? oh, good one. move your xfinity services without breaking a sweat. now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today.

the big picture covid outlook here in the united states is improving, but there do remain some big worries, including the spread of several new coronavirus mutations, and the biden plan to get children back into classrooms asap is off to, you might say, a bumpy start. let's go through the numbers. the numbers are encouraging.

from a horrible place but moving in the right direction. you see 39 states in green. 39 states reporting fewer covid cases. nebraska and alaska reporting more new infections compared to a week ago. looking up here, you see the graphs that matter, but 64,938 new covid numbers reported since yesterday. that's the most since october. you see the trend line heading down. that's where you want to keep it. cases are down, hospitalizations as well. 67,000 americans in the hospital on sunday. remember, the peak was about twice that. it was a little over 130,000, so this coming down, too. first time we're below 70,000 since before the middle of november. you're coming down from a horrific spot, but at least you're coming down. here's one of the worries. we talked about the u.k. variant, the south africa

variant. there are seven variants believed to be home grown here in the united states. robin 1 is in 30 states, robin 2 in 20 states and then a pelican variant in 13 states, including australia, denmark, switzerland, india. doctors want to get vaccines in arms. when biden became president, just shy of 100,000 vaccines a day on average. now they're up to 1.6 million vaccines a day on average, trying to push that number up. as you get more supply, one of the concerns is how do we get teachers back into schools teaching kids? teachers say vaccines would help. 28 staltes now plus the distric of columbia have made it possible for teachers to get a vaccine. it's not universal, but in those jurisdictions, at least some teachers can get a vaccine. the new head of the cdc says this would be great, getting teachers vaccinated, but she

said listen here, it is not priority one for reopening schools. >> we really need to do the hard work to make sure that there is universal masking, there is strict six feet of distancing between, that there is cohorting or potting so there is restriction of disease if it were to be transmitted. i'm a strong advocate of teachers receiving their vaccinations, but we don't believe it's a prerequisite for schools to reopen. >> with us to share her expertise and insights on this very important subject, anna anderson is head of reopening schools. i know you see federal engagement on this question. there are also concerns about whether the white house and cdc have been on the same page about the pace of reopening schools. what do you see as pluses or minuses so far in the biden

approach? >> first of all, thank you, john, for having pme. there are lots of reasons to think we are trending in the right direction, to see that the federal government has finally decided to jump into the fray on all the chaos of reopening. it's a signal that we can get this done in a timely fashion. i know everybody thought maybe we would get this done in the first 100 days, but i think there is a longer term plan. so we need to have a school reopening czar that will help us organize this. as you just mentioned, there are lots of pluses to having the federal government be part of this, but part of the challenge is the bureaucracy that has to be waded through to make this happen. i think we need to have all hands on deck, but there needs to be a place where the buck stops in order to coordinate this well. >> let's go through the new cdc guidelines and tell me if you see anything most significant in terms of a change. universal wearing of masks. physical distancing. washing hands is critical,

improving facilities and kbroovrg ventilation, and then contact tracing and isolation when you do have cases. you have a federal organization but then you have districts across the country with more challenges. in a rural area, there will be more challenges there than in the inner city. it's a ventilation question there. >> the ventilation question does hang in the balance about whether or not we are really prepared to fully reopen our schools. we know that the biden administration is pledging $1.9 trillion, and that seems like an enormous sum of money, but so much of that is already pledged to things like keeping and retaining our current teachers and trying to meet school budgets across the country. there is some funding for ppe, for example, but we've got to make a concerted effort around this ventilation issue. there are classrooms that don't have windows, and we need to think about the size of those classrooms in terms of social distancing. we know that the landscape of

public education has changed permanently forever because of the pandemic, but we now have an opportunity because of this to rethink how we want to respond and to think about some new innovations and how we want to move forward with this. the ventilation question is a significant one, and i do think the biden administration will need to have some additional resources available for districts and schools, but what is encouraging is that we've had 14,000 districts with 14,000 plans, and now, because we have the federal government involved, and they're talking about collecting this data on the transmission rates and the positivity cases, it will be critical for people to start seeing that data. because part of the real key issue right here is that we have to rebuild the trust among so many families and among educators as well, john, because those families want to believe that we have a great way to get all of our kids back to school. >> and, again, you mentioned rebuilding trust, but so many of these decisions, you can have federal guidelines or so many different school districts that have to implement them.

we know from existing research, schools that are strictly following precautions had the same or lower spread in their community. middle or high school students are more likely than younger students to catch or contract covid. singing, shougts w-- shouting with indoor sports increases the ri risk. how do you say, we can do this, but we can't do that? >> i think this will help rebuild trust with families in particular. what we do know is where schools have provided seats for in-person learning, our more vulnerable students have not come back yet. that is a significant concern. we will not feel like the process of reopening schools is successful until we have reached those families and convinced them it's safe for schools to

reopen. we have to figure out how to get those families back. those families have already said they are concerned, and in many of our urban districts, they're concerned about having an epidemic pandemic on top of a pandemic on top of a racist pandemic, and now you're adding a decision-making pandemic. so parents want to trust that the federal government and the states are all aligned with the information they're giving everyone so there is consistent, transparent decision making so they can be comfortable about buying back in to what we are offering in public education. >> annette anderson, i'm grateful for your insights today. please keep in touch as we go through this. to me it's the most important question on the table. coming up for us, trump got an acquittal in the senate trial, but his legal worries? far from over. ng today to reach your weight loss and wellness goals? we can't do this wellness journey alone right. find that right coach, the one that speaks to you and you'll hear that thing that you needed to hear.

we've all got your back. team lisa, this week alone, has lost 4,000 pounds. we're all here to help you succeed. kickstart your weight loss with the new digital 360 membership from ww, weight watchers reimagined. join now, pay later! get your first three months free. ends february 15th!

do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance.

want to save hundreds on your wireless bill? with xfinity mobile you can. how about saving hundreds on the new samsung galaxy s21 ultra 5g? you can do that too. all on the most reliable network. sure thing! and with fast nationwide 5g included at no extra cost. we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction. and get a new samsung galaxy starting at $17 a month. learn more at xfinitymobile.com or visit your local xfinity store today.

former president trump escaped senate conviction again. but the senate republican leader mitch mcconnell did give us this weekend reminder. >> president trump is still liable for everything he did while ehe was in office. as an ordinary citizen, he didn't get away with anything yet. yet. >> impeachment far from ends the 45th president's legal troubles. there are at least seven lawsuits pending, criminal investigations pending and civil lawsuits, combined, aimed at the former president or his businesses. senator jones, it's great to see you on this day. let me ask you to wear your

former u.s. attorney hat and we can put up a list of the former president's legal troubles. the manhattan district attorney, we know, has been probing some time the family businesses. they are investigating the phone call to the secretary of state of georgia. the georgia secretary of state looking into these. the dc u.s. attorney looking at possible incitement of violence charges. and on the civil side, a new york investigation into the trump organization. does he just have a whole list of problems? >> he certainly has a slate of legal problems, and he has been for years an annuity for law firms, so he's going to have to deal with each one of those. the ones that jump out at me the most, i think, are the ones that have been going on that involve the financial records in new york. those where there is a paper

trail that is not necessarily tweets and speeches. i think everything needs to be looked at from january 6, certainly. everybody that was on that platform needs to be examined as part of this overall investigation which seems to be moving at a rapid clip. but i think the ones in new york are the ones that stand out the most. those are ones that the paper will be there for. you don't have to get into somebody's mind and look at intent, which is very, very difficult to do in a criminal case. >> now let me ask you to put back on your senate hat and help me understand the unique politics of the united states senate. the republican leader mitch mcconnell voted to acquit. then he came to the floor and he gave a lengthy speech in which he said, essentially, donald trump is responsible for what happened at the capitol. he's a horrible human being and he shouldn't be involved in the republican party anymore, and that the democratic prosecutors, the managers, made their case. mitch mcconnell was quite clear about that and yet he voted to acquit. the georgia columnist puts it this way. he said one of the senate minority leader's many admirable

traits he is uninterested in being admired. he has his eyes on the prize, 2022. is that what he wanted to do, not keep senators from voting to acquit but making sure people knew what donald trump did was wrong? >> he's a very smart, cunning and shrewd politician. political power is the name of the game, and getting back the majority, he, in effect, was able to have it both ways. he doesn't do anything in which it's not calculated, and he knew if he delayed this, if he delayed the trial until after the president left office that his caucus could have it both ways. they could vote their conscience if they wanted to and defend democracy and depenfend the uni or they could hide behind a technicality and go on a jurisdictional ground. he gave it to them both ways, but clearly i think his speech

at the end was designed to try to put some distance between donald trump and the republican party. we'll see how that goes. i think it's going to be a real holy war within the republican party right now given senator graham's comments and some others. but that's clearly what -- exactly what he was trying to do. >> and as that holy war, as you call it, in the republican party plays out, what do you think the best tack for democrats is? merrick garland is set to be the next representative of the united states. the exchange committee said, if we want accountability for trump and his criminal network, we cannot just depend on democratic leaders. we need to push them a lot. is this an investigative role to keep pushing donald trump or do you leave it to the states? >> i don't think he'll answer that question right off because he's not going to be briefed on the facts, he's not going to know what's been going on.

there is a lot of investigation that's been going on in the u.s. attorney's office, i think, in new york, as well now in the u.s. attorney's office in d.c. but judge garland is not going to be briefed on that, he's going to follow the law and we'll see where this leads. i don't think he'll push back on investigating the former president, but he's not going to embrace it, either. he's going to let the facts and the law follow that and that's where it needs to be. he'll end up doing the right thing regardless. that's my view, and i believe he'll stick to that. you're not going to see him commit to anything, i don't think, one way or the other in his confirmation hearings except to follow the facts and the law, as he should. >> we'll see that one play out. he'll be given a lot of advice, you can guarantee that, from senators on both sides. good to see you representative jones. >> thanks. joe biden gives americans a second chance to sign up for

obamacare. y. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa

new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed

you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home. hi. so you're the scientist here. does my aveeno® daily moisturizer really make my dry skin healthier in one day? it's true jen. this prebiotic oat formula moisturizes to help prevent dry skin. impressive! aveeno® healthy. it's our nature.™ try the body wash, too.

topping our political radar today, the affordable care act exchange reopens today for a special 3-month enrollment program. president biden made an executive order last month in the hopes that the millions of people not on the affordable care act will sign up.

just in for us, new york state democratic leaders now in active discussions about drafting legislation to repeal. new york governor andrew cuomo has expanded executive powers. this development coming on the heels of allegations the state undercounted nursing home deaths from covid-19. mj lee is here. mj? >> andrew cuomo is getting serious blowback, including members of his own party. democratic leaders are in active discussions to draft a bill that would repeal the governor's expanded emergency powers. this is reporting from my colleague, a source telling her there is momentum moovrving in direction of removing his powers. what this means is they are signaling they have sort of lost faith in governor cuomo's handling of the pandemic, that they don't think it's appropriate for him now to have these kinds of unilateral decision-making powers when it comes to covid.

as far as the timing of this goes, it is likely that a bill like this could be introduced sometime this week and that a vote could happen sometime next week, and all indications are that there is broad support behind a bill like this whenever it comes up for a vote. this is just one more sign, john, as you know, that this is very serious for governor cuomo, that there are folks who are demanding answers and they're going to be asking these questions about what exactly happened, was there a cover-up and why, and they're clearly not going to stop until they feel like there is accountability, john. >> accountability being the key word. again, you're hearing lots of republican criticism and knowing democrats are involved in these discussions says quite a bit. mj lee, thank you for that reporting. he's calling it a covid relief package, but the biden administration is also looking to make long-term changes in income inequality. the four way is engulfed in history.

you're sitting in the place where giants ate. the four way is the heart and soul of the community. ♪

the biden emergency covid package includes some temporary measures the white house hopes become too popular to simply let them fade away. it is pafrt of a deliberate whie house strategy, deal with the covid insurgency that deals with a serious problem, income inequality. i'm bringing in john harwood on

this. >> reporter: they had a bill that had incentives like for green energy, for example. this is taking the exact same approach. the dominating issue in the past few decades has been the gap between rich and poor, income inequality. they take big steps here for obamacare for people who were not previously eligible, a tax credit that would send checks to low-income families with kids under six. child care subsidies, up to $8,000 for low-income families that have two children requiring care, also expansion of the earned income tax credit for adults without children. a lot of money in this bill not directly related to covid relief, and the political risk is always, as you know, whether you load it up with more than the market can bear.

so far with a democrats-only approach, they appear to be able to hold their party together in the house, they need all 50 votes in the senate. there has been controversy in the senate with things like minimum wage, but that's likely to be thrown out of the package. it does not appear, with what we know so far, that the unity of the democrats is not threatened by this proposal. they hope to pass it in the house by the end of next week, in the senate by the middle of march. >> is my calculation correct that we've seen this before, whether it's bush tax cuts or senate tax ycuts. to fit them, you have a window, but the president says we need to keep them. is that the idea? >> exactly. you create these cliffs so when the bush tax cuts were going to expire when barack obama was president, he said, you're going to let those expire and we need to raise taxes. similarly joe biden is going to say, if you let these tax

credits expire, you'll take income away from those american families. they're hoping that will work for them as it did with president obama with the tax cuts. >> john harwood, grateful for the reporting. from the white house, i'm grateful for your time today. don't go anywhere. brianna keilar picks up your coverage right now. have a great day. hello, i'm brianna keilar and i want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. there is a light at the end of this pandemic tunnel. new cases and hospitalizations are all trending down, but health experts insist this is not the time to let up on measures like masking and social distancing. as n as new variants of the virus continue to emerge. seven different mutations are popping up in the u.s. to separate them with bird names wh