heading to wisconsin, a state he flipped in the recent election by about 20,000 votes. so, can he convince the american public to get on board and pressure representatives in washington? he'll be taking questions in milwaukee and the cnn town hall with anderson cooper will be here tomorrow night at 9:00 eastern. anderson starts now. and good evening. there is breaking news tonight. house speaker nancy pelosi briefing house democrats on plans to establish an outside, presumably nonpartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate the causes of the january 6th attack on the talk mo capitol. talk more about that in a moment. first, though, how his motivation for putting the impeachment trial behind him difers from republicans, who also want to close the book on it. for starters, president biden wants to focus on covid relief legislation and specific and more generally on re-establishing a sense of continuity with the way presidents traditionally

operate. he spent the weekend at camp david with his grandchildren, who gave him this cap. at the white house, he keeps a regular schedule. no cable news benders or late night tweets, no morning executive time spent watching even more tv. the presidents' daily brief is a daily brief, once again. on the weekend, he goes to sunday mass. this picture of presidential normality is both a reflection of who president biden is as well as what he clearly wants to projeblgt politically at this moment. by contrast, this is the image the republican party has chosen for itself this presidents' day. the republican national committee tweeted it out. it's a picture of the twice impeached former president of the united states. in actuality, though, this is where the former president was today, in a familiar place, not unlike his party, after the second impeachment trial ended this weekend with his acquittal. even after coming under physical attack could only sway seven

republicans to vote to convict. as for the rest, well, here's senator lindsey graham gushing about talking to the former president, the one he said back in 2016 would bring down the republican party and the one he claimed he was done with on the night of the insurrection. >> he's excited about 2022 and i'm going to go down to talk with him next week, play a little golf in florida and i said, mr. president, this maga movement needs to continue. we need to unite the party. trump plus is the way back in 2022. >> trump plus. senator graham suggested that vice president harris would be impeached if republicans gained control of the house in 2022 and called for house speaker pelosi to be investigated in connection with the january 6th assault. wisconsin senator ron johnson doesn't even think much of the attack itself. listen to what he said on a radio talk show today. >> the fact of the matter is, this didn't seem like an armed insurrection to me. i mean, armed -- when you hear armed, don't you think of

firearms? >> uh-huh. >> here's the questions i would have liked to have asked. how many firearms were confiscated? how many shots were fired? i'm only aware of one. >> well, just to remind you, this bunch of idiots managed to hurt and maim tdozens of police officers that day, with and without what you might think of standard weapons. one used a hockey stick. others flag poles. some carried bear spray. and yes have been charged with carrying firearms. one man brought an assault rifle and runs of rounds of ammunition to the capitol, allegedly targeting house speaker pelosi. and of course, the pipe bombs, as well, planted the night before, according to authorities. one police officer died that day, two died of suicide in the wake of the assault. senator johnson is either poorly informed or just craven. or perhaps both. other republican senators at least acknowledge the horror but hid behind technicalities.

>> we have no power to convict and disqualify a former office-holder who is now a private citizen. >> well, that's of course mitch mcconnell and especially rich coming from him, because just a few weeks ago, as majority leader, he prevented that private citizen from being tried while he was still president. and if you want to relive the perfect ten at the montreal olympics, get a load of the back flip he did despite voting to acquit. >> there's no question, none, that president trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. no question about it. the people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. >> kind of like telling off the bully but only after you're a few blocks away. he did what he did after an

account came to light of the former president's call during the assault with house republican leader kevin mccarthy. the president refusing to call off the rioters, reportedly telling mccarthy, quote, i guess these people are more upset about the election than you are. senators voted to allow then for reasons not yet fully clear both parties instead agreed not to call any and decided to get tall over with and start their week-long recess. in a way both sides are okay with that for different reasons, from different places as parties with one side not even conceding simple facts about what happened that day. to them -- in fact, tonight the north carolina republican party, they are meeting to decide whether to censure senator richard burr for his vote to convict the former president. joining us now is cnn chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins. so how is the white house squaring the prospects for president biden's agenda which he indicated he would prefer to accomplish on a bipartisan basis, with where the republican party stands post impeachment?

>> reporter: anderson, i think publicly they are still saying they want it to be a bipartisan agenda and to have these legislative achievements that are bipartisan in the end when the votes come down to it, but i think the reality behind the scenes is if they look at what has happened over the last four years, they look at how this vote on saturday went, they know that's going to be incredibly difficult. because yes, they do have the house and the senate and the white house of course but they barely have the senate, so they are still going to need republican support for a lot of the things they want to get passed if they want to overcome the filibuster and they're going to need about ten republicans to support them on certain things unless they want to go through a weird procedural process like what they're doing right now with this covid-19 relief bill. and so if you look at what happened on saturday, you look at things like how mitch mcconnell ended up voting and the speech he gave after, you still see the influence that former president trump has over the republican party and that people are not willing to break with him. so for president biden to get a lot of republican support it's going to be really tough. and that's what you're going to see on display this week now that he's back here in

washington and the distraction of this second impeachment trial is really behind us. covid-19 relief bill is taking center stage but it has no congressional republicans supporting it so far. the white house is dismissing that and stepping away from it by saying it does have republican support out in the country with mayors and governors p but no lawmakers here in d.c. have support td and that is what president biden promised on the campaign trail, that he would bring unity to washington. but so far, at least when it comes to this top legislative priority of his, his initial one, it's eluding him. >> is there a sense in the white house the shadow of president biden's predecessor is now receding in a meaningful way? >> reporter: i'm not sure. i think there's a sense that donald trump will always kind of loom in the broujd. in some ways that's been helpful to the biden white house because i think every new president tries to say they're going to be different than their predecessor. you saw it with obama and bush. you saw it with trump and obama. and you've really seen biden wield that in a way where he's saying i'm not just pushing my agenda i'm undoing a lot of what

donald trump did. but then there are other aspects that will not be as helpful to him like when it comes to trying to get bipartisanship on bills and having republicans be concerned about crossing the line for fear of angering donald trump's base. that's a question going forward and i don't think it's clear yet what that's going to look like during president biden's time in office. >> kate ran collins, appreciate it. joining us vermont senator and newly militanted budget committee chairman bernie sanders. senator sanders thanks for being with us. speaker nancy pelosi announced a 9/11-type commission is going to be established to investigate all that happened during the insurrection on january 6th. is that something you support and what would you want them to focus on? >> well, i do. i think when you have for the first time in 200 years an attempt to overthrow the government of the united states you want to know as much as you can about who was behind it and what happened and the role of the president of the united states. but i would also say this,

anderson. it is absolutely imperative that the u.s. congress show the american people who are hurting right now in a way that they have not hurt in many, many years that we can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. so yeah, we've got to deal with impeachment. yeah, we've got to deal with this commission. but mostly in my view we have got to address the pandemic, make sure that all over this country people get the vaccines that they desperately need. we've got to deal with the economic collapse. the fact that many millions of people have lost their health insurance. people have lost their jobs and their income. people are worried about being evicted. people cannot feed their children. we have to address those problems. we have to focus on climate change. on criminal justice and racial injustice. on immigration reform. we have enormous crises facing this country. and we have got to go forward aggressively in standing up for the working families of this

country. >> it doesn't seem at this point that the $15 an hour federal minimum wage is going to be part of this particular stimulus plan. i know that's obviously very important to you. is that acceptable to you? and what are your thoughts on -- >> i don't agree, anderson. >> you don't agree. okay. >> the $15 minimum wage was included in the house bill. we are going to make our case -- and this is enormously complicated. i won't bore anybody with senate rules here. but we are going to make our case to the parliamentarian that we absolutely believe that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is consistent with the rules of the senate and the reconciliation process. and i believe -- look, when you have half of the people in this country living paycheck to paycheck, when all over this country you're having workers trying to survive on $9 or $10 an hour or even less than that, the american people want,

republicans, democrats, independents want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. 15 bucks an hour. it is popular. it is what the people want. it is what justice demands. so i'm going to fight as hard as i can. and i believe that we will succeed in including the minimum wage in the reconciliation bill. >> march 14th is when a lot of folks' unemployment insurance runs out. how confident are you that something will be passed to make sure that people don't fall off the cliff, the -- >> that's a great question. that's a great question, anderson. millions of people who will lose their unemployment benefits, we cannot allow that to happen. i am the chairman of the budget committee. this bill is going through the budget committee, and we're working with leadership. we're working with the house to make sure that we pass this bill as quickly as we possibly can. and i want people to understand what is in this bill. it means if you're watching this program the likelihood is if you're a working-class person

you've already received $600 per person. we're going to provide another $1,400 per adult, per kid for people -- individuals under $75,000, couples under $150,000 because people are living in desperation now. they need that. that's a family of four, another 5,600 bucks. that's life or death for millions of families. we're going to raise that minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour. anderson, we're going to do something that we have not talked about enough in this country. we're going to cut childhood poverty in half because we're going to significantly increase the child tax credit. we are going to make sure that cities and states have the resources that they need. so they're not going to be laying off teachers or firefighters or police officers or other municipal and state employees. this is a comprehensive bill which is attempting to address the unprecedented crises that working flees throughout this

country are facing. let's be clear. the very, very rich are doing just fine. billionaires are seeing tremendous growth in their wealth. but working families today are living in more desperation than since the great depression and congress has got to move forward vigorously, do what the president of the united states campaigned on and wants to do. that's what we've got to do. not only to help the american people but to restore faith that government in fact can respond to the needs of ordinary americans. >> there has -- obviously, there's been a lot of hope as there always is in a change of administrations that things are going to become more bipartisan, that there's going to be more, you know, unification, unity. when you look at what happened over the impeachment, you know, and what you hear now from republicans, you know, senator graham has once again found love for the former president and seems to be gushing about, you know, his power over the party. republicans are talking about

impeaching kamala harris in 2022 if they took back power. how do you make -- how is unity possible with this kind of rhetoric? with the former president still being head of the party. >> anderson, in my view, and i'm not alone in believing this, the republican party is going to have to make a simple decision. the debate of today is not about health care. it's not about climate change. not about education. it is in fact whether the republican party believes in democracy or whether they're going to continue to believe in the big lie. you know, you may recall that during the impeachment trial i asked trump's attorneys whether in fact they believe that biden won the election or whether they believe that trump won a landslide victory. they refused to answer that question. so either the republican party will be the party of the big lie, the party of conspiracy theories, or the party of racism and divisiveness -- and by the

way, the party of violence, or else it will be as it has traditionally been, a conservative party operating within the framework of a democracy. that is what republicans are going to have to decide in terms of their future. and obviously, i would hope that the leadership and ordinary republicans understand that people fought and died to protect american democracy. we don't believe in, one, an authoritarian government run by one person, trump or anybody else. we don't. we believe in the rule of law. that is a decision the republicans are going to have to make. and i'm going to do everything that i can, not only fighting for working families but fighting for democracy. >> senator bernie sanders, i appreciate your time. >> thanks very much, anderson. >> thanks very much. as a reminder, the president makes his first official trip tomorrow to milwaukee for a cnn town hall. i'll be moderating that. you can see it here live 9:00 p.m. eastern time from

milwaukee. just ahead for us tonight, anthony scaramucci on the president he once worked for and what kind of republican party he sees today and in the future. and all that's coming to light now about a key element of the capitol mob and the ties some of these attackers may have to law enforcement. investigating the so-called oath keepers tonight on 360. for you, for the whole family. trusted soothing vapors, from vicks

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more breaking news tonight in the senate minority leader's ongoing campaign to have it both

ways on impeachment. mitch mcconnell weighing in tonight with a piece for the "wall street journal's" op-ed piece. oating from it now there's no question president trump bears moral responsibility. his supporters stormed the capitol because of the unhin nld faushood he shouted into the world's largest megaphone. his behavior during and after the chaos was also unconscionable from attacking vice president mike pence during the riot to praising the criminals after it ended." that said, as for his decision to do precisely nothing about it leader mcconnell writes, "the senate's duty last week was clear. it wasn't to guarantee a specific punishment at any cost. our job is to defend the constitution and respect its limits. that is what our acquittal delivered." so there's that. there's the party's decision to punish anyone for even trying to hold the former president accountable. as we mentioned at the top, north carolina republican senator richard burr is the latest facing party discipline back home tonight for his vote to convict. louisiana republican bill cassidy was censured over the weekend for supporting kochx. congresswoman liz cheney also censured for her vote to impeach. this is certainly not her father's republican party. i want to talk about what it all

means. joining me is anthony scaramucci, served as director of communications in the former president's administration. anthony, good to see you. what does this divide mean for the future of the republican party? i mean, we've been talking about this now over the last year. not just the future of the party but its ability to actually effectively legislate and govern. >> i think it's been weakened, anderson. and i think there's a large group of people in the party that are organizing now and are debating whether or not to have a faction inside the party or to literally spin out and have a fall convention for a new party as a precursor to the congressional midterms and then start slating candidates. we both know there are state issues there in terms of getting everybody on the ballot. if we start a new party. but listen, 63% of the surveyed republicans say that they want a new party. and so you have a radical fringe. lindsey graham is obviously now part of that radical fringe as

well as others. and we have to liquidate that radical fringe because people that really love the country, anderson, would put the virtues of the democracy and the virtues of the constitution over everything else. we can debate the policy issues at a later date. right now we have to work on the preservation of the democracy. so look for either a faction developing, it's being very well organized, by the way, or a new party. >> the thing is as we all know any third party has a huge -- it's not just state rules. just fund-raising, everything. we just don't have that history in modern times here in this country. there had been talk among diehard trump supporters back when it looked like when the president left and after the attack, when it looked like perhaps the gop was going to expel the memory of the former president, that they were talking -- lou dobbs was talking about the patriot party and that

spinning off. that seems to have gone away and the gop, i mean, is now firmly -- continues to be the party of trump. >> yeah. i think you're right about all of those things. but remember, if we can organize and effectuate a third party and even if that third party is only 10% of the electorate and it's taking votes away from the current trump party or the republican party, the irony, anderson, is they're really the rinos. they're republicans in name only. they're really sort of like tinos. trump in name only. if we can get 10%, possibly 15% of the people -- and by the way, that could also energize independents and, you know, centrist democrats. it will be an interesting thing. i think it's the right course. if someone was asking me my opinion, then trying to primary people in a gerrymandered district where the republicans can bring the radicals out to vote for them, if you have a standing candidate, you can start liquidating them on the

edges if you will, and then they'll lose those congressional seats. and then that will force a restructuring of the party. yes, it's not going to be easy but you've got two choices here. you can go with radical fringe trumpism where these people literally are signaling to you that they want to destroy your democracy. or you can try to set up, people that really love the country, that have center-right values can try to set up something new or a faction inside that party to rebut them. and this is a crisis very similar to 1856 into the 1860 election. and so you know, listen, we've been here before unfortunately. we've never had an insurrection like this. and this party is stained with that. so we have to rebuild it. >> you tweeted a couple days ago that republicans would be what you said were spineless if they aquilted the former president. you said they'd be on a path to destroy whatever's left of their party. all but seven republicans voted to acquit. many of those seven are now

facing censure by their state parties, which seems more than the former president has gotten. why aren't they getting the credit that you say they deserve? >> well, time will tell. obviously, the president still controls the party. he's got 80% support inside that party. remember the registrations, the pew research numbers had them down to 29% a year ago. we believe that there's been way more disaffection. you probably have 25% of the electorate. the president controls 80% of those. so that's 20% of the electorate. you're right, you know. it's only 20%. if they're censuring people you have to just think about where it's coming from. it's really only 20% of the electorate right now. and as we both know, the largest group of registrations are the independents. there is a big opportunity here, and if you think like an entrepreneur, i've started a few companies in this country, if you think like an entrepreneur,

there's demand out there for a center right virtuous party, someone that would decry what has happened as it related to trumpism and what is happening in terms of the disfiguring of the principles that the republican party has stood on since abraham lincoln. so to -- >> but -- >> -- me i think it's a huge opportunity. >> former president won against a whole stage of republicans who were decrying just that. i mean, lindsey graham was talking about -- lindsey graham was right back then. he said this guy's going to destroy our party. you know, ted cruz, for goodness sakes, was decrying that as well. graham is now saying republicans can't take back the senate without the former president's support. and that the former first daughter-in-law is the future of the republican party. i mean -- >> okay. but just think like an entrepreneur for a second. imagine that we were able to galvanize 10% or 15% of the center-right movement in the

country and we took that party down to let's call it 30% of the electorate. they'll have no standing, anderson. i think that's got to be the first step in terms of the preserving of the democracy. >> did you -- like forming a center-right party, how would that actually work? obviously you'd need some people who had money to back this idea. what are the nuts and bolts of it? >> well, listen, again, it's like a business startup. you need a group of people that are very interested in doing, it people that are willing to fund it. you have to put up some organizing principles. i don't want to go into all of the names of the people i'm speaking to right now because i don't know if they want to be open about it. some of them probably want to remain anonymous at this moment. but there's already a notion about potentially having a convention in a place like rippon, wisconsin, which is the founding place of the republican party, in the fall of this coming year.

so to me it's very, very exciting. and if you can get, as i said, 10% to 15% of the people moving toward that party i think people are sick and tired of the separation and the plemolpolemi. i think people are tired of the radicalism coming from the trump fringe of the republican party. and you can have something very exciting happen in the age of social media, in the age of this sort of guerrilla-like communication. look, anderson, there's enough people -- again, i believe it's 10% to 15% that will say i've had enough of this nonsense, we had a direct threat to our democracy and our constitution as a result of these people and the way they talk and the way they act. and that acquittal, that enough is enough, brave men and women will come together and say if they can help save the democracy by forming something. again, it could be a faction inside or it could be a brand new party.

to your point let's say they put a trump-like figure up and they win the presidential nomination. if there's a third-party candidate out there that has standing, very, very low probability that person will win. >> anthony scaramucci, i appreciate it. thanks for your time. >> good to be here. still ahead, as house speaker pelosi calls for a 9/11-style commission into exactly what happened and why the capitol was breached, federal investigators are focusing on one particular extremist group for what they say is its role in the rioting. that's next. what do you look for when you trade? i want free access to research. yep, td ameritrade's got that. free access to every platform. yeah, that too. i want to know what i'm paying upfront. yes, absolutely. now offering zero commissions on online trades.

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as we reported at the top of the program nancy pelosi is calling for an independent commission to examine every aspect of the attack on january 6th and as cnn's sara sidner reports one particular extremist group is fast becoming a focus of investigators looking into their bradenness and even their suspected ties to law enforcement. >> reporter: members of the extremist anti-government oath keepers. >> treason! treason! >> reporter: were a part of this siege. >> fight for trump! fight for trump!

>> reporter: they are seen in combat gear brazenly bragging about breaching the capitol. >> overran the capitol. >> we're in the [ bleep ] capitol. >> reporter: the extremist paramilitary group is known for recruiting current and former members of the military and law enforcement. it has emerged as one of the groups that is a major focus of federal investigators. the fbi is trying to hunt down the suspects in these photos, some of whom are wearing oath keeper gear. these three alleged oath keepers and military veterans, jessica watkins, donovan crowell, and thomas caldwell, were the first to face significant conspiracy charges related to the capitol attack. >> the leader of a militia group known as the oathkeepers received messages while he was at the capitol. >> reporter: the federal claims against the accused oath keepers even mentioned during the second impeachment trial against former president donald trump. >> the leader was given directions to where representatives were thought to be sheltering. and instructions to, quote, turn on gas, seal them in.

>> reporter: an accused leader of the group that day, caldwell, denies any involvement with the oath keepers. his attorney claims the fbi has shown no evidence of him being in the capitol. in court papers he says he worked for the fbi and has held a top security clearance since 1979. but this is also caldwell talking about members of congress on january 6th. >> every single [ bleep ] in there is a traitor! every single one! >> reporter: a source with inside knowledge of how the oath keepers operate told cnn about a dozen members in federal law enforcement but purposely kept off the group's official membership data base. would it be a surprise that someone who was in federal law enforcement was a member of the oath keepers? >> unfortunately not. right? for years oath keepers have been targeting, you know, military and law enforcement personnel, especially at the federal level, with their messaging recruitments. >> reporter: federal prosecutors say just days before the attack caldwell discussed with another

extremist bringing weapons across the potomac via boat. "we could have our quick response team with the heavy weapons standing by, load them and ferry them across the river to our waiting arms." federal agents say he also sent messages to accused oath keepers crowell and watkins. in this one to crowell he says, "i will probably do prestrike on the 5th, maybe can do some night hunting." and then mentions when his oath keeper friends from north carolina will show up. >> we want trump! >> reporter: in video from january 6th it appears the three may not have been acting alone. watkins is seen with others marching toward the capitol. the fbi said she was part of a group of eight to ten people all wearing paramilitary gear and oath keeper paraphernalia, signifying their affiliation with the conspiracy-fueled anti-government group. here she is again behind the guy with the eye patch, the leader and founder of the oath keepers, stewart rhodes, in the november

trump rally in d.c. two months later rhodes is seen outside the capitol during the attack. he has not been charged with any crime. he was clear on his oath keepers mission in d.c. >> our mission there is as we stated on -- in our call to action to go to d.c., what we always do, protect people, protect venues, protect events. and that's it. vip escorts. >> reporter: and some did, appearing to stand guard with trump adviser roger stone. this is oath keeper roberto menuta of new jersey according to several people who know him. later that day he's seen yelling at police outside the capitol. soon after a man wearing the same goggles and clothing is seen breaching the capitol. despite the mounting evidence and manhunt for some of his oath keepers, this is rhodes 24 days after the siege, talking about the current government. >> so there's going to be resistance. the only question is what will be the spark? >> reporter: rhodes is still spewing the lie that the election was stolen. and egging on his followers to act. >> you've got to declare this

regime to be illegitimate. you've got to declare everything that comes out of king biden's mouth as illegitimate and null and void from inception because he is not a legitimate president. >> he is continuing to use violent rhetoric and spread conspiracies that frame today's events in a way that necessitate action on the part of his followers. >> traitor! traitor! >> reporter: though rhodes says it was a mistake for people to actually go inside the capitol that day -- >> keep pushing! >> reporter: -- even in light of the insurrection his rhetoric has not changed. >> they have plans for us that they know we'll rebel against and they're afraid because there are 365 million of us. we outnumber them vastly. and we're armed. we're well armed. so they have a problem. and so they're afraid. >> sara, we know according to those who track them there are the so-called oath keepers in states throughout the country. have any of them come forward and denounced what happened on january 6th? >> reporter: yeah, this is kind of the first time that we have heard such a strong

denouncement. there were oath keepers from north carolina, a chapter there. the state coordinator wrote a letter to his sheriff, actually, and that letter was shared with us, with their permission. and basically said that they were horrified about what they saw, the capitol attack that day on january 6th, and that they believe that the national leadership of the oath keepers could have stopped it but did nothing. so in the end they decided they're going to end their affiliation with the oath keepers there in north carolina and do their own thing. i also some mention we tried to reach out to roberto menuta who was there standing near roger stone in his oath keeper gear. he was also seen yelling at a police officer. he did not respond to our comments. someone at his business said that he had no comment. we also tried to reach out to jessica watkins and donovan crowell. they are both still in jail and they do not have attorneys representing them yet. anderson? >> it's fascinating. sara sidner, appreciate. . we'll have more on this. one final piece of related breaking news. the north carolina republican party's central committee

unanimously voted just now to censure senator richard burr for his vote to convict the former president. the party issuing a statement that reads in part, "the ncgop agrees with the strong majority of republicans in both the u.s. house of representatives and senate that the democrat-led attempt to impeach a former president lies outside the united states constitution." more breaking news coming up. cdc is out with new numbers on the percentage of school kids living in or near so-called red zones where covid transmission is either high or substantial. we'll tell you what that means ahead.

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there's breaking news from the cdc tonight. in a new e-mail to cnn a spokesman says even though the vast majority of school children, 89%, live in or near so-called red zones, areas where the transmission of the virus is high or substantial, that does not mean schools in those regions should be shut down. this as the broad numbers show overall cases in the u.s. are in

fact -- while are in fact down, while those covid varntsz are increasing. two seemingly opposing inflection points. want to get perspective now from two experts. dr. paul off-it, director of the vaccine education center at the children's hospital of philadelphia, and dr. leana wen, a cnn medical analyst and former health commissioner for the city of baltimore. so dr. wen, the cdc says that even though 89% of kids in the u.s. live in counties either experiencing high or substantial levels of transmission, in-person learning can move forward as long as schools are, quote, strictly implementing mitigation and monitoring cases in the school community. so do you agree with that? >> i do. i think we now do have very good evidence of this, that first of all, the single most important determinant of whether schools are safe is the level of transmission in the community. and second, that even if the levels are high there are things that can be done. of course the higher the rate of infection the more things you need to do in schools. the more you have to not only

have masking and physical distancing but you also have to focus on other things like improved ventilation. now, i do want to say, though, it's just such a tragedy that we have 89% of our students living in these high-risk areas. i think this represents a failure of our society to prioritize our children. because if we had wanted to this summer, this fall, this winter, we could have done the hard things to drive down community transmission rates. we haven't done that. and that's why so many of our students are out of school. and i just hope that moving forward we do not put all of society's failures on our children and the teachers and staff that work in them. >> dr. offit, i want to get your reaction something professor osterholm, an epidemiology and member of the biden covid advisory board said earlier today about the cdc guidance in schools. i'm just going to play that for our viewers. >> at this point i think most schools can handle the guidelines relative to the younger kids. but the problem is is that again, as i pointed out, as case numbers rise in our xhuntsd,

which is what the cdc has flagged, will be the problem. at this point many of the areas can open up. i don't think they'll be open very long because of what's coming down the pike with cases. >> do you think that's accurate? that as soon as schools reopen they may have to close again because of -- he's talking about the variants that may be coming down the pike. >> right. so what's striking to me is that it's mid february. it's the middle of winter. and this is at its heart, sars co-v-2 is a winter respiratory virus. noms they have a decrease in cases, decrease in hospital saigsz, decrease in deaths. why? why is that happening? i think there's two reasons. one is that look at the natural imm immunity. in other words, we listed 28 million people have been infected with this virus but that's just people who have been tested and found to be infected. many people who are either asymptomatically infected or have mild disease never get tested. so how do you know how many people in this country have really been infected? you do anti-veil ebt

surveillance studies. in november it showed that number was off by a factor of four. it's probably more likely at least 80 million people in this country have already been exposed to this virus and are likely immune. that's 25% of the population. in addition you have about 50 million doses of vaccine that are out in. about 12 million people have been given two doses. add that all up that's roughly another 10% of the population. now you're at 35% of the population that is at some level immune from moderate to severe disease. that's probably enough to start to see evidence of herd immunity. now, i think dr. osterholm might be right if one of these variants becomes completely resistant to a vaccine-induced immunity or natural immunity, which hasn't happened yet. even the south african variant. the so-called b-351 variant. is is still -- people who have been exposed to that virus or who have been immunized just with the vaccines we're giving here are still apparently protected against severe disease, meaning hospitalization, icu admission,

death. so until we cross that line i think right now there's a lot of reason for optimism. but again, this virus is humbling. i think whenever people make predictions about this virus they may be humbled by it but i'm going to choose to say that i think we're starting to see evidence of turning the corner. >> dr. wen, do you agree with that? >> i am not so sure that i'm quite as optimistic as dr. offit here. i think he could be certainly right. maybe we are turning the corner. mayor we're coming to the spring, the weather's going to be warmer, maybe we're going to see a consistent decline. but i'm also worried about a pattern that we've seen in the past which is that we see a big surge, we see restrictions being put into place, that surge decreases and then as soon as restrictions get lifted again people start behaving in prepandemic ways that are unsafe and then we see another surge. and right now we are at a very high level of infection. we are at 2 1/2 times the level of daily new cases that we were in the summer. and we have these new variants that are coming that i'm not sure that we can predict exactly

how they'll go. we've seen what happens in other countries when they became dominant and actually schools that were open the entire time had to close as a result. so i'm not sure that i would feel as optimistic, and i do want to urge people still that we need to keep up our guard, that policy makers really should think twice before before removing restrictions, especially mask mandates. keep on masking, physical distancing, avoiding indoor gatherings in the meantime. >> doctor, you would agree with that? even those who have been vaccinated, even those who maybe have had it, wearing masks is still important for a whole variety of reasons? >> yes. i think it's still important, obviously, to do everything we can to get people vaccinated, to wear masks, social distance. we're just starting to see us turn the corner. but by no means are we out of the woods. there's still a long way to g i agree with dr. wen completely that we immediate to keep our guard up. we may be seeing some early evidence of herd immutant.

we'll see what happens. >> dr. offit, appreciate it. dr. wen, as always, appreciate your time. governor andrew cuomo conceded he wasn't transparent enough when the pandemic crisis was at its height after withering criticism at the failure to release the accurate number of nursing home deaths from the state. political opponents said he was h hiding the information. still, governor cuomo said nothing was deliberate and he should have done better with what he calls misinformation. brynn gingras. >> we made a mistake. >> reporter: finally speaking out days after his top aide admitted their office when would data for months about deaths of nursing home residents. acknowledging on monday the data was not provided soon enough. >> in retro expect, we should have prioritized, providing more information. >> reporter: but arguing that the state's death counts were accurate, and that information was not hidden.

>> to be clear, all the deaths in the nursing homes and in the hospitals were always fully, publicly and accurately reported. >> until late last month, new york only accounted separately for people who died from covid-19 in long-term care facilities like nursing homes, but the data didn't include the number of residents from those facilities who died after they were transferred to a hospital or elsewhere. >> the public had many questions and concerns, and the press had many questions about nursing homes primarily. and i understand that they were not answered quickly enough. >> the tipping point came when, in a private video call the governor's top aide, melissa derosa, told state lawmakers they delayed giving updated information to them after then president trump's department of justice sent an inquiry about nursing home deaths in the state, because, quote, basically we froze because then we were in a position where we weren't sure of what we were going to give to the department of justice or

what we give to you guys. what we start saying was going to be used against us. her words, an admission that the administration stalled on showing a true picture of just how many nursing home residents died, just as the governor was lauded globally for his pandemic response. >> between his emmy for his coronavirus press briefings to governor cuomo's book, to his speech at the democratic national convention, governor cuomo has been held up as the model governor in his coronavirus response, even though new york was so hard hit by the virus early on. >> reporter: cuomo arguing today much the same as his top aide that, request for data by former president trump's department of justice was politically motivated but took priority over the state legislature's request. >> everybody was working 24 hours a day. everybody was overwhelmed. we were in the midst of dealing with a pandemic and trying to save lives.

they were answering doj. >> reporter: now taking heat from both sides of the new york legislature. >> the gravity of this cover-up cannot be overstated. >> reporter: republicans declaring he should be investigated. some even using the word "impeachment." >> andrew cuomo must be prosecuted and andrew cuomo must be impeached if this evidence exists. >> reporter: democrats are actively discussing drafting a bill to strip cuomo of his emergency powers. you're only sorry that you all got caught tweeted democratic senator alexander biaggi. >> in your piece you mentioned some republicans are mentioning impeachment. we heard that. what's the fallout, political or otherwise, from all of this? >> reporter: yeah, anderson. the governor said he's not really worried about investigation. he said he pretty much put everything out there today so there's nothing more to investigate. so, it will be -- we'll have to see really if republicans are going to continue with an investigation. again, they're calling to impeach him, or if they're

satisfied with what he said today. even democrats have said that they might want to dig into these numbers even further. one thing to point out that one critic told me, anderson, is that if the governors office had to prioritize responding to the doj and had to give later on the numbers to the state, then how did his administration, how did the governor have time to write a more than 300-page book about his administration's response to the pandemic, if they couldn't do both at the same time? there's still a lot of criticism that is out there. this is likely something that will plague him. as we know, the governor is up for re-election next year. anderson? >> clearly with the press conference today, hoping to put this behind them. it doesn't sound like he maybe accomplished that. >> reporter: yeah. it's really unclear at this point. there are still some questions out there, of course, going back to that leaked phone call with his top aide, melissa derosa, saying that they were worried numbers were going to be used against them when they responded either to the doj or the state legislature. what does that mean? why not have the number total of

the nursing home deaths all one number from the very beginning? there are little bits of information that people want really clear answers to, particularly the people who lost the loved ones because that's really, of course, what this is all about. they want to make sure that their loved one was accounted for accurately. >> brynn gingras, appreciate it. thank you very much. we'll be right back. i'm erin. -and i'm margo. we've always done things our own way. charted our own paths. i wasn't going to just back down from moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. psoriatic arthritis wasn't going to change who i am. when i learned that my joint pain

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as mentioned, president biden makes his first trip to milwaukee for cnn town hall. it's at 9:00 p.m. not 8:00 p.m. when i am usually on. we are flip flopping. he will start at 8:00. tonight he is on at 9:00, which starts right now. >> happy to switch it up. it will be really an event to watch. see you then. right now, i am chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." we need to be real about where