to charge him with a hate crime because it's so difficult to prove it is indeed a hate crime. he's been charged with murder and elder abuse, something important to remember, erin, activists believe the real number of hate incidents nationally may be higher because we're dealing with an immigrant community who is often fearful to report. erin? >> that is horrific watching that. my gosh. thank you very much. thanks for joining us. cuomo prime time is on now. special time tonight because of the town hall. let's hand it over to chris cuomo. all right. thank you, erin. i'm chris cuomo and welcome to "prime time." your time is right. a big man anderson cooper is in wisconsin for the big cnn town hall with president joe biden. it begins one hour from now, but we've just received word that the president has landed in wisconsin. now, the big question is obviously about the big

challenge. can president biden get the country on the same page about the pandemic? he's there now. this will be his first official trip as president four weeks in. he's taking the pitch for his $1.9 trillion relief plan on the road. wisconsin battle ground state helped secure biden's victory. also, hard hit by the weather, hard hit by the economy, hard hit by the pandemic. now, this is all a leadup to the house vote that is expected on the package next week. the biden presidency will be defined in large part by his job on the pandemic, but also, whether he can help us move past the pain of division. his predecessor's ghost is still haunting us post impeachment. trump's silence was strategic. the trial is over. so is the silence. he is now in war mode on his own party targeting senate minority leader mitch mcconnell.

here is what he said in part, i'm not going to show you his entire thing. if you want to find it, find it yourself. he's an unpolitical hack and will never do what needs to be done or what is right for our country. trump is demanding 100% loyalty from his ranks and even mcconnell's manipulation from the impeachment trial and voting to acquit falls short. why? mcconnell said i was defending the constitution, not trump with that acquittal. our job wasn't to find someway, anyway to inflict punishment. the senate's first and foundational duty was to protect the constitution and that's why your duty was to hold the trial and your duty was to be impartial and took the oath with your hand to god and had members of your caucus meeting with the defense on a regular basis. look, in its entirety, mcconnell's argument is bogus and does nothing to change reasonable minds about his obvious toxic political play and

not enough for those going full trump, not just trump himself but like senator ron johnson. listen to this. >> you know, leader mcconnell's opinion. i don't believe it represents the vast majority of republican senators when the leader of the senate conference speaks, he has to understand what he says reflects on all of us and i think -- i didn't appreciate his comments. let put it that way. >> this from the guy who suggested that trump insurrection wasn't that bad. because they weren't all carrying guns. bats and bear spray and other weapons didn't seem like an armed situation to johnson. ask those police officers that were brutally assaulted. ask the one that died. state republican parties are also taking action against lawmakers who dare to hold trump to account for the worst political violence in decades. the pennsylvania gop could be sen touring senator toomey next.

why? he heard from them. >> we did not send him there to vote his conscience. we did not send him there to do the right thing or whatever he said he was doing. >> so he sent him there to do the wrong thing? republicans who don't understand that in a democratic republic, you actually do elect a senator to vote their conscience. now, will this party's trump purity purge derail the president's efforts to save the country from the pandemic? let's go to the better minds. david gregory and charlie dent. charlie, i start with you. fully minted conservative, republican, former member of congress. what do you make of trump's backlash and what this means for mcconnell and what it means about your party or lack thereof? >> well, chris, what is happening now in the party is it seems there is a battle brewing in that many, i put mcconnell in

this category. they want to get rid of the queue in the gop. you have to get rid of qanon conspiracy because mcconnell is very smart. he understands what is going to happen going forward. if the state and local parties continue to embrace this wild trump-ism they will elect candidates after the tea party like todd aiken and sharon angel and richard murdoch and o'donnell and seats were lost. mcconnell understands that. hey, say what you will about mitch mcconnell but he's about winning, and he sees this trump movement and the qanon conspiracy theorists and other radical elements as a threat to the gop ever holding power. >> david, you can dismiss this as noise inside baseball, let them handle it and biden has bigger problems and things to deal with. he can't get him through with the congress that doesn't want to do its job, right, and if half of them don't want to work, that is it. what does this mean to him and

what finds him on this stage tonight? >> well, he's got a big challenge, right? the dog is chasing the car ultimately gets the car and challenge begins. what do you do then? you have to lead. if your argument for leadership is the other guy didn't do it, i'll lead well now the pressure is on and the pressure is on during a pandemic and economic crisis, a crisis about getting our kids back to school, a kind of different slice of the health care crisis in this country that is all of our mental health for a pandemic and the president faces that challenge and what charlie says is really important. mitch dmcconnell understands trump lost. he's a one-term president. he needs to be excised from the party but he's got a lot of followers that republicans still want to keep in the fold. how do they balance that? they won house seats and senate seats, as well because there was an argument about something beyond trump. it was taking on the left.

it was taking on the democratic party. there are still people listening to that argument. that's where mitch mcconnell's lead is and i've, you know, felt for a long time that he's made the decision that the stand has to be taken against trump in particular without alienating all his supporters. >> charlie, what does this mean for the five, six, seven senators in terms of working with democrats to get a deal done on this relief bill that the president is taking out onto the mwisconsin trail, not just the victory by the hardship? >> well, look, i still think the american people want a deal. i would actually urge president biden to cut this on a bipartisan basis. look, my own view is i think 1.9 trillion is too much. they can do 1.2 trillion personally but that said, you know, these deals always sound great at the outset here but

over time, they tend to smell a lot worse. so if i were joe biden, i would do everything i can to make this a bipartisan agreement. he doesn't need to do this through reconciliation. he can get a good deal that would serve the american people well. he's trying. >> david, why would it smell worse when you have the president's party saying this is what is needed, that it all connected, everything that's in there even the minimum wage is something that is designed to help promote a resurging from those who are hit hardest? right? the overly winds up being the poor and minorities are hit hardest by the pandemic and many of these things target that community. >> well, the president is making a bet that if he goes big here, first of all, that's the only play to go big, right? he wants an economic rebound and be able to reap the benefits of that and going bigger rather than smaller is better. i also have a different view than charlie on this. i'd love to see the consensus surround a bipartisan deal and

maybe the public wants that if you look at the polling. i don't think washington is working like that. i don't think enough republicans are going to work with the administration to cut some kind of bipartisan deal and i don't think administration wants to deal. they're going to deal on the margins here but they want to drive this through because they got a constituency to do that and feel like going big matters and will pay off and be the country wants it so they can roll the republican opposition. they don't want to slow down. they've seen this play before. mitch healthcaremcconnell and r won't meet them half way for a bipartisan deal. i don't think there are the levers in the country to do big things like this that both parties feel they have to, you know, be swept into and deliver for the american people. the country is still too divided. >> if you don't feel like youpa, you're definitely right. >> but congress has done a fair

amount so far. not sufficient but they will make the argument -- >> they have done two. i totally get it. i'm saying if the pandemic is not enough of a motivation, maybe the process is in this way charlie, that if the president starts going out to different states that are hard hit but red, not just blue, or has kamala harris, the vice president or somebody else go, could that put pressure on the republicans that they're not used to? when they hear their own people in their home states saying we're hurting, help us? >> yeah, look, i certainly do think that could put pressure but the republicans need to abandon the $15 minimum wage. i get making an adjustment, taking it up but with $15 with restaurants and hotels on their back, it's tough enough.

we need to separate that out. sure, biden can go into the red states and he can make a case and that will put some pressure on some members but again. what do they need the money for? they got 900 billion in december. i can make a case for 1.2, $1.3 trillion right now that would help them for covid related issues directly. i don't think 1. is 9 is necess with summers and them saying they are worried about inflationary. i don't think you can ignore that at this point. >> the tax cut, people told you you didn't pay for it and balloon the deficit and wouldn't do for the economy what the republicans said it would do. they were right. this is politics. we'll see how the president does tonight on the big stage. david gregory, charlie dent, thank you for the straight take. appreciate you. minutes away from the

exclusive presidential town hall with joe biden. it's not hype. of course, we're ennthusiastic and having our main man anderson cooper moderate this. it matters. we're in the middle of a crisis. this president hasn't been able to get around the country because he's playing it the way you're supposed to play it and he's got to get out there and make the case to people. how will he be received? will be the feel after tonight? will be the feel in that room? issues and how will he pitch them to people? how will he make people feel differently about their responsibility here and about their chances and what is the right way for them to get back? that is his duty of persuasion. can he do it? we'll be live in milwaukee with a preview next. ♪ ♪ bring it first time i saw you, you blew my mind ♪ ♪ i got this feeling everything was alright ♪

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we're moments away from a big night here on cnn. our town hall with president biden in wisconsin. 46th president making to make a connection with the american people on the $2 trillion coronavirus relief plan. let bring in kaitlan collins. good to have you out there. why wisconsin? >> well, of course, it's a key battle ground state. it's a state that president biden won by less than a percentage point so this is the white house's choosing to have this here. this is where he's coming and his first time interacting with voters since he took office directly answering their questions. of course, he's going to use this opportunity according to the white house to pitch that economic relief plan that is being crafted right now in the halls of congress and it's been after this ctrying to sell republicans on it and democrats and those sorts of lawmakers in the oval office but tonight the white house is trying to sell it directly to voters.

you have to look to the context surrounding this, which is that it still don't have congressional support in washington from republicans so far. that's a decision the white house implied today that those republican lawmakers could come to regret voting against a big coronavirus relief bill but also it's still got to go onto the senate after it goes to the house there are democrats that are divided over what they want the final version of this to look like including the $15 an hour minimum wage increase. president biden is going to hear from voters tonight on what concerns are not just about this but vaccine distribution. >> i want to talk vaccine distribution. quick followup, any word from the white house that there is going to be more of this? biden and/or the v.p. going out on the mushustings talking to people in red and blue states? >> i think that's going to be a lot of what your seeing. i think they are more hesitant than what you saw with the last

administration to travel as much. they're trying to be very cautious about the restrictions. most people advised not to travel but he is going to michigan later this week in a few days and going to start to see more trips, an uptick from not only the president but vice president like you said. >> people are desperate to be heard. it will be interesting to see if that happens. you mentioned vaccine. there is news about the j and j vaccine rollout. what can you tell us? >> yeah, so this is the one that's been so critical. so many federal health officials and state health officials have been talking about because it hasn't been authorized by the fda yet, we should be clear. it's a single shot vaccine. it not one that requires two doses like the ones authorized so far. here is the catch. we're now hearing from federal health officials that that rollout of how quickly that's going to be out there is going to be slower than they had initially anticipated. they believe that once it was

authorized, they'd have somewhere in the single digit millions to go out. that's still the case. they thought they'd have a lot more by april and may than what they are now expecting. they were expecting between 20 and 30 million doses of that vaccine starting in april, now they think, chris, it will be fewer than 20 million. that makes a big difference because you heard people like dr. anthony tfauci who said las week, april could be open season where anybody that wanted a vaccine could get one. now today on cnn he's pushing that timeline and says to mid may to late may to early june for what that's going to look like. of course, that's what so many people want to know, when they're going to be able to get this vaccine. >> that is a question the country over. everything is so different. not just by state but by community. kaitlan collins, thank you very much for being with us on a big night. so straight ahead after this show, you'll have the first cnn town hall with president biden in the first trip as president. of course, only here. now, you're not going to want to

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we're minutes away from history. the first town hall from joe biden's presidency. he's in wisconsin making the case to people in the hard hit state his relief bill is the right way and that they must take the pandemic seriously and take it on together. anderson cooper, our man will be hosting it only on cnn straight up at 9:00 p.m. eastern. while that's going on, one of the challenges to president biden is what's happening on the other side of the aisle. donald trump is there. he's making trouble but he has trouble of his own certainly of the legal variety. he's facing a civil lawsuit accusing him of conspireing with rudy giuliani and proud boys and

oath keepers to incite the january 6th insurrection. one response from trump's spokesman is to point out giuliani is no longer representing trump in any legal matters. we heard that before. now mississippi democratic congressman benny thompson filed the suit in his personal capacity. the naacp is representing thompson in court. congressman, good to have you. >> thank you for having me. >> let's talk strategy then we'll talk merits. why this way? >> it an option available to us and clearly, the actions of january 6th we should be able to shut down completely if we're successful in our lawsuit and hold those individuals accountable, i think from a punitive stand point, we'll put them out of business. we can't allow the rioters' activities just because people

disagree with the outcome of an election. people should not have over run the capitol to stop the confirmation of the election, that's just not who we are. so my lawsuit takes on the ku klux klan act of 187 1, and we bring that forward to this day to get us some remedy. >> right, you don't take on the act. you're actually motivating the act. i get the grievance but it about the method and the law, you know this, but for the audience, benny thompson and his private capacity as a citizen has a right to sue. what is your right to sue these parties for what happened on january 6th? >> well, i was in the gallery at the time it was -- the confirmation of the votes was taking place and all of a sudden in the midst of the process the

capitol was raided. they broke windows, broke doors, someone was ultimately killed before my very eyes. all those kind of things and i'm carrying out my congressional duties but those members, the oath keepers, the proud boys spurred on by trump and giuliani and his other people want it to stop. members of congress are doing their constitutional duty. >> the kkk act is a very interesting mechanism. it was meant to provide civil remedies for federal officers who were kept from doing their job, and so therefore you have to make the point that trump didn't do his job in his official capacity because of his intentions towards insurrection.

so, in the lawsuit you saw trump delayed delivering remarks to the crowd at the eclipse in order to afford the defendant proud boys an opportunity to arrive at the capitol and overcome its initial defenses. how do you prove that? >> well, i think we'll prove it in court. we're one of the first persons to enter into the capitol was one of the leaders of the proud boys, they broke the window with a shield. it's clear from the powehotos w have so we'll have our day in court. i'm clear, this insidious behavior played out in front of millions of people, and, you know, it's all because of the stage that was set by donald trump after he lost the november election. he encouraged people to come to washington indicated that it was

going to be wild, and in his speech just before people left that area, he encouraged them to go to the capitol. >> i understand. i understand it and i covered it. your burden is different. your burden is to show that he delayed in a way to give opportunity and advantage to who you name as defendants. do you have proof that he delayed? >> we absolutely have. we'll provide it in court, and that's why we're pursuing it like we are. i'm convinced that he acted irresponsibly. we're bringing this action. i look forward to having my day in court. >> the kkk act obviously, that is the name that was born out of that time but it also puts a feel to this entire civil action. what do you personally believe that that insurrection was about when it comes to race, when it comes to white fear and white

hate? >> well, when i look at what was said by the people breaking into the u.s. capitol, they had confederate battle flags, which, as you know, was a symbol of the confederacy that was fought over slavery. so people coming in calling themselves patriots, breaking into the quite capitol we can't condone this kind of action and we have to put a stop to it. one of the ways we can put a stop to this kind of action is by taking those individuals to court and if the court sees our way, they'll have to pay. clearly, we're looking to have our day in court. i appreciate the naacp joining me and representing me in this instance. they're the oldest civil rights organization in the country. they've fought for fairness and equal opportunity so this is one

of those measures. i disagree with trump but i'm not going to try to break in the white house or anything else. we settle our differences in america at the ballot box. the trump administration could not accept defeat. they went to court. lost in pretty much every court in the land, but they still somehow wanted to stop the election, the confirmation of the election and we just can't have it. so this lawsuit is my humble way of giving accountability to somebody who has put a real stain on the reputation of the united states of america. we can't go to other countries talking about the goodness and greatness of our country when they see people over running our halls of the capitol. this is not who we are. so we have to fix it. >> as a human reminder of that,

your reputation procecedes you. anybody can google your name and see what you've been through. what was it like in there? how bad did you think it was going to get? >> well, it was getting bad, and as time went on, when we saw the vice president, the speaker and other leadership being wicked out of the area and the only people left were members of congress who didn't have security details and we could hear the glass breaking, the doors being beat on. we could see the furniture being moved to block the doors from the people who had broken in. my wife called me wanting to know what was going on, and i really couldn't tell her because i'm unable to see on the outside. she said when i'm looking at people breaking into the capitol right now. i said well, i'm inside the capitol but i can't see it. so for that time, all of us with

our gas masks on trying to follow advice of security to get out of this area but we're unable to get out because of the rioters who had broken in and tried to stop the counting of the electoral college votes. you know, emmet teal, a 14-year-old young man was killed in my district. a lot of atrocities have occurred in my state, and so all that was going through my mind at that time that is it coming to an end over an election? i thought elections were a way that civilized people resolved their differences. but obviously, those individuals who attempted, while succeeded

breaking into the capitol had a difference of opinion. i recent that. i know this country is greater than what i experienced that day, and i'm prepared to go to court and defend that greatness. >> well, congressman, i'm very sorry what you had to be through that day. i'm even more sorry for what you might -- your wife must have experienced because she knew what kind of people were breaking in there and what they were saying and she knew you were on the inside. send her our best and our regards and we'll see what happens with your lawsuit congressman. benny thompson, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> all right. we're ticking closer to the big town hall. man, this country is in pain and president biden has to take it all on and it starts on that stage tonight. this is his first trip out on the hustings. wisconsin is hard hit. they have economic problems. they have pandemic problems and this january 6th reverberated across this country. everybody is afraid.

everybody doesn't know what happens next. how will he handle it? tonight is a first step. you don't get a second chance to make your first impression. what will the president do? we'll be covering it. stay with cnn. it's a new day for veteran homeowners. home mortgage rates are at record lows. which is great news for veterans with va loans. that's me. now's the time to use your va streamline refi benefit you earned with your service one call to newday usa can save you $3,000 a year.

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a successful reopening requires real safety and accountability measures. including prioritizing vaccines for educators. parents and educators agree: reopen schools. putting safety first. in about 20 minutes, president joe biden is going to take a first step and try to get this nation to refocus on the pandemic and see it as a collective common cause. you'll see it here live only on cnn in the first town hall of biden's presidency. after a week of impeachment proceedings and just the paul of trump, we all need to take stock of where we are in the fight for our lives. nick watt is tracking it all.

>> this is a shock. >> reporter: snow and subzero temperatures. slowing vaccinations from illinois to texas and delaying the delivery of doses. >> suspometimes by a day, somets two days. >> reporter: a momentarily blip. >> the critical issue is that the demand far outweighs the supply. that's the issue. >> reporter: dr. fauci had said everyone would be eligible for a shot by the end of april, now says johnson & johnson will deliver fewer initial doses than administration thought so. >> that timeline will probably be prolonged maybe into mid to late may and early june. but it may take until june, july and august to finally get everyone vaccinated. >> reporter: in the meantime, over 53,000 new cases logged yesterday. lowest tally in four months. new case counts and hospitalizations are falling

faster now than at any point in this pandemic. >> we just got to be careful about getting too excited about that because we do have the challenge of variants. >> reporter: that faster spreading variant identified in south africa deteb tect -- det. mask and mitigation still required to keep overall case counts falling. >> we've got to continue until we get it so low that it's no longer a threat. >> reporter: but is complacency creeping in despite warnings not to, more than 5 million people flew in the five days over the holiday weekend. this and east los angeles is a newly open vaccination site ran by fema and the governor of california's office. they hope when up to capacity late they are week to be delivering 6,000 shots a day into people's arms.

this part of the biden administration's pledge to speed up this vaccination rollout. chris? >> all right. our thanks to nick watt. for why dr. fauci is saying it could take longer for most people to get a shot, johnson & johnson won't have as many of their one of shot vaccines ready by the time they get emergency authorization in the coming weeks. why? well, we got to find out but here is what we do know. they will start off with less than 10 million doses available. they planned on having between 20 and 30 million by april but now it doesn't look like they will even hit the lower end of the target. the disconnect, while dr. fauci is pushing back, the white house says more supply is coming to states s next week. they won't say where the increase is coming from. questions like that have a bipartisan group of governors saying they need better communication from the biden team. more details about the numbers and a better explanation about the plan to send some shots

straight to pharmacies instead of state health departments. let's dig into what we're facing with chief doctor sanjay gupta. good to see you, brother. >> you, too, chris. >> let's work in reverse. this is going to be something we'll hear a lot of. pharmacies versus state run vaccination places. what's the plus minus? >> well, i think the pharmacies for many communities, not all but for many communities it's something people are used to and a place people can make appointments and is easily accessible. we know about a million doses initially were planned for around 6500 pharmacies. it's not a huge percentage of the overall allocation of the vaccines but those numbers are likely to go up. the down is that there are many communities and particularly hard hit communities that may not have access to the pharmacies. you don't want to rob peter to pay paul. you want to make succumre commu

health centers can still get access to the vaccine. they figured that out in west virginia. it a model people are paying attention to. have to see if that works in other states around the country. >> best reckoning why we have confusion around supply. johnson & johnson and also, this issue of more the biden administration is saying is coming. from where? >> yeah, so it's interesting. i spoke to the chief medical officer at johnson & johnson right when they announced the phase three data and asked specifically about supply and the answer was vague. we'll have several million doses at the time an authorization is given if given. they also said they could ramp up quickly after that. there does seem to be a disconnect there. i don't know why the projections are coming in lower than they originally thought. you know, that's something that we need to dig into and see if it's a manifestation of a larger problem here. i think overall, you know, if

you look at the numbers, they still say 100 million doses of the johnson & johnson vaccine by the end of june and in total 600 million by moderna and pfizer by the end of july. what pace? how quickly will those come in? why they ramped up to 13.5 million doses a week. that's what they're saying they will be allocating to the states. when you talk to people like andy about that, they say it mostly about forcing efficiencies in the vaccine makers. you know, there were other problems, enough free agents in the beginning there was not enough people to administer the shots but on the production side, i keep hearing the same answer that it's really about getting rid of bottlenecks, forcing more efficiencies and seeing how much they can ramp up the production. >> what do you make about governors saying they are not getting good enough information from the biden administration? >> well, that's a problem. you know, i can't -- you know, i hear what they are saying and i've talked to people who are responsible at the state level for administering these

vaccines. the problem is that, you know, you make appointments. if you're not confident you're going to get the vaccines, that's a problem because people show up for the apoipointments d can't get the vaccine. i don't see as much evidence that is happen as much as before because there seems to be more confidence the vaccines are going to show up in the numbers they say are coming. it not enough. we have a much higher demand than supply but clearly, over transparency probably is key here because this is going to be a thing they have to figure out for several weeks to come and obviously, there is still these gaps in the overall communication. >> in terms of like the promise versus the delivery, schools have to be at the top of the list for what this biden administration has to do better on. yes, i know the vaccine. i see that as a separate category. you know, vaccination is part of schools, but whether it's getting teachers to the top of the list and making that a national directive to states or

dealing with ventilation because it's easy to say if the schools can reopen if they can do it right, but many of the schools can't afford what they need to do it right including ventilation which is key, what is the ability to walk this talk about opening schools? >> yeah, no, i think you're absolutely right. look, you and i have been talking about this for a year now. in someways we're having the same conversation. three points you made. one, it become clear if you listen to dr. walensky, despite the fact there is a lot of provocation on this issue, the cdc is not saying vaccinating teachers is necessary for schools to reopen. they don't mandate schools reopen but says the vaccination is not mandatory. with regard to the studies that show schools have reopened safely in several areas, the study a lot of people paid attention to, chris, was this wisconsin study. 17 schools in rural wisconsin

had low spread. those communities were in the red. meaning they had very high viral transmission and despite that, the school was able to open and open safely with much lower transmission than the rest of the community. ventilation is the third thing you bring up and it's very interesting. i've been talking to loatts of people about this. ventilation means different things to different people. opening a window versus completely redoing the hvac system. some costs nothing and some can be expensive. how do you know if you have enough ventilation? this can be challenging. this is a co 2 monitor. it's about $100 and it measures co 2 levels. we're hearing more and more about these. if you have a co 2 level less than 1200 or so, that's considered pretty good i'm told. if you have several people in a

room, about 2% of the air is exhaled air from one of those individuals in the room, which means one out of every 50 breaths, you'll breathe in someone else's how they determine adequate ventilation, do you flush a room in between classes for example, to improve the ventilation and get rid of some of that carbon dioxide. all these things are things schools have to figure out. it's not easy, but this is what they're going to have to do. >> what does the monitor say about where you are in your room? how's your level? >> right now mine is 7 h00. >> you're okay. >> which is good, we've only got one of you, sanjay. >> appreciate the concern. >> dr. gupta, thank you much as always. back in a moment with more town hall pregame. this is big. it's his first time out of the house. he's taking his message on to

the huskies. he's going to a place that was key for him but is just as critical in terms of the need for this country. he's going to take the stage in a minute with our man anderson cooper. you get to see this defining moment for the president on cnn. they know exactly which parking 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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for nearly a decade, comcast has been helping students get ready. we've connected 4 million low-income students to low- cost, high-speed xfinity internet. we're working with hundreds of school districts across the country to sponsor free internet and laptops. and parents are seeing an impact. and now we're turning 1,000 community centers into lift zones - wifi enabled safe spaces to study. so more students can be ready for anything. i'm trying to do some homework here. covid's still a threat. and on reopening schools, we know what happens when we don't put safety first. ignore proper ventilation or rates of community spread, and the virus worsens. fail to provide masks or class sizes that allow for social distancing, and classrooms close back down.

a successful reopening requires real safety and accountability measures. including prioritizing vaccines for educators. parents and educators agree: reopen schools. putting safety first. we're now minutes away from cnn's live town hall with president biden where voters will be able to address him face-to-face about their hardships and concerns. you got covid relief, of course is going to be top of mind for many. his proposal is a nearly $2 trillion bill. it's been under negotiation and review for weeks, but that doesn't mean it's about a deal. this is really about looking within his own party for what they want to force through what's called reconciliation. is that the reality?

dana bash joins us now. good to see you my friend. >> good to see you. >> exciting night. in terms of the reality of how this relief bill gets doene. what is the percentage chance it is done by reconciliation meaning democrats alone? >> well, i think the chance that it's done through this special process, reconciliation is almost 100%. it doesn't mean that it would have to be only democrats, but it means that it is much more likely that it will be only democrats. it just depends on what the final forum looks like if the president and the administration bring down the price, if they take out some of the policy proposals that republicans say they believe actually hurts small businesses during a pandemic like the $15 minimum wage, maybe, but then if there's a question of how much he -- the president is going to anger the base and even himself. you know, democrats across the board who think that that is a

basic living wage that should be part of this kind of relief bill. so it's possible republicans will come on board, but at this point it sounds like, chris, they're just trying to negotiate among democrats to make sure they don't lose any moderates, p mostly in the senate and progressives in the house. >> do you think trump being back in fire breathing mode on his own party, do you think it's less like the senators who moved against him when it came to impeachment would do anything with democrats? >> i actually don't think so, and for a lot of reasons. the most important reason is that if they -- these republicans are being, you know, true to what they believe the former president wants, they would support a bill that has the payments in it, which the former president at the end of his term was suddenly fighting to have. so i'm not so sure that they're actually related. i think at this point the decision about whether or not to

support this kind of huge bill has to do with their own voters and their own, you know, kind of balance about whether or not they feel the push to help big time at home or whether they feel the push to -- or maybe the pull is a better way to say it against voting on such a huge, huge price tag. >> yeah, i mean, look, the politics of perception here are going to be did he go big or is it big deal. >> yeah, exactly. >> now, we're talking a lot about substance. that's great. this is politics. this is his first step out of the house, and this is going to be also a lot about style. joe biden is going to be looked at very closely tonight by critics and also people looking for a reason to believe in something better as well. how big are the stakes? >> very big, and talking to people around the president leading up to this tonight, they understand that. of course so much of it is about

substance, but as you said, he's excited to do something like this because, as you well know, chris, he is genuinely a people person, and although this is going to be socially distant and not a typical town hall where he can actually get face go face like he enjoys doing, it's going to be at least something closer than being in the white house and just having, you know, people who work for him around him. it's quite different, but he also understands that he's going to get tough questions. >> right. >> and that's something they say he's looking forward to. >> they'll be tough, and the man we see warming up here is a anderson cooper. the cnn presidential town hall with joe biden starts now. [ applause ] >> and welcome, we are live in

milwaukee, wisconsin. this is a cnn presidential town hall, the first with president joe biden. i'm anderson cooper. president biden is four weeks into his presidency and facing multiple crises. nearly 500,000 of her fellow citizens, americans have died from covid-19, millions out of work right now and a nation dangerously divided. tonight we're going to be answering questions from the american people. the president will be answering questions from the american people on his first official trip since taking office. some of the questioners here voted for him, some did not. the president and i will not be wearing masks on this stage. he of course has been vacc vaccinated. over the past several weeks i have repeatedly tested negative for coronavirus, as recently as yesterday and this morning as well. we will, however, be keeping our distance from one another, and the audience is very limited, socially distanced and all wearing masks when they're seated. with that, i want to welcome the 46th president of the united states, president joe biden. [ applause ] >> how are you, sir? >> hey, folks.