to our viewers in the united states and around the world, i'm john king in washington. thank you so much for sharing your day with us. it is a crisis test in texas and a question of who's to blame for now days-long blackouts and death. a relentless winter chill has killed at least 37 people across eight states. fema generators now keeping infrastructure for hospitals

online. hundreds of thousands of people still in the dark, millions are under boil water advisories with another blast expected to engulf texas with more freezing rain, snow and dire temperatures. keeping warm right now, equal survivors. gas grills, even bonfires, essential. the texas power grid is now at a center of a debate for oversight, and this life or death moment includes a very sharp political edge as many texas democrats blake blackouts on poor planning and years of neglect by republicans who for four years have controlled most of that state. also a new trouble sign this morning for the american economy. first-time unemployment claims jumping again to 860,000-plus. continued claims stood at 4.5 million. the biden team says this new data underlines the urgency for the covid relief plan the president wants to speed through congress. >> we look at the situation and recognize this is a very precarious moment for the

economy. >> covid relief is a big agenda item number 1. but another biden priority, immigration, lands on congress today. the president's plan includes a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants already here. it also includes money to clear a backlog of asylum applications and new investment toward central american nations. first, though, to that storm and the life or death struggle to stay warm in texas. let's get straight to camila bernal. she's in dallas. camila? >> reporter: hey, john, half a million people, more or less, in the state of texas still without power. here in dallas, we're being told that about 23,000 people or households are still without power, and the judge, the dallas county judge, specifically staying there are still some problems with the transformers and the lines here. so if they don't get that fixed, people are still going to have to be waiting to get their power back. but the reality is that despite some of the improvements, people

are still upset. i want to show you what things look like in this neighborhood. of course, you're still seeing the snow on the ground, and people are still not with power in some cases. i drove about three minutes from here to meet up with rachel se seigal. she is a mother. her baby is 11 months old at the moment, and she said even though she got her power back yesterday after about three days without power, she is still frustrated with leaders in this state. take a listen. >> i expect a full apology as to how this has been handled. and i expect some sort of solution so that this doesn't happen again, because from what we've been hearing, this was not fully preventable but it could have been prevented. >> reporter: now, rachel and her husband were telling me that basically they had to get together, get in the same room with their dogs and the cat,

trying to warm up over those three days without power. they're still telling us that we are going to continue to see those rolling blackouts here in the state of texas. there is no guarantee as to when that will end. but they are trying to limit the amount of time that people are experiencing without power. nonetheless, as you heard there, people want answers, they want an apology, and they want an explanation, john. >> that's more than understandable that they would want an explanation and an apology. camila bernal for us on the ground in dallas. grateful for the live reporting and insights there. i want to show you, texas is a big state. camila in dallas. people across the state are feeling this. this is waco. you see water conservation, thousands in the area still shivering. that's waco, texas. this is san antonio. the front page on san antonio news, the struggle to get to basics. this is a statewide problem. the power out. in houston, the largest city in

texas, uncommon cold. you see the headlines there as well, people asking those very questions, asking camila, why did this happen, who is accountable for it? in dallas, you see the headline here, problems pile up. you also see at the bottom of the page, the question about republican governor greg abbott and whether he might be in national interviews and local interviews talking out both sides of his mouth. here to talk to us about the crisis and democratic congressman colin alyard. colin, great to have you today. i want to get to the accountability issue. you've been asking these questions on your twitter feed and i know you've been online with the power consortium. why were the generation units not prepared for this weather event? why was there no plan to responding for an emergency loss of some power generation? why was the public not notified sooner about potential outages and the need to take emergency steps to mitigate their own usage?

why were ercot's predictions for the peak winter so far off? i know you've been on the phone trying to get those answers. are any of the answers satisfactory? >> thank you for having me on, john. thank you for highlighting what's happening in texas. i want to make sure your viewers know that at one point 4 million texans were without power in one of the coldest snaps we've had and the description of what folks are doing is exactly right. burning their furniture, breaking down their fences and burning their fences. we've had deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning. i really don't have satisfactory answers for why we weren't prepared for this, because in many ways we knew the storm was coming, and we also have had events like this in the past that should have led our state legislators to put in place the protections to make sure that our systems were ready for this. i mean, they have natural gas that they use in alaska and it doesn't freeze in temperatures like this. in iowa, they have wind turbines

that turn in the cold as well. we should be winterizing and making sure that our grid can get through a crisis like this. >> i saw a statement from ercot, which is the energy consortium there, that said things are getting better. they can't say when people will get their power back. i want to put up what we know so far. 12 million people facing water disruptions. more than 5,000 people still without power. that fluctuates a little bit but somewhere in that ballpark. more than 300 warming centers have been open in your state. government says no power could last for days in some parts of the state and they can't say when it will be restored. are you confident tomorrow will be better than today? is there at least an arc in the right direction, or you're not so certain? >> we have seen in the last 24 hours a lot of our power generators coming back online, and the numbers are much better as we sit here today than they

were 24 hours ago. so that's certainly a positive. what folks are coming home to now when they're coming back th their homes, if they've gone away or when they're turning back on their power now is that their pipes are bursting and they're having serious flooding damage and they're coming home to roofs or ceilings that have been collapsed. the damage is going to be enormous. in fact, the insurance council of texas has estimated this is going to be the largest claim event in our state's history, surpassing hurricane harvey which came in at $180 billion. that's not even counting the most important statistic which is the lives that have been lost and, of course, the lives that have been interrupted or damaged by this. it's really inexcusable. we have to make sure this never happens again. >> it's stunning to hear that, surpassing even harvey. so the most important priority today is to get the power on and then to get help to people who need it, to get food and water to those who need safety. we will get to the questions of political accountability, and i

know you want to get to the answers on those questions. why did this happen? why was there not a backup plan? yes, this was extreme weather, but extreme weather happens, especially more so in this age of climate crisis. this is your governor greg abbott, and many politicians these days, what they say to reporters back home and what they say on fox news can be a little different. >> the companies that generate the power, their operations have frozen up or have trip wired and are non-operational. that is the lead reason why there is a shortage of power. >> this shows how the green new deal would be a deadly deal for the united states of america. >> which is it? >> you know, i'm just shocked at the callousness and the arrogance that we've seen from some of our statewide leaders here in texas from governor abbott who, just before he gave

that sbinterview on fox news, spoke to my abc news affiliate and said the real problem here is natural gas freezing, which he knows is the real problem. over 60% of the problems we had was from thermal sources, natural gas, coal, nuclear. it wasn't the renewable sources that caused this and i don't know why he's even talking about something like the green new deal when he had residents at that time who were freezing to death. that's unacceptable. we also, of course, saw our junior senator fly to mexico for a vacation while the city that he lives in, houston, doesn't have -- they are under a boil water notice. and so many folks are burning whatever they can to stay warm. this is just beyond anything that you would expect, regardless of party, during a crisis like this. you expect public officials to use whatever air time they ever to tell the truth, to give folks information they need to survive and to help with the recovery. i've been on the phone constantly with fema, with our

local electrical grid, with our county judge trying to find out what we can do to help at the federal level. i'm sure there are a lot of things our governors and senators could be doing instead of what they've been up to. >> well, congressman, we'll keep in touch as this plays out. we wish you the best of luck in this challenges in the days ahead. we'll keep up with accountability questions as well. congressman, grateful for your time. he talked about the junior senator from texas. today from that senator a lesson in how not to do constituent services in the middle of a life or death crisis. the junior senator from texas is ted cruz. his state, as we just discussed, is in the middle of rolling power outages and a struggle for many just to survive, to keep warm, to find safe water to drink. but ted cruz and his family flew to cancun yesterday. if you go on social media, you will see social media posting multiple pictures of the senator and his family in the houston airport waiting to board their flight. that same source now says cruz

is scheduled to get on a plane back to houston this afternoon. up next, a new biden immigration plan and its prospects in the congress. as we go to break, a reminder immigration has been political quicksand for more than a generation now. >> this bill, the immigration reform and control act of 1986 that i'll sign in a few minutes, is the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws since 1952. >> tonight i want to speak directly to members of the house and the senate. an immigration reform bill needs to be comprehensive because all elements of this problem must be addressed together or none of them will be solved at all. >> to those members of congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better or question the wisdom of me acting where congress has failed, i have one answer. pass a bill. >> to every citizen, call congress and tell them to finally, after all of these

decades, secure our border.

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with no obligation to enroll. a bet from the new president that he can succeed where others have failed and navigate political quicksand. the biden administration unveiling its ambitious immigration plan, an eight-year path to citizenship, changing how the law refers to people here illegally and top line requests from the biden white house. the president wants comprehensive reform, but he has signaled he will take some change instead of no change at all if that's how he has to negotiate this. with us, kaitlan collins and jackie kucinich of the "daily beast." here's the president of the united states two days ago saying, i want a big plan, but -- >> so i would, if you had a refugee bill by itself -- i'm not suggesting that, but there

are things that i would deal by itself, but not at the expense of saying i'm never going to do the other. >> and just moments ago, though, on capitol hill, senator bob menendez saying not so fast on the piecemeal approach. >> there are some in congress, i'll say from both parties, who argue against going big on immigration reform. others say we should leave the bigger, tougher questions for another day, pursuing narrow reforms that nibble at the edges and leave millions of people behind. we know the path forward will demand negotiations with others, but we are not going to make concessions out of the gate. >> so which will it be? i have lived through this for a long time, from the george w. bush administration and every president that has tried a big comprehensive immigration reform bill, even at times, maybe, when prospects looked good, have ended up getting nothing. >> right, i think the operative words were "i'm not going to

make concessions out of the gate" from menendez. perhaps biden is the end of the journey where menendez is the beginning of the journey because biden, of course, is a creature of the senate and is someone who knows that sometimes these big kpcomprehensive bills end up getting broken up. immigration is a particularly fraught topic in the congress and just in politics generally. not only are they, in their own party are there some disagreements. the republican party they'll be trying to negotiate with on this is a very different republican party than the last time any kind of immigration bill tried to work its way through the senate. so it is bold what they're doing in terms of the introduction, but whether it will actually get anywhere, that's going to be really tough. >> really tough, because not only do you have narrow democratic majorities in the house, the narrowest possible democratic majority in the senate, the 2020 midterms

looming, so they might be worried about a primary challenge. kaitlan collins, it's fascinating to me to get a sense of does the president have a firm plan or are they still trying to figure out what's the climate, what's in the water. in the sense you heard senator menendez, let's try to start big, but in the "new york times," frank sherry, an activist who has been involved in this issue for decades, who has very great credibility with most of the stakeholders involved in the left senate groups who want immigration legalized. he said, we can't come home empty handed. we can't adopt an all or nothing approach, we have to achieve a breakthrough. in the past a lot of groups have wanted the big bill because they know if you go small, you might lose some. you might win some, but you lose some. >> that's why senator menendez is saying let's not make concessions out of the gate, but i think these groups they could risk angering by doing this piecemeal is okay with this

approach because it's more pragmatic, and they know anyone else who has tried this, it has eluded them. they're proposing it all together because they want it together, but i think realistically behind the scenes, they know the reality of what they're dealing with on capitol hill. look what happened with the coronavirus relief bill, even when they only needed the democrats to all vote for it, you're still seeing democrats have problems with key parts of it. that could also happen when it comes to immigration if they try to pass it through a similar method. i think they're well aware of that, and you may very well see this broken up into multiple pieces. and the other aspect you have to consider is it doesn't include a lot of border security enforcement. that has always kind of been a token they've put in past proposals to get republicans on the board, and this is one of those that does not include a lot of that. >> which gets to the hard part. kaitlan collins was not born, jackie kucinich was in kindergarten the last time a president signed immigration

comprehensive reform. that was in 1986. we thought in the mid-2000s this might happen. a little flashback here. let's listen to the republicans back then and then we'll talk about now. >> i think 2013 is the year of immigration reform. i really do believe it. >> we all wish we didn't have this problem, but we do, and we have to fix it. because leaving things the way they are, that's the real amnesty. >> i don't think it's at all like gun control, frankly, because i think that the product that we're starting out with as broader support on a broader basis than guns did. >> that was lindsey graham and marco rubio in the pre-trump republican party. this highlights the challenge. the republican party has changed dramatically, which, jackie kucinich, gets me to the point that they support the path of legal status. if you break tit up, you can ge

some republican support to agree with your pieces and then they can cast their votes. >> they don't have the clout they used to with the republican party, because the grassroots is so vehemently, particularly in the trump years, against a lot of more open immigration policies, and we've seen the republican senators tend to be very cautious and particularly someone who is in the cycle about what the republican base is going to say. so they're facing an uphill battle. kaitlan mentioned the activist class. i do think because of the unified democratic party, despite the small margins, there is a push to get something done, particularly when you're talking about covid relief, the organization that's going on with progressive groups to try force through and try to take tan a imggressive posture to ke minimum wage in this bill is

different. they're not going to go quietly this time because i think in one of our stories they said, there is no next time when it comes to minimum wage. so i think you're going to see them active in a way that perhaps you haven't in past pushes. >> it's a fascinating moment on several policy fronts. the governing challenge for the new president and his party and the republicans as well. jackie and kaitlan will stay with us for a conversation down the road. up next, the race to get more americans vaccinated as experts warn of a possible spring covid surge because of those new variants. 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.™ trresearch shows thato. people remember

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most of the covid numbers we track are unmistakably better, and yet public health experts have a little sense of jitters worried that if we don't get the case count down enough, if people start to ease up when it comes to wearing masks and social distancing that there could be a spring surge, especially with the new variants right-h out there. on january 2nd, 3,000 new infections reported on that date. still high, 70,000 yesterday but way down from 300,000. the challenges keep shoving it down. 70,000 new infections across the united states yesterday. cases come down, guess what, hospitalizations down as well. 63,000, just shy of 64,000 hospitalized yesterday from covid. the peak, 132,000 plus back again in early january.

again, significant progress there. the cdc, though, still says you see these numbers every day and they are heartbreaking. we're currently 400,000-plus deaths, we're going to add 65,000 more by march 13th, less than a month away. that's from the cdc ensemble forecast. the life expectancy dropped a full year due to covid. among black americans, it dropped to nearly three years life expectancy, and in latino americans, it fell three years. the testing map across the country, much of it is good. you want to be lighter. you get a positivity rate in your covid test, get a shot and shut it down. you see wisconsin 3, but kansas 21%, texas 14%, alabama 21. those are trouble zones. even as the numbers nationally

come down you see high positivity in some of the states. this map is the percentage of americans fully vaccinated. that's two doses. alaska still leading the pack at 8.5% of the population. you see some a little higher than that as you work up. that is the challenge in the weeks ahead. keep masking, keep social distancing, get more people vaccinated. that's how you keep the case count down, and in this vaccination rate averaging about 600 million doses. one problem, listen here to a key official involved in the effort, they thought there would be more vaccine available and it would be more available quickly than it's turned out to be. >> we all probably were led to believe there was a lot more manufacturing that had been done over the last year in anticipation of the vaccines being approved. there was less than we all thought. we would love to say that we could triple vaccinations next

week, but better for us to be very candid with the public and say it is going to be week over week over week to the point where come spring and summer, i think we will have significantly turned the tide. >> let's get some important insights from dr. paul offitt. he's the director of the hospital in philadelphia, also in co-invented the vaccine for coronavirus. when you hear andy slavitt saying we're trying to get this done as quickly as we can, he acknowledges there is less vaccine than when he took office. now they're trying to say even when you have doeses available, you have the country under this significant weather. what is the result if they can't ramp up vaccines quickly? >> we need to get up to about 3 million doses a day if we're going to get on top of this by

this summer. it's not easy to do. the hardest part about making vaccines and making vaccines. you can't just bring in a few more sewing machines. you want to make sure that every batch is consistent with the next batch, that these are biologicals, they're difficult to characterize and difficult to make. the most important thing is you want to make them as quickly as possible but also as efficiently and safely as possible. you can't have any batch to batch variation. we want these vaccines to be safe and effective, so we're just going to have to try to do this the best we can. i feel sorry for the administration. i think they inherited a difficult situation. >> it is a difficult situation and we hope they can get things out as quickly as possible. one of the questions and the public is asking skeptically, they keep hearing about these variants. should we get a vaccine today if these variants are spreading around the country? listen to dr. fauci here on cnn. >> we know that the vaccines of moderna and pfizer, the antibodies that they induce do

quite well against the b117. there is nenough protection to e able to protect against mild to moderate disease, not as well as you would protect against any disease, but the good news is that it protects very well against severe disease. >> what would you say to someone who could be a little bit confused, maybe not understand all these variants and the impact and thinking, i should wait because of all these variants and they'll come up with a better vaccine, say, a month or three down the road? >> don't wait. the variant story is very confusing. i think for virologists it's very different. the one that swept across the globe was the first variant. that's the virus we currently have circulating most of this country. then you have these other variants like the so-called u.k. variant which dr. fauci referred to as the b117 variant, that's not really a worrisome variant.

although it's more contagious, it looks like either immunity induced by disease or by vaccine will protect you against that variant. the more worrisome variants are the so-called south african variant, the b115 variant, or its cousin. it looks like that variant has started to drift away by the immunity induced by the disease or immunity induced by the vaccine that we currently have. that said, there is not a single example that i know of that people who are fully immunized who are confronted with the south african strain are hospitalized. when that happens, then we've crossed an important line, but that hasn't happened yet and it may never happen. i choose to think the vaccines we're making now are effective against the main virus that's circulating or highly effective in preventing serious disease. you want to stay out of the hospital, you want to stay out of the icu, and you want to stay out of the morgue.

>> amen to that. dr. offit, always grateful for your insight. the biden administration is making progress but not always working off the same script. it's not just a great network. it's ridiculously fast. (vo) stream your favorite shows in ultra hd. i'm so excited about this. streaming is crystal clear. select unlimited plans get the disney bundle included and discovery+ on us. yes! buy samsung galaxy s21+ 5g. get one on us. only on verizon.

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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. let's make this clear at the start. we will have a much better sense 100 days in and 200 days in how the covid administration is doing getting children back in their classes. they are beyond complicated as the new team tries to fix the

trump administration's many failures but also tries to work closely with governors and stakeholders here. ask a public official if things are already better and the answer will almost always be yes. but as we mark day 30 of the new administration, there is some confusion about timelines and expectations because of some mixed messaging or different emphasis from team biden. >> his goal that he set is to have the majority of schools, so more than 50%, open by day 100 of his presidency. and that means some teaching in classrooms. so at least one day a week, hopefully it's more. >> you're now saying those schools may only be open for at least one day a week -- >> that's not true. that's what was reported. that's not true. it was a mistake in the communication. >> i think we've been consistent for the last several days, and certainly when i initially said one day a week, it was our floor, it was not our ceiling. >> i think that we should be vax

n -- vaccinating teachers. we should move them up in the priority as well. >> teachers should be a priority. teachers should be a priority. >> the president thinks teachers should be prioritized, but it is agreed with the cdc guidelines that it's not a requirement to reopen schools. >> let's get back to kaitlan collins and jackie kucinich of the "daily beast." when you bring up that the president and the press secretary don't seem to be on the same page, what do they say? >> i think they're fully aware behind the scenes of what actually is going on here and how they're not on the same page with these kinds of things. that's why he said it was a mistake in the reporting, it was from his own press secretary and how she defined it, because that was the question. biden had promised a majority of schools open in the first 100 days. what does that look like? to most people it's not just being in the classroom one day a week. but i think more telling is this vaccination of teachers.

saw jeff zeintz, he is the coordinator, and he said you don't have to have them vaccinated to be back in the classroom, but he was pressed by savannah guthrie three times, i think, and she would not specifically endorse that guidance. i think people are pointing it out not just because the cdc is recommending it, because when they got into office they said, we're going to be different than the last administration. we're going to trust the science. we're going to listen to what the cdc said, but they were skirting that part of the guidance, emphasizing parts of it while not subscribing to it and later their spoekesperson said they were. >> and they would say, it's the media looking to start fights, the media looking to take some degree of emphasis versus something that is contradictory. but imagine many americans, when can my kid go back to school, when can i get a vaccine, where do i belong in the vaccine line? you look at some headlines. this is the "washington post."

biden struggles to say when things will get back to normal. how the vaccine process turned chaotic and confusing. the new york post, starting from scratch. it is our job to hold them accountable and match up to what person a says to what person b says. but more importantly, if you're trying to figure out the school question or the vaccine question, it matters. >> it absolutely matters, and i think that's why you're seeing so much frustration, because following the science is running into the politics. because you can't really -- they're finding that it's kind of hard to separate it, which is why you're hearing -- i mean, it is ultimately up to the states, these vaccination plans, which is why -- and we live in the dmv, the d.c., maryland, virginia, they all have different plans. they're right next to each other and share the same people coming in and out. they are at the mercy of that. however, the information that they're putting out there is trying to walk this line

between, yes, teachers should be at the front of the line, but cdc does not recommend that -- said that's not mandatory that they're all vaccinated. teachers' unions are representing teachers who are afraid to go back to work if they're not vaccinated, it's running smack into that. sometimes walking this line just isn't working and isn't giving people the information they need to plan their lives, which is getting increasingly frustrating a year into this pandemic. >> right. and you raise a great point there. we're a year-plus into this pandemic, so everybody out in the country, that's their frame of reference. if you're the new biden team, this is day 30, and they do deserve some grace. they are inheriting a behemoth and they're inheriting a mess from the trump administration. but you heard them say, we will be ready on day one. listen to andy slavitt. this is actually refreshing when

you listen to it. he says, look, we're going to tell you the truth, and sometimes in a big challenge like this, the truth can change from day to day. >> we are trying not to give a false sense of security and a false sense of precision. i know that makes people less comfortable but i also know people need to be leveled with and they want to tell the truth. sometimes the truth is a little more complex and can't be done in a sound bite. so we're trying to be as honest as possible, and what you're hearing is there is no precise date. >> again, that is refreshing to be candid, to say, look, we're going to tell you the truth, we're going to tell you when we mess up, we're going to tell you when we don't know. that can be very refreshing, especially after the prior administration who told us maybe we should ingest bleach, we're in the middle of a pandemic and it will be all gone in april. when you're a little bit on edge, it can be confusing and unnerving. >> there is a level we've hit when you talk about the progress

we've made, but also what is realistic and what's pragmatic. that reminded me of what trump told bob woodward, when he acknowledged how serious the pandemic was but he wasn't calling it out publicly. and when questioned, he didn't want to worry people, he dent wan -- didn't want to panic people. people can deal with things if you're realistic. they're grappling with the johnson & johnson doses. he had to correct that timeline from last week. he said april would be open season, that anyone who would like to get one could get one. now that they're expecting less vaccines from johnson & johnson if it is authorized, they're saying it will be may and early june now. when will people be able to get one? they've set this marker for july when people can get one, and i think that will be a major test for them. >> we'll watch it going forward. kaitlan collins, good to see you

in the bureau. first time since -- >> march. it's great to be back. >> appreciate both of you for being here today. up next for us, the supreme court sitting on a case involving former president trump's taxes. but the justices aren't saying why. anything your wild child does pampers cruisers 360° fit can too with a stretchy waistband and adaptive 360° fit so they can move the way they were born to [music]: born to be wild pampers cruisers 360° fit psst! psst! allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst! psst! you're good.

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and now the mystery surrounding a big legal issue holding over for the trump years. the supreme court wants trump's tax years. they want them to help in investigations before the trump years. the president's attorney opposed such requests throughout his presidency. the question is now lingering before the supreme court. legal analyst joan zupic joins me now. joan, this has been before the court for a long time. wha what's the wait? >> good afternoon, john. that's the $64,000 question here, because you remember, this case actually has its roots in a subpoena from august 2019, but even back to when donald trump was a candidate for the presidency, there were calls for him to release his tax returns as most former presidents in the modern time have. but this case began in august when the grand jury issued the subpoena for the tax returns and other financial documents. president trump's lawyers then sued in september of 2019.

it worked its way up through lower courts to the supreme court then just last july, 2020, when the justices ruled by a 72 vote that the president has to abide by a criminal proceeding and turn over evidence that is needed. donald trump has said that he should have blanket immunity while he is a sitting president. but the justices in that otherwise very sweeping ruling telling the president he had to abide by a subpoena gave him a couple narrow option to see pursue in lower courts. which he did. lower courts, though, spurned him again and said the subpoena should be enforced and now donald trump's lawyers are back before the supreme court. they filed last october, four months ago, almost to the date, and said we want the supreme court to intervene again.

the justices normally would have responded by now. this is the important thing to note, john, is that they have diverged from their usual procedures and are just sitting on this without any kind of public word. all sorts of scenarios could be developing behind the scenes even though that ruling was 7-2 last july, four of the conservatives expressed misgivings, two outright dissented and two others broke off from chief justice john roberts' rationale. so this case could go on for many more months with donald trump, now former president donald trump, not releasing his tax returns. john? >> come back when we know, joan, come back when we know. thank you very much, joan bisbi biskupic. when we come back, senator bob dole facing a health

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hello, i'm brianna keilar and i want to welcome viewers in the united states and around the world. we begin with the humanitarian disaster that is gripping texas. americans there are struggling to find the basics for survival, heat, shelter, food and water all because of frigid temperatures and a winter storm that knocked the state's power grid off line. and, of course, they're dealing with all this in the middle of a pandemic. hundreds of thousands of texans are trying to manage now for a fourth day without power, this