>> oh, my god about look at him. >> just five days after leonard davis passed away. >> wow. >> so they never did get to meet. he wanted to meet him so badly he said that he would wear a hazmat suit to keep from getting sick to see the new baby. but they lost the baby so quickly. >> my best to the family. the news continues, handing it to chris for cuomo prime time. >> coop, we hear stories like this and they hit you so hard and you wonder are we not telling them right? how do we have news like we have with tonight out of texas when the stories have reached everybody's err autos and we hope their heads and then hopefully their hearts, how? how can you watch a story like that and not understand the threat and not understand what we have to do and why? >> yeah. >> that was beautifully told and thank you for telling it. appreciate you, pal. i'm chris cuomo, welcome to "primetime," first the good

news. there is good news that we are ahead of schedule in terms of when we may get back to normal. listen -- >> we are on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in america by the end of may. >> now, that would be two months earlier than expected. so, president biden has to hold himself to his word. if he can do it, countless lives could be saved. there's only one thing that we can do to mess up this accelerated track for herd immunity and that is, to give the variants a chance to catch up. and to create cases faster than we can vaccinate people. and increase the chances,fieffi

exploited and maybe wasted. that's why the head of the cdc just said is, we must be careful, especially if relaxing any protective measures. so, what did texas announce right after that? >> the governor announces they are throwing caution to the wind and reopening 100%. the same govern er who did not prepare the state for bad weather, is now leaving it exposed to a deadly virus. just as hope is on the horizon. this is about denial. it's about defiance of reality. it's hurting us as much as covid. the man put in place by trump, no put back jan 6th, that's when

this is about. that's the greatest form of denial right now, is where the party of trump wants to take our past. the man who heads the fbi at trump's urging told the gopq today that no, what you are seeing here, the infamy of january 6th, it's what they used to care about most on the right. the worst kind of planned violence, terrorism. >> this behavior that we, the fbi feels is domestic terrorism. the problem is that it has been metastisizing across the country and it not going away any time soon. >> that's it, that's the truth. that's it. the fbi director christopher wray, whom every righty in the room applauded when he was picked. he sat there and told the senate

judiciary committee this was domestic terror and tolerating it would make a mockery of the rule of law. what does the law and order bunch do, go had in to denial and insist on questions of nancy pelosi, and antifa, wasn't it just a protest with pockets of bad actors. skirmishes, nothing planned, they will say anything to ignore the obvious reality of january 6th. they are curious about investigating when they don't like the truth. you tell the truth, and they don't like it, well now we have to keep looking. don't we? do we really know everything? the truth is as obvious as the gush of all those blood red hats that stormed the capitol. i wonder why they changed from the days when they hated anyone, not calling on out terror as that, and only that.

don't you remember? >> radical islamic terrorism is a fact. we have a president that nobody can understand he doesn't want to use the term. radical islamic terrorism. and i will tell you what, we have a president that refuses to use the term. he refuses to say it. >> we would like a commander and chief who calls the enemy by its name. >> he still refused to mention radical islam. >> as long as we have a commander and chief unwilling to utter the words radical islamic terror terrorism, we will not have an effort to defeat the radicals before they continue to murder more and more innocent -- >> where is that now? why didn't they keep that same energy? now that they are told it's domestic terror, they didn't have to be convinced before, it's obvious now. they can see it. remember this from the last

hearing. >> agents provocotours, fake trump protesters. >> you call them insurrectionists, folks that i walked by on my way to the chamber were standing there peacefully. >> yeah, then. it's what they did after. the judiciary's ranking member. senator chuck grass will i. he used most of his opening statement to spin the hearing toward antifa violence, christopher wray had to shut it down. listen to this. >> we have not to date seenany evidence of violent screamist or people subscribing to antifa. >> do you have evidence that it was organized by fake trump protesters? >> we have not seen evidence of that at this stage. >> that was senator dic durbin referring on to what grassley said, and wray shut it down.

you know who agrees with wray, the trump supporters who have been charged for their role on the attack on the 6th. they are proud to own that they did it in the name of trump. they dismiss the idea that it was about any other group. get this, it used to be that these people on the right were fine with doing anything to anyone even connected to the planning of a terror event. let alone a perpetrator. remember? waterboard, got to do it. torture, need the answers. it's about the bigger good. you have to protect the h homeland, got to protect ourselves. now, senators mike lee and josh hawley, the guy that said that i walked past. you fist pumped a bunch of people who some of them then become part of an insurrection. that's what you did. okay. now, these senators on the right are most concerned about whether the fbi is infringing on the

rights of the insurrectionists. >> we have to make sure that the civil liberties of the american people are protected. are you geo locating people through the fbi based on where they were on january 6th. >> are you saying you don't know if the fbi has scooped up geo data, or meta data, you say you are using the relevant authorities. what authorities are they? >> try to find sound of those cats of anybody on the right wanting to be careful about how you go after terror. be careful. i mean, come on. how could it be more ugly or obvious. trying to reign in the fbi from finding those who saw it, to kill them? our lawmakers and our former vice president? is the pull of power so strong that you don't even care what was going to be done to you?

why are they so afraid of the truth. a key witness to the truth is here. the head of the house intel committee, lead impeachment manager at the trump first impeachment trial. congressman adam schiff. good to see you, sir. >> good to see you. >> so, two things that i want your take on from today, when it was called domestic terror. does it mean to you in terms of this collective denial of seeing january 6th for what it was on the right? what motivates it? >> well, look, it's a continuation of the big lie that led to the insurrection, you had obviously the president, the former president out pushing this lie about the election and it was rigged andit was stolen and he actually won a landslide, that contributed and that led us to january 6th, now there's a new big lie and the new big lie is that, no, it was not really

trump supporters that stormed the capitol. it was antifa, it was false flag operation. and you know, republican members that are willing to do that. willing to feed that kind of nonsense, that kind of conspiracy theory continue to do a disservice to the country. and it's dangerous. there's a lot of people that believe that. and so, i was glad to see directorer wray today so forcefully shoot that theory down. will that be enough to make it go away? probably not. >> not by what happened after it. let's play that for the audience, chairman, because when we were referring to senator grassley's opening statement and what he decided to try to cast as the potential reality of what january 6th was about, here, listen. >> it's been a relatively frequent sight at summer's violence events to see individuals acting in

coordination, holding the a-symbol for antifa, in light of the every present left wing threats i'm concerned about resource shifting talk among our colleagues across the aisle. >> see, that's the real concern. to me the politics are obvious and the people can decide. everything is obvious to me. here is what is not obvious. how do you stop the growth of right wing extremism and domestic terrorism if you have this push back from the right that we don't want to shift any resources from those bad guys on the left as if we were talking about democrats and republicans. and you know, not neonazis and nationalists. are you worried that we may not be able to fight back against these people the way we should? >> i am worried about it. in fact, we are investigating that issue in the committee right now. that is, in the weeks and months and years leading up to january 6th, was there such a fear among

intelligence professionals at the department of homeland security or in terms of resource allocation within the bureau that they couldn't go after domestic terrorists of the white nationalist variety because that was discouraged because that was viewed as an attack on trump support ers? we did see, and you will remember well, bill barr out hyping antifa was the threat that we needed to worry about, when the threat was white nationalists for domestic terror. we did not have the resources that we should because of that political pressure. comments like you quoted contribute to that resistance to putting the resources where they need to go to being clear about the threat that we face. not being equivocal about it,you cannot diagnosis the threat or speak directly to the threat, you cannot respond to the threat. >> now, obviously, you are always invited, also have a mat

form on the show to discuss this. there's something a little ahead of where we are. house resolution 4192. after we get through the fog of them trying to create fiction about what happened on jan 6th. your party was not crazy about some of your solutions to, this that, makes these things criminal under our laws. so you don't have to fit domestic terrorists under other laws. i think it's time to reapproach that. it will be hard with people on the right. tough sell on the left also. you are welcome back on the on the -- on the show, to come down and make the case of what you think will make us more safe, chairman. >> chris, i appreciate that. and of course, we now have the backdrop of the trump administration. we have to make sure that there's privacy and protections in everything that we do. you under score, as i was trying

to in the bill a couple of years ago. the fact, as you quoted the republican members, they don't equate the threat from international terror with the threat from domestic terror. domestic terror, particular thethe -- particularly the white nationalist variety. we need to take it as seriously as we do any other threat to the country. and i think we need do to that whether we use a legislative approach or executive approach. >> when you do, you have a platform to argue that right here. thank you. be well. >> you too. >> the white house has moved up the timeline on vaccine availability for every american adult. two months ahead of time. may, but, as the president and the cdc chief remind us, it's not a guarantee.

it won't get here as fast as we want. back to normal, if we let our guard down. now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know can stop the spread of covid mean in our communities. >> so why would the governor of texas, not just ignore this, but go 100 miles an hour in the opposite direction? when we are so close, why open up 100%? we are going talk about potential consequences, with somebody who is fighting the fight to keep the rest of us safe while the lawmakers talk, people like the nurse you are going to meet, know the reality of who is dying, why they are dieing and what can be done. a hero joins us next.

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okay, so, we want to talk about the realities that are going on in this country, when it comes to the pan department i can -- when it comes to the pandemic. here is the good news, the u.s. will have a vaccine for every adult by the end of may. major promise by president biden after announcing that drug maker merck will help produce rival johnson & johnson's one-shot vaccine. businesses can get together. can politicians, the partnership made possible by the white house's use of the defense production act. remember everyone was asking trump to do it and he would not? there's always a delay to getting the shots produced and delivered and in your arm. thepresident echoed the cdc in the warnings of holding on to

mitigation a little longer. >> now's not the time to let up. i have asked the country to wear masks for my first 100 days in office. now's not the time to let our guard down. people's lives are at stake. >> he is right. time is a killer. just about 8% of the u.s. population has been fully vaccinated. a look across the country shows how far off we are from where we need to be. the majority of states are are still in the teens when it comes to partial vaccinations. the fully vaccinated percentage of course even lower. spring surge, seems inevitable. why? states are easing up on measures. look, i get it. everybody's had it, we all have covid fatigue. but what you see in texas and mississippi, getting rid of everything right away, when we are in in the race of the variant and the vaccine. hichb listen to the governor and the

reaction he got. >> effective next wednesday, all businesses of any type are allowed to open 100%. also, i am ending the statewide mask mandate. [ cheers and applause ] >> look, nobody likes what we are doing, but how can you cheer when you have had so many die? and so many feeling the toll. right now, in texas, here is somebody who knows. brittney smart, a texas icu nurse. thank you for joining us, right after your shift. i appreciate you. >> thanks for having me. >> so, you are there. when you hear that the governor believes you are ready on have no more restrictions what are you afraid that will look like in your place of work? >> you know, i feel like we hit

a point where we were breathing a little easier and we saw a light at the end of the tunnel. that was shut down. i think we are all pretty exhausted and i'm scared of what it will look like. >> how much easier is job now than when you were at peak? >> oh, man, when this first started i went to new york and i remember saying i thought i was in a third world country. like i have never seen anything like it. and i said, it's only new york and i got to texas four months later and i'm like, oh, my gosh, it's happening here too. and it was absolutely devastating. it's going to continue to look like this, and it's may be worses because we are exhausted now, and we are tired and we thought it was coming to an end. it's not going to look good. >> just to be clear, it's not like you guys are playing cards all day long because the cases have dwindled so much, that the idea of not having to mask up anymore makes sense to you? >> no, we are still not allowing

visitors. we are still masking up. we are still taking all the precautions because we still have covid patients. it's not like the covid patients are gone, it's not that they are not dying. it's that we no longer need a ref refrigerated truck. we can now take care of the bodies after they die, we don't have people in the hallway anymore, and on stretchers and we are not putting dead bodies in empty rooms. we are breathing a bit easier, but it's not better. it's just finally easing up a tad bit. it's a little nerve wracking to see that, you know, we are going take away the masks. i don't think it's safe to do that right now. >> when you heard about this, what is your biggest fear of what happens between now and this burst of vaccines that will help get more people protected? >> my biggest fear is that we are going to lose more people and we are going to lose them

faster because this variant is a lot stronger. >> you know that already. >> and it's going to spread a lot faster. >> have you any experience with the variant or is this what you are hearing? so, i have, whenever we test people for covid, we don't test the variants. we just know they are covid positive. so, i'm not sure if i have taken care of someone with the variant. i just know all of our infectious disease doctors have been like, you know, we are nervous, with the variant we are not sure exactly in the vaccine will cover that variant. we want all the protection we can get and i think it's important until we know exactly what we are fighting to continue to protect everybody in had the best way we can. >> i am amazed by what you guys have been capable of doing. you know, so many of you are so young and you were not ready for what these situations brought and yet, you have handled it so amazingly, that you changed our collective fate. and i hope you know that that's felt about what you do every day

all across the country. and you and i have a mutual friend which is how i found you. you are both amazing people. i will stay in touch and you will always be able to get me and let me know what is happening in texas with the new measures relaxed and i will tell people the truth. brittney smart, stay healthy, keep your energy up and thank you for saving people. >> thank you so much. >> take care. >> you too. >> can you imagine? and all we do for people like that is make it harder. then we celebrate them. then we make it harder. why? the supreme court active now, they may soon rule on a very, very important case. voting rights. that will impact communities of color particularly. i think you can say fairly that the voting rights act is under attack again in a way that we have never seen since its inception. if justices weaken a key

provision that blocks racial discrimination, what will be in place to stop any kind of suppression move? we will take it on next. . (giggling) that's my turtle. fraud protection. discover. something brighter. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance.

conservative supreme court justices seem ready to uphold an arizona voting law that democrats argue makes it harder for minorities on to vote. one arizona gop lawyer making the case today before the court that republicans need these rules, fair or not to win. listen. >> what is the interest of the arizona rnc here in keeping say,

the out of precinct voter ballot disqualification rule on the books? >> because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage to democrats. every extra vote they get through unlawful interpretation of section 2 hurt-s us. it's the difference of winning an election 50-49 -- >> sounds honest. let's discuss why it seems to popular with the justices and what the politics are at play. david gregory, laura coats. good to see you both. why is it so simple for so many of the justices in terms of saying, yeah, i think this is fine what they want to do in terms of carving up the community? >> well, first of all, i think he said the quiet part out loud, the idea that the only way to win, they believed is through suppression in some way shape or form. if that's the only way a party can survive, perhaps the party should not sur is vief.

if that's the tactic you use. the supreme court is looking at it because it's not been particularly friendly in recent times to the voting rights act. number one, gutting section 5, the formula that provides for the preclearance by the doj on these issues the idea of up ending the intent based test. if they gave a real benefit of the doubt to jurisdictions about whether they had a racially motivated intent to adopt things. what is left now is the results test. meaning, if you didn't have the intent to discriminate, or to create this inequity, if the result is to have this affect still, then you can still fall under section 2 and still infringe upon that aspect of it. the court is already leaning toward the idea of well, this exists in other places the ability to have a person's vote only count if its actually in the precinct. and the other way is the idea of saying only certain people can take your absentee ballot and place it there for you. looking across the exhibit

number and saying this happens other places but of course these lawyers have pointed out that the reason they are doing it is to capitalize in respect for the disparities that are already there. >> so, oh, good, we have david back now. for a second i lost his shot. they were showing me and i was trying to tell the control room, why show me, when you can show laura coats who is speaking all the intelligence right now and i look like a hat rack. section 5 was always going to be a tricky test with any kind of conservative court because preclearance with the federal government, when elections are closely held by states. okay. now you is lost the intent test and the determination test, which is what does the law do on a regular basis? what do you think the chance is, laura, quick follow and then i will come to you, david, if the court moves to allow this move? what does that mean for the future and all the different suppression rules on the books? >> well, frankly they are inclined to do so, to uphold the

idea that precinct rule as well as the absentee rule, they review fused in their questioning to go as tar as either of the republican lawyers in the case. they tested the parameters and threw out hypotheticals. the idea you could not have a cartblanche if you is have a time, place and manner, if you tell people they have to vote at 10:00 a.m. in a country club, is that okay? . this he said, even if you did not creatity the disparity, you cannot use it to win the election. though they are inclined to support that as picture of the arizona laws. the reasoning for so, does not suggest that they are willing to throw away the results test of the voting rights act. which is a good thing. >> then you don't have a voting rights act. if you don't have that, there's no federal protection. david, one light issue and then

one heavier issue. the light issue is, republicans vote early more than departments tend to. that's not what this is about today. but that is one of the major directions of this new kind of burst of laws across the country. why would they want to get rid of early voting when they vote more often early than democrats? >> it doesn't make sense to me. you know, the part that you played of the republican arguement, out of arizona was so telling that it came up. and part of this, because it is zero sum politics. you have actually heard this from president trump as well. being in a competitive disadvantage. represent are cans, you know, this is an issue, i have talked to republican officials about this over the years. because i have been covering this issue of exposed fraud. voter fraud for the years and of course, trump is just the ultimate in spreading the lie about it. but, it's, it is voter

suppression. the more people vote in an increasingly diverse america, the worse it is for republicans. even though republicans when they lost the second go around to president obama said is we got to expand as pa party. that's not what they did under trump, they have gotten narrower as a party. it doesn't make sense to me. and it goes to the fundmental question, why not have a straight up contest here. everybody should be able to vote. >> right. >> and what animates the republican grassroots is this notion that there's widespread fraud that's benefitting minorities in this country. and it just has not been bourn out by the facts. >> i appreciate it and i'm short on time. if they allow this law, i bet it will be one of the main arrows used by those who want to get rid of the filibuster in the senate. because they will have no other way to overturn any of the legislation if the filibuster is in place, they will never get it

done. thank you both very much. we have to get back to something. because if something matters once, it should matter until it's fixed. and that is exactly the case on the border. separated families. the desperation of unaccompanied minors. how they are kept. how we can do better. everybody cared. when i went down. there i have been going down for years, everybody says they cared. nothing has changed for the better. i know the biden administration will not like that i said that. undoing what trump did, i get why you did it. but, doing it really fast and throwing out what was there had implications and they were not replaced with policies to handle what would come next. hundreds of kids have not been reunited with their parents. many, many more are coming. and we are in a bad place to deal with it. i have a lead attorney in the effort to reunite migrant families on where this effort

stands. it's time to talk straight about how to get straight on the border. next.

did you receive a briefing about the board today? >> yes, i did. >> what did you learn? >> a lot. >> is there a --

>> president biden is facing a brewing crisis at the southern border. i understand why he doesn't want to panic anybody and i don't know if you would care if he did try to panic. because it's been the same way for years. there's waves of interests, and his administration doesn't call it a crisis. that's okay, but border crossings are up. and they are trying to figure out how to deal with unaccompanied children. they have had bad natural disaster downs in guatemala, and in ecuador and it's sending people up here. honduras up here. and tearing down the trump policies and not replacing then with anything sent the message that it would be easier. we have shown you what it's like along the border. it's horrible. migrants, asylum seekers.

squallor, why? because they don't is have what it takes to process the flow. and congress won't give it to them. under the last administration, what they did was made it easier to get rid of people without knowing their situation. more than 70,000 people were subject to the so-called remain in mexico policy. many waited months if not years in these kind of conditions. under the threat of extorgz. sexual assault and kidnapping. you know, horrible things happened. so, biden called for an end to the policy and has allowed a gradual entry for some of the migrants and a lot of them are coming in so border crossings were already going up at the end of trump's term and now there's new highs. i'm not saying it was wrong to end the program, it was inhumane, but what do you replace it with? in january, u.s. border officials made 78,000 arrests and detentions along the mexican border. officials tell us when it comes to families and the kids

crossing alone, they are overwhelmed. trump sent back the unaccompanied kids. they would fly them back, and it was too rash. it was dangerous to just send them back to social services in places that you did not know if you can trust the people. what has it been replaced with? now the left flank said i don't like seeing them in temporary structures do your damn job and come up with a solution. they don't have anywhere to keep the kid. they are going to wind up back in the borderer facility. you don't have the space and solution. as of today, more than 1300 kids are in cpb custody waiting to be placed by hhs is, they said, maybe we will put the hhs people in the border facilities and that will help. yeah, maybe, but human beings are not housing. that takes us to our guest. lee galernt, the deputy director of aclu, immigrants right project and a lead attorney in the effort to reunite migrant families. lee, friend of show, good to see

you, counselor. >> thanks for having me again. >> what do i got wrong? >> so, you know, i think that you're hitting it right, that look, there are people coming, they are fleeing real endanger. they are going to come. the biden administration needs to do something about it and i think they need to move quickly. but what i want to stress are two points. these are not historically high numbers. we have had way higher numbers. for example, during the bush two years where the numbers were twice as great. >> hm-mm. >> the second point, i think we have the resources to deal with this. and i think the point is, the one you made, the biden administration needs to move quicker to create the capacity. there's no question that the federal government has the capacity to act humanely. we cannot, as you said, take the trump approach where we are just going to send little kids back to danger. so the question is, how are we

going to do hthis? not everyone can ultimately stay, but we have to give people hearings. we said after world war ii, we will never just send people back to danger without at least letting them tell their story, looking at their case. so, i think the question is, is the biden administration going to quickly build more capacity to have plenty of resources to do it? are they going to take the help of the ngos down on the border who want to help? and the other thing that i think is dangerous is the administration keeps leaking numbers in a vacuum without talking about their capacity. you know, if somebody didn't know anything about baseball. or baseball stadiums and you said, 50,000 people want to go see the yankees game tonight, you would say, how can 50,000 people go in? well you say, the stadium seats 54,000 and we have hundreds and hundreds of ticket scanners. we have the capacity to do this. so the biden administration just leaking the number ins saying l how many are coming? yes, we have dealt with it

before, there's ways to make it more efficient. so you are right, both points are right. >> some of the ways we used to do it, we don't want to do it anymore. you tonight want to treat these people like livestock, especially in a covid environment. they are saying the bed at 94%. because of the separation restrictions. why would they lie? if they don't have, say, they don't have the capacity, why would they say they don't? >> right, well, so i think that's the critical point. not that they are lying about how much of their current capacity they have used. but why not create additional capacity. there are plenty -- >> yeah, i'm with you. >> -- exactly. so, i think that's the point. that's the critical point. they have been ins of six weeks, people are ready to give them a little bit more time. but ultimately people are going to get impatient. because when the federal government wants to do something they can do something. >> absolutely. >> right. >> lee, let's to this, stay in the loop. it's a new phase. you tell me what you are harding. and i will tell you what i'm

hearing. i will call you right after the show. we will get on a thread with each other. you know, you are getting the left flank of the party that wants to get high and mighty about not treating kids this way. do your damn job, free up the funds and do what you need through the federal law to make better situations and stay on it with the committees. saying we don't like it like this will never make it better. lee, you will make it better because you stay on it and you do the right things for the right reasons. you are a friend of the show. you now, i wanted to do this, look, i'm telling you, i know that situation, i've been living it for 20 years. i know the people from different administrations who are there. the problems are real, they are not new and not being addressed. a new administration, i totally get it. the choices they make early on will reverberate, so we have is that -- we have to stay on it. and the talk on the minimum wage. $15, $10, 15 is much more than 10. what is $15 an hour in a mid size city. what does it do for

you? is it more or hesless? is it enough? i will take you through the truth. next. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our

retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance. is

. my arguement to you is the

politics around raising the minimum wage to $15 are miscast. it's all about you mow, lessor more, well, what about 10? 15 is more than 10. the reality lies elsewhere. you know, the minimum wage was born from the sweat shop era. it was to stop the grievous and heinous exploitation of kids, women and new immigrants. it was a basic, don't treat these people like live stock line. it was not the standard that we accepted as a reasonable living wage. it was never meant as that. but it's become that. so, instead of the optic of 15 being so great because it's a third more than 10, some on the right want that to be the evaluation. let's look at the reality of what we say is enough for a fellow scissor fami-- fellow cin or family in most cases.

some companies offer less hours so they don't trigger the requirement to provide health care. say you are lucky and you get 40 hours. multiply that by 52, and so in the end you are making $30,000 a year. before taxes. now, please, in my day, i was making, i started out -- please. account for inflation. and the apportioned cost of living. the buying power of all workers let alone minimum wage workers has not improved in decades. so, let's continue. pick a city. st. louis. you are single. no kids. federal income, fica, state, local taxes takes over $6,000. you start with $24,000. rent in st. louis, about 7500. okay, for the year. obviously. you want to eat. the uda said that the basics

will run you $3,000. assuming you have a car, gas, up keep, parking insurance, $5,000. clothes, internet, if you are going to spoil yourself. cell phone. about $2800. again, you are likely going to get insurance at 40 hours a week. but you are still looking at another $2600 for doctors, you can make it work assuming there's no surprise bill of more than $400. there's no margin for much more than survival. and remember what i said, that is a single adult with no kids. one kid and the math between left, right and reasonable does not come out. even if nobody gets new clothes for a year, you don't get anywhere. cut out internet and cell phone, no toys. no the netflix, no cable. you are still 23 grand in the hole. hello credit card debt.

so your kid is old enough that you don't need child care and you live close enough to work that you walk. still in the hole. that means even with all the cuts you are now living without, you are facing a choices of which doctor appointments you skip and how many meals you miss. the simple truth is it's a big complicated conversation. but it's a conversation that we have to have and will continue to have on the show. for any of it to go anywhere. we have to start with the reality. and what we think is right. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ when you drive this smooth, you save with allstate. you've never been in better hands. allstate. click or call for a quote today.

thank you for watching, as always, the big show, c tnn wit don lemon. >> why lift the restrictions, the vaccine is getting in to enough arms that things are starting to turn around, but it's way too early. why do it now? the only reason i can see is because of what happened in texas, someone dropped the ball and they are trying to change the conversation. that is it, a distraction. that is how i feel. >> it's