kate? >> but tucker carlson makthinks mockery of the u.s. military. barbara, thank you very much. thank you so much for joining us today. i'm kate bolduan. john king picks up our coverage right now. hello to our viewers in the united states and around the world, and welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king in washington. thank you for sharing a very important day with us. tonight president biden delivers a prime time pandemic address. the speech marks one sad anniversary, a year of shock and sorrow. the president will pay tribute to the lives lost and to families scarred both by personal loss and economic pain. but he will also promise a new chapter is at hand and help us along the way. tomorrow the president signs a

nearly $2 trillion covid relief plan into law, meaning millions of dollars will flow into bank accounts and the hands of americans. another 12,000 americans filed for first-time unemployment claims, lost their jobs just last week. tonight's prime time speech is a new time for the president. look behind with sorrow, look ahead with hope. we're one year into the start of the new world. sports stopped, offices and schools began closing. the world health organization one year ago today called covid-19 a pandemic. one year. nearly 30 million cases here in the states, 118 million plus globally, soon to be 530,000 american deaths. the president will outline his two-track path to post-pandemic life tonight. a spring surge in the covid vaccine rollout and a surge in economic help to families, small businesses and to schools.

but the president's hope does come with a messaging challenge. telling folks if there are ball games or a family picnic coming up, mask up and be extra careful just a while longer. we start this day with our white house correspondent, phil mattingly. phil, what will we hear from the president tonight? >> john, you hit the key effort about trying to thread the needle and engaging in what's next. the president alluded to it yesterday when he spoke publicly. it's certainly going to be moving on, moving on to the next phase, as he called it, but also ensuring people don't move on too fast. john, their biggest concern by far is people will take their eye off the ball and there will be a resurgence. if you add the $1.9 trillion covid relief bill that the president is going to sign tomorrow to that, they feel

extremely confident the path they have laid out to be forward will be effective. their biggest concern is how long will it take to get there, and that's largely up to individual americans, not the administration itself. what you'll hear the president talk about today is obviously the remembrance of the 525,000 who have died over the course of a year. he did that at the inauguration when we hit the 500,000 death mark. he'll do that again tonight. he'll talk about the program, how they've ramped up production, how they've tried to ramp up the distribution networks across the country. i think one of the key elements of the next phase forward will be a messaging blitz around that $1.9 trillion covid relief plan. according to an internal memo that was sent to senior white house staff by general malley dillon, they're going to hit every corner of the country according to the memo with the president, the vice president, the first lady, the second

gentleman, pretty much everyone in the cabinet as well. they'll be laser focused on everything in the bill, whether it's reopening schools, reopening businesses, those direct payments. people will know what they have access to, but two, how to obtain it, how to get it. also going forward, the president will hit the road for a trip to virginia on tuesday, john. >> phil mattingly, thank you so much. joining me now to share insights are dana bash and former adviser to president barack obama. it's a great opportunity. he's about to sign a covid relief package. it's also a time to reflect and share the pain and sorrow of last year but try to look to hope going forward. he will talk about his efforts to accelerate the vaccine rollout. he will talk about the next steps he believes are necessary to control the pandemic. in some cases, these are my

words, not his, asking people to ignore the governor and keep your mask on for another month or two. he gave us a little flavor yesterday. listen. >> everything in the american rescue plan addresses a real need, including investments to fund our entire vaccination effort. more vaccines, more vaccinators and more vaccination sites. millions more americans will get tested, including home testing. schools will soon have the funding and resources to reopen safely, a national imperative. >> a lot of promises. the challenge now is deliver on the promises. he will be judged by how they implement this. whether the checks will get where they're supposed to get, whether they'll get them quickly, whether they keep the firefighters and the cops on the payroll, so on and so forth. >> look, getting to this point, obviously getting the nearly $2 trillion package that they got passed along party lines against

a lot of odds, against a lot of criticism of him, saying, you know, wait a minute, you promised to be bipartisan, and his pushback of that is i also promised to end the economic hardships thanks to covid, i also promised to help open the schools, i also promised to get people more testing and vaccines and so forth, and he understands that when history looks back on this, that is what he is going to be judged on. and so the idea of his big speech tonight and also going on the road, as phil was reporting, is to make people -- first of all, just is the kind of news you can use, explain to people how to get your checks, how to deal with the earned income tax credit, if you're eligible, so on and so forth, but also help is on the way. but i think you're exactly right, it's that hard balance between being hopeful but also cautious. >> and so, david axelrod, you've been at the white house in big

moments. no two situations are exactly the same, but one thing you hear a lot from team biden is he was a vice president. he remembers the obama stimulus. in fact, then-president obama tasked him with keeping an eye on it and going around the country keeping an eye on projects. democrats were optimistic. the polling numbers were good in both cases. in the next general election, the democrats got spanked. so what message can the president and the former vice president in those days learn from that, or do you think that's overblown? >> i think the circumstances are different. the crisis in 2009 was just hitting its peak when we arrived, and we were advised by economists then that even if we did everything we could, it would take years for recovery to really bloom. and so we couldn't go out there and claim too much even as we were doing things. and same with the affordable care act which was so important, but the benefits of it wouldn't be realized for years to come. in this case the crisis is really defined by the virus, and

the relief that he's bringing is going to be felt immediately. so he's in a strong position here to deliver quickly on the promises that he made. i will say this, too, he was, in fact, charged with the task of implementing the recovery act back in 2009. ron klain was his chief of staff then. they did a splendid job of managing that program, so they're very good at implementation, and that's going to be helpful here. but he's in a good spot here. but you said something very important earlier. you don't want to hang a "mission accomplished" banner tonight. we've seen that mistake made by presidents before. you want to say mission advancing, and you want to enlist people in the mission in the short term to help shorten this period of the virus. but there is a lot that the biden people should feel good about going into the speech tonight. they're making a lot of progress

and they're delivering a hell of a lot of relief. >> one of the fascinating things for me is you have these washington conversations and then you have the american conversation. no republicans voted for the relief act. we'll come back to the election politics of that in a moment. cnn's vanessa vercavich has done a great moment keeping in touch with people. >> whether it be biden or trump, i think the country needs that stimulus. >> you have two kids. that's an extra $20. >> it is, and i think people who have more than two children will be getting even that much more of a break. >> the gentleman in that case, i watched a piece earlier saying the same thing. he has no republican votes here in washington. the republicans have decided politically, and we'll come back to this in a minute, it may work, it may not.

the challenge for the president is can he pick off a republican governor there? more importantly, republican voters say, thank you. that helped me. >> it depends how you define "pick off." you'll have all republicans saying how horrible this is, but at the same time say things in press releases like roger wicker that, oh, look at this great thing that's coming your way, my home state, and it's in this bill, which he doesn't say, of course, he voted against. we're likely to see a lot of that, just like david saw a lot of it back in 2009, and it really does go to the critical goal of tonight and then in the travels that follow. it is implementation first and foremost. people have to feel it, but it's also messaging. they are up against a very, very clear strategy by republicans to vote no but then follow that no vote with something like what mitch mcconnell said yesterday, which is, if you feel better after this, it's not because of this, it's because it was

already getting better. and they have to try to combat that in a messaging way in addition to implementing it. >> members of his team will be out there, the question is will members of the democratic party be out there with him? do you get the echo every time a senator goes home? the economy was slow to come back. the affordable care act was enacted. it took a long time to be implemented and a lot of democrats, frankly, got timid and ducked. republicans were beating them over the head with it. joe biden said i'm going to go out there and say, yes, we did this and it's going to help. he's not talking about political issues down the road. this is a sweeping progressive bill. some of it is temporary. there are enhanced unemployment benefits that will expire. they're covid related. you hope you don't have to renew those. but there is a giant tax credit in this piece of legislation.

there are also additional obamacare subsidies in this legislation. those expire in a year or two. those are going to be new votes heading into the 2022 cycle. this is what we did, we stand by it. you republicans all voted no. what do you say now right before you go see the voters? >> yeah, absolutely. i think the republicans in the short term have done him a great favor because they basically said, hey, that check you're getting, that help you're getting, we didn't do that. he did that. i mean, that's not what they want the message to be, but that is the message they've sent. you know, by voting en masse against it, they will run against aspects of they'll try to find the check that goes to the unqualified person or the state and city government that is spending money in ways that perhaps they shouldn't, and the biden people need to be alert to that and manage this properly. but look, at the end of the day, what this is going to do is hasten the end of the virus, it's going to turbocharge the

economy, and that is going to be the climate in which democrats will be running in 2022. there are plenty of advantages built in for republicans, including redistricting and the fact that incumbent president parties generally don't do well in midterms. but i tell you what, a rip-roaring economy in the end of the virus and the exuberance that will go with that, that's going to benefit democrats. >> that's a challenge to watch in the days and weeks ahead and it begins with the president's speech tonight. david axelrod, thank you for joining us. dana bash is going to stay for what's coming up. in this one year ago fl flashback, a reminder in this whole virus was a president with denial. >> this virus will not have a chance against us. no nation is more prepared or more resilient than the united

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it was one year ago the world health organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. there was just 1200 confirmed cases in the united states back then. then president trump was determined to underplay the science and play down the covid threat. then one year ago, the nba suspended its season. the coronavirus suddenly became very real. everything began to change, including using this to track a pandemic instead of tracking elections. joining me now, a man i am grateful for personally and has helped so many of you, i know, navigate this last year, dr. sanjay gupta. sanjay, i'm grateful for your time and, believe me, grateful for the past year of your help and guidance. number one is the case timeline.

we started it was horrific in the spring when it started to go up, then it was more horrific in the summer and then there was this, the winter peak. we're down to about 50,000 cases, between 50,000 cases and 60,000 cases. 60,000 cases yesterday was a plateau you don't need and want. we also sadly have gone through this over the last year. 529,000 of our friends and neighbors, fellow americans, have been lost in the past year, and the cdc projects that will climb by 40,000-plus more. 571,000 in just a few weeks. when you look at that numbing number, what goes through your mind? >> it's numbing, just like you say, john. i think the first thing i would say is that this should not feel normal. i think it's like that boiling pro frog analogy. we've been at this for a year. you hear 50,000 have been diagnosed, you hear 571,000 may

die in total in the next few weeks. that's not normal. so many of these deaths were preventable. that's the first thing that goes through my mind. when you look at that graph and you show that surge that happened, that surge didn't need to happen, but what brought it down, that wasn't the vaccines. as wonderful as the vaccines are, what's worked at bringing these things down, what has worked at various times around the world is basic public health measures. that's the basic lesson in all of this. we want science to rescue us, understandably, but that shouldn't mean we lena -- lean away from public health measures and that's something that's missed too often in this. >> what we knew then and what the experts knew then is very different from what we know now. some of the things we were told back then are not what we're

told now. listen. >> one of the things they shouldn't be doing, the general public, is going out and buying masks. it does not help. it hasn't been prove n to be effective in fighting the coronavirus. >> there will be more testing in areas where it's needed and hopefully less where it's not needed. >> you can and should test asymptomatic people. >> if one person is infected in the household, the whole household should quarantine for 14 days. >> some of that may have been unnecessary, but some of that, we were blind at the beginning, and the scientists, good intentioned, well intentioned scientists, were learning every day. >> science is something that evolves. i think some people expect science to be like math, that two plus two will always equal

four. it changes in its organic. that's an important thing to remember, but it's no secret that science and politics collided so many times during this pandemic. what you hear sometimes from these scientists is influenced, i think, by that political pressure. that was clear at the time and is becoming increasingly clear in retrospect. john, it's just one of these things from a humanity standpoint, you're dealing with something that's unknown. there is no certainty around this. how do you behave in the time of uncer uncertainty? do you just save lives and then dial back that reaction later, or do you say, let's see if we can squeeze by here. maybe lives will be lost, but let's thread the needle here. it will be a fascinating and interesting retrospect to look back at the times in uncertainty

in the public health crisis. >> no doubt about it. let's look one year later, sanjay, at what we still don't know. we don't know long-term effects. does somebody get sick again once they get covid? what is the impact of these vaccines and what is the impact of these variants? >> these are still questions people are trying to answer. although, i will say again, i think all those things lead back to this idea that you don't want this virus. people tend to be binary. either you live or you die. to your first point on the screen, look, people who had this infection, even mild symptoms, have lingering symptoms that go on for months that are very debilitating. you don't want this virus. one of the things i want to point out about the variants, and i think this is good news that builds on what you're saying, john. if we can talk about south africa for a second, south africa has one of the concerning variants that people are talking

about, b.1.1.7. they first detected it in october of 2020, a huge surge. now it's come way, way down. less than 1% of the country, john, has been vaccinated. that steep decline is not because of vaccines, that is another reminder, even with one of these concerning variants, that basic public health measures work. so we want the vaccine, we want science to rescue us, but south africa should remind us of what is possible even without those vaccines. >> and so -- it's an excellent point about the variants, and one of the questions now is how quickly do we get the vaccine rollout here in the united states? three are approved right now, pfizer, moderna both two-shot vaccines. johnson & johnson, they're trying to ramp up the one-shot vaccine. that's good, three weapons, if you will, in the fight out there. sanjay, this is where we are today. 19% of the population has been partially vaccinated, 10% fully vaccinated.

so progress, but -- >> that's exactly right. 10% of the country fully vaccinated. that means 990% of the country s not. it's simple when you look at guidance coming out of the kcdc. for those 10%, we're looking at how life can be different for them. they can do outdoor things without masks on, see people who are vaccinated. how much monbility should we hae if half the country isn't protected, still? it's a tough question, and i think people want to balance this with this ernest desire, most americans, to get back to some sense of normalcy. john, i'm optimistic. i got to tell you. i tried to keep it real, frankly, over the last year, and that's been tough. people don't like to hear bad

news. but i'm optimistic, because every couple weeks, we'll increase by another 10%, 30% by the end of march. going into summer we'll have a lot of people vaccinated and we'll get to that herd immunity. but even along the way, we're going to have these wins where all of a sudden people are going to be able to do things they hadn't done in a year. >> along the way, the vaccination challenge, number one is supply and they're trying to ramp up supplies as much as possible, as quickly as possible. number two is access. can you get it to people where they live, especially in rural communities or disadvantaged communities. and there is skepticism, some wondering if the government got it right? another one is this effort by the former president. watch. >> we want this virus to end as soon as possible. >> so we urge you to get the vaccine when it's available to you. >> so roll up your sleeve and do your part.

>> this is our shot. >> how important is that? >> i think it's really important. people are fearful or hesitant about this vaccine for many reasons. it's difficult to lump is in one category. to the extent we know that hesitancy goes down as more and more people get vaccinated, as others see people get vaccinated, including our leaders. we know historically that makes a difference. but you're right, while we are getting much better at vaccinating the elderly, 30% of those 60 and older have now been fully vaccinated, 16% have received at least one vaccine. they're still way behind. i think it's 67%, roughly, the vaccines are going to white communities, and it's closer to 6% or 7%, i believe, going to black americans, for example. so that's a huge problem because we know that this pandemic has been uneven in terms of the impact it's had on our society. it's got to change.

john, i think it will. i really do. we're starting to see that hesitancy go down. there probably will be a significant number of people that their minds will never be changed. that's unfortunate, but i think if you start to get to 70%, 80% of the country vaccinated, that will have that herd immunity, that more blanket protective effect. >> john, thank you on this one-year anniversary of the pandemic, but helping our viewers get through. thank you. i can't tell you thanks enough. up next, an immediate test for what's next in the biden agenda as the house acts today on gun legislation, but does it have any chance of getting through the senate? you have luvs ready for that pro-level leak protection. luvs. parent like a pro. (announcer) truecar can help you find the right car and a great price, because truecar knows what people in your area have paid for the car you want and can show you what's a high price,

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today an immediate "what's next" test for the biden administration. new gun measures that expand background checks. this is just one of the things on the biden to-do list. that also includes immigration reform, infrastructure and restoring the violence against women act. how this fares in the senate is a giant question. back with me to discuss, cnn's dana bash and seung moon kim with the "washington post." one of the democrats speaking in favor of expanding background checks. i know this issue all too personally.

lucy mcbath who lost a son to gun violence. >> as a mother, we thank you. there are so many of us that have lost our loved ones that have been waiting and waiting and waiting, and today we have the real possibility to make a difference and save lives. >> the second legislation, the second bill, both have now cleared the house and they go over to the senate. you see that passion, you see that emotion. whatever your views on guns, that is real and it is genuine beyond belief. chuck schumer, the majority leader in the senate, says, in a republican senate, it wouldn't even come to the floor. chuck schumer said, you know what? let's have votes. >> the legislative graveyard is over. it will be on the floor of the senate and we'll see where everybody stands. no more thoughts and prayers. a vote is what we need.

>> how much of a difference does that posture make, seung moon kim, if he says, let's have votes. yay or nay, votes go up or down. >> senate minority leader would just ignore this if it came over to the house, but fortunately for democrats, it may all kind of end up with the same result, because hr-8, the background legislation that has the house this morning that chuck schumer has vowed to put up for a floor vote, will probably just fail on a vote, and that brings into focus the question of the filibuster. it actually brings in two questions. what is president biden willing to do on his own absent legislation? i'm told the white house is exploring presidential actions

on guns, although that does seem several weeks off at this point, and also what is the threshold of the filibuster when you start to see these bills, democratic priorities. it's not just guns. it's potentially infrastructure. it's almost certainly immigration and voting rights, and a lot of other priorities that democrats want to take action on, certainly before the 2022 midterms. so it's really all going to build up to some sort of filibuster confrontation standoff at some point. but the problem for the democratic party right now is that there's not unity among several democrats, even with president biden himself on what exactly to do. so for now -- the only thing chuck schumer can really do is put up these bills for a vote and see where the votes are. >> pull up a vote and see where the votes are and seung moon kim raises a couple issues,

filibuster there, where to we go with infrastructure. mcconnell on leading the senate, it's a little like being a groundskeeper at a cemetary. everybody is under you but nobody is listening. we'll see if chuck schumer has the same approach as this comes on. angus king, independent senator from maine. at some point we ever have to pr things. everything has to be paid for. it's a question of are we going to pay or do our kids pay? chuck schumer has to navigate. nothing is easy when it's 50-50. >> that's exactly right. it's interesting that you brought up infrastructure because that's always the go-to of every republican or democrat you talk to, asking, when is this bipartisanship actually going to happen, and the answer is infrastructure, because the devil is always in the details,

always, especially with infrastructure. like you said, it's not just who is going to pay for it, but will it be largely public? is it going to be public/private partnership? are you going to give tax credits to businesses? those are all discussions that tend to fall along idealogical lines. >> on the subject of discussion, this is "high school musical" in the senate version. you have to try to get along. chuck schumer, the majority leader, susan collins, one of the key republican senators who of often wants to work on a bipartisan basis, she's mad because they wanted to unseat her. >> we made a big mistake in 2010. susan collins was part of that mistake. we cut back on the stimulus dramatically and we stayed in recession for five years. >> i thought leader schumer's comments were bizarre. i just hope senator schumer does

not continue to be an obstacle to bipartisanship. >> i have long operated of the opinion that life is the fifth grade, and watch this play out on lots of episodes. but when the vote is 50-50, dana, this can be critical. >> and this is a fascinating divide, because first of all, it goes back over a decade when chuck schumer was head of the dcc, meaning he was in charge of electing democrats to the senate, and he thought they could finally beat the moderate republican from maine, put up lots of money, put up a good candidate, didn't do it. then fast-forward to this past election. susan collins was extremely upset that the superpac who is run by chuck schumer ransom ads that were attacking her husband and other things. so all of that history is very toxic and very bitter.

and you combine that with chuck schumer's point of view which is frustration about the fact that he doesn't feel like he can, on the big things, always get a bipartisan deal with someone like susan collins who is from a blue state, and that's where you have this -- susan collins, i'm told, john, has spoken on the phone four times to the democratic president, joe biden. she has spoken to chuck schumer not at all since this new administration took over. >> life is the fifth grade. we'll see if this works out. dana bash, seung moon kim, thankful for your insight. they're struggling to find proper shelter for the migrant children.

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very important scheduling update from the white house. next hour the president will sign into law a very big covid relief bill. the white house said the president would sign it tomorrow, now, though, making plans to sign it this afternoon before his prime time address to the american people tonight. and other new numbers of a significant challenge facing the biden administration. the number of migrant children crossing the u.s. border is surging. they had double yesterday what they were averaging a week ago. the numbers so overwhelming the biden administration now considering using a nasa site in northern california as a temporary housing facility for unaccompanied minor children. let's get the latest on this from priscilla alvarez. priscilla? >> reporter: what these numbers

continue to tell us is the number of unaccompanied children crossing the u.s.-mexico border is far exceeding shelter availability. we are now learning there are more than 3,700 unaccompanied children in border control custody. that is already more than it was earlier this week and exceeds levels that we saw during the 2019 border crisis. these are facilities that are meant for adults. they're not designed to care for children, but this is where the kids have to stay until they can transfer them to a shelter. that's where the core of the problem is, john. there is an increasing number of children crossing the border and they are not prepared to take them on and they're scrambling to find a place for them. >> thank you for that. we'll stay on top of this. coming up next, a new mask war in texas. dark spots don't stand a chance. see what i mean? neutrogena®

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topping our political radar today, the governor of texas threatening to sue austin if they don't end their mask mandate enforcement. austin says they're keeping their restrictions in place for now. the governor tells the ag, see you in court.

>> the attorney general does not have the ability to stop a local health authority from promulgating rules that are enf enforcible under our state law. >> the new attorney general, merrick garland, speaking to members of the justice department. and general garland making clear he intends for this to be a very different justice department than what we saw in the previous administration. >> there will not be one rule for democrats and another for republicans, one rule for friends and another for foes. together we will show the american people by word and deed that the department of justice pursues equal justice and adheres to the rule of law. >> it's been a slow process, but as you can see, two-thirds of president biden's cabinet have now been confirmed. 16 of his 23 nominees now on the job. up next for us, new audio of a phone call involving then-president trump and an

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new evidence today of former president trump, president at the time, in his own words pushing georgia's officials to change the state's election results. we already knew about that finding the votes call to the georgia secretary of state. now another call, this one to a top elections investigator asking her to find proof he won

and repeatedly suggesting she focus on the county that includes atlanta to find what trump calls "the right answer." >> if you can get to fulton, you'll find things that will be unbelievable. fulton is the motherlode, as the saying goes. when the answer comes out, you'll be praised. >> sierra joins us with more. sierra, it's repulsive to listen to, and this is now an investigation. >> reporter: as you pointed out, this was another call from before when he called the secretary of state of georgia. one of them you pointed out is a criminal investigation in the fulton county district

attorney's office, and the state office is calling these both calls of interest in those investigations. the state investigation office in georgia is basically saying, look, this call says we did everything by the book. we investigated allegations of fraud, we upheld the law and we provided an accurate count in georgia which, of course, showed that joe biden won the state. a spokesperson for former president trump didn't respond, but i think this gives you an indication of what prosecutors in that criminal investigation are going to be looking into. they're going to be looking into whether there was a sustained effort and who else may have helped former president trump in this effort to try to get the result he wanted in the georgia election. of course, this is just another piece of evidence for investigators. >> another piece of evidence, and obviously he calls this investigator as she is looking into the audit, if you will. he doesn't get the results he wants there, calls the secretary of state, doesn't get the results there. the secretary of state stands by, the count was fair, the count was honest.

>> absolutely. it didn't make many republicans in the state of georgia very popular, but they stuck with it and now we see these tapes emerge. join us tonight. i'll be back for the president's speech tonight in our live coverage of that. don't go anywhere. very busy day. brianna keilar picks up our coverage right now. have a great day. hello, i'm brianna keilar and i want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. one year ago tonight, tom hanks revealed he had coronavirus. the nba shut down games after an outbreak and americans began to realize that this pandemic could affect their lives. now tonight joe biden will assess where the country has been and where it's going as america reflects on the human economic losses in the past year. one of his largest rescue packages ever ha