♪ ♪ this sunday, vaccinating america. >> on a national level, it's just -- it's a disaster. >> vaccines in short supply. >> it will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one. >> and with new, more dangerous strains hitting the u.s. -- >> this virus is mutating and it's mutating fairly quickly. >> -- can the vaccine stay ahead of the virus? >> i'm telling you the darkest of the darkest days are yet ahead. >> and are we fighting the virus the right way? my guest this morning, epidemiologist dr. michael osterholm. president biden struggling to

get republican support for his $1.9 trillion package. >> covid relief has to pass. no ifs, ands or i'll talk to p biden's chief economic adviser, brian deese. less than a month after the capitol insurrection, more republicans decide to stand by their man. >> democrats are wasting the nation's time on a partisan vendetta against a man no longer in office. >> -- than to oppose him? >> what we saw, incitement to insurrection is an impeachable offense. if not, what is? >> i'll talk to adam kinzinger, one of only ten house republicans who voted to impeach about his drive to return the party to more traditional values. what should republicans do about marjorie taylor green, the qanon supporting congresswoman who has many members concerned about their own safety. joining me, eddie glaude jr. of princeton university, amy many

walter from the cook political report, republican strategist al card nis and ashleigh "the washington post." welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. we are covering a number of big stories today, including the growing divide inside the republican party and president biden's efforts to try to win some bipartisan support for his covid relief package. we'll begin with the pandemic itself. the good news is cases are plateauing. the bad news is, platoing at an extremely high level of transmission. johnson & johnson coming online to join pfizer and moderna. months of waiting before every american who wants a vaccine shot can get one. new strains of the virus from the uk, south africa and brazil have been identified here in the

united states. the south african one in particular appears to be more resistant to some of the vaccines out there. this "new york times" map shows the extent of this problem. basically we all a virus. joining me now is dr. michael minnesota. welcome back to "meet the press." earlier this week, you and i spoke about this current race against these mutant strains and about the vaccine distribution. you seem to -- you said something that really stuck with me. so i want to show this screen. this is the efficacy rate of the first doses of the vaccines, moderna at 80%, johnson & johnson 72%, pfizer at 52%. again, all the first dose efficacy rates. do you believe we are now at a point where we may have t an audible here on how we distribute the vaccine?

>> well, first of all, let me just say that i have been one of those saying we need to make sure we have both first and second doses and follow the fda approval process. but let me say right now we have to call an audible. i think it's no doubt about it. the fact is that the surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from england is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks. if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trenches tell us we will, we'll see something that we have not seen in this country. england is hospitalizing twice as many people as we are at our highest number. we know if we look at our first doses thatgher numbers than yout laid out by the time of the we still want to get two doses in everyone, but i think right now in advance of this surge, we need to get as many one doses and as many people over 65 as we possibly can to reduce a serious illness and

deaths that are going to occur over the weeks ahead. >> if this decision -- if the biden administration agrees with your call here, they basically have to make this decision right now. the second dose appointments -- >> they do -- >> the second dose appointments have already begun or are beginning, so they have to do this right now. do you think the -- as you know -- everybody is nervous because there's no perfect solution here. do you think they're ready to do this, or do you think they're going to get cold feet? >> i think it's going to be tough. imagine where we're at, chuck. you and i are sitting on the beach, 70 degrees, perfectly blue skies, gentle breeze. i see that hurricane category 5 offshore. telling people to evacuate in blue skies days, it's going to be hard. i can tell you the hurricane is coming. we have to understand that because of this surge, we have to call an audible.

again, we're not going to deny anybody their second dose. the data shows the longer you wait, the better you may do with your vaccine. we do know, if we get a number of first doses in people, particularly 65 years of age and older, we can really do a lot to reduce the number of serious illnesses and deaths in the next big surge which is combing. >> if we don't do this -- let me paint for you one nightmare scenario that i'm fearing which is, by the time that some of us get to the place in line where we're going to get a vaccine, that the vaccine available to me won't be able to deal with the strain that is circulating around this country. how likely could we be in that scenario, say, by the start of summer? >> well, i'm not sure that's the scenario i'm most worried about. i think the b.1.1.7 or the uk strain is going to become the dominant strange. fortunately that has not shown its ability to evade protection from the vaccine, but its

ability to cause many more infections and much more serious illness is there. i think right now that's the priority i would look at. if you look at the data on the other variants, we're very concerned about the ones from south africa and brazil that may lead to the evasion of immune protection, from either natural disease or vaccine. if you look at the vaccine trials in south africa, for example, what was missed in the j and j trial, no one who had the variant infection who was vaccinated died. so it may actually an at the time attenuate the seriousconce is going to be the search -- 120,000 to 130,000 people hostized at one point, we saw our health care system literally on the edge of not being able to provide care. imagine if we have what has happened in england, twice as many of those cases. that's what we have to prepare for now. the other thing we have to do is just prepare people.

we're all loosening up right now. we see the case numbers coming down. we all want to end our pandemic fatigue and anger, those that don't believe the pandemic is ill. we have to turn that ship around, too. we're really good in this country of pumping the brakes after we wrap the car around the treat tree. what we have to do is anticipate this and understand we're going to have to change direction. >> how blind do you feel right now to the various strains that might be circulating? i've seen some epidemiologists say we don't know what we don't know because we've done such a poor job of surveillance. i know there's fears that we think there's a south african strain and brazil strain. people are worried about a chicago strain and a los angeles strange. how worried are you about what we don't know and can't see right now? >> i'm very concerned about that. i think the good news is that i actually see action being taken with this new administration, unlike we've seen before. so there really are efforts

right now to, in fact, get us that kind of surveillance system in place as quickly as possible. frankly, we need congress to pass the president's relief act because that will help us, also, do more of this kind of work. right now we're flying blind. i'm more optimistic we'll have the data. as you have seen, these viruses have come up quickly and caused us more and more surprises and just expect the unexpected in the days ahead. >> if you can't have a k 95 mask or n95 mask, would you double mask? i know you're a little concerned about some of the double masking ideas. what do you do if you don't have a k95 mask to use? >> when we talk about double masking, what we're really talking about is trying to prevent the virus of being excreted by me into the air or me inhaling the virus from someone else in the air. it's both a function of face fit and face filtration. think about your swim goggles.

when is any of them leak at the lenses? they leak at the fit. what we or concerned about many of these cloth face coverings, if you add another mask, you may make it tougher for the air to move through the two-cloth area. at that point it causes more air to actually leak around the sides which actually enhances your ability to get infected. i'm not saying that some couldn't be used in a better way. at the same time, there are many that may do more harm. let me say right now one thing that's really to me very important, we see up to 25% of people who wear it under their nose. that's like fixing three of the five doors in your submarine. we have to get people to start using these right. that would help tremendously. >> if you've watched any football games in particular, a lot of these coaches are the biggest ones who forget to put mask over their nose.

dr. michael osterholm, thank you for coming on and sharing your expertise with us. >> thank you. let's turn to the split inside the republican party and the grip democrat still has on the gop. most viewers are old enough to remember kevin mccarthy, mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham all distancing themselves from the former president, only to find that distance -- maybe it's mr. trump's popularity with republican voters, makes the heart grow fonder. it's made president biden's unit more difficult. republicans have decided it's in their interest to stick with him for now if they want the majority of republican voters to stick with them. >> i support passing covid relief with support from republicans if we can get it. but the covid relief has to pass. there's no ifs, ands or buts. >> president biden claiming he wants to win support from republicans. is threatening to move a covid

relief package through congress with special budget rules that require a simple majority. >> he called me this week. i gave him my view that i think it's important that it be bipartisan. >> retiring senator rob portman telling "the washington post" taking the go-it-alone approach sets the wrong tone right off the bat. >> to what degree can president biden work with a republican party that has remade itself in the image of donald trump. republican leaders have whip-sawed from criticizing him just weeks ago. >> the president bears responsibility for wednesday's attack on wednesday by mob rioters. >> to courting his support. >> everybody across this country has some responsibility. >> on thursday kevin mccarthy made a pilgrimage to fences. then there's senator lindsey graham. fou he's leading the impeachment defense. >> there's no way in hell we'll retake the house and the senate

without president trump's help. >> mitch mcconnell was pleased by the impeachment effort. >> the mob was fed lies. they were provoked by the president and other powerful people. >> but on tuesday, mcconnell and 44 other republicans voted to toss out the impeachment case as unconstitutional. now mr. trump is supporting primary challenges to house republicans who voted for impeachment like liz cheney. trump ally matt gates at a rally in cheney's own district. >> you can send a representative who actually rents you and you can send liz cheney home. >> republicans so far have been slow to criticize congresswoman marjorie taylor green who has embraced qanon conspiracy theories. she's been under fire after a 2018 video surfaced in which she selected 9/11 is a hoax.

>> i'm not going to dive into the 9/11 conspiracy. >> saying the sandy hook shooting was a hoax. >> i carry a gun for protection more myself. you are using your lobby and the money behind it to try to take away my second amendment rights. >> indicating support for calls to execute prominent democrats, including house speaker nancy pelosi. >> the enemy is within the house of representatives. >> joining me is the director of president biden's economic council, brian deese. welcome to "meet the press." let me start with this. with congressional democrats preparing the budget reconciliation process -- my apologies for the washington speak there, a way to pass your covid relief bill with 50 votes, a simple majority, why shouldn't republicans who did want to work with you guys look at that as a

way of saying, oh, they're not serious about negotiating in a bipartisan basis. they already have their plan to go it alone. we don't really have much say here. why should republicans believe there's still room to negotiate? >> because we are in a unique moment of economic crisis, and it requires unique response for everybody to come together. we saw that the economy last year fell more than any year since the demobilization after world war ii. more than a million americans filed claims for unemployment insurance last week. 30 million americans said they didn't have enough food to put on the table this week. this is a unique crisis. it's a unique health crisis, a unique economic crisis. and it's one that calls on all of us to work together with the speed that we need to put a comprehensive response in place. so i think there's a lot of reason for everybody to work

together. that's what the american people are looking for and expecting. that's certainly how the president is approaching this. >> there's -- just before you and i got started in this interview, a group of ten republicans put out a letter. you've probably just been alerted to it yourself. essentially ten republicans which is what you would need to avoid a filibuster and do this without having to use a parliamentary maneuver, they are going to unveil their framework for a covid relief plan tomorrow and they're requesting a meeting with president biden. your reaction. >> we've been engaging with members of congress from both parties and both houses over the course of the last week or two. we'll continue to do that as we go forward. the president has said repeatedly he is open to ideas wherever they may come, that we could improve upon the approach to actually tackling this crisis. what he's uncompromising about is the need to move with speed on a comprehensive approach here. we have a virus crisis. we have an economic crisis. we have to get shots in people's

arms. we have to get the schools reopened so parents can go back to work, and we need to provide direct relief to families and businesses across the country who are really struggling. we need to act comprehensively and with speed. we'll continue to have conversations as we go forward. >> why can't you do both? there was this idea proposed, and white house press secretary jen psaki seemed to shoot it down. let me ask about it here. you're preparing the ground work for budget reconciliation. you know there is parts of your $2 trillion plan that does have bipartisan support. maybe basically the money for vaccinations, the direct checks with some means testing. there's probably a trillion dollar deal you could do with 60 votes. why not do that and then get the rest of it through budget reconciliation since the timing wouldn't -- i don't think it would have a timing problem here, would it? >> we have a real urgency to act

and to act comprehensively. we're losing -- we're seeing a million people added to the unemployment insurance rolls each week. one thing we've learned over the past 11 months is a piecemeal approach where we try to tackle one element of this and wait and see on the rest, is not a recipe for success. we need to move forward comprehensively and move forward with speed. in that context, there's plenty of room for making modifications including people's ideas. but we do need to act comprehensively here. >> i'm going to put up some figures here. this is all the covid relief bills that have passed since the start of this pandemic. it's up on korean here. the first one, the $2 trillion one was in mid march. $900 billion from before. you're proposing another $2 trillion here. when you add it all up we're looking at $5.5 trillion in one calendar yea march. how much more do you think the

government is going to have to pump in after you pass your covid relief bill? >> the goal in putting together the american rescue plan here was to look at what is it going to take to finally have a comprehensive approach to getting us to the other side of this crisis. so if you look at the elements of that plan, be it the investment in getting schools reopened or the investment in a comprehensive vaccine distribution strategy to actually get shots in people's arms, this is our assessment of what we will need to get to the other side of this here. we think if we act now and make these investments, these are real investments. but the real question we have to focus on is what is the cost of not acting now? we've seen studies -- the brookings institution this week said if we don't act, growth could be 4% less. moodies projected 4 million fewer jobs if we don't act. we have to do big things here

because this is an unprecedented crisis. the cause of failing to do this or delaying for another month or period of time, outweighs the cost of taking this action. >> i want to ask you a question about the gamestop situation here. traders that were basically stepped on a little bit here by robin hood and what happened in the immediate aftermath, or is the larger problem the idea that we've legalized gambling in the stock market and stock options are something that probably never should have been legal? >> i can tell you the sec is focussed on understanding what happened here. their focus is on protecting retail investors and the integrity of the market. there is a bigger issue here, which is that what's happening on wall street does not reflect the lived experience for most american families. most american families today are worried about are they going to have a job a couple months from now. or if they've lost a job through

no fault of their own, how are they going to put foote footed on their table today. they're looking in their local communities asking are these businesses going to survive. that's the real economic challenge we have, the real chick crisis. we need to focus on steps to help those people, those communities and help bring economic support, economic security to that part of the economy. >> it sounds like you think short selling is bad for the economy. is that something that should be legal? >> we're going to look at those issues and certainly understand fully this particular episode, and the broader questions there. our immediate focus here is on taking the action we need to put a floor under this economic crisis. again, a million people a week are filing for new unemployment insurance claims. the urgency here is to take action to get them direct relief and to get this pandemic under control. >> brian deese, chief economist for president biden. ap

sharing your views with us. thank you, sir. >> happy to do it. when we come back, it's his party, and you can cry if you want tochlt i'm going to talk to want tochlt i'm going to talk to republican congressman adam ♪♪ this is what community looks like. ♪♪ caring for each other, ♪♪ protecting each other. ♪♪ and as the covid vaccine rolls out, we'll be ready to administer it. ♪♪ ♪ ♪ this is my body of proof. proof of less joint pain and clearer skin. proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis... ...with humira. humira targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms.

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♪ you never been in better hands. allstate. click or call for a quote today. welcome back. the loneliest place in american politics these days might be what used to be called the so-called republican straebment. the ten republican house members who voted to impeach president trump have become targets in their own parties with four already censured by state and county organizations and others facing challenges. adam kinzinger is going on offense. he's releasing a video today kick off what he's calling country first, his effort to return the party to its traditional conservative principles. >> republicans must say enough is enough. it's time to unplug the outrage

machine, reject the politics of personality and cast aside the conspiracy theories and the rage. >> congressman kinzinger joins me now.ally booked you, you weren't going to be alone in this segment. you were going to be joined by a couple other folks who also voted to impeach on the republican side of the aisle. explain how hard this is to do, to be as public facing as you are. you've been taking arrows a little longer than the rest. i think you've got a thicker armor these days. explain this difficult that some of your colleagues are in. >> it's really difficult. all of a sudden, imagine everybody that supported you, or so it seems that way, your friends, your family, has turned against you. they think you're selling out. i've gotten a certified letter twice from the same people disowning me and claiming i'm possessed by the devil. but the reality is this.

this is a time to choose. it's a time to choose what we're going to be in. my goal in launching countryfirst.com is just to say, look, let's take a look at the last four years. how far we've come in a bad way. how backwards looking we are, how much we peddle darkness and division. that's not the party i signed up for. yes, it's a tough position to be in, but it's really invigoraing to remember what you're standing for and talk about putting the country over party. >> this is going to be a lonely effort for a while, i imagine. there are some folks that are wondering is the republican party tied to donald trump, can that party survive? >> so i think that's the question. i was disappointed over the last few weeks to see what seemed like the republican party waking up and then falling asleep again and saying what matters is if we can win in two years and we

don't want to tick off the base. all we're doing is saying what does it take to get re-elected. it's january of a new term. we have to remind people, the kid born in the inner city should have the same opportunity as the kid born in the richest suburb. that's what we're standing for. this is an opportunity for folks to join that believe putting the country over party. >> i want to put up a photo that was incredibly striking. kevin mccarthy, the house republican leader with the former president at mar-a-lago. what was amazing to me, congressman kinzinger. it was the former president wanting to rush that photo out. an incredible moment of weakness. he was worried nobody wanted to be with him. here is kevin mccarthy saying no, no, no, we wanted to be with you and he rushed it out. is it self-reenforcing, the party has now retied itself to donald trump? >> i think your point about that picture is important. it shows that the former

president is desperate to continue to look like he's leading the party, and the problem is until we push back and say this is not a trump-first party, this is a country-first party. in some cases you may support donald trump in that effort. in my case, i believe that's a whole new movement. until we all kind of stand up and say that, we're going to be kind of chasing our tail here in this situation. that's why i launched countryfirst.com. it's a landing place for people to go through. there are a lot of folks that have texted me, called me, written that say thank you for saying something because nobody else has been. >> we've seen that there is -- already i brought up the movements about censure. we saw it in south carolina, congressman rice. i know the illinois republican party is apparently preparing to do it to you. the ironry of the republican party participating in cancel culture. i'm curious, is there just no room for disagreement in the republican party when it comes

to donald trump? this is to me a form of cancel culture, is it not? >> it is totally. if you look at matt gaetz going to wyoming because a tough woman has an independent view and he doesn't want to explain why he voted for impeachment. that's totally gop cancel culture. i think what a significant part of the base wants, we can have a diverse opinion. peter meyer from michigan, good friend of mine. he and i are on other ends of the spectrum on things like foreign policy but i respect his view. that's what the republican party needs to be, the optimistic party in the future. we need to quit being the party that supports an insurrection, a dead police officer and other dead americans on the capitol. there's no equivalency to that. we have to run from that as fast as we can. >> i want to ask you something about something democratic congressman dan kildee said to politico this week. he said this, i have a hard time interacting with those members now, especially with those i had

a close relationship with. i look at them differently now. they're smaller people to me now. you have a lot of democrats saying, look, i'm not working across the aisle right now when you have this party defending the marjorie taylor greens of the world or wanting to have amnesia about january 6th. yet we'll be talking about the lecturing of the democrats, not being bipartisan enough. do you blame them? >> that's the point. i think the republican party has lost its moral authority in a lot of areas. it doesn't mean we don't need to fight back and defend conservative principles. when i ask what is a conservative principle, how many think that's things just like build the wall and charge the capitol and have an insurrection. that's what country first is all about, going back to saying here is what conservative principles are. i will sit here and defend conservative principles. it's hard to have seen an insurrection three weeks ago, to

say that's no big deal and then to lecture democrats on something. we've lost our moral ugt authority and we need to regain it as a party. >> if you had an opportunity of a vote to evict marjorie taylor green from congress, would you vote to evict her? >> i'd certainly vote her off committee. i think a district has every right to put who we want there. we have every right to take a stand and say you don't get a committee. we definitely need to do that. >> if you could talk to a senate republican right now who thinks former president trump's behavior was terrible, if he were in office, he might vote to convict, but they don't know, what would be your case to those groups of senators who are open to punishment, but right now want to talk themselves out of it with a process argument? >> that's the thing. everybody american history. ten of us -- i wish it was more. ten of us in the house took the

tough vote because we know history is going to ring with what happened and record that. what we can't say, chuck, is in the last two months of a president, you can do whatever you want including insight a mob to insurrection because it's just too late in the process to convict you. i think it's important to convict, to send a message and say people like donald trump can never hold that office again and re-establish from a republican perspective, an optimistic hopeful future that has been missing in the dialogue for a number of years. >> congressman adam kinzinger, republican from illinois, represents areas fun to my family including bloomington and morris, thanks for coming on and sharing your views. >> you bet. see you. when we come with a bang, energy and change came to every part of our universe. seismic or small, it continues. change is all around us.

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♪♪ sfx: [sounds of fedex planes and vehicles engines] ♪♪ sfx: [sounds of children laughing and running, life moving forward] welcome back. eddie glaude junior of princeton university, al cardenas from the institute of politics at florida state university and ashley parker, the white house bureau chief from "the washington post." ashley, i want to start with the pandemic, first on the vaccine

issue itself. then we'll move to covid relief. you heard dr. osterholm there. we've got a lot of epidemiologists arguing that they need to call an audible with vaccine distribution. how ready is this biden team to do something like that? >> well, around the magnitude of the crisis they inherited. their view is we need to follow, as dr. osterholm said, what their scientists are recommending which is the two-dose vaccine regimen for pfizer and moderna that recommend that. they also believe they can do both simultaneously. they're no longer holding back vaccines behind two to three-day surplus, the stockpile as we originally conceived of it does not existed because they believe they can increase distribution and production to the point where they can send out all of those vaccines and still have enough for people to get their

second doses. they've already increased it by 16%. that said, these are big promises, and we're going to have to see if they meet them. as of now, they've been able to give the governors the confidence, they know the supply they're going to get for three weeks. that's an improvement, but the governors want to see much more in order to be able to really plan where they send those vaccines and how they get them into people's arms. >> amy, this is a real dilemma for this administration. at the end of the day, whatever decision they make isn't going to be a perfect decision. there is going to be ways to criticize whether they stick to the protocol, whether they delay a second dose. how ever you look at it, there's going to be criticism here which may make them taking an action, may paralyze them. do you think they'll be paralyzed? or do you think they'll be aggressive? >> well, i don't know, chuck. i think the thing about having and especially one that has been with us for over a year, it does

tend to get you to move. maybe it's the wrong decision that you make. but it does inspire you to actually make that decision. i think by the time we get to the end of the summer, americans are going to have a pretty good sense about how trusting they are in this government, in this new administration, to make this actually work. the president has actually said himself he expects by the end of the summer, we're going to have 300 million doses that have been sent out. all of us who are parents will be looking forward to a fall school year, looking forward to summertime and having summer vacations. i think that's the point in which americans say, okay, you've either lived up to it or we're pretty disappointed. >> that might be a fair barometer there. al and eddie, i want to talk about the issue of trying to go it alone versus bipartisan ship. what will be remembered a year from now, al, if they go it alone, that they got the bill passed or they didn't do it in a

bipartisan manner? >> well, what's going to be looked at next year is have we achieved our goals? have we lowered the percentage of deaths? have we lowered the percentage of people who contract covid from being hospitalized? have we improved our treatments? that's what i think will be judged more than anything else, the bottom line. it's a difficult time to be bipartisan. i don't understand why chuck schumer decided to go on with impeachment now next week. i think it would have been wiser to do it 30 days from now and work on trying to develop a consensus. i agree with those ten senators. they should have been invited to the white house by now, as well as the four leaders of the congress. if you want to talk about bipartisanship, you've got to begin a dialogue on day one. i think the white house is a little remiss in doing that. i think they kind of pushed the gun to the republicans' head about bipartisanship. people are going to have a hard

time doing both. voting on impeachment and voting on bipartisanship simultaneously. >> eddie, i don't want to presume which side of this argument you're on, but basically a similar question. a year from now, are they going to look back and regret not pursuing a bipartisan strategy? we're 11 days in, and we're moving in another direction or is it really about results at the end of the day? eddie, i think you may be muted there. if we can quickly check that on your system there. amy, the penalty on bipartisanship versus getting results. >> i'm with al here. we love to talk in washington about process, but for voters the real issue is really production the day.

i don't know that not doing this in a bipartisan manner is something that is going to hurt democrats unless -- and you said this in the beginning, chuck -- unless we get to the end of the year and, guess what, things haven't gotten better. then it makes it easier to remember, well, see, democrats spent so much time pushing their own legislation, they didn't bring us in and now things haven't gotten better. >> ashley, it was ten republican senators. that's basically -- that's the minimum they need. there aren't more than that. it feels as if it really is a delegate dance if they want to do this with 60 votes. >> that's right. the more glass-half-full version, with ten senators signing that letter, they're trying to send a clear signal, look, if you work with us, you can get to that 60-vote threshold. as you said, you can just barely get to the 60-vote threshold. it is a real question of how much president biden wants to fulfill his promise of unity,

which, to be clear, isn't quite bipartisanship, or based on a sense that not just the past year, but going back to president obama, this sense that the parties may be so far apart, that if you care about is results, and that's what they care about in covid, his presidency will rise and fall on this, you need to get this package passed by any means necessary. if it doesn't have as many republicans as you'd like, so be it. >> al, i look at that list of ten republicans, and there's not an obvious one of those ten that sort of feels like they speak for a majority of the party. is that a problem? does that make negotiating harder? >> look, i think the national leadership in congress and the national leadership and state leadership of the party have decided they're not going to tame the beast. they're going to feed the beast. that means having donald trump in the middle of it all and

gambling doing well in 2022. i don't know that you're going to get a lot more republicans to be bipartisan. joe biden thinks and the administration think a 7 million vote majority gave them a mandate. republicans are saying, well, i thought donald trump was an outlier because we actually did better than you nationally. i think both parties look at it differently. i think joe biden is committed to getting resulting. i think a lot of republicans are holding back. so we'll see where it goes. bipartisanship is not going to be easy. these ten senators are actually heroes. >> all right. eddie, we're going to fix this audio issue during this break. i promise. i promise. up next, the econic you could take your ulcerative colitis treatment in a different direction. talk to your doctor about xeljanz, a pill, not an injection or infusion, for adults with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis when a certain medicine did not help enough. xeljanz is the first and only fda-approved pill

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welcome back. more importantly, eddie, welcome back. i want to start with this chart here that our friends at the winston group put together. it's a comparison of how house republicans did in key battleground states in 2020 versus perez. in arizona, georgia, pennsylvania, wisconsin, the totality of house republican votes surpassed president trump. yes, in georgia there's some unopposed. but the larger po there. the house republicans didn't need donald trump if you look at it by the numbers, but they're acting as if they do. it is the weirdest outcome here. he's never been weaker and yet

they chose to make him stronger. >> yeah, chuck. it seems to me that part of what we have to do is to understand the way in which donald trump's -- being on the ballot increased the turnout and how that impacted down-ballot voters. there's a sense that the strategy of the trump campaign was to appeal to all of those white voters who had in some ways opted out of the system. so their attraction to him led to this increase among -- in their participation. it seems to me that what mccarthy and others are banking on is, how can they continue that trend of turning out those voters, those disaffected voters. and the only way they think they caninue that trend is by sadding up to donald trump. >> al cardenas, okay, that

worked in the state of florida. but the republicans have lost the white house. and the senate while donald trump was in charge of the party. it doesn't look logical to me to continue to attach yourself to this guy. >> yes, unless you're worried about being primariried. donald trump is not going to be helpful to the gop in a general election. donald trump instills fear in those people running for re-election that may face a primary opponent that donald trump supports, arkansas, for example. he's already come out and supported sarah huckabee against two qualified opponents. so the donald trump factor is not a factor to help you in a general election. the donald trump factor is motivated by fear to be defeated in a primary. that's what's going on in the gop, and, frankly, i'm sorry to see it. i'd like to see a little more

courage. >> eddie, i want to ask about marjorie taylor green. at what point is she almost the impediment herself on getting democrats and republicans to want to even work together? >> right now she's the poster child of the hypocrisy of the child. she's the poster child of what i've called the new redeemers, those republicans who seem to believe that the only way to secure power is by exploiting white grievance and white resentment and white hatred. it makes sense to me that you would think that democrats and the white house would believe that those who would embrace marjorie taylor green are engaging in bad faith. really quickly, chuck. you can't really engage people like her or even josh hawly or ted cruz, because there's an assumption that they don't agree to the background commitments that allow for disagreement,

that by their actions they are in some ways -- they've revealed that they might not be committed to democracy as such. so, yeah, it makes sense to me. >> amy, you heard adam kinzinger earlier. it's hard to look at it and say, boy, this is going to be successful. how should he measure success? it may not be to win a primary in 2022, but how would you measure success for his organization. >> that is a really good question because the reality, chuck -- we've been seeing this for the last 20 or so years, that the c basically been falling apart both on the republican side and the democratic side. there are very few centrists left, very few people who see the idea of compromise as something that is a good thing. that leaves you in this place

where you have people literally arguing on two very different platforms. that makes it very difficult to meet somewhere in the middle. i think what is going to be really interesting as we go forward is to see, not do republicans distance themselves from trump, but what happens to republicans in senate races? you remember in 2010 and 2012 when it was a different form r forum in the republican party, the tea party pushing these candidates forward, who ended up losing to more electable candidates and it cost the republicans the senate. >> ashley, we have an incentive structure problem that cory bliss, a republican strategist who worked for rob portman pointed out very colorfully. i won't read that part. he said if you want to spend all your time going on fox and be an -- expletive deleted -- there's never been a better place to serve. if you want to get stuff done,

there's never been a worse time to serve. it doesn't support those who want to get stuff done. >> that's exactly right. if you look at congress under donald trump, a lot of these members' time was not spent legislating. it was spent getting asked by reporters, did you see the tweet? did you have a response to the tweet? and members claiming i'm probably, no, they missed 47 tweets in the early morning hours from the president of the united states. and the new iteration is members having to deal with, do you denounce what your fellow cloegs said about qanon and these conspiracy theories. >> eddie, my apologies for the audio issues. that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. those on the east coast and the snow, please be safe out there. we'll be back next week because,

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