this sunday, impeachment and the republican party split. >> they don't want to talk about it, and i understand why. but we are going to talk about it. we're going to hold folks accountable. >> president trump's second impeachment trial begins this week with the gop torn between party republicans -- >> prnlt cults aren't conservative. conspiracy theories aren't conservative. >> and trump republicans. >> this is about -- what i believe is a psychological obsession with the president that they just can't let it go. >> this as marjorie taylor greene -- >> the party is his. it doesn't belong to anybody

else. >> is stripped of committee assignments with almost all republicans voting with her. >> denouncing qanon. i don't know if i said it right. i don't know what that is. >> i urge my colleagues to look at that image. my guests this morning, bill cassidy of louisiana and adam schiff, the democrats' lead manager from the last impeachment. plus, covid cases dropping. >> numbers have stabilized. we're holding our breath a little bit. hoping it stays that way. >> the lowest totals in months. when can we open schools and how much of a threat are those new variants. vaccine. that's exactly the direction we're going. >> i'll talk to dr. anthony fauci this morning. >> democrats decide to go it alone. >> i'm not cutting the size of the checks. they're going to be $1400, period. >> joining me, anna palmer,

founder of punch bowl neems. former rnc chairman michael steele. 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. there's a through line connecting how the republican party is handling three cases that will help define what this party stands for in the near term. liz cheney, the third ranking republican in the house, the qanon friendly freshman congresswoman from georgia, marjorie taylor greene and, of course, former president trump whose second impeachment trial begins this week. look no further than this. house republicans chose to vote on cheney's position in leadership because she voted to impeach president trump.

they took a pass on greene, even though she has supported calls for the execution of democrats and questioned if school shootings really happened. in other words, cheney's republican career was threatened more for rejecting dangerous conspiracy theories than greene's was for promoting them. the next litmus test will come at president trump's impeachment trial this week. all 50 senate democrats are almost certain to take what is a politically safe vote for them to convict. what will republicans do? house republicans voted by a huge margin to keep liz cheney as the number three in her party, but that was a secret ballot. senate republicans won't have that luxury. what would they do if they did? and what will they do when their voters are watching? >> the party is his. it doesn't belong to anybody else. >> republicans grappling with the party's identity face another test this week, as the senate hears arguments in donald trump's second impeachment trial. >> the resolution is adopted.

>> on thursday, just 11 house republicans voted to strip georgia's marjorie taylor greene of her committee assignments after she endorsed violence against top democrats, called school shootings a hoax. >> q is a patriot. there's never any evidence shown for a plane in the pentagon. >> greene says she regrets the comments but pointed fingers. >> will we allow the media, that is just as guilty as qanon of presenting truth and lies to divide us. >> house republican leader kevin mccarthy who condemned qanon months ago. >> there's no place for qanon in the republican party. >> claimed this week he doesn't know what it is. >> denouncing qanon, i don't know if i said it right. i don't know what it is. >> 61 republicans voted in a secret ballot to strip congresswoman liz cheney who supported impeachment of her leadership post. in the senate many republicans made it clear that they support

cheney and greene doesn't belong in the republican party. >> mitch mcconnell, quote, looney lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the republican party and our country. >> tom tillis tweeted, it's not -- >> how willing are they to challenge the half of the party that calls themselves trump republicans? >> this is about what i believe is a psychological obsession with the president. >> only five senate republicans voted against the effort to dismiss the trial. among them, nebraska's ben sasse who is facing possible censure by his state party. >> you're welcome to censure me again, but let's be clear why this is happening. it's because i still believe, as you used to, that politics isn't about the weird worship of one dude. >> house impeachment managers will argue former president trump primed and prepared his supporters for violence.

>> can you give a direct answer you will accept the outcome? >> do you commit to making sure there's a peaceful transfer of power after the election. >> we're going to have to see what happens. >> millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people, and we won't stand for it. >> then they'll say he whipped the crowd into a frenzy. >> if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. >> mr. trump's lawyers will argue a trial to remove a former president is unconstitutional and he was protected by the first amendment to express his belief that the election results were suspect. >> there simply is no jurisdiction. this country needs to move on. >> joining me now is senator bill cassidy of louisiana, one of ten republican senators who was at the white house this week that offered a smaller counterproposal on covid relief to president biden.

senaor cassidy, welcome back to "meet the press." i want to get to covid in a second. let's start with what is going to be the dominant story in your life next week, and that is this impeachment trial. you have said you have an open mind, you're going to be listening with an open mind. you also voted with 44 of your colleagues that some people believe was an attempt to dismiss this trial on constitutional grounds. how should the public interpret your vote, that vote? if you believe it's unconstitutional, how are you still open minded on conviction? >> i think it's important to understand the nature of that vote. it was called two hours before it. there was no debate, no explanation from either side. it was a vote in a moment of time, and so based on what senators do at that point and felt at that point, they then voted. but we will now have hopefully presentations from both sides, and we will consider the evidence as impartial jurors. >> you called right after the

insurrection, you called it sedition on the part of the people that broke into the capitol and did what they did. what do you view as the former president's role in it? >> we'll find that out. if you will, you're begging me to come to a conclusion before the hearing. i will listen to both sides and be objective. chuck, i'm sorry, but everybody wants you to commit to how you're going to vote. >> i understand. >> -- before you actually have the hearing. so hi' been trying to studiously avoid doing so. >> plenty of people interpreted that voted as saying, look, everybody knows what the outcome of this process is going to be. do you? >> do i what? >> know the outcome. do you think the outcome is

predetermined? >> everybody -- no, i don't. i think it depends upon that which is presented. let's face it. the house did an incredibly poor job of building a case before their impeachment vote. the president wasn't there. he wasn't allowed counsel. they didn't amass evidence. in five hours they judged z and, boom, he's impeached. i'm told under the watergate, the clinton impeachments, there are truck loads of information. here there was a video. there was no process. if it happened in the soviet union, you would have called it a show trial. i'm hoping -- number one, i'm sorry that's how the process went down. process is important when it comes to justice. there's no defensible process there. hopefully they'll build a case and bring it to us. again, process is important and we have to see the process played out and the president should have his counsel. that's the way the system works. >> i'm curious if you know

what's going on inside the republican party. do you feel the state parties who have done some censuring of people like liz cheney, the governor after arizona, doug ducey. do you feel they hangover the head of every one of you zbies and if you somehow don't look pro trump enough, this could fall on row? what do you view these censure threats as? >> there are censure threats, but they will not determine the outcome of the next election. our party right now is being trialed by fire. we win if we speak to the families sitting around the table, who see their jobs on the keystone pipeline canceled by the left, not because it lowers greenhouse emission, those will come up. but because it's symbolism and they're cannon fodder on the war on climate change. if we speak to them in a way

that speaks to their concerns, which by the way also lowers greenhouse gas emissions, we win the next election. that's where our focus should be. good policy is good politics. >> let me move to covid relief. you came in there with ten republicans. the bare number you need in order to avoid a filibuster, if you're joe biden and you come in here, why should he meet you guys more than halfway? is it incumbent on you to meet the democrats more than halfway, in fairness, considering the democrats control the senate and they won the election? >> first, let's say that we all made it clear we're willing to negotiate. it wasn't our end point. it was where we felt that, if you put things together, added them up, it was a sum which met the american people's needs. why can president biden believe it? he can believe it because when there was a republican president and republicans controlled the senate we passed different covid

relief packages on a bipartisan basis with overwhelming margins. we add shown that we would come to negotiate and come to answers. he should also do it because maybe it happens to be the right policy. maybe his policy might be counterproductive. i'm a doctor. i can tell you sometimes a cure is worse than a disease. if you read larry sommer's editorial in "the washington post" last week, it may be this $1.9 trillion will make things worse, and i think that has to be a concern. >> let me ask you this. do you think we went too small in '09 or too big in '09 with the stimulus? >> i think we got it goldilocks just right. the congressional budget office is saying because of the $900 billion on a bipartisan basis negotiated, there will be 3.8% gdp growth in 2021. when you have 3.8% gdp growth which is more than we've had for

quite some time coming out of a pandemic, you've done something right. i actually think we got it pretty good. >> your proposal, by the way, you were one of the senators fighting hard to get aid to state and local governments, one of the few republicans that have joined some democrats. this counterproposal of yours did not include state aid. you have said, look, it is hard for you to get -- my guess is you couldn't get ten republicans to join you if you did. if that's the issue, how do you come to a bill where you know you have the democrats on the side of state and local aid here? >> you've got to look at facts. the reason i said it would be difficult is some states have done better in 2020 than they did in 2019. california has had record tax revenue. my state has been hurt. let's just say it. but new york, for all of their complaining -- governor cuomo's complaining, has only had a 1.5% decrease in revenue. new jersey .5%, and nationwide i

think it's like .1% revenue declinationwide. it's hard to build a point of consensus when it's .1% revenue decline. if we're going to throw $350 billion at states when new york has had record increased revenue, some folks are going to scratch their head and say that's not justified. let's think of a different way to do it. >> are you still willing to work with the biden white house if this deal ends up being on a party line vote? will this make it harder for you to work with them or, you'll be there for the next one? >> you actually have two different questions in that. i am absolutely willing to work with anyone if it's good for the american people, because that's what we should all be about. we have conservative solutions, the more conservative values infuse public policy i think the better public policy is.

on the other hand, the administration is showing they don't care if they have to work with us. they're willing to push things through, even if someone like larry sommers says it's bone-headed policy, i'm paraphrasing, and even if we come in good faith with at least ten and more that would have joined us and they say they don't care. it takes two to tango. right now i'm not sure we have the two to tango. >> i think that has been a challenge for this town for more than a derk cade in fairness. senator cassidy, republican from louisiana, appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us, sir. thank you. >> thank you, chuck. joining me now, congressman adam schiff of california, the chair of the house intelligence committee. he, of course was the lead manager for the democrats for the last impeachment. congressman schiff, welcome back to "meet the press." i don't think any of us thought that your experience a year ago would be so relevant. here we are a year later and

entering a second impeachment. let me ask about the preparation for this one. your -- the impeachment you led was a very document-driven, in some ways witness-driven. you were putting together a narrative that not everybody could see in realtime. this is one where the narrative everybody sees in realtime. on one hand, i assume that's an asset to these impeachment managers. what do you think is their biggest challenge? >> well, i think the managers recognize what we did a year ago, which is we may think that all the senators and the american people know all the facts, but, in fact, when you look at the whole chronology of what the president did in the weeks and months leading up to january 6th, his efforts to reject the outcome if he lost, his lies about the election, during the election, after the election, his efforts to intervene with local elected

officials, the secretary of state in georgia, indeed the justice department, to get him to help overturn the election results, many americans and, indeed, many senators may not be familiar with all those facts that led up to that incitement of that mob. you can't presume that either the senator the country are aware of all the facts. you really need to present that full picture. i'm confident they will. >> respond to senator cassidy's critique that he said it was rushed, this impeachment was rushed. we're hearing this from quite a few republican senators who i think are more open minded about this than some folks think. how would you respond to his critique of the process? >> well, a couple things. first of all, they said the last impeachment in which we had months of depositions and hearings was also rushed. they'll make that process argument regardless. here there was a real sense of urgency because the president had just incited a mob that

attacked the capitol and resulted in the deaths of five people, and we felt in the house, as well as ten of the republicans, that every day he remained in office he was a danger to the country. we simply couldn't sit still and wait for weeks or months while this man posed a danger to the country. so we did ak with alacrity. the president will have every opportunity to put on a defense during the trial. the impeachment is like an indictment. the president was already given the opportunity to testify in the trial and has rejudicial committeed that. they'll put on a full defense. i'm glad to hear senator cassidy say he has an open mind which indeed all the senators should. i think that's encouraging. >> did you think you had a chance at winning 17 republicans over the last time? i think you needed more than that the last time because of what the senate makeup was? did you go into that impeachment trial, despite all the numbers, despite all the polling, the

punditry class didn't think there was much of a chance. did you think you had much of a chance of winning a conviction? >> we thought we had a chance. we recognized it was very uphill. we also recognized it was our constitutional duty to impeach a president who had so clearly violated the constitution and make the case to the american people even if we couldn't make the case successfully to these republican senators. one of the reasons why we thought we might, nonetheless, succeed is, if we could could get witnesses. if the country could hear from someone like john bolton who was in the room, that might lead to more witnesses and might lead to changed minds. of course, that was precisely the fear that mitch mcconnell had and why he wouldn't allow it. we realized we had a chance but it was very uphill. none the es will, we needed to make the case to the american people. >> what do you make of the idea of witnesses at this time? some democrats are talking about. you have is some democratic

senator who are just as anxious, including a former senator who is now president, just as anxious to see this impeachment trial go away. do you think some witnesses don't get called because of that? >> what we wanted in the last trial was let the house, let the prosecution put on its own case, let it to decide whether to call witnesses, what witnesses to call. that's what should be allowed in this trial. it will be up to jamie raskin, a brilliant constitutional scholar to make those decisions with the team. but in a very real way, chuck, we have the unusual circumstance where on the very first day of the trial, when those managers walk on the floor of the senate, there will already be over 100 witnesses present, and those will be the house and senate members. whether you need additional witnesses will be a strategic call for the house managers. >> before i let you go, i would like you to respond to kevin mccarthy on the marjorie taylor greene vote. here is what he said on the floor of the house. >> if people are held to what

they are said prior to even being in this house, if majority party gets to decide who sits on what other committees, i hope you keep that standard because we have a long list you can work within your own. >> you worried about the precedent that has been set here? i had a former aide to a republican speaker say to me, democrats are going to -- if they start this precedent, my side will show no mercy the next time they have power. >> kevin mccarthy stands for nothing except the perpetuation of his own position. he has no values, and in my view, cares about little except for hoping to be speaker one day, god forbid. look, if members of either party are threatening violence against other members of the party, of the body and suggesting they be executed, if they are casting doubt on 9/11 or school shootings, if they're heckling

victims of crime like marjorie taylor greene did with the victim of the parkland shooting, if they're suggesting that a religious group is shooting laser beams to start forest fires, they should be expelled from their committees, whatever party they're in. they shouldn't, frankly, with in the congress. >> you're not worried about the precedent? >> no, as long as we hold the same standard. you have members threatening to execute each other. they should be removed from their committees. >> that seems like a reasonable standard. adam schiff, democratic from southern california, chair of the intelligence committee, and you're rumored to potentially have a new job. we'll find out in the coming days whether that happens or not. congressman, thanks very much. >> thanks, chuck. when we come back, there's goocad but simple. cutting edge made user friendly. in other words, we want a hybrid.

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welcome back. finally some good news on the covid front. even though new cases are at an appalling lie level, in the past few weeks, they're at their lowest rate since early november. the fear is the new, more transmissible variants could cause a spike in cases in a few weeks. there are very real questions about when schools should and can open. joining me now is a man who every viewer knows very well at this point, dr. anthony fauci, the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. dr. fauci, welcome back to "meet the press." vaccines and schools. let me start with vaccines. what is the biggest road block in the manufacturing process of these vaccines, in getting vaccines quicker? the distribution problems we're having i have a feeling would seem small if we had more supply. what holds us up in having more

supply? >> well, it's just that, the demand clearly out slooet strips the supply right now. if you look at the escalation of availability of doses purely on the ability and the capability of manufacturing that, it's going to escalate and will continue to escalate as we go from february to march to april and beyond. so even though there's a clear, clear discrepancy between the demand and the supply, that will get better as we get through february and into march. but that is the limiting factor, chuck. it's the supply/demand issue. >> is this because -- is there any way this moment could have been prevented six months ago? should we have expanded manufacturing capacity and we didn't? this inevitable? >> in some respects, chuck, with all due respect and fairness, it's a bit inevitable. we certainly could have contracted a little bit more

aggressively with the companies to get more doses, but right now this is what we have. these are the contractual arrangements. they're coming off the line as quickly as we can. as i mentioned, not only will there be more moderna and pfizer doses as we get through march and april, but then we'll get j. and j. online. that's a single dose vaccine. things will continue to get better. >> over the next couple of weeks, a lot of folks who have gotten first doses are scheduled to get their second dose. i know you're aware of dr. oste last week, studying the issue of delaying the second dose. we're in a race with these variants, and getting more people obviously with this vaccination is something a lot of people think would be helpful. where are you on this, and are we in the middle of studying whether this is a viable option?

>> well, one of the things -- michael and i have spoken about this a fair amount as recently as yesterday. one of the problems, chuck, is if you want to really study it to see that, the amount of time it will take, the amount of people you would have to put into the study, by that time we will already be in the arena of having enough vaccines to go around anyway. from a theoretical standpoint, it would be nice to know, if you just give one dose, how long the durability lasts and what is the level of effect. but what we have right now and what we must go with is the scientific data we've accumulated. it's really very solid. we know that with each of these, it's either 21 days or 28 days. you can do both. you can get as many people in their first dose at the same time as adhering within reason to the timetable of the second dose. so it would be great to have the study but i don't think we can do it in time, chuck. >> there's not enough data out

there now with maybe folks that haven't gotten a second dose, but basically we've created a tliel group by accident, there's not enough data out there? >> no, chuck. it doesn't work that way. the n of people, the number of people who missed the second dose, to determine if they are as protected as we showed in the trial which was 94 to 95% protection when you get it after the second dose, there's not enough people and not enough time. it's not a reasonable enough idea, i'm not putting the idea down. but it's very impractical to do. >> fairfax county public schools calls you up today and says can we open up, what would you say? if not, how would you tell them to open up? >> well, that's a simple question, but with a complicated answer. it really depends on the level of infection in the community. the one principle we stand by and that president biden has said that, we want to get the

schools k-8 open within the next 100 days, all of them. you want to be the first to open, the last to close. what they need is they're going to need some help. that's why we want the american rescue plan -- the american rescue act to get through, so that the schools can have the capability with masks, with the ability to get better ventilation, all the things you want to do. of course, vaccination helps, chuck it would be great to get all the teachers vaccinated as quickly as we possibly can. that's the reason why they're in the group that is the necessary components of society, namely essential workers. >> you said k-8 as the line here. i think there's been -- is there more confidence on the elementary school level of the safety versus middle and high school, and that's why we sort of draw the line at eighth grade here? >> well, yeah. it's data -- it isn't overwhelming but strongly

suggestive. there have been a number of studies to show that when you have children that are a certain age, namely above eighth grade and higher, that they transmit as easily as adults transmit, whereas younger children, even though they have virus in their nasal pharynx when they get infected, they don't transmit as readily. for that reason, you want to focus on that group, the k-8 group. there are some data that suggest that. >> finally, let me come back to vaccines. less about the manufacturing and more about the distribution process itself. i'm going to read a quote from ann applebaum in the atlantic, the people getting the vaccines right are the ones in the right health care or hospital groups, the ones who can spend the day clicking links. anyone would a computer or internet connection is in big trouble. the result is no more fair or impartial than an old-fashioned -- >> my mother goes to publix

every day to try to figure out how to get in a line. she can't see how to get one in her state of florida. it is survival of the fittest. it feels a little darwinistic. >> there is a kernel of truth, more than just a kooernl. there are ways to get around that. first of all, the president's plan, the strategic plan calls for a following, the development, and they're lining up and putting into effect community vaccine centers, number one. getting vaccine to the pharmacies, number two. getting mobile units to get out into the community to get it to people who, as ann applebaum said, have trouble negotiating a computer or getting things online. that's really very important. the other thing that's important is that we know have an equity task force that is looking specifically at what i think you're referring to, namely people who, because of a variety

of reasons, economic status, where they live, who they are, which have difficulty getting accessibility to vaccines. we are aware of that, and that's the reason why the task force is working hard to eliminate that inequity. >> when should our patience run out? in a month, two months? when should we come back to you and say, hey, when are we going to get this fixed? >> chuck, i can't give you a date. you can always come back to me and put my feet to the fire. i'm not afraid of that. i can tell you things are going to get better as we get from february into march, into april because the number of vaccine doses that will be available will increase substantially in addition to other candidates like the j&j which will be coming online soon i think. >> dr. anthony fauci, a man who these days needs no introduction. that's for sure. appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise with our

viewers. thank you. >> thank you very much, chuck. thanks for having me. thanks for having me. when we ♪♪ 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. ♪♪

welcome back. anna palmer founder of punch bowl news. former rnc chairman michael steal. maria teresa kumar, and david french, senior editor of "the dispatch." i'm going to let you guys decide these buckets of republicans and where you would put them in the party. we have all 211 republicans ong screen. these are the 139 that voted to overturn the election. the next group here is the 18

republicans who voted either to impeach president trump or remove greene from committees. finally, our third group here is the 56 republicans who did not vote for impeachment or remove gene, but also overturned overturning the election. anna pal never, there is your group, 139, the 56 and the 18. what do you make of this divide in the republican party and how should we pest understand it? >> i think the most important thing to understand is donald trump still controls the vast majority of house republicans. many of them were elected on his coattails, while there are a few that chose not support impeachment, a few that supported to remove marjoriemaj leadership, kevin mccarthy, are still donald trump republicans and that informs the entire thinking of where the republican

conference is going to go from here forward. >> david french, you work at a news organization that basically was created in the wake of trying to separate trump from the conservative movement. how much work do you have to do? >> a lot of work, but i'm optimistic that it's not as much work as people might think. look, here is the bottom line. i think there's another bucket here. the bucket is people who, in a secret ballot, voted to keep liz cheney number three in the house. i think that's a very important number. it's a number that is a large majority of the house gop. what we have going on right now is a very interesting dynamic where there's a layer of activists in the gop. you see them in some of the state gops that put out some of these crazy and wild statements that are just divorced from reality. and what they demand from legislators is that legislating is trolling, punching, fighting. the bottom line is right now

trump is silent. this has been an underappreciated aspect of the recent story. for almost a month he's been silent. he can't keep his hold on the republican party through silence. he's scalped off to mara lag. he can't last forever. >> michael steele, you were chair in 2010. i don't know how many folks that elected you chair of the party are still even there. how much do we all underestimate the control trump has from that ground level? >> that's the critical piece. we tend to look at these things from a typical federal perspective, meaning nationally. we tend to look nationally. one of the things i emphasized as national chairman because i was a county chairman as well as a state chairman, was that the action is on the ground. you have to appreciate that

while, yet trump is sigh lent and the fact you have these bifurcated, try fur kated votes in the house, on the ground, state parties are censuring members. on the ground, state parties are more and more controlled by trump and trumpism. that's where the battle lines are going to be drawn. say what you want about marjorie taylor greene and the craziness that comes out of her mouth, she did speak a very profound truth. this is the trump party. this is his, and it is his for as long as, yeah, he can hold it, but also for as long as those folks are behind him. right now, tell me where the break is. you showed us on the board all these different votes by members. at the end of the day, where do you see a release by trump on the hold of the party and where do you see the party moving away from him? that has not happened, and that's a critical piece of this because that's on the ground. >> maria theresa, the more of the party the elected

republicans publicly side with the trump wing of the party, does that give democrats in your mind a pass for not working across the aisle with those numbers? >> i think it's not that it gives them a pass. i think you had senator cassidy on earlier. and he was talking about how the republicans were going to talk about bread and butter issues and policy, and that's how he'd sway more of these people back into the republican camp. quite frankly, the republican party is in the midst of a culture war. if they can't agree on what basic facts a peddling conspiracy theories within their own party, that's where the challenge is. that's the opportunity for the democrats to talk about, we can only just run through the map, but actually get back some of these congressional seats, not everywhere. but of the 139 individuals that you said voted for -- against impeachment -- excuse me -- against the election. of those, 36 of them come from

swing purple states. they come from georgia, from arizona, from texas, from north carolina. all those four states alone having an increasing vast different demographic that's rising. that fever is going to have to figure out how it will break? is it going to be through the republican party or demographics. >> anna palmer, i'm sure you caught what adam schiff said about kevin mccarthy. it struck a bunch of us, startling. i'm numb to the personal insults that take place. describe the level of toxicity on capitol hill right now? or are you out of adjectives like i am? >> i really think there is a pr articulating is the frustration and just distrust of republicans by democrats right now. it's member against member. it's party against party.

it's members against members of the police force. you just can't underscore how that is really being a determinative factor when it comes to how people are leading it. i think democrats are very frustrated with what kevin mccarthy did with marjorie taylor greene and defending her when they felt this was a real, true vote of conscience. >> especially when you had the steve king standard just two years earlier. that's something that has gotten a bit forgotten and why they didn't have that same standard. i'm going to pause the conversation. when we come back, voters when we come back, voters volt with the i'm still exploring what's next. and still going for my best. even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin, i'm reaching for that. eliquis. eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis is fda-approved and has both. what's next? i'm on board.

don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. ask your doctor about eliquis. and if your ability to afford your medication has changed, we want to help. good morning! your medication has changed, the four way is a destination place. right here, between these walls, is a lot of history. i am black. beautiful. i must be respected. black lawyers, doctors, educators, martin luther king,

b.b. king, queen of soul aretha franklin. you're sitting in the place where giants ate. the four way, as a restaurant, meant so much to this neighborhood and we wanted to continue that. to have a place where you have dignity and belong, that's the legacy of the four way. ♪ welcome back. data download time. in the weeks since the january insurrection, there are been many leaving the republican party. that's led to the question of whether the party is shrinking

nationally. we don't know that for sure. we have a sense in a few battleground states. let's take a look. just in january, close to 8,000 republicans in north carolina left the party. in arizona, 9,000 left the party. check this out. more than 12,000 republicans in pennsylvania, all in only a month, have left the party. but it's more than just january 6th. this trend has been a long time in the making, and it's part of a bigger political realignment that we've been talking about for quite some time. we took data from our nbc news polls from 2010 and 2020 to look at the profiles of the two major parties over that decade time period. we found big shifts in education and gender. it's not going to surprise you. let's start with educationment since 2010, you'll see this not being a surprise, the percentage of self-identified democrats without a college agree has declined by seven points, while the percentage of those with a

college agree has grown by six points. on the other side of the oil, a story in reverse. the percentage of education beyond high school has declined by 7 points. the percentage with at least a college degree among republicans has declined by five points. we see changes in the gender gap as well. democrats have long been a party where women outnumber men, but the difference has grown. check this out. in the last decade, self-identified democrats have gone from 58% female, 42% male in 2010, double-digit difference to -- look at this -- 61% of the party is female and only 39% is male in 2020. self-identified republicans which were once evenly split between the two genders in 2010, they've become decidedly more male. in 2020 self-identified republicans were 46% female very

vus 54% male. remember, there are more women than men overall. together, all these shifts mean republicans are facing a challenge. the more the party becomes the party of trump, the more it draws from a shrinking population of people without a college degree and men instead of women. in other words, grabbing a larger share of the smaller pop. larger share of the smaller pop. when we sfx: [sounds of everyday life events, seen and heard in reverse] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ sfx: [sounds of fedex planes and vehicles engines] ♪♪ sfx: [sounds of children laughing and running, life moving forward] with a bang, sfx: [sounds of children laughingenergyunning, and change came to every part of our universe.

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going it alone -- essentially between going big or going bipartisan? is that why democrats are, so-called, going it alone? is that the fairest way to look at this?

>> after so many zoom calls you'd think i'd figure out the mute button, chuck. one of the things that i believe joe biden has figured out and he's absolutely luteally clear-eyed, is he has a limited time to put points on the board. he has to get the economy back on track. he has to fix covid, and he's going to have to figure out how to provide a pathway where people see hope in the future through policy. he also recognizes that by doing so, he probably has to make sure he has at least the 50 votes from the senators. that's one of the reasons why you saw in this recovery bill that the minimum wage is not included because he recognizes he needs at lea 50. the republicans are going to say that this package is way too big. but i need to remind the american people, and i think we can all agree, this is not the 2008 stimulus package. this is a disaster relief bill. by looking at it through that

lens, you have to figure out not only how do you recover immediately, but how do you actually make sure we're putting things in place so that the american people could go back to work and get the economy running right away. it's very different. >> michael steele, bipartisanship works when there's a benefit for the people making the bipartisan deal. it's hard to find political benefit for either party working that much with the other side. >> well, yeah. to maria's last point, because of the nature of what's required right now, you would think that would take the blinders off for the political operatives on both sides and they would see that the nation's needs right now have to be met. it really speaks to something that david and others have been writing and talking about over the last few months, and certainly what anne put her finger on in terms of the level of poison in the system right now. we can't get past our own obstacles that we placed to heal people, to help them.

that i think is going to be the challenge of a biden administration. the conversation around unity has a specific purpose to it. it is to help us try to get over some of those hurdles. but when you have republicans in the house or senate and democrats in the house or senate sort of taking these hardened corners or edges, the american people continue to suffer under that particular weight. that's going to be the challenge for this administration, certainly not just the first 100 days, but i think for the first 18 months. >> david french, i want to shift gears here but stay on the topic of bipartisanship. i want to play for you a mash of democrats essentially calling for schools to open, taking some direct shots at teachers unions. take a listen. >> children learn better in classrooms, and that's where they need to be. >> after over 80 sessions with the chalk teachers union, i think it is critically important

that we not lose sight of a few important points. first is that our schools are safe. >> it's time to get our children back into the classroom. >> david, i wonder if there's more to be -- to look bipartisan, if democrats sort of take that issue on, than whether they find ten republicans in the senate? what are your thoughts on that? >> not only is it more important -- is there more bipartisan room on reopening schools, i think it's more important as a matter of public policy to reopen schools. it's more important in a matter of impacting real people's lives to reopen schools. teachers unions represent teachers. their interest is teachers. politicians are representing the public. they're looking at schools, they're looking at parents, they're looking at public health. the democratic party cannot be beholding, even as important as a political constituency as teachers unions are, i think there's enormous bipartisan

surge in desire to reopen schools rightly so. kids are falling behind, kids are suffering, and the best available data that we have right now says it can be done safely. if you want a bipartisan blue ocean here, sail towards reopening schools. >> anna palmer, are you seeing -- democrats have been hesitant to be that critical of teachers unions. are you about to see a sea change? >> i think what you're starting to see is it on the ground. you just had mayors, governors, which are really will be the engine to start this momentum. but i think there certainly is concern among democrats and republicans frankly, about what's happening with schools. some of the suicide rates, families that need it in terms of social services. the pressure is just going to increase. >> terrific panel. you guys are a great quartet, one we'll see again real soon. that's all for today, though. thank you for watching. enjoy the game with your immediate family.

please don't make this a super spreader event. we'll be back next sunday because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

seven world championships, five super bowl mvp trophies, and in one of the strangest seasons in nfl history a familiar ending with tom brady lifting the lombardi trophy yet again. blizzard conditions hitting the northeast yet again. a prolonged stretch of bitter cold air invading the central u.s. with some areas seeing chills of 50 below. we should see some action this week on the federal covid economic plan. just how much will it be and when will checks get into people's hands today's changemakers why