this sunday, acquitted. >> donald john trump, former president of the united states, is not guilty as charged in the article of impeachment. >> a divided senate votes 57-43 to convict former president trump, ten votes fewer than needed. >> the failure to convict donald trump will live as a vote of infamy. >> mcconnell votes to acquit. >> a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.

>> the most bipartisan impeachment vote if u.s. history. >> he incited that mob. he lit the match. get real. we know that this is what happened. >> this impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, the evidence and the interests of the american people. >> the former president's party stands by their man. >> i think most republicans found the presentation by the house managers offensive and absurd. >> how closely has the gop tied itself to mr. trump and his behavior. my guest this morning, the top democratic impeachment manager jamie raskin, larry hogan and dick durbin. plus, the cdc announced new guidelines on opening schools. the biden administration secured 200 million more vaccine doses. i will talk to the director of the cdc rochelle walensky. joining me is kasie hunt, carlos

carmelo and audie cornish. welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. during the presidential campaign, donald trump made what will be the most accurate public statement he has made. >> i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldn't lewis any voters. >> 43 of 50 republican senators voted to absolve him of responsible for the deadly january 6 riot at the capitol. le final tally was 57-43 to convict. ten votes shy of the 67 needed.

this was after democrats read into the record a statement that president trump sided with the mob in a call to kevin mccarthy as the riot was underway. it was after they made the but for case. there would have been no rally on january 6, no mob storming the capitol, no threat to the lives of vice president mike pence, speaker nancy pelosi or to any members of congress. the former president released a statement last night saying in part, this has been another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country, no president has ever gone through anything like it. whether donald trump proves to be an albatross to his party is up for debate. what is not up for debate is the republican party, now runs the risk of being defined by the terrible images of january 6.

many believe the trial was unconstitutional or another partisan attack. but the story gave the institutionalists another of the many exit ramps they have been offer over the years from the former president. instead, they voted to stick with him again wherever that leads. >> yay, 57. >> in a crystallization of four years of decisions to condone mr. trump's conduct on saturday senate republicans overwhelm lig vo ingly voted to acquit him. even republicans who criticized the president's conduct voted in his favor. >> president trump is responsible for everything he did. didn't get away with anything yet. yet. >> with just seven republicans voting to convict. >> his actions to interfere with the peaceful transition of

power, the hallmark of our constitution and our american democracy, were an abuse of power. >> i voted to convict president trump because he is guilty. >> the vote followed the plot twist on saturday. >> we would like the opportunity to subpoena congresswoman herrera. >> she said in a statement that as the attack unfolded, mr. trump sided with the rioters in a call with kevin mccarthy, saying, well, kevin, i guess these people are more upset about the election than you are. it was a week of emotional testimony and video evidence linking the former president to the insurrection. >> dude, dude, let's tell trump what's up. >> trump would be -- >> he would be -- we love you. he will be happy. what do you mean? we are fighting for trump. >> tape evidence of the assault on law enforcement. >> hold the line. pull back.

>> just after vice president pence was evacuated, his life in danger, mr. trump attacked pence on twitter. >> he sent out a tweet attacking him, further inciting the very mob. >> the presidens lawyers attacked the idea that mr. trump's use of the word fight incited the crowd playing an edited montage of democrats saying the word. >> we're in the fight of our lives right now. >> we fig like hell. >> charged democrats with hypocrisy for not condemning the sometimes violent protests last. from the start, outcome appeared decided, with republican senators adopting the same language they used to defend mr. trump the last time he was impeached. >> they rushed this process. >> they rushed into an impeachment. there was no due process. >> we have seen a lot of table banging. >> you will see a lot of table pounding. >> most of the evidence is hearsay. this is not evidence. this is a liberal democratic

novel being presented as evidence. >> joining me now is the lead democratic impeachment manager, congressman jamie raskin of maryland. welcome to "meet the press." >> good morning. thanks for having me. >> this feels like one of those -- the glass -- the water glass metaphor. is it half empty or half full? you have seven republicans to convict. mitch mcconnell felt like he used your closing argument to make his repudiation even though he voted to acquit. do you feel like this was a success, or do you feel like because you failed to convict that you can't look at it any other way than a failure? >> i think it was a dramatic success in historical terms. it was the largest impeachment conviction vote in u.s. history. it was by far the most bipartisan majority that's ever convict a president, which is

traditionally been a partisan thing in american history. we got seven republicans. if you look at the ten republicans in the house who joined us, it was the most buy partisan decision and a repudiation of the president's conduct. it didn't reach the two-thirds majority in the senate. we are explaining this to foreign journalists who can't understand why he wasn't convicted with a 57-43 vote. a 14-vote margin. you need two-thirds. i think we successfully prosecuted him and convicted him in the court of public opinion and in the court of history. he is a major political problem. as long as he is out there attempting to wage war on american constitutional democracy, he is a problem for all of us. >> he is showing no remorse with this acquittal. what have we done? have we given a permission slip

to political violence in our everyday politics? >> well, certainly, you know, those 43 republicans in the senate shamefully did that. a number of them, including senator mcconnell, are aggressively trying to disentangle themselves from the vote. mcconnell went right to the floor to say he was convinced that donald trump was morally and physically responsible for this attack. i would have liked to have had him on the impeachment manager team based on the way he presented that, except then he went back to the completely counterfeit argument that the senate couldn't conduct a trial of trump's impeachment. he was impeached during his presidency for acts committed in his presidency. we showed to the satisctfan of the country thathat tas done when the country first started. it was done in the decision after the civil war and there's no problem with it. they decided to hang their hat on that very dubious hook in

order to basically cater to trump and the forces within the party that are still loyal to him in a really cultish and dangerous way. >> i want to get to three what ifs, backseat driving people might be doing. maybe you are ingdo it. what if number one is this. when it was clear the trial wasn't going to start until after joe biden was inaugurated, was there any thought of taking an extra week, an extra two weeks before starting the trial for you to do more investigating? >> actually, we did take an extra two weeks. it was supposed to start before that. nobody said us -- nobody on any side that we didn't make our case. it was overwhelming and meticulous and coon't think any that without coming away saying, donald trump incited that violent insurrection. he named the date of the rally, he named the time of the rally. it was timed with the counting of the electoral college votes.

he said, stop the steal. he fired the cannon of the rallygoers right at the capitol. when you listen to what mcconnell said or what the senator from west virginia are say, they say the facts were there. they are not disputing that. we don't think that we can prosecute a former president. they would have found some way, you can always slice the bologna fine to come up with some way to acquit somebody if that's what you want to do. that was the strategy of our opposition counsel. you can pick due process, first amendment, pick whatever you want. pick one reason to let him go. 43 republicans did. >> on witnesses, it seems as if this was a last-minute decision to go ahead and try to call jamie herrera-butler. should you have had a witness plan sooner that included pence,

herrera, people like that? >> let's start with jamie herrera-butler. she issued her statement the day before. we tried to get in touch with her. we wanted her -- she could have come and done an interview. we couldn't get through to her. we did seek permission do it. >> why did you wait -- i don't mean to interrupt. can i interrupt you? >> please. >> her story was known for weeks. why not -- why did you not try to contact her until the last couple of days? >> she issued her statement the day before. we brought up the resolution right at the time the resolutions for witnesses were called for according to the senate resolution. there's no other time we could have done it. that was the moment. we won that vote. we were going to proceed to do it. the republicans stipulated to allow the evidence to come into the record. you ask about some other people who might have gotten up there and lied. we don't know what kevin mccarthy would have said. that was her record of what he was telling people. what he told people was he had

called trump to say, you gotta get us out of this. these people are here. trump said, it's antifa. mccarthy said, it's not. it is your people. get us out of here, to which trump said, maybe they just care more about the election than you do. trump knew exactly what they were doing. he knew that mob, which he deployed, was there occupying people's offices and threatening congress. it was there for everybody to see. we could have had 1,000 witnesses, but that could not have overcome the silly arguments that people like mcconnell were hanging their hats on. they are trying to have it both ways. >> one more of those. insurrection versus dereliction of duty. i know you made a pretty compelling argument, i think in your closing argument, about how you couldn't disaggregate them. if it had been dereliction of duty, you might have gotten two or three others. >> you know, remember, these

republicans who voted to acquit in the face of this mountain of unrefuted evidence were going to find some reason to do it. if we charged dereliction of duty, they would have said that's not impeachment. deal with that in the military system. the president is not bound by the code of military justice and the uniform code and so on. you can always come up with a lawyer's argument to get to where you want to go. they did not honestly confront the reality of what happened, which was donald trump incited a violent mob to attack the congress of the united states. you know what? we have no regrets. we left it totally out there on the floor of the u.s. senate. every senator knew exactly what happened and just go back and listen to mcconnell's speech. everybody was convicted of the case we put forward. as the defense lawyer said, pick any one of the phony ones. it could be first amendment, due

process. all of them are nonsense. i thought i demolished them at the trial. there's no reasoning with people who basically are acting like members of a religious cult. when they leave office should sell flowers at dulles airport. >> congressman raskin, i hope it brings you solace that many of us are grieving and mourning with you. i know it's never going to get easy with that. with that, sir, i appreciate you coming on and sharing your views with us this morning. >> thank you for your kindness. thank you for having me. i want everybody to hang tough for democracy. we won on a vote of 57-43. we didn't make it to two-thirds. there are patriots out there hanging tough for the constitution. >> congressman raskin, thank you very much. joining me now is the number two democrat in the senate. it's dick durbin. welcome back to "meet the press." let me start with what nancy pelosi said about mitch

mcconnell's statement right after he made it yesterday. let me play it for you, sir.hed place. i don't know whether it was for donors or what. whatever it was, it was a very disingenuous speech. i say that regretfully, because i always want to be able to work with the leadership of the other party. >> did you find senator mcconnell's remarks disingenuous? >> let me say, chuck, the outside first. to jamie raskin and his team, extraordinarily good job. they spoke up at the right moment. let me say another word. we were never going to reach 67 votes in the senate without mitch mcconnell voting guilty. he went on the floor afterwards. he basically gave the speech that jamie raskin would have given to the senate and then tried to justify his vote for acquittal. it wasn't going to happen.

we weren't going to reach 67 without him. >> did you find his remarks disingenuous? do you think -- do you take him at his word on his belief about the constitutionality of it? >> i tell you what, i think that argument that we can't impeach someone who is out of office really begs the question. the house managers made the point early on. it means there's some period in the presidency when congress cannot respond quickly enough that a president can get away with anything. i don't believe the framers were that careless in writing those sections. history tells us, as jamie raskin noted, that we have impeached those who have left office. you can't resign your way out of your i feel like that maybe what inadvertently happened is we now have this gap during the transition that apparently january 7 to january 20, we are

lucky donald trump didn't do anything. what would have happened if he did something? is there no mechanism to have removed him from office if they weren't going to invoke the 25th amendment? >> that's exactly the conclusion that many of the republicans were hanging their hat on. that there was a grace period for the president, no matter what he chose to do. it gets down to this when you look at it, chuck. many of the republicans were voting out of loyalty to donald trump. for those who want to know what donald trump's version of loyalty is, i have two words, mike pence. many were voting out of fear what would happen if they went home. i would ask them to take a reflection on the future of their party which embraces qanon conspiracy and proud boys and then shuns cindy mccain and bill cassidy. what is the future of a republican party in that posture? >> did senate -- we had to report that chris coons visited the house managers and said,

look, the drive for witnesses could cost republican conviction votes, some democrats aren't happy with it. was there enough unease with extending this trial that there was motivation to pull the witness request back? >> i don't know what chris did. i didn't follow him or ask him. i saw the same press accounts. i think the bottom line is this. the evidence was stipulated as to what congressman butler said. we knew exactly what she was going to say if she were called for deposition. i don't think we lost any ground. the facts were before the senate. i think the physical deposition would not have made a significant difference. it would have delayed the proceeding. >> i'm curious, do you feel as if by accelerating the process yesterday, is there going to be a connection with being able to speed up now and deal with the president's relief package? was there any coupling of that

yesterday or not? >> no. we had this coming week, of course, as a recess week for the senate. we had time. that wasn't the element here. i do want to make this point. we are working with president biden on the priorities of the american people, dealing with this pandemic, dealing with the economy, providing cash payments to american citizens to help them through this tough period. what we did with this impeachment trial was not at the expense of president biden's priorities. we will be returning to them quickly when we come back to washington. >> do we need a 9/11-style commission about january 6th? >> i can tell you, one of the things i was looking forward to is making the record for history as to what occurred. we still have people, even at the trial, making claims that antifa was behind it. that was rejected by kevin mccarthy. it has been rejected by the clear evidence that was presented to us. i wanted to make sure that the

soviet-style revisionists on the republican side who are trying to blame everybody but donald trump had a record in front of the american people that was clear. i think jamie raskin and the house managers made that record with clarity. even -- let's be honest with you. even mitch mcconnell acknowledged that last night in his speech. so we have that record. that's the important historic record to show this generation of doubters and any future generation. >> it sounds like you think we have done a big chunk of this investigating. senator dick durbin, democrat from illinois, thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective. >> thanks, chuck. joining me is the republican governor marland, governor hogan. you have a special sort of relationship and insight to congress being the son of a member of congress who voted as a republican on those impeachment articles against richard nixon. i'm curious, what did we -- what

did the senate do yesterday in terms of donald trump in your view? >> well, you know, there's what the vote was and what the result of the senate -- the republicans in the senate did opinion. quite frankly, i think the democrats made a strong case, even though leader mcconnell didn't vote to impeach, his words were strong. i think time will tell what -- how that impacts donald trump and how it impacts the republican party in the country. i think it's going to go far beyond just that vote yesterday in the senate. there's going to be potentially courts of law and the court of public opinion. we are going to decide how history remembers this day and what people did and said. >> would you have voted to convict if you were a senator? >> i think the argument was convincing. i wasn't -- i'm not in the

senate. i think i probably would have voted with some of my colleagues that were on the losing side. i was very proud of some of the folks that stood up and did the right thing. it's not always easy. sometimes it's really hard to go against your base and your colleagues to do what you think is right for the country. that's exactly what my dad did in the '70s. he paid a price for it immediately. it's what history remembers him for. >> it's interesting when you look at the number of republicans that voted to convict, it's 15% of the republican conference. that feels about what the split is inside the republican party right now. right? 85/15. 85 is sitting with donald trump. is that how you view it? >> well, it's hard to tell. i think the stuff is fluid. let's face it, the president has only been in office now for a month. so we have a long time -- i think there's going to be a real

battle for the soul of the republican party. the battle is just beginning. i think some of us are going to stand up and try to fight for the party that we believe in, that we have been a part of for so long. there's going to be folks that want to continue to head down this road of donald trump. we will figure out whether we will be a party that can win elections or not. >> where do you have this battle for the soul of the party? you clearly would like to do it inside the party. i know there's some movement of starting a sort of conservative third party. you have adam kinzinger, which is where you are, plant a flag inside the party. how long do you give the party to find out if you can move the party towards your direction? >> you know, i sort of feel as if there was -- i said this before. there was a hostile takeover of the republican party. i'm not, for one, not ready to abandon the party that i spent

my life working for, that i believe very strongly in going back to being a youth for reagan chairman. i want to return to that party. after watergate, everybody said it was the death of the republican party in 1974. we came back six years later in 1980 with the biggest landslide in history. i'm hoping we can return to a successful party, because i think a competitive two-party system is critical to our democracy. >> that happened because the republican party chose to distance itself from nixon. do you think party can be successful without distancing itself from donald trump? >> i don't think they can. i think if they really want to win competitive seats in purple states and if they want to win suburban districts, get back the house and senate, if we want to win a presidential election, they will have to start building coalitions like we have done here in one of the bluest states in the country where you can

have a message that appeals to more people. >> let me ask you this. what should -- there was no platform essentially for the republican party in 2020 other than, loyalty to donald trump. what do you hope the platform -- what's the platform going to look like in 2024? what do you hope it looks like in 2024? >> you know, i wouldn't say there was no platform. it wasn't a terrible year for republicans. we lost the presidential race by a wide margin. however, we made -- it was a tough battle in the senate. i think the president cost us the two seats in georgia in the senate races. in the house, we gained. many people who are from my wing of the party who are common sense really donald trump supporters, they all won. people like susan collins won, phil scott up in vermont.

we picked up a lot of house seats in suburban from the cult of donald trump and return to the basic stood for. >> governor larry hogan, republican from maryland, appreciate you sharing your perspective. you have known and lived congress for a long time. thanks for coming on. appreciate it. >> thank you are chuck. when we come back, after the trial, where does the gop go from here? from here? panelists ext.n

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(sam) gamers! verizon 5g ultra wideband is here, with ultra... low... lag! so start becoming the best gamers in the ga-- (avatars) oohh! (sam) 5g ultra wideband, now in parts of many cities. this is 5g built right. welcome back. nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt, former democratic senator of missouri, claire mccaskill. carlos curbelo and audie cornish host of "all things considered."

it's been a while. i'll let you get the first crack at this question. was yesterday a good day or bad day for donald trump? >> i think donald trump, no matter what anybody else says about what's going on in the world has his own vision and reality of what's happened. i think it's pretty clear that in this moment, especially in that speech from senator mitch mcconnell who effectively bent the knee, it's one thing to go out and say a lot of things about a donald trump and be critical in that way. in the end of the day, it's about actions, votes and the record. right now when it comes to actions, votes and the record, donald trump has firm, firm control of the gop. >> carlos, same question to you. >> chuck, i think it was a bad day for donald trump. this was the most bipartisan impeachment and conviction process in history. senator mcconnell really laid it out plainly and simply again yesterday after the vote.

i think what he did is so important. you can debate why or not -- why he decided to vote the way he did. obviously he put forward an argument that other constitutional scholars agree with, but after that vote, he did the most important thing that anyone who wants to combat trumpism can do, which is to express simple truths, to make sure the american people, and specifically republicans, know who donald trump is, what he did and how he provoked the worst attack on our democracy in our history. that remains there for the record. that is the beginning, chuck, of the process of decoupling donald trump from the republican party. that's what mitch mcconnell started yesterday. i think it was a bad day in the balance for the former president. >> kasie hunt, speaker pelosi's decision to go after mitch mcconnell for that -- for what he did, calling it disingenuous, i know there's not a lot of love

lost between the two, but that can't help things in that relationship. >> there's not a lot of love lost, chuck, but they also know the difference between what they say in public in front of their respective bases of supporters and what they're going to do in private to try and work to get things done. i'm interested to see if there's a new era between the tw of them in the wake of that speech behind the scenes from mitch mcconnell. it's very clear that he put power ahead of everything else in that decision -- series of decisions he made yesterday. he wanted to retain his power of the senate minority leader, and he wouldn't have been able to do that if he voted to convict donald trump. he also recognizes that republicans, and governor hogan just said the same thing to you, republicans are not going to be able to win elections if they do not repudiate donald trump. mitch mcconnell knows that, and

it's why he said what he said. he repeated it in an interview right after he took this vote. he said i care about electability and that's it. >> you know, claire mccaskill, joe neguse, his entire closing argument was aimed at an audience of one. he clearly read mitch mcconnell's book. there's an excerpt about mcconnell's mentor, john sherman cooper. he says how do you take such a tough stand and square it with the fact that a considerable number of people who elected you have the opposite view. he didn't hesitate a moment. i not only represent kentucky, i represent the nation and there are times you follow and times when you lead. claire mccaskill, you and i were on the air together a couple times yesterday, and you were back-and-forths. where are you on the genuineness of his remarks? >> well, let's be clear one

thing that he did do yesterday. he made sure that there is a real war within the republican party, because he gave a lock-him-up speech, chuck. he said lock him up. he gave an invitation for criminal prosecution to the nation's prosecutors. and he's the highest ranking republican in the country. >> yep. >> so yesterday was a bad day for donald trump, but it was a worse day for the republican party. why did he do that? he can't stand donald trump. he thinks donald trump cost him the majority. but, also, he has to worry about donors who write if he voted to convict, he knew the majorit follow him. that would expose a real weakness in terms of his leadership. >> that's interesting there, kasie. does that comport with your reporting, that mcconnell -- that's the debate.

would mcconnell have been able to bring over ten votes or not? claire seems to indicate he might not have been able to. >> i think it was a real open question. i think, had he made a definitive case and really sold it, it's possible that they could have gotten there, but the reality is that afterward that group of people was going to be smaller than the group of republicans who were going to vote to acquit donald trump. so there's no scenario where mitch mcconnell can be the minority leader when he sided with the smaller group. he would have been ceding the power he has. i think he wants to use it to move beyond donald trump. i think senator mccaskill's point is absolutely the right one. we have known all the way along how much mcconnell privately loathed donald trump. it is not a to use him, but they are not alike in basically anyway. so i think that this is finally mcconnell's chance to actually

say that, but that he did act in his own interest of power. >> audie, big picture, though. did we give a permission slip to our politics to be more violent by not holding anybody accountable for these actions yet? >> not entirely sure who you mean by we, are you talking about the senate and the republican party, so far essentially the only person who has -- the only people who have sanctioned trump in any way is silicon valley, right? the justice department, of course, is plowing ahead with investigations, opened up some 200 cases of people who were involved in the vks. npr's investigation shows a percentage of those people cited trump specifically in their kind of motivations or suggestions about why they were doing what they were this conversation isn't over. but i think -- it sounds like on this panel i'm the person who is a little more pessimistic about what this means going forward

for the republican party. i did not see some opening to the door of a granted revitalization or some change or trump saying goodbye. what i see is a party that is clearly still in his thrall. lawmakers that are still fearful of him and what that means going forward is quite serious. >> audie, i see the glass as half empty as you do. we'll have more about this conversation when we get all four of you back in a few minutes. but when we directly come back, the cdc releases new guidelines for how to operate schools during the pandemic. how soon can we take kids from how soon can we take kids from t how soon can we take kids from t labradoodles, cronuts, skorts. (it's a skirt... and shorts) the world loves a hybrid. so do businesses. so, today they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach lets them use watson ai to modernize without rebuilding, and bring all their partners and customers together in one place.

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that's right. the iphone 12 on us. on the leader in 5g. and save 20% per month. share big moments and big savings at t-mobile. welcome back. covid vaccinations have ramped up to 2 million a day at the end of last week. the biden administration is securing 200 more million doses of the pfizer and moderna vaccines. despite that, there's still growing frustration over the lack of vaccine supply to meet demand, particularly in this moment. at the same time parents are desperate to get their kids back in the classroom.

cdc issued new guidance for operating schools during the pandemic. joining me now is the new director of the cdc, dr. rochelle walensky. welcome to "meet the press." before i get to the school guidelines, i want to ask about a report out of the uk that indicates this uk variant, not just potentially more contagious, but potentially more deadly, and this is obviously the variant that officials like yourself fear could be the dominant strain in this country. how concerned are you that we're up against another dark period? >> good morning, chuck. thanks for having me. i think we have to watch this very, very carefully. we've known now that this b.1.1.7 variant that came from the uk, we have over 1,000 cases here in the united states in over 39 states. we know the early data have demonstrated that it's around 40% to 50% more transmissible. already that means we' prior se

data have suggested therend mor. all of it is really -- wraps up into we can't let our guard down. we have to continue wearing masks. we have to continue with our current mitigation measures and we have to continue getting vaccinated as soon as that vaccine is available to us. >> let's talk about the school guidelines. there's some folks that are wondering how much politics may have gotten involved or how much the white house may have gotten involved. last week the white house walked back some comments of yours about teacher vaccinations. you were saying they were not necessary in order to open schools. the white house said you were speaking in your personal capacity. how should we -- are you

i say this -- you say you want to have six feet. there are some schools that say, look, can we do three feet? everybody will wear masks, can we do three feet, particularly for elementary schools. what would the cdc say? >> you know, our guidance is really dependent on how much disease is in the community. we know that most of the disease that comes into the school comes into the community, and with universal mask wearing, we know that there's very limited transmission within the schools and that that transmission is largely from staff to staff and

largely when mask wearing is breached. so we are more flexible with the six feet if there's limited amount of community spread in those low to moderate ranges. when you get to substantial and high ranges of community spread, we really feel like you need six feet. the data suggests, the science suggests you need six feet with universal mask wearing to keep our children and our staffs safe. >> we're getting close to i think 15 to 20 million americans this week will have gotten their second dose of the vaccine. what is the guidance for a vaccinated -- fully vaccinated america? what is the travel guidance? what is the mask guidance? what is their work guidance? >> really great question. i'm proud to say as of yesterday we hit the scaling up. we don that you're asking. we have issued guidance this week that suggests, that recommends that, if you have

been vaccinated and you are exposed and you're exposed within three months of your vaccination, that's similar to, if you've been exposed to within three months of disease, that you need not quarantine. as data emerge on many of the questions that you're asking, we will update our guidance in realtime. >> we're seeing a lot of states -- we've had a dip the last two weeks, felt like the first week where we took two steps forward and one step back. a lot of states are getting rid of their mask mandates already. is it too early to be doing that if. >> absolutely. we are still at about 100,000 cases a day. we're still at around 1,500 to 3,500 deaths per day. the cases are more than two and a half fold times what we saw over the summer. it's encouraging to see these trends coming down, but coming down from an extraordinarily high place. as i said earlier, if we want to get our children back to school,

and i believe we all do, it all depends on how much community spread is out there. we need to all take responsibility take these precautions including mask wearing so we can get our society back. >> including mask wearing well. i know you gave guidance on that. dr. walensky, we never got the head of the cdc for the last year. it's nice to have the head of the cdc on "meet the press." thank you very much. >> great to be with you. thank you. >> make sure to check out our interactive state-by-state guide to figure out when and where you can get your rack seen. can get your rack seen. visit dana-farber cancer institute discovered the pd-l1 pathway. pd-l1. they changed how the world fights cancer. blocking the pd-l1 protein, lets the immune system attack, attack, attack cancer. pd-l1 transformed, revolutionized,

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democratic, from bill clinton's first term up until this year. you see it. it's quite a dramatic drop. fro them very little incentive to politically vote to convict. they don't think they have to win voters across the aisle. at the same time, joe biden won 25 states but only three with split senate delegations. none have two republican senators. going forward, president biden is dealing with a senate with increasingly sharp partisan divisions and little motivation for republican senators to compromise. it's the reverse is true for the democrats as well. when we come back, will donald trump continue to have a donald trump continue to have a big role in the republican sfx: [sounds of everyday life events, ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

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welcome back. carlos, i want to build off of what audie said. she's basically -- she didn't see what you and some others on the panel saw. it really is sort of donald trump's future in the party. i guess if he's a stock, would you buy it? and let me introduce you to two facts here. josh mendel, the new front-runner for the ohio senate seat went full maga in his announcement to replace rob

portman, the info entertainment bull horns still belong to the trump wing. is this still a bad time to be donald trump? >> chuck, the republican party is still a willing hostage of donald trump today. there's no doubt about that. however, there is a lot of evidence that that power of the trump movement, that influence is waning. we'll see this play out over the next 18 months. mitch mcconnell, a strategic mind, with liz cheney, other establishment republicans against donald trump and his movement. which will win? we'll see. that trump lane will be available to a lot of republicans in primaries. how much candidates run in each primary? that's going to be a big impact. this is the battle that will play out over the next 18 months. i think we'll have the answer by the time the november 2022 elections are here. >> kasie, is that the real measuring point we'll find out? are they within his group or

not, 2022 the real measuring stick? >> it's going to be an important turning point, chuck. i also think the big question is what is trump going to do ahead of 2024 because he really could hold some of these would-be presidential candidates who want to inherit his voters hostage to his own intentions. i think the big question is, can former president trump stay focused enough on these goals that he says he has to actually make a real difference and whether any of these republicans like josh mendel can actually credibly carry that banner. don't forget the point that senator mccaskill made which is that there's this open invitation to investigate donald trump in the courts and we simply don't know how that's going to play out. >> claire, let me flip the script. is donald trump still an effective campaign tool for democrats? >> i think he is. let's for a minute talk about joe biden. joe biden is enjoying the kind of approval numbers that donald

trump only dreamt of. joe biden is pursuing policies that have broad, bipartisan support in the country. forget about congress. in the country. as long as joe biden stays focused on covid relief and infrastructure and some of the things that really resonate with the american people, the democratic party is going to be in great shape in 2022 and 2024. >> i guess, audie, the question is can joe biden govern with this republican party? does he only have 17 republicans to work with, the ten in the house and the seven in the senate? or does he have to try to forge a bigger coalition than that if he even wants to find bipartisanship? >> i think i'm less interested in the seeking of bipartisanship that people talk about and more interested in how he builds any kind of coalition for compromise. he's not a stranger to this process. he's been through it with barack obama and in that white house. so he knows what he's up against. i'm also less interested in what's going on with donald trump going forward and more

interested in what the republicans who say they want to do something different actually do and what that means for the oters they can take along with them. i don't believe that republican voters are hostages. i think they're willing supporters of donald trump. and if there's an alternative, it should present itself. >> well, i think i'll believe that donald trump isn't an influence in the party when you stop having republicans feel like they have to tell one message to the mainstream media and go full maga to the infotainment it's been a long way for especially. for a lot of us, a long start to the year. i guess now trump might be in the rear view mirror. that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. we'll be back next week. by the way, you've still got time to don't mess up valentines. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

♪ the italian alps the site of the alpine skiing world championships. coming up next, it's the men's down hill. hello, everyone. glad you're here