>> defending congress and the right to vote. that looked good. and i insight the crowd. >> after stunningt cld revelati about the pentagon's inaction during the storming of the capitol and new domes enhanced y posture -- >> shuts down congress. but not until house democrats pass voting rights legislation. >> it puts us as a advantage relative to democrats >> this country willave enough vaccine supply for every adult in america by the end of may. >> after announcing positive news of republican

governors rollingac c b restrictions. next. announcer: this is corporate funding is provided by -- >> 25rs y, consumer cellular's gold is to provide wireless service that helps people communicate. our u.s. based customer service team can help you find one close to you. visit consumercellular.tv. >> kaiser permanente. additional funding is provided by the estate of aold in adams and through the koo and patrici broadcasting and by thank you.

>> good evening. and welcome to "washington week." a i'm at the heart of the polimytical discussion this wee top law enforcement testified about the capitol insurrection on january 6th, with f.b.i. director christopher way saying it was domestic terrorism and warning there could be more threats. >> domestic violent extremism, domestic terrorism, that number is now -- has grown steadily on my watch. s w've -- we've increased the , fmber i got here to up to about 1400 at the end of last year to about 2,000 now. amy: the house recessed early after another potential attack on the capitol. before they left town, house democrats expanded vot access. it's unlikely toing overcome a

republican fill buster in the senate. joining us tonight are three top reporters covering the story. sahil kapur national political reporter for nbc. nathan martin, national political correspondent and amna nawaz for the pbs newshour. nathan, it feels like congress has only begun to addre the fallout from this. did these hearings provide any clarity, any unity, any healing? how are things playing out on capitol hill? jonathan: i toxic, toxic moment up there. i think that the symbolism of the national guard still there patrolling around razor wire and fenci adrount en uithi w the bmt enser than they were before januanry 6th, especiall

in the hous there's still deep between the twoon s parsties. usi worpiry that we're not pasts moment. i worry that january 6th was not a one series of possibly events. and y heard christopher way in that segment saying that the re ateyeedarav.blou i they's very troubling for democracy. it's not clear to me that either party is sort of willing to totally move forward yet. ityuite ao find some kind of re bit ojanuary 20th when he was sworn in, has reached out repeatedly to folks in the g.o.p. hing them down in the white house all the time. but you don't see that spirit o amy: i've been feel the - too

talking to staffers this level of toxicity like nothing they've ever seen before. yet, the capitol hill police saying, look, these threats against members are now through the roof. she said the house had to recess early because of the threats of a potential march 4th attack on the capitol. so how are lawmakers actually able to do their job? sahil: no question that relations are worse in my 1 years covering capitol hill. it's been a pretty rough decade for relations between the two parties as is. the big catalyst for this, of course, was the january 6th siege of the capitol by supporters of president trump and the fact that more than half of the house republicans decided to vote to overturn the election essentially after thing ohat. d than those 100 republicans. they won't co-sponsor bills with them. they simply want nothing to do with them.

i spoke to stephanie murphy congresswoman who is a leader for the blue dog coalition. they are known to work with the republicans. they say if the gain power it will be dangerous for american democracy. it's a remarkable thing to here a centrist democrat say. and that's a picture of how poisonous it's gotten here. the house finished their business earlier this week so they didn't have to stay for yesterday, march 4th because that was in the minds on some conspiracy theorists on the web where the true inauguration date. thankfully, none of that panned out. amy: amna, the director said

that it's mostly fueled by white supremist group. how you do think the biden administration is going to address this? what does this mean for us? what does this mean for the american public at this moment right now? amna: that's a huge challenge for the biden administration. it's been a huge challenge. and christopher way hit that on. they talked about the toxic environment. and some of them have said privately, they're taking different measures when they travel back to home districts. one of the things want to point out about what christopher way had to say which was really important he made clear. one was to label this growing threat as domestic terrorism which is to say to call it what it is. and the other is to make clear too that the insurrection on january 6th had nothing to do -- the siege had nothing to do with antifa or far left extremism and that was something we heard from

republicans. and that cut it off at the knees and said that's not what this was. the domestic threat has been growing. we know the white nationalist threat took off under president first blac president. under president trump was an incubator period. largely because they saw something in president trump that they liked. they felt they were supported even though president trump was occasionally pushed toot doing is language. heqti hlt they were supported by cathatit angdminis wtration. i have d't to say the word white supremacy in the white house. that was not something that was overtly directed. ill law enforcement, homeland security officials worked very hard behind the scenes to try to nhet h tevhey verery top from e oval office and from the administration.

so the biden administration is picking up where trump left off. there's a huge, huge hurdle ahd. this is one of the biggest threats facing america right n with the same kind of urgency and priority as any kind of foreign threats facing america. amy: we have an administration that is actually calling it out continually. sahil, let's go to the crux of the matter. the reason w had the siege was because of the claims of voter fraud. and this week you had the house pass a sweeping legislation. included in that were new federal standards on voter redge strakes, vote by mail, basically voting reform. but it passed without any republican votes. so what does this tell us about the prospects for getting federal voting reform done? >> amy, the bill is called hr-1 in the house. it's democrats' crown jewel of

voting rights and st voting pro all across the country it guarantees early voting. it guarantees universal access to vote by mail -- so what democrats did is they passed it in the house of representatives which is controled by democrats, but now it heads to the senate and that piece of legislation along with the john lewis voting ri prevents jurisdictions from changing their voting laws in a way that could disenfranchise or harm ethnic and racial mitnainte ori and it's going to face a massive, massive fight because it requires 60 votes to clear the senate. democrats have 50 votes and not a hope to get any republicans on this because the two parties are so far apart. as far as republicans are concerned, they say the biggest

threat to voting right now is voter fraud. experts and studies have found that there is extremely little evidence that voter fraud is there. but they argue that more protections are necessary to raise the bar to cast your ballot in the name of blo thats fight coming down the pike. think it's all conneed to n.i 20 electio prident trump's reaction to it and certain legislators have been less than shy in pointing out that these voter restrictions could dis proportionately harm democrats. amy: i want to talk about the battle of voting rights. we have republans in many states proposing laws where they say they are meant to improve election integrity but they do make it harder for people of color to vote. in georgia this week a bill passed that would restrict early and absentee voting. at the supreme court a case

involving arizona law that they say violate the voting rights act. r.n.c. lawyer michael carbon defended those laws to justice amy coney barrett. >> what's the interest of the r.n.c. in keeping the out of precinct voterlo disqualifications on the books? >> because it puts us at a disadvantage relative to democrats. >> competitive disadvantage. i want to go with you. republicans in georgia, again, that was an arizona case. this is georgia, the state house there passed legislation. they saidhey want to protect voter integrity. but when you look at some of the key provisions in the bill, amna, there are things like restricting the number of early vote days specifically on sundays when you saw a lot of especially african-american churches organize souls to the polls on sunday to get folks out

and voting early. restricting the ability for people to get food and water or giving food and water to people who have been waiting in a really long line. it seems like these are specifically designed to disproportionately impact people of color. >> yeah, and anyone reacting with the republican lawyer you heard there saying he's saying the quiet part loud. the intention of a lot of these rules is to vastly restrict who is able to easily vote. and the georgia laws that you just mentioned there are one example. florida is alsogakio ainctn we nearly five million floridians vote for mail. and the liseg trshelato access. the big lie that the november 2020 election was stolen that there was -- that joe biden

fraudulently won. and there aresn law the country. this is where the battle for voting rights are right now. those laws were introduced in direct response to those election results and to the claim that there was widespread fraud. and that claim was batted down in court after court after court. there just is no proof of that. the real voting fraud that's been historical and has been well documented in america has been the restriction and the disenfranchisement of communities of color of poor americans of people who cannot easily get access to an i.d. for example until places they try to impose a voter i.d. law who find it difficult to get time off from wor who find difficulty to get transportation. and these are the things that are winding their way through court right now. these the questions which is if this is a democracy and you have

one person and one vote, there are vast, vast efforts right now to restrict that, to limit that. and that's what we've seen happen in the past as well. so it's really a question for the state legislatures now in whether or not the federal government can act to protect every single eligible americans' right to vote. >> amy, on the politics of this if i could -- >> that's what i was going to throw to you, [laughter] >> yeah, yeah. over a decade there have been these concerns raised by mocrats that voter i.d. turnout. it hasn't necessarily had that effect. democrats have done well with voter i.d. i would just make the point that there's a chance that these efforts in state houses to -- to restrict voting could actually backfire on republicans for two reasons. one, they're going to limit some voting perhaps at the margins, but they're going to limit some voting by their own voters. so there's that.

and then secondly, just the pure politics of this. by taking these steps that are pretty obvious and even brazen in the case of some of these georgia bills where,ouno limiting souls to the polls on sunday it's not very subtle what you're doing. the politics could get a backlash in which you motivate more democrats to voteecause they want to prove a point. and they want to, you know, show that this is not going to stop them from voting. so i think the politics of this are not totally clear. i get why they're doing it in the aftermath of trump pushing the lie that he actually won the election. but i'm not so sure that in the media and certainly in the long run that this is going to pay off. amy: jonhan, the danger in politics always is fighting the last war. i want to turn now to covid-19, the senate one step closer to passing the covid relief bill. while the biden administration

announced this week that with the johnson & johnson vaccine that they will have a dose for every american. that's two months earlier. but several states are relaxing covid restrictions as texas governor greg abbott did this week. president biden fired back. >> effective next wednesday, all businesses of any type are allowed to open 100%. also i'm ending the statewide mask mandate. >> i hope everybodyas masks mak difference. the last thing we need is neanderthal thinking that in the meantime everything's fine, take off your mask, forget it. amy: you're sitting up there at e capital. you are following this relief bill. it was supposed to be voted on by now, wasn't it? so what's the hold up? what's happening right now the

senate? and how different ts bill look by the time it's all done? >> amy, the bill was supposed to be voted on starting this morning in a series of amendments but it faced a nine-hour delay as democrats had struggles getting all 50 of of their members on bill. they had a 50/50 vote. they cannot lose a single member with the tie vote of kamala harris. they had a rebellion on what they should look like. an aide telling me that they have resolved that difference and come up with a deal that senator joe manchin of west virginia, the centrist democrat from that state has agreed to. essentially the jobless benits would at the federal level, there would be 300 a week. they would continue to september 6th. one of the big concessions that joe manchin got imposing an income cap for who is eligible

for $10,200. so it enables them to go forward. they intend to do and all-nighter i'm told. and they hope t o trthillion package by this weekd which would send it gook the house. if the house passes the senate version, president biden would be able to pass this bill. amy: so jonathan, once again, senator joe manchin is the center of attention in a 50/50 senate. he's got moreower than anybody . how does he keep using this? and what do you think he does going forward and the reaction to him from some liberals? jonathan: well, anybody who has been to the great state knows there's quite a few roads and buildings named after robert c. byrd which was the great long-serving senator out there at one time democratic leader. if manchin who knows his politics back home pretty well, if he plays his cards right, i

think there are going to be a lot of cards nad after joe manchin here when all is said and done because he's allowed leverage. he's right in the mid of the caucus, amy. i was right in the capital hi. and i asked a couple of g.o.p. senators. i said, do you think at some point the left could drive him away from the party and you guys could take back the majority by, you know, making him republican? and both of the plugged-in senators said no, joe is a real democrat. we can want get him over. but why would he want to switch anyway? he's got so much power right now. we don't have much of a lure because he's having the time of his life. amy: this is not jim jeperds in the early 2000's. you've done so much reporting on covid and the public health issue. and i just want you to discuss

what you've been reporting on the fact that it feels like we're going so far. we have these vaccines. they're getting to people. and yet at the same time you're seeing these governors roll back things like masks and mask mandates. what are you -- what does this do for public health? what are the experts tling you? >> i do think it's important to point out that, you know, for all the backlash to governor greg abbott in texas lifting the mask mandate it was lightly enforced. we're not sure how much of a difference those kinds of things make when they're enforced in the first place. but the governor of mississippi did the same thing. for all the talk these are republicans acting one way and the democrats acting another way. there are a lot of governors following the science which is to say the masks make a difference. there are firm studies from the c.d.c., one released in the last couple of days who said we've studied the places that wear mask lower their infecti and

death rates to places you don't have them. kate ivy extended the mask mandate. look, where we are right now, there are things to put in the good news bucket. infections and deaths are going down as the vaccines being rolled out. we now have three out there in circulation. but there are reasons to be concern. there are 2,000 americans dying every day. there are still the new variants to contend with. and we don quite fully know the efficacy o these vaccines against these variants. so the two have to go hand in hand according to the experts. if you lift the mask mandates too quickly you're basically counter balancing the vaccine rollout. that's the challenge for the administration. how do you get people to stay firm and still roll out the vaccine fast enough to make a difference? amy: all right. we have to leave a little early so you can support your pbs station. i want to thank sahil, jonathan, amna for sharing their reporting

an insights. thank you for joining us. the conversation continues on the "washington week" extra streaming live on our website and sober media. i'm amy walter. good night from washington. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.visit ncicap.org] >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> consumer cellular. kaiser permante. additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams, and koo and patricia yuen

through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging can churel differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

(upbeat music) - [announcer] every family in america has been impacted by the pandemic and its aftermath. we are all concerned about the financial consequences, and asking ourselves questions like: should i change the way i invest? how will this affect my retirement? what can i do now to take charge of my finances? jonathan pond is a leading financial advisor, and best-selling author. he has hosted numerous public televion specials. he's here today to give you practical financial advice so you can maintain safe money in tough times. (upbeat music) - hello, and welcome to "safe money in tough times". i'm jonathan pond.