yamiche: gaslighting, gas lines, and governing. president biden: if you are fully vaccinated you no longer need to wear a mask. yamiche: in the fight against covid, president biden announces a big step forward. >> i will do everything i can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the oval office. yamiche: and congresswoman liz cheney is purged and replaced for pushing back on election lies. president biden: don't panic number one. i know seeing lines at the pumps or gas stations with no gas can be extremely stressful. but this is a temporary situation. yamiche: plus president biden faces new challenges at home and abroad. next.

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moderator yamiche alcindor. yamiche: good evening and welcome to "washington week." the covid-19 pandemic was declared a national emergency in the u.s. 427 days ago. and the virus has killed more than 580,000 americans. but amid that trauma and hurting, some good news. president biden: the c.d.c. announced that they are no longer recommending that fully vaccinated people need to wear masks. this recommendation holds true whether you are inside or outside. i think it's a great milestone. a great day. yamiche: meanwhile, the capitol ints recollection was 128 today's ago and this week, house republicans removed and replaced representative liz cheney from her leadership post for repeatedly speaking out against former president trump's election lies. we'll dig into that in a

moment. but first, what do these new covid rules mean for american life and what challenges still lie ahead for the biden administration? joining us tonight our four top reporters, kasie hunt, capitol hill correspondent for nbc news and the host of msnbc's "way too early." manu raju, chief congressional correspondent r cnn and joining me in studio we're so happy to be in studio, eugene daniels, white house correspondent for politico and co-author of "playbook." and susan davis, washington bureau chief for "usa today" and the author of the new book "madam speaker. " thank you so far for being here. eugene, i want to start with you. white house officials tell me this stigs about facial coverings was made because they're following the science, following the c.d.c. what are you hearing about what -- what went into this decision and how close are we at all to turning a corner and maybe getting back to normal life? snoofment e- eugene: it was head spinning, right? it was six weeks ago when the head of the c.d.c. was emotional on camera talking about how scared she was. about where we are and it was just two weeks ago when the

outside masks went away. and so i think everyone's -- was a little bit surprised and folks i talked with at the white house, they said they were mostly surprised because theyallowed the c.d.c. to make that determination and weren't involved. and so you're at the white house yesterday. and they had to move around and chain -- added a press conference for the president. and so i think what we're hearing on whether or not we're turning a corner soon is that they're hoping the numbers stay down. and they are really congress any antioxidant that the -- cognizant that the people don't have to wear masks inside, outside may lead to people getting vaccinated. there was no incentive a lot of people say for people to get vaccinated if they had to do the exact same thing they were doing. so they're hoping that that is going to happen. but i've talked to some health experts and they're not completely sure because there's that 30% of white evangelicals and republicans wh say they're never going to get vaccinated. so the white house has a lot -- the administration have a lot of work to do to get those people to sign on and actually

get vaccinated even as we start seeing like life -- us being in the studio. yamiche: yeah. well, eugene, kasie, hitting on a key point that there are people that are still hesitant to have the vaccine and what about vaccination rates among lawmakers and how might this announcement change their calculation and of course the calculation of people living in their districts? kasie: that's a very good question because covid has really changed the way business is done on capitol hill, especially in the house of representatives which of course much larger than the u.s. senate. but we already saw the senate leader, mitch mcconnell, the mernt leader, going without -- minority leader, going witht a mask as soon as these guidelines were released. there still are mask requirements on the floor of the house. and that's probably set to become a pretty intense potical debate because nancy pelosi is keeping those rules that way until she says all house members are vaccinated along with the staffers that have access to the floor.

and while they say that essentially 100% of democrats have been vaccinated there are a lot of questions about how many republicans have. there are a lot of offices that won't confirm one way or the other. and of course this is contributing to the tension overall that's already caused so much strife here. and yamiche, the one thing i keep hearing both from those who i talk to in my own everyday life but also lawmakers who are trying to figure out the right approach, what advice to give their constituents and from some of the doctors that i've interviewed over the course of the past few days are questions about what's to do about people who can't get the vaccine yet? there are a lot of parents out there who are concerned and have a lot of questions. because while perhaps they want to get their kids vaccinated as soon as it's safe, they can't yet. and kids of course need an example from their parents in order to wear masks. so i do think we're entering -- something of a period of uncertainty here where some people in the cent are still going to have a lot of questions about what to do.

yamiche: susan, kasie is talking about the uncertainty everyone feels and people that are very worried about taking off their facial coverings and talk to me a little bit about what you're hearing how this will work and enforcement ver he have indication because this is -- verification because this is -- susan: nothing we have experienced before and nothing like the pandemic we've just come through. but certainly i think most americans are really eager to get on with things to not have to wear a mask. and i don't think there was a sense the c.d.c. was acting too rapidly. i think there's been a sense that the c.d.c. was being too cautious, that they were in fact not following the science which says there's very little risk if you're outdoors and no need to wear a mask there. and the vaccinated people are protected. so they can take off their mask even if they're inside. and they can h their grandchildren and they can resume having some kind of july fourth picnics. this is of course the issue on which president biden is going to be judged. and we see that he has once

again beaten the tetle he had set for himself. if he can beat the timetable he had set for the percentage of americans with vaccination, that would be a very good and helpful step for him. yamiche: and the other big thing that happened this week is the consequences of the siege at the capitol still loom large. this week, the house held a hearing investigating the attacks, several republicans including representative andrew clyde of georgia downplayed what happened. >> there was no insurrection, and to call it an insurrection in my opinion is a bold-faced lie. if you didn't know the tv footage was a video from january 6 you would think it was a normal tourist visit. yamiche: kwlide's comments are of course -- cleed's -- clyde's comments are course false and flfs aiolent insurrection on january 6ut the g.o.p. accepting reality has consequences. house republicans booted representative liz cheney from her leadership post for calling out false claims about the election. ahead of her removal, cheney

took a defiant last stand against the former president. >> millions of americans have been misled by the former president. they have heard only his words but not the truth as he continues to undermine our democratic process sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all. this is not about policy. this is not about partisanship. this is out our duty as americans. remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. i will not participate in that. yamiche: after being voted out, cheney doubled down on her stance. i want to go to you, manu, you didn't get a chance to jump in on the covid but i want to talk to you a little bit about liz cheney, how is she going to go forward and what's her plan and does she see herself possibly being in the oval office? manu: you know, that's an open question. i have a hard time seeing how she could -- may have any

traction in the republican primary in 2024. this is a party that is dominated still by the former president that has such a strong attachment and connection to the republican base. now, four years is a long time. we'll see how much the party changes between now and then. but cheney is decidedly in the minority. not just overall in the party party, among the base but in her own conference. there are really only a handful of republicans who are in the same position of her about calling out the president and calling t his lies which is why she got ultimately put out, pushed out. and one of the -- big reasons is not just because of this fight, is because the fight has caused a distraction for republicans. because this moment she starts questioning the election, and starts saying -- questioning the -- donald trump's saying that the election was stolen or rigged in other ways, then her colleagues are forced to answer questions about what they

believe. and what they don't want to say is that the lerks was legitimate. a lot of them don't. because if they do that, then they get hammered by donald trump. so they suggest that there's some sort of irregular lartse or anomalies or variances -- irregularities or anomalies or variances without any evidence to back that up and opposite side of the facts. and that ultimately is a position that republican leaders just do not want to be on. so that's one reason why you saw kevin mccarthy maneuver behind the scenes and engineer her ouster as they simply did not want to be confronted wh these questions time and again and one reason why they elevated malise steph nick who won overwhelngly not because of her conserve testify voting record and has one of the most moderate voting records among any house republican but because she has allied herself with donald trump as she did when she defended him in the 2019 imimpeachment trial all the way through his efforts to overturn the elections and so we're seeing where the house republican conference lies. it is not with liz cheney.

it is squarely with donald trump. yamiche: kasie, i want to bring in you here. you were asking all the right questions to liz cheney minutes after she was ousted. talk to me a little bit about that experience and what you're hearing but also there is this sort of deal to form this january 6 commission. but kevin mccarthy saying he's concerned about the scope. what do we know about what's going on with the commission? kasie: that's right, yamiche. and in some ways, there was a lot of surprise this afternoon when there was a bipartisan agreement announced on this commission to investigate what happened on january 6. and this is something that liz cheney has been extraordinarily focused on. and to touch on what you and hanyu were just discussing, the question that i had for cheney was not necessarily what she was going to do to put herself in the oval office but rather how far she was going to be willing to keep former president trump out of office. they're not actually necessarily the same thing. that doesn't mean that remember running for president isn't

necessarily part of whatever solution s finds. but i do think it's an important distinction. and one of the things that i think has been kind of behind the scenes in this conversation about cheney and her leadership role is what's going to happen with this january 6 commission. we know that cheney did an interview with abc news set to air in full on sunday where she said that she expects the minority leader, kevin mccarthy, potentially to get subpoenaed to testify during -- in the course of that commission investigation. she said certainly they would want to talk to him. perhaps he would do it voluntarily. and there are some questions about what transpired when he called the former president who was in the oval office on january 6 and said to him, please call off your people. they've invaded the capitol. and of course mccarthy has really changed how he has approached the narrative of january 6 in the intervening months, weeks and months. it didn't actually take very long. but that's something that cheney is very focused on. and i inkth it's something, i

think clearly, many republicans are nervous about this commission. even though they -- they got some concessions. it's going to be evenly split and while they'll have subpoena power, republicans will effectively be able to veto subpoenas if they want to. yamiche: related to that kevin chartingy was at the white house, eugene and nobody questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election. of course we know that's not true. the president -- former president trump is doing that every single day. talk to me a little bit about how the white house contends, deals with kevin mccarthy and the republicans as they say things like that. eugene: something about this white house that i found really surprising is their ability to squarely focus on the end result, right? they are -- they put the blinders on. they want to go straight to exactly what they want to do. we saw that with covid-19. anytime we tried to ask them about anything else they weren't willing to get off message. and they're doing the exact same thing now. you saw an interview with president biden talking about this exact same thing. he was asked by lawrence o'donnell, how do you engage with people who don't think that you're a legitimate

president? and he said i believe everyone is -- no one is above redemption and most importantly, that he has to do this job. and so i think that is actually how they are seeing this. you talk to people behind the scenes at the white house. and they don't engage in kind of -- they know that when someone gets in the oval office it's a completely different conversation. there's no cameras. there's no reason to -- to peacock and talk about the things that you would talk about if you're on cable news. but at the same time, you have mccarthy sending out an email right after saying that -- calling the president names. and so it is going to make it a little bit difficult. and it's hard for this white house, i think, to understand how -- when republicans are coming in a good faith effort. and so they really want to get this bipartisan deal on on infrastructure. how they do that, when people don't think that he's the president, he doesn't -- need many people to believe that he is to get the job done but it makes things a lot more difficult. yamiche: susan, i want to bring you in here.

one thing that also happened this week was that marjorie taylor green was literally accused of harassing representative alexandra owe casio cortez and tensions receipt now and talk to me a little bit about nancy pelosi and how she is chadge her priorities? susan: i think pelosi -- i interviewed her a couple of wes ago and was pessimistic that this 9-11-style commission was ever going to get approved. she had a backup plan to name a select committee like the benghazi economy but preferred the gravitas and authority that this bigger bipartisan 9-11 style commission would have. i think it's a surprise that they got there. and it's not totally done yet, right? mccarthy hasn't signed off on it. we know it will get through the house regardless. we don't know what will happen necessarily in the senate. but it looks like it's well on its way. and it's one of several things where i think the white house's ability to focus on the priorities that they have and not the priorities everybody else has are paying off.

you see that -- the gas -- the gas lines. they had to deal with it. but as little as possible. the situation in the middle east they d to deal with it. but as little as possible. they are focused on the pandemic, on the economy, merab on china and that -- maybe on china and that is it. yamiche: you mentioned the gas lines and i want to turn to that because it is another important story. the colonial pipeline which supplies gas from texas to new jersey was paralyzed by ran someware attack. this wee that led to panic buying and empty gass pumps and gas is flowing through the pipeline again but only after the company paid nearly $5 million to hackers according to reports. this raises serious questions about american infrastructure and cyber attacks. here's president biden on thursday. president biden: this event is providing an urgent reminder of why we nd to harden our infrastructure and make it more resilient against all threats, natural and man made.

it's clearer than ever that doing nothing is not an option. yamiche: biden met with a number of republicans to try to get a deal. kasie, i want to come to you. i want to start and ask, is this a wake-up call, could this be a wake-up call this hack to president biden and lawmakers on infrastructure? could it make reaching a deal more likely? kasie: well, yamiche, it makes it more likely that any deal would contn things that are focused on this particular problem. i also thinthis is something that is going to be addressed likely in a bipartisan fashion, potentially in committees that reach into the national security realm and not just those that you would typically think of in terms of a bipartisan infrastructure package that's focused on domestic needs. i think susan is right to point out that the administration i think has been very focused on this behind the scenes. very concerned about it. but in public, has been working to -- to present a version -- a

vision of calm, of steadfastness, trying to take on the problem of trying not to alarm people. clearly the panic buying shows that some people were alarmed anyway. buthat was their approach. but on the hill, when i talk to people who are decision makers, especially, members of the intelligence committees on both sides of the hill, they're very worried about this. and while it seems that this was a private secto attack, there are obviously opportunities for state-based actors to tak advantage of some of those opportunities. so i would expect that this is going to be something that's going to be addressed in a multitude of ways and that actually will probably escape a lot of partisan fighting that we see typically on these more political issues simply because i do think there's a sense of urgency across the board in congress. yamiche: manu, i want to come to you. kasie saying there's a sense of urgency. what are you hearing about whether or not a sort of deal on infrastruure is possible and are there ways that maybe democrats go it alone on other bills?

manu: yeah. i thk that there's a possibility that they could get a bipartisan deal. and i'm one who's usually incredibly pessimistic about getting any bipartisan al having covered the hill as long as i have. you don't often see those bipartisan efforts fale and this one fail as well. at the moment both sides are signaling that there's serious interest in getting a deal. the white house, the democrats essentially realize that in the senate, they do not have all their ducks in a row. they cannot get a big, massive package that liberals want through the senate because simply they do not have the unity to do that. and it's not just joe manchin, the west virginia democrat, who has concerns. but other democrats do as well, to go as broad and as sweeping. so they need to find a bipartisan consensus. so there is serious discussion about something in the range of $800 billion. there are still so many questions they do have to sort through. including exactly how to pay to it, republicans drawing a red

line on raising taxes through the 2017 -- the corporate tax or capital gains tax. and democrats have agreed whether or not they could go for the types of user fees that the republicans have proposed. they are not anywhere near yet. that -- sunk infrastructure packages in the past. but what they're talking about doing, democrats are, moving say $800 billion or so along bipartisan lines, and then try to move the rest of the pacge along partisan lines through the budget process that allows them to escape a filibuster in the senate. but so many details to sort through and they got to get their ducks in a row and they're just not there yet. yamiche: that's one way to put it. their ducks in a row. and there is a lot to sort through. eugene, talk to me a little bit about how president biden is approaching this. ere was an interesting story about how he has a folksy outer kind of demeanor but also has a short temper, is really focused. eugene: that's exactly right. i mean, he's been doing this for a very long time. 36 years in the senate. eight years, kind of doing the

congressional outreach as vice president. so he knows how to do this. he kws how to twist arms. and i think he needs to say that i got a bipartisan deal done. they know that. and so i think they're willing to concede on some of the things that other democrats may not want them to. and that's something that we're going to continue to see. because if you look at the thingshat he's talked about that are hard infrastructure, that's kind of long the lines of the billions of dollars that republicans are willing to spend. so they're not as far away, i think, as -- it may seem at this point. yamiche: susan, what -- how has president biden's decades of experience in government really impacting how he's approaching this? susan: well, he has personal relationships with a whole lot of people. that's generally helpful. he also has kind of a mature attitude about it, too. so he's willing to ignore people who say you weren't legitimately elected if you can still strike a deal with them. i agree with manu the safe bet is a compromise will not happen. but it's been interesting to see people using muscles that no one has used for a couple of years. you see it on criminal justice reform. and you see it on attacking --

dealing with military sexual assaults and you see it on this infrastructure bill. it's interesting that they are still talking. it is still conceivable that they would reach an $800 billion bill and who would have bet on that six months ago? yamiche: and before we go, the united nations warned of a possible full-scale war. this week, violence between israel and the palestinian militia group hamas hit a new high. susan, i want to come to you when it comes to this conflict what do you think is motivating the biden administration's strategy here and has it shifted from the way the past presidents have handled this issue? susan: yes. i mean, i think -- very different from president trump who was invested in the middle east and thought he could bring peace to the middle east. biden does not suffer from that illusion. he would describe it i think if he was being candid, not something that's realistic. on the oer hand, the u.s. has a role in the -- in the middle east that is undeniable. the united states is being sucked into this terribl conflict that we see between the israelis and the palestinians. not the fight that biden would like to be having.

yamiche: uh-huh. kasie, in the last 30 seconds here, how is this -- these conflicts being seen on capitol hill? kasie: well, i think that there is a lot of nervousness, yamiche, particularly because this conflict seems to have come inside israeli borders. and involved -- and arab-israeli citizens. and that's some of the violence that you're seeg in the streets of israel. and that is something that i think has a lot of people on edge, especially those who've always in congress been staunch supporters of israel just because that is something that has the potential to be particularly incendiary. yamiche: uh-huh. eugene, only got 10 seconds but this middle east issue and how biden is handling it. eugene: the way that he's looking at it is exactly what susan was saying. he really would rather focus on china, rather focus on russia. and he's also in a position that no other president in a very long team has been in that members of his party are willing to speak out in favor of palestinians in a way that i

don't think they've seen. so that puts them in a more sticky position than other presidents when dealing with this issue. yamiche: that's a lot to discuss. we're going to have to leave it there. many thanks to kasie, manu, eugene and susan for their insights. this was a busy, busy news week and i'm so excited to have all of you here d thank you, of course, for joining us. make sure you join us for our "washington week" extra. we'll talk more about the middle east then. catch it live at 8:30 p.m. on youtube, facebook, and on our website. i'm yamiche -- yamiche alcindor. good night from washington. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer: corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- announcer: consumer cellular. kaiser permanente. additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, the compra corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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