if it's thursday, the new president versus the raging pandemic on the first full day in office the biden administration rolls out its national strategy to defeat covid as the u.s. sees its deadliest day yet. plus after an inaugural address about unifying the country comes a potentially divisive impeachment trial. a controversial $2 trillion recovery plan, and a fight over the filibuster. welcome to the reality of governing. and qanon conspiracy theorists get a dose of reality after biden takes the oath of office bursting their bubble of a delusional trump inspired

prophecy. welcome to thursday, it is "meet the press daily," and i'm chuck todd. happy new year. because today feels like the start of a new year. i think 2020 finally got put to rest yesterday. president biden on his first full day in office is scheduled to speak an hour from now at the white house as he signs a series of executive orders and as his administration rolls out its plan to defeat the pandemic. after a day of pomp and celebration president biden is turning his immediate attention towards the crisis that has now killed more americans than world war ii. it is projected to kill another 100,000 in the next 30 days. yesterday set a new record with more than 4,100 reported deaths. our average is over 3,000 a day these days. the administration today announced a multipronged

strategy to accelerate vaccine distribution and surge federal resources, including a number of executive actions but they've also pinned $2 trillion worth of hopes on emergency funding to come out of congress although that may take a good 30 to 60 days. congress is also about to deal with a potentially ugly and divisive impeachment trial on capitol hill of former president trump. but addressing the pandemic in the midst of a divided and post trump washington will be biden's first and perhaps biggest task. virtually everything he wants to accomplish in this presidency starts with defeating this pandemic. and while he inherits a raging virus, according to just released polling from nbc news, public attitudes have begun to shift in favorable directions and he may have a public ready to listen. voters say the worst of the pandemic is behind us, has risen to 13 points since the fall. less than half of voters now say the worst is yet to come. and the share of voters who believe the pandemic isn't a big problem hasn't really moved.

now while voters are more hopeful they are not happy with the current vaccine distribution efforts. just 11% say it is gone very well so far. and if you're the biden administration in some ways the good news by those poll numbers is, you have nowhere to go but up. chief white house correspondent kristen welker is at the white house. we have antonio hilton in maricopa county, arizona talking to people post election, one of the places we've been watching that's been hit hard by covid. so let's start with you, kristen, it's day one. this has been -- his entire general election, essentially, revolved around the issue of covid. he was going to make it his first priority. it's obviously the first priority. what are some tangible changes we're going to hear and see in the next couple of days? >> well, chuck, he got started with that just hours after he was sworn into office with that mask mandate on federal property. so that is going to be a tangible change that people will be able to see and feel.

one change that he signed into action yesterday is something that we'll have to wait and see if it works, he's encouraging everyone to wear masks for 100 days. will that change in messaging, shift attitudes towards mask wearing? could that make a difference in terms of how this virus is being transmitted? we'll have so to see. but today, chuck, more work and it's really going to be the key focus of everything he does today. he's going to be briefed. he's going to be meeting with his covid task force and then he's going to sign ten executive actions into law. among them, expanding testing sites. so that will be something presumably tangible, questions about how quickly that can get up and running. and then putting the defense production act into use so that he can expand resources. and then as you point out there's also a legislative component to all of this, chuck, as the president also aims to have schools reopened over the

next several weeks, which is he's asking for $1.9 trillion. is he going to get that? obviously some republicans already balking say that they're not going to go along with something with such a steep price tag. but the biden administration arguing, look, they need those resources if they are going to be able to roll out the vaccine in the way that they want to. if biden is going to be able to get 100 million doses into the arms of people in his first 100 days, which is something that he said he wants to do and then one more point, chuck, we have a briefing with dr. anthony fauci today at 4:00. >> i'm glad you brought up anthony fauci. you know, on sunday anthony fauci seemed to be much more optimistic about the vaccine rollout, he chalked it up more to hiccups, logistical issues, meanwhile ron klain and jeff psi

zients indicated no, this is worse than they thought. do you have two different aspects? >> i think, chuck, yo saw that disparity in part because you were hearing dr. fauci express optimism about the fact there is now going to be a national strategy. we spent so much time talking to former president trump and the trump administration about where the strategy was. what you're seeing now is this acknowledgment, you're absolutely right, by zients, saying, look, the trump administration did not leave us with any working plan to roll out in vaccine. so yes, we are starting from scratch, what fauci was saying, we'll have to press him on this today when we get to ask him some questions at least you we're looking in a mirror and acknowledging here's what a plan will look like, putting the pieces together. there is no doubt, though, chuck, this is going to be the first and biggest test for this incoming president.

>> yeah. well, kristen welker at the white house getting us started, kristen, thanks very much. >> thank you, chuck. >> let's cut out the middle people here, let's go to antonia hilton in arizona. antonia, kristen can tell us what they think the biden administration is going to deliver but you've been talking to folks in the community there in maricopa county. what are they expecting and how soon do they expect it when it comes to covid and some of these promises that they've been hearing? >> hey, chuck, so here in arizona there is a lot of anxiety, in a community that's particularly anxious to see biden make good on his promises and take this pandemic more seriously is the latino community. here in maricopa county there are about 40% of the covid cases right now and that's because these are frontline essential workers who are putting food on other people's tables out in public every day, and they're getting the virus. they tell me they want to see the vaccination process move much more quickly, and they want information about the vaccine to come out in english and in

spanish. they are also especially anxious about the potential for more stimulus money. they feel like this money could be make or break for their families. and this is reflected in my conversation with officials here as well. the mayor's office in the city of phoenix tells me that they desperately want the federal government to give more direct assistance to cities, that their staff has been strained, and that they really need more money to help people out with rental and mortgage assistance, that they're seeing too many families struggling to make these payments. and i actually met with a family struggling to make payments like this, the family of alexis labario, a grocery worker in maricopa, county, take a listen to this conversation i had with her. >> what does it look like for the president to now keep his word to latinos? >> just putting a stop to the virus, like really helping people out. if he's going to help people out financially, if people who are having a hard time buying groceries, paying their bills. >> latinos here want to hold

biden accountable by keeping an eye on what his administration does over the coming days and weeks and they feel like he owes this to them. in fact, you know, cherry they aring the driving demographic force that flipped maricopa county from red to blue. the at least biden can do, they feel, is make good on this promise. >> antonia, when you would ask them more about what you've heard on plans would they proactively bring up, hey, we delivered arizona for joe biden so we expect something in return? >> oh, i heard that from several people, almost everyone, all day yesterday. you know, they said, activists here, regular voters, we called millions of people. we knocked on doors here. we had an unprecedented turnout. latinos here are a driving force now, the changing face of the state. if you're happy you won arizona here and after all the controversy the state has been through with eight different failed election related lawsuits

they feel like this is a hard fought victory and they want to see this president thank femme there are that by making good on the promise. their economic prospects and family prospects are tied into this pandemic because they are frontline essential workers, they can't avoid working in public. fixing this pandemic for them has everything to do with their family's futures right now, chuck. >> well, look, i -- we always talk about elections have consequences but what you're pointing out is how you campaign has consequences for what voters then expect in return as well. anyway, antonio hilton on the ground for us in maricopa county, arizona, thanks very much. joining me now is the director of columbia university's national center for disaster preparedness and he's an msnbc contributor as well, it's dr. irwin redlener, good to see you, okay, we have turned the page from a lack of a federal response. we're going to get a federal

response. we're seeing it put today. and it couldn't come soon enough, we're now in a race against this mutant virus that may speed things up. assess the situation as far as you're looking at, we're staring at another 100,000 deaths in the next 100 days and we're going to get two more vaccines online. this does feel like this gruesome race that we're in. >> yeah, truly, chuck, it's a race against time. right now the virus is winning. unfortunately, but we have a new team on the field, and i think that the contrast between what happened yesterday and what we are seeing today already with the rollout of new plans the contrast in what was happening two days ago with the end of the trump administration is beyond stark. and we've seen an unbelievable rollout of a whole rift of plans and protocols that will be followed and i think we're going to see some big, big changes. that said, ron klain said the other day as you pointed out

that we're going to have half a million deaths tallied by the end of the month. and look, if this keeps going we're going to see 600,000 to 700,000 fatalities by the end of the say, first 200 days. the other side of the coin, though, is that we do have these vaccines, rollout has been painfully slow to date but there's many, many ways the biden administration can and will accelerate this. and i was skeptical at first but i've got to tell you having looked at the plans, chuck, i'm actually pretty optimistic that we'll be able to accomplish that 100 million doses in the first 100 days. >> you know, it's interesting, because i think this has been what is very opaque to a lot of us and i'm curious if you have any better visual into this. what is the vaccine distribution issue? is it -- is it a logistics problem coming from the manufacturers to the government -- to the feds, to the states?

is it something else? because all we hear is there's a problem, but we don't really hear what the problem is. >> yeah, so let me shine a little light here if i might, chuck, first of all, it's not an issue, it's multiple issues that have been a problem here. less than 50% of the doses out there are actually getting into people's arms. so the problem starts with the manufacturer. and first of all, you have to realize that the manufacturers, the pfizers and modernas and the two new ones coming online are rushing as fast as they can to manufacture the vaccine. but that vaccine has to go into bottles. we need to get those bottles ramped up. we need syringes. we need everything else that needs to go along with actually producing a deliverable vaccine. and that needs to be fast tracked. and that's where the defense production act comes in, that the biden administration is going to make full use of. secondly, the actual distribution to the states has been a problem. we have multiple contracts with various private district distributors, with pharmaceutical chains like cvs

and walgreens who are responsible now for vaccinating people in nursing homes. that's going slowly. there's a tremendous amount of confusion about the priority categories. we had a dramatic example in new york where the governor had one idea and the mayor had another idea and this is reflective of everything else that's happening around the priority, clarity we need around the country and then almost all of the states need federal assistance, they need cash dollars to make sure they have the resources, the people, the biden administration is actually talking about literally rolling out a lot of mobile delivery systems. so mobile clinics and mobile units to get to hard to reach areas. all of this needs to be in place, and it's not a question of menus where you can choose one or the other, all this needs to be tackled at once, and i think the biden team has put together an incredible array of

experts, medical experts but also logistic experts and that i think we're going to see some rapid acceleration of the process quite soon. >> all right, what about the mutant virus? i was reading pretty detailed analysis of the -- i guess there's three different mutations, and that -- the one piece of good news is that these mutations are evolving similarly. so i guess the question i have for you is, how quickly are we going to have to -- it does sound like we probably are going to have to tweet the vaccines for this mutant. when do you think that needs to happen? >> well, first of all, there's three issues with these mutations, number one, is they're much, much more transmissible, much more rapidly transmitted from one person to another person so that it will accelerate the speed and the pace of the pandemic. the second thing is that there are some changes in who's most affected and we're seeing younger people more affected by these new vaccines. but the third thing that

actually we're really concerned about is will these vaccine mutations end up in less susceptibility to the vaccines in which case we will have to tweak the vaccines and which is going to be a major problem. but people are geared up to be able to do that as quickly as possible. i don't know what will happen, people have already been vaccinated, probably be okay and we probably won't see complete resistance to the mutations but we might see a diminished efficacy. and we have to watch that very closely. you know, when this first started thinking about this, people were saying, you know, it's going to take a couple years before we get a mutation that's vaccine resistant. but it's happening quicker than we thought. >> yeah, well, yeah they said it's a -- that's what these viruses want to do, they want to evolve and survive. they're organisms. dr. irwin redlener, appreciate your expertise. >> thanks, joe.

>> thank you. coming up, minutes after president biden was sworn in, china decided to be the adversary to test him first. they lashed out, sanctioning outgoing trump administration officials. it is the first of what will be many foreign policy tests for the new team. plus the new democratic senate also faces their first major tests, that's also next. network at a record pace. we were the first to bring 5g nationwide. and now that sprint is a part of t-mobile we're turning up the speed. upgrading over a thousand towers a month with ultra capacity 5g. to bring speeds as fast as wifi to cities and towns across america. and we're adding more every week. coverage and speed. who says you can't have it all? with relapsing forms of ms, there's a lot to deal with. not just unpredictable relapses. all these other things too. who needs that kind of drama?

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welcome back, today is not only the first full day of the biden administration it's now the first full day with democrats in fleet control of congress for the first time in a decade. newly minted senate majority leader chuck schumer has his work cut out for him. confirming president biden's cabinet nominees, passing covid relief bill, and holding an impeachment trial for a former president. so joining me now from capitol hill, my nbc news colleague garrett haake. garrett, the democrats are in the majority. but is the senate officially

organized and apologies for the washington speak there, but if you could help put it in english for us. >> yeah, so they are not officially organized yet. the senate is sort of loosely continuing to do the work that it knows how to do right now but in a 50/50 split there's a lot of things that still have to get worked out, usually with an organizing resolution, something that passes with unanimous consent, control how ties are broken in evenly divided committees, control floor time and office spice and some of the more mundane details of how the senate is governed but that process is being held up right now over the disagreement about the legislative filibuster, the 60 vote threshold for legislation. short version of this is mitch mcconnell wants now majority leader chuck schumer, still working on my terminologies here to codify, somehow, beyond the existing senate rule, essentially say i will respect this tradition, we will lock in the 60 vote threshold for legislation next two years and schumer democrats are saying we

just earned the power to control this place, we're not negotiating away anything right now. that's led to a sort of slowdown in other elements, including the start of the impeachment trial. that debate has to get worked out first, i think, before the senate can really dive in head first to all the business that's before it. >> so do they have to agree on how to organize the senate or can schumer walk away and say, hey, we've got the majority and here's what we're doing, and then just slog through votes? >> i think they could potentially get to a position where they could vote on the resolution, sort of the old fashioned way. but they would have to wait for the hours of debate. i mean, this is one of those things where the senate procedure and the unwritten rules of how the senate operates get really messy, and bogged down. and i think everyone i've talked to, certainly aides to both leaders, want to see some kind of agreement reached here. they want to start a term of the

senate by, you know, blowing through another norm and getting off on such a weird foot. >> oh, man, congress is going to congress. anyway -- >> yes, they are. >> garrett haake on capitol hill for us. garrett, thanks very much. well, let me bring in a democratic senator here, who is agreed to multitask for us, i know you're in the middle of a conference call with, i think, your other democratic colleagues, it's senator jeff merkley, democrat from oregon. let's start with this issue, which is how long are you guys going to negotiate if you can't come to an agreement on the rules of this year's senate? >> chuck, what we're seeing here is immediately mcconnell going into the strategy of delay and obstruction. he would never, mcconnell would never agree to some new rule about committing himself to 60 votes. after all, it's the republicans who wiped out the 60 votes for

doing tax decreases. they did it twice. they're the republicans who wiped out the rule for 60 votes on supreme court nominees. mcconnell would never agree to this. he knows chuck will never agree to it. it's a matter of eating up additional days because his strategy is, if he can keep anything from happening over the next eight months, and then campaigns are in our front view, well it will prevent the democrats from being able to tacklitious. here it is, back in on obstruction and delay. >> what is your leverage? what do you think the leverage should be? what would your advice to your leader chuck schumer be at this point? >> well, right now he's calculating, i'm sure, i haven't talked to him about this, he's calculating just how much floor time it would take to go on our own. that's the backup plan as mentioned. and -- but it's just exactly the sort of challenge where you feel in the senate like you're walking through mud up to your knees and so the people's issues

don't get addressed on health care, on housing, on education, on the coronavirus. this whole big plan that president joe biden has just put forward to tackle both the economic and health care sides of the pandemic. it's very frustrating. if the republicans overplay their case then they always have the risk that democrats are change the rules. that's the avenue they're trying to cut off so that they can overplay their case. it's a real challenge. you have an effort responsible to govern in what is currently ungovernable institution. >> so you have this stand still, which means until you resolve this, we're not going to know when you start this impeachment trial, which no matter your point of view on the impeachment trial, it is a -- it is going to -- it is something you constitutionally have to do. so how does that fit into all

this? >> yes, as soon as nancy pelosi delivers the outcome from the house, officially when we're constitutionally required to basically start it immediately. there's going to be a lot of effort to pare it down to a much more consiel trial, like the impeachment process in the house was pared down, but that's going to take great cooperation though. mitch mcconnell may do everything he can to make it as lengthy as possible. i don't know how to resolve this problem. when i came to the senate i was stunned to see this strategy of rather than the emphasis being let's work together to solve problems being let's show that the majority champ governs so we have an argument to replace themt. it's doing so much damage to america, mitch mcconnell doing it all over once again. nobody will forgive the democrats if we allow this to happen. >> let me move to substance here on the covid relief bill and

what president biden wants, he proposed $1.9 trillion last night in our first press briefing jen psaki was reality based, it's a proposal to congress, she knows some things could change and things will be negotiated. what do you believe is negotiable and what are you worried about that you could see on the negotiating table that you would like not to see there? >> well, basically his plan falls into three main buckets. you have the health care bucket with the vaccines, with sick leave for any individuals so they don't spread the virus. a strategy to try to assist schools in getting the majority of schools back in the classroom, children back in the classroom by the end of the 100 days. then you have the support for families for working families, for housing related to evictions, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, and support for communities through small business transit first responders and so forth.

none of that is particularly partisan. but the republicans are expected to take the position that the price tag just too big. which means the only way this is going to get done is probably reconciliation, which means an expedited reconciliation process. maybe it can be done in six weeks but all of that is delayed if the senate hasn't gotten organized. >> so you don't -- you're not optimistic about finding ten republicans, even though i think joe biden wants to make every effort to find ten republicans. >> well, he's going to work at it right away. he's going to be inviting a bipartisan group over tomorrow, you see the centrists on both sides of the party being invited. and so he's going to do his best effort at it in the end i would place my money on reconciliation. >> senator jeff merkley, democrat from oregon, i know this is an extraordinarily busy hour for us to be making this request. i appreciate you multitasking for us, thank you, sir.

>> you're very welcome, thank you. up next, the next phase of the disinformation crisis in this country. with president biden now in office and qanon followers are losing faith, but where will they turn? plus the stunning statistic about how much less misinformation is out there. now that president trump has been deplatformed. we'll be right back. re-entering data that employees could enter themselves? that's why i get up in the morning!

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welcome back, the problems of far right violent extremism and online disinformation are not just going away now that donald trump is out of office and it is possible the next phase could lead to more violence. defying the prophecies of qanon believers and other pro-trump conspiracy theorists president joe biden's inauguration came and went without any violence, any last minute coup, that believers promised would somehow keep donald trump in power and while most of america breathed a sigh of relief watching a successful transfer of power, sadly we can't use the word peaceful nbc news reports some qanon believers came despondent as their ideology came crashing down with reality. in the "new york times" reports that some of trump's most fervent supporters, the far right proud boys are angry at trump, turning away from him after he seemingly left without a final fight. they feel abandoned. as more of them are being

charged with storming the u.s. capitol. but as our own ben collins reports it could be where the followers go next that is concerning. and joining me now is ben collins. so ben, all right, the good news is, there's clearly this moment with a lot of people that followed qanon. confession, i've got family members who've -- i will call them qanon curious. who i think this reality was a -- it's a welcome sort of -- it crashed, oh, okay, you're right, that was a bunch of bunk. how good is that, and what evidence are you seeing of that? >> yeah, there's two things here that are happening in tandem. one, most people are sort of giving up the ghost. a lot of people over the last few weeks have become q curious like you said because of viral text messages and facebook messages that were chain letters being sent around. they didn't know it was qanon

but they thought they were being given inside information by the government. >> that's exactly right they did not know it was qanon and they were like, what is this, and it was that, anyways. >> that's what happened. yeah, everyone was saying stock up, blackout for ten days, buy ham radios so you can communicate. that was qanon. they removed the branding so they could spread the lie further. those people who were just dabbling in this, they're dipping out of it now largely but lifers are adrift. this is the last where you could live in reality and still think that donald trump was going to be president on the 21st. they don't know how to handle it. what they saw over the past few hours is the world making fun of them. it was a silly thing to believe in all along. it was a vicious and disgusting thing to believe, that all these people would be rounded up and killed and that's a good news thing for america but they are feeling deep shame. where are they getting good news

today? they're getting it from white nationalists, neo-nazis on telegram. i like donald trump too and i'm disappointed, what we're doing is direct action. we're ready for some violence. we're ready to take out all the anger you have of the government over these lies. those people are welcoming them in. and the real world is not ready to do that yet that's where it's kind of getting dangerous right now. >> so the good news is, the following may be smaller but those that are left more violent and more dangerous? >> yeah, that's always the issue with this, you know, this is a thing that law enforcement talks about with isis, talk about it with pretty much my terror group. when you close them off from larger platforms, like twitter or facebook, they get into these smaller spaces, they're smaller spaces, great news, right, but in those smaller spaces, they're harder to track and they're a lot more toxic. these people rile each other up.

outside information, the real news that exists in the planet is not allowed in those spaces. you'll get kicked out. those people rile each other up into violence and like i said it gets extremely dangerous in those spaces because a lot of those people are joking around, a lot of those people are passive and want a takeover of the government, but don't want to participate in it. all it takes is one person to act. what we saw on january 6th were all of the various people in the country going to act. suddenly it wasn't one person, it was thousands of them, thousands of lone wolves storming the capitol. >> the other question i have is sort of the lesson that i think we're all taking away from how effective the deplatforming of donald trump was not just on silencing donald trump, but on essentially mitigating misinformation, or disinformation, however you want to view it, versus those that, you know, are doing it on

purpose, or not, that has got to be a wakeup call to the social media companies that, hey, moderation works, you better get more aggressive at it. >> yeah, he was sort of the tip of the sphere, the tip of the sphere on this stuff. he was -- he would take all of the -- all of the rumors and send it out to largest available audience, that's gone. there's no feedback loop anymore. there's no rumor mill that goes to the top. the top feeds the rumor mill. the rumor mill just works in its own circle and they can't get it out to the masses in a faster way. there's a space for that figure head in the future, and i'm sure people are angling for it but right now it's substantially different than it was two weeks ago on these platforms. >> right, well, i hope the lesson is, don't let somebody accumulate that kind of following or power that ends up doing what donald trump did. i think that ought to be the lesson. anyway, ben collins, as always, ben, thank you. by the way, we should take a

moment to remember that occasionally, sometimes the internet is still a force for good, or at least for funny. bernie sanders, once again, became a popular meme yesterday, the vermont senator braved the cold wearing a parka, warm mittens, and a look that said, among other things, can we move it along, please? and that sparked a photo shop frenzy, here he is beamed aboard the sharship enterprise, here he is on his union mandated lunch break in the early 1930s. here he is when no one told him life was going to be this way. then there was his little known impromptu appearance at the yalta conference. and of course there were those who went to a higher plane of consciousness, in jewish yoga, this pose is waiting for my wife at loehmann's. deep stuff. we'll be right back. l be right . s your home insurance,

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welcome back, president biden's first foreign policy test came minutes after he was inaugurated as the chinese government issued new sanctions on more than two dozen trump administration officials who that country claimed seriously violated hits sovereignty, including mike pompeo, former hhs secretary alex azar, robert o'brien, and a handful of others and the sanctions banned them from entering mainland china, hong kong or from doing business with folks in china. for more on this, joined by richard hobbs, president on the council on foreign relations. when i saw this happen, i thought, boy, it's pretty obvious what china's up to. they're basically, okay, president biden, we want to test you early. we didn't like these guys, whose side are you on? i'm pretty sure i know which side an american official is going to be on but how would you

advise the biden administration to handle this and what kind of response would you counsel. >> i wouldn't twist -- if i were advising the biden administration i would tell them don't twist yourself in knots in responding to how china goes after these individuals. the real question is, how do you deal with the new status quo? state department set these new ground rules as you know chuck about u.s. engagement with taiwan. and i think the challenge for the new administration is how do we make good on our commitments to taiwan, how do we make clear to china they shouldn't go down the path of coercing, much less using force against taiwan, how do we do that without, though, breaking the fundamentals that have served us well for 40 years in the mainland? and i think we've got to continue to dead that needle. i would keep an eye on the bigger picture rather than on the narrow angle of these

individuals. >> what does china -- you don't want them to get caught up in it. what is their goal? >> they want senior administrations and this administration, the new administration not to go to taiwan. basically, they're against anything which seems to see taiwan as an entity that's on its way to becoming a sovereign, independent country and they don't want us to deal with taiwan as if it were. what they basically want are senior people in the biden administration to think twice or three times before beginning to take the sorts of trips to taiwan that were being entertained by the previous administration. i think there's ways of getting around this. and there are individuals, say, in the health area who should go to taiwan. taiwan has been a fantastic demonstration of responsible, efficient activity vis-a-vis covid but i don't think the secretary of state or someone like that needs to go there.

so i think there's a way of working this, chuck. >> you know, i feel as if -- and i'm curious what you think of this, the trump administration also seemed like it was trying to politically set up the biden administration on this too, create false choices to create political problems. it feels as if it's pretty obvious what we're seeing here, right, that, you know, maybe you wouldn't have used some of the language, perhaps, that the last administration used and i don't think this administration wants to use that language, but at the same time i don't think this administration wants to come across it looking like they're going to appease china either. >> you're 100% right. there will actually be a large amount of continuity and consistency between the two administrations and i think that's more than anything the result of zi jinping, repressive behavior at home, violated rules, more assertive foreign

policy, all of this has changed the american take on china. there will be lots of consistency but tony blinken is not going to run around the world calling for regime change in china as essentially mike pompeo did and i think they're going to be a little bit more careful how they interact with taiwan but quite honestly i don't care a lot about the symbols of our relationship with taiwan. i would actually like just to make sure that substantively we do enough with taiwan so china is never tempted to use force or coercion across the board to change the status quo. that is less to do with how many people visit taiwan, and more on the substance of our military relationship. >> richard haass, when you start having a conversation about china, you never have enough time. and there's about six more follow-ups that i have, but i don't have enough time. as always, sir, thanks for coming on and giving us your expertise on this. appreciate it. >> thanks, chuck. you got it, up next, the

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and joining me now is donna edwards. so donna, it is on day one, it's like the first day of school, everything seems possible, joe biden is going to have a meeting with multiple senators tomorrow, is it all good? when does this end? >> no, i don't think so, chuck. you know he said yesterday in his address that just enough of us have to come together to bring along the rest of us. i think that will be his approach. one of the things that strikes me is that joe biden and kamala harris both have a real appreciation for the article one branch. meeting with members of congress. here we are, on the day after,

and we're focused on thinking about policy and not just the politics of what is going on of a tweet or some other happening in the white house. >> you know, i thought one of the things that was under estimated is this. he is the first president since lbj to like congress. he is not just a creature of it, he likes it. every president in our lifetime has hated congress and loves to talk about how they hate congress. and not this guy. >> yeah, he didn't run against congress, chuck. and use it really as a campaign theme, we didn't see that from

joe biden. he is going to have to work closely with congress. there is probably a few different things they will have to try to do. it is relatively arcane. so if he wants to do things like big infrastructure packages, health care reform, you know the issues that many of which he campaigned on, he will need to figure out a way to bring some republicans along and that will require him to engage and to reach out. and i understanding is he has reached out. the administration said how can we work together on these things. it is promising in that thing. the substance always makes things more challenging at the end of the day. >> if everyone changed their tone and never changed their mind, we would still have a more

unified country. the tone change to me is so much in all of this. it's interesting, when you woke up this morning how urgent did donald trump's impeachment feel as opposed to do days ago? >> it's not so much the urgency of we have to remove him because he is a clear and present danger, but more that it is just an imperative thing at the top of the to-do list so we can close the book on donald trump and the way he abused his pous as president. so while i would say i'm thinking a lot about the moment, and the inauguration, but it is about restoring some semblance of what was lost under trump.

>> what concerns you more? that impeachment divides the republican party? or that they decide not to have this fight and they sweep it all under the rug. they stay unified just enough to avoid the conviction but they don't resolve their trump issues. >> yeah, i think most people agree right and left they want it to be quick and they want to get it out of the way so they can get to whatever is next on the agenda. conversations about trump starting his own party, if that is true, that is devastating for republicans. they're going to have a conversation internally, and

it's not going to be resolved in impeachment, so even if there is a unified front, it is still an issue going forward. >> thank you both. that does it for thus hour. we're back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily" after this break. this break ents. -kee-on-oh... -nope. -co-ee-noah. -no. -joaquin. -no. it just takes practice. give it a shot. [ grunts, exhales deeply ] -did you hear that? -yeah. it's a constant battle. we're gonna open a pdf. who's next? progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto with us. no fussin', no cussin', and no -- dad, it's a video call. when you bundle home and auto with us. hold the phone in front of you. how's that? get...get mom.

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good afternoon, it is 11:00 a.m. out west and 2:00 p.m. in washington. biden will sign ten now executive orders. it is the start of what is being promsed as an aggressive new