offer my opinion. thank you so much for making time tonight. >> you could be a budget committee staffer, chris, with that comment. >> it's true, though. one of the big questions facing democrats in the senate is whether they should eliminate the filibuster. that's the topic of the latest episode of my podcast, why is this happening. adam lays out how we got the filibuster in the first place and why it became mitch mcconnell's first move. rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening. >> any budget committee staffer that included you would make me sign up for that budget. >> such an amazing compliment to get on national television. you would make a good budget committee staffer. >> budget committee staffer. >> pardon me, felt a little serotonin, thank you. good. >> also, i am sending you some personal financial information later that i would like you to help me with, because you alone could get that compliment. >> all right, thanks, my friend. >> and thanks to you at home for

joining us this hour. here's an interesting thing. sort of a personal thing, but also a news thing. right before president trump was impeached the first time, i published a book called "blow out" and the weird surprising to me thing about "blow out" is that tended up being oddly well timed. i had no idea it was going to be well timed when i set out to write it, but that's how it landed. it was a book about the oil and gas industry and the political power and geopolitical power of that industry. and a big chunk of that book was about all of the craziness and corruption in ukraine. and of course, then, right at the time the book came out, all the craziness and corruption in ukraine ended up being the setting, like the playing field for what president trump got impeached for the first time he got impeached. i did not intend it to land that way. it was fortuitous and i hope helpful to people trying to figure out that landscape while we were looking at that first

impeachment. now, of course, mr. trump is being impeached for a second time. and it's kind of uncanny, a lot of the things i wrote about in that book that came out during the first trump impeachment, they're sort of coming home to roost now. the whole reason i wrote that book is because i think we were pretty consistently underestimating the sway of this one industry. how much sway the oil and gas industry has over politics and whole governments, both here in the united states and around the world. and so i thought there was -- i thought it would be helpful. i thought there was a need for kind of a rip roaring round the world explainer for how that one industry can sometimes explain a lot of what otherwise doesn't make sense about politics. if something is happening in politics and geopolitics that doesn't make sense on the service and what we're taught to look for in terms of political currents, it helps to look at this industry and see if maybe they're the hidden hand there. particularly when politics fails or when governments are really

bad, the whole book was like, hey, this is a place to look. and of course, it's one thing to say here's the hidden hand at work here. here's the unacknowledged power that's really making things possible or impossible that's really calling the shots here. but it's that further thing to understand that dynamic well enough so that when that hidden hand weakens, when that power behind the throne collapses for some reason, you can anticipate what kinds of changes that might mean. understanding the real power at work means knowing what might happen when that power goes south. when it shuts off. so this book "blowout" when it came out in the first trump impeachment, i meant it to be sort of a heads-up for the oil and gas industry being a sort of secretly powerful political entity. but also a heads-up that if and when the bottom ever fell out of that industry, be prepared. be ready to go, because when the bottom falls out of that industry, a lot of things are

going to change. a lot of things that they as an industry were blocking are suddenly going to become possible. a lot of bad government, for example, is going to fall apart. once the power behind bad government loses its zhuszh. that was the sort of warning i was trying to sound about the oil and gas industry during the first trump impeachment. now, of course, we're in the second trump impeachment. and what do you know? the bottom actually has fallen out of that industry. i mean, right after blowout was published, royalty after trump impeachment numero uno, the coronavirus crisis hits worldwide. that immediately walloped the oil and gas industry like nothing ever in its history has ever hit them before. the floor just dropped below them. at one point early on in the coronavirus crisis, the price of a barrel of oil was negative. it cost less than zero dollars to buy a barrel of oil. meaning if you owned a barrel of

oil, not only could you not charge somebody money for taking it from you, you would actually have to pay somebody to take that barrel of oil away from you because it was worth negative dollars. and over the course of the pandemic, it hasn't really gotten better. i mean, the price of oil has pinged around, but it's a disaster for that industry. yesterday, exxon mobile just posted its worst quarterly earnings in 40 years. i mean, not long ago, exxon was the most profitable corporation in the history of corporations, for multiple years running. this quarter, they lost over $20 billion. and this is now four straight quarters for them losing money. this was the richest company on earth by a mile forever and ever. now they're a company that loses more than $61 million every day they stay in operation. they're losing $61 million a day. this was the headline this morning in the business section of "the new york times." after a bruising year, the oil industry confronts a diminished

future. big oil companies lost billions in 2020 because of the pandemic. they face broad questions now about how they will adapt to climate change and regulations. so that book that i wrote "blowout" tried to document how the oil and gas industry has undercut democracy, hollowed out democracy, both in parts of the united states and around the world. this is about the strength and incredible financial resources of that industry has stopped us from making even the easiest reforms and fixes when it comes to the climate. well, now that mighty industry is sucking wind and so stuff is changing. it seems like a whole new world is possible. i mean, listen to this from today. this was senator chuck schumer who as of today is running the united states senate. this is him announcing today what they're getting to work on in the united states senate. now that the democrats have control as of day one.

>> senate democrats are not going to waste any time taking on the biggest challenges facing our country and our planet. it's long past time for the senate to take a leading role in combatting the existential threat of our time, climate. climb change touches virtually every aspect of our economy, and involves virtually every aspect of public policy. so as the biden administration prepares a whole of government approach to combatting climate change, the democratic majority will pursue a whole of senate approach as well. >> a whole of senate approach. now that the democrats are in control of the senate, he's assigning every committee in the u.s. senate to start moving climate legislation. they're moving on it. this past week, the biden administration unveiled multiple efforts they're going to pursue all at once, including through executive action, to make the country take a big shift on climate. long, long overdue, easy measures.

today, pete buttigieg, one of the best communicators in a generation of democratic talent was sworn in as secretary of transportation in the biden administration, among other things, secretary buttigieg will be overseeing the transformation of the huge fleet of all federal vehicles to all electric vehicles. general motors just announced they will no longer make internal combustion engines for their cars and suvs within the next 15 years and i'll tell you right now, the best super bowl ad you're going to see on sunday is the will ferrell aquafina kenan thompson ad about gm shifting to electric cars and this ground breaking new battery they're putting in like 30 different models of cars. their whoet fleet is going to be electric in less than 15 years. it's happening. it's happening. all at once, and now very quickly. when the worst opponents of us getting it together on climate are collapsing economically or are so rocked back on their heels economically and politically, honestly, that some of even the big oil companies

are trying to decide now if they might switch sides and maybe try to be good guys on this issue for once, when your opposition collapses like that, it's time to run the field. and a democratic president is in office who is committed to this as a top priority, and the american people voted the democrats into control, both the united states house and the united states senate, when democrats campaigned on the fact they were going to move on this issue, it's happening. and it's happening in part because the bad guys on this issue have collapsed. it is happening in part because of the suddenly sagging fortunes of what previously, what until a year ago was the richest, most destructive industry on the planet. that's what that book that i wrote "blowout" is about, the full title is "blowout, corrupted democracy, rogue state russia, and the richest, most destructive industry on earth." and apparently this book is going to come out again every single time that donald trump

gets impeached. came out in hard back when he was getting impeached the first time, and now this week, it's just come out in paperback for the first time, if he gets impeached a third time, i'll have to release it on a wax disc. the audio book was also nominate for a grammy, if that's of interest in case you would prefer to hear it rather than read it. but anyway, if you go to msnbc.com/blowout, it's all there in case you are interested. it feels a little uncanny. and as i mentioned, today, republicans and democrats in the senate did finally sign the rules that allow the democrats to take charge there. take charge and start running all the committees. democrats won those two georgia senate races nearly a month ago, which is what gave them 50 senators chrk is what gave them control of the senate, but republicans have dragged their feet in actually allowing the democrats to take over and start working in the senate. it was a week and a half ago that mitch mcconnell, the top republican in the senate, actually dropped whatever his

supposed objections were that were the excuse for him not allowing democrats to take over, but even after he publicly dropped that objection last monday, he still dragged it out another week and a half. wasn't until today that he finally relented and agreed to sign over power to the democrats. so it is a month late today that democrats started running the u.s. senate. i mean, they should have 24 months in power in the senate until the next election. but republican senator mitch mcconnell succeeded in eating one of those 24 months. so they're only going to have 23 months to get done what they want to do. which gives them, i think, permission, is that the right word, gives them reason at least to go as fast as possible. the republicans stole a month from them, so now they get to go double time. now they get to start. and on the other side of the capitol, in the house, it's of course a real split screen

moment right now. on one side of the screen, there's house democrats moving ahead with the whole governing thing, voting to move forward president biden's big covid relief bill, to start working on the legislation as of tonight. on the other side of the screen are house republicans who have spent all day and now all night having a big fight within their party about which republican members of congress they should punish for unconscionable acts, and how they should be punished and exactly what counts as unconscionable anymore. tonight, liz cheney of wyoming, she's third ranking republican in the house leadership, she survived a vote among her colleagues on whether they were going to oust her from leadership because she was one of ten house republicans who voted to impeach president trump for his role in inciting the violent attack on the capitol january 6th. even though she survived the vote, dozens of her house republican colleagues tonight voted that she should be kicked out of her leadership job for daring to cross donald trump. but they could not drum up enough votes to get it done, so

liz cheney will stay in her role as the number three house republican. and make of that what you will. only ten republicans in the house voted to impeach donald trump, but tonight, 145 republicans voted to keep liz cheney in leadership despite her vote. tonight's vote was also a secret ballot, so maybe republicans are more okay with impeachment when they don't have to answer publicly for their votes. or maybe lots of house republicans just secretly like liz cheney but they don't want to talk about it publicly. like i said, make of it what you will. but the other colleague of theirs who house republicans are grappling with tonight is, of course, the freshman congresswoman from georgia, marjorie taylor greene, and if you are a living, breathing sentient human who has consumed any news coverage in the past few days you are more than likely familiar with congresswoman greene and all the things unearthed about her and her views and her public statements recently from harassing and mocking a teenage survivor of the parkland school

shooting, because ms. greene believes that shooting was a hoax with actors and nobody really died, to endorsing social media posts that advocate putting a bullet in house speaker nancy pelosi's head, to propounding a conspiracy theory that the california wildfires were not a naturally occurring thing or even the product of normal arson, no, in fact, she says they were started by lasers from space controlled by shadowy jewish groups. it should really be looked into. all of which comes on top of what was already famous about her, that she's an energetic adherent and proponent of the qanon conspiracy theory which is the same conspiracy about satan worshiping pedophile child blood drinking lizard people that motivated lots of the rioters who attacked the capitol on january 6th, that's a theory she has propounded, a theory that among other things predicts a violent resurrection of the

trump presidency and the public execution of hundreds of prominent democrats and celebrities and figures from the news media. public executions. they want them in public. they want everybody to see them. in the wake of the january 6ths attacks on democratic members of congress, they say they feel unsafe around congresswoman greene, including one who asked to have her office moved away from marjorie greene's office after a couple run-ins with her. and as you know, this doesn't really have to be hard for house republicans. they do have a playbook they wrote themselves for handling something like this. a playbook they have used very recently. only two years ago that congressman steve king of iowa found himself wondering aloud to a "new york times" reporter, what's so wrong with the word white nationalest and white supremacist. why did though become such a bad thing? and even though steve king had been saying stuff like that and acting that way forever, this

time, republicans decided they just had enough. and the house republican leader, kevin mccarthy, got his caucus to strip steve king of all his committee assignments. he was kicked off all his committee said, treated as a pariah from there on out. he had no actual work to do. he ended up twiddling his thumbs in the house for the lest of the term and there was a republican primary against him in which he was sounded defeated and that was it for steve king's political career. they know how to do this. and democrats now control the house. they basically said to rns, look, you know how to do this. take care of this problem with marjorie taylor greene saying nancy pelosi should be shot and sandy hook didn't happen and parkland didn't happen and yous are controlling space that account for the wildfires. i mean, take care of this problem you have with marjorie taylor greene the way you did with steve king. she wasn't musing aloud about whether words are good or bad the way steve king was.

she has been publicly propounded a theory that not only led to a violent attack on the capitol, but that at its heart is about executing democrats. for being democrats. so democrats have been saying, listen, do what you did with steve king here. strip her of her committee assignments or i guess we'll have to do it for you. democrats have been particularly incensed that republicans put ms. greene on the education committee, someone who believed mass school shootings in recent years have been a hoax and no kids really died. put her on the education committee. but this time around, house republicans have not been able to bring themselves to use the steve king playbook. maybe it was the supportive phone calls that congresswoman greene claims to have received from donald trump, but house republican leader kevin mccarthy, after having met with her yesterday, in which she was reportedly not at all contrite in that meeting about anything she said, house leader kevin mccarthy put out a statement

tonight that did not announce any sort of action on congresswoman greene and instead attacks democrats for their criticism of her. and so tonight, the house rules committee approved a resolution that will strip congresswoman greene of her committee assignments. again, the same punishment that befell steve king. the full house will vote on that tomorrow. that means all house republicans will now be forced to go on the record voting to support marjorie taylor greene or not. voting to go on the record as to whether or not you can serve as a republican member of congress after calling for the execution of the speaker of the house. very few republican members of congress are actively defending marjorie taylor greene or any of the things she has said or done. they're mostly arguing process. they say if democrats remove her from her committees, that's bad. that's a bad thing for the other party to do because whatever party controls congress, that party can then remove the other party's members from the committees. the democrats don't seem swayed by this argument.

here was rules committee chairman jim mcgovern of massachusetts at tonight's hearing. >> if the president is going to be that somebody advocates putting a bullet in the head of a member of congress, and if that is going to be the new determination as to what it takes to throw people off committees, i'm fine with that. i'm fine with that. >> yeah. i'm fine with that. can we all agree on that? can we all agree that if you call for putting bullets in the heads of other members of congress, that's the line? republican members of congress, does that seem like a reasonable line for you? we'll set that as the threshold. is that okay as a precedent? i guess we'll find out when all members of the house have to vote on it tomorrow. but house democrats are trying to walk and chew gum at the same time. they have teed up this vote tomorrow on kicking this radioactive republican member off her committee said. they're moving ahead on a big

covid relief bill. they took the first step in passing president biden's covid relief bill, after president biden held a phone call with house democrats today and hosted senate democrats in the oval office. himessage to them was, act fast and go big. the president reportedly saying that basically, the main thing congress has to be worried about with covid relief is not doing enough. not going big enough with this effort, saying they are definitely not going to shrink it down or dilute it, even if republicans continue to complain that they don't like it. and one reason, the main reason the president and democrats want to go big is, of course, because they think it's good policy. it will help the most americans and the most direct and sustainable and robust ways possible. that's why they don't want the bill to be less effective than it can be. but the other reason i think they feel comfortable saying let's go big right now is that it's very popular, what they're trying to do. i mean, president biden as a brand-new president is pretty popular individually, but his

popularity is nothing compared to the popularity of the covid relief that he and democrats are pursuing right now. there's a new quinnipiac poll out today that finds 68% of americans support this $1.9 trillion covid relief package the president has put forward. 68% support. the $1400 in direct aid stimulus checks that are a central piece of the package, that's supported by 78% of americans. ask americans if they support increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, something the president has said he wants in the bill, support for that among americans is at 61%. this is a wildly popular covid relief bill. every aspect of it. and with congressional democrats working as of tonight to get it passed into law with the senate putting in motion procedures that will allow them to pass it even if every republican says no, they hate it, that's what the biden administration is doing legislatively to get the country relief from the hardship

imposed by the pandemic to fund vaccination efforts, to get schools to reopen safely, and all this crucial stuff. it's incredibly popular. so yes, they're emboldened by mass public support for what they're doing to not compromise and weaken their proposals, to instead move forward with what they want to do, with what they believe is right and what the public is behind. and it's, you know, i mean, with the crisis that we're in with covid, it's clear at least nobody questions why they shouldn't just be doing this first. and seeing them go ahead, refusing to be slowed down. refusing to be put off track, that seems appropriate given the size of the challenge and the public supports it. but of course, alongside legislation, the other thing president biden is doing is he has to build out a whole new federal government response to covid because the federal government response that existed before the biden administration took over was such a disaster to the extent it existed, it was

terrible. the government accountability office just released a report today detailing how bad the trump administration's response to covid was. "washington post" report today on that study led with just how horrified the investigators were by what they were seeing when they started looking in detail at what the trump administration actually did on covid. quote, a government watchdog study from a generally staid audit agency amounts to a wide reaching condemnation of president trump's botched response to the covid-19 pandemic. the document outlines broad trump administration failures so alarming that the normally circumspect auditors announced themselves deeply troubled. that constitutes an anguished cry from an office that prides itself on just the facts, dull reports. among the things that so deeply troubled the government auditors, they kept telling the trump administration house many things needed doing that were not getting done, and the trump administration just didn't respond to any of that. they didn't get any better. they didn't take any action in response to clear

recommendations about stuff they were doing wrong or needed to improve. they absolutely just blew it all off. they started bad. they got worse over time. even when they were told that there were things specifically they could do to improve, they ignored them and continued to get worse. as we have reported extensively here over these last months, one of the most heartbreaking and horrifying failures of the trump administration is what they did to the cdc. which should be our lodestar as a country as to who we follow, when we trust, who gives us unassailable public health guidance about how to handle something like a coronavirus pandemic. it should be our lodestar, should be the world' lodestar. cdc has been up until this administration, this past administration, they have been the premier public health agency in the world, the world gold standard. and what the trump administration did to it was repulsive. for an agency so needed, for an

agency that should have been at its apex of its capacity to meet the most challenging moment in public health in 100 years, the trump administration cut them off at the knees. the mismatch between what was needed and what they did is revoting. i mean, from the white house reaching down to the level of individual scientists working in the field to assess an outbreak in a south dakota meat processing plant, telling individual scientists to change their language so the meat plant wouldn't actually be told by cdc what shea thd do to keep their workers safe. to burying cdc guidance on how to reopen schools and businesses safely, not letting anyone see it. having scientific guidance edited by the president's daughter, ivanka trump, editing cdc scientific guidance. really? and kellyanne conway, too, because why shouldn't she? having a director put in place at cdc who did not protect his agency from any of that, who did not let it happen, who did not

sound the alarm, who did not resign, who personally bent to the white house's will and let the scientific work of that once great agency be infected by the white house's nonsense, who carried their water for them, that's what the trump administration did to the cdc. that's a big part of what went wrong with this horrific, horrific pandemic in this country. that is a big part of how we have 4% of the world's population and 25% of the world's deaths. so how do you fix that? first thing you do is you hire a new cdc director. when joe biden announced he had chosen one of the preemnnlt infectious doctors in the country to lead the cdc, the announcement was met with what can only be described as mass enthusiasm and relief from her colleagues in the medical field. one of her colleagues at harvard medical school summed it up like this, this news has sent me into a sort of public health euphoria. it gives me such hope to know

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earned its reputation as the globally renowned gold standard for public health research and guidance. but during the coronavirus pandemic, this past year, the trump administration silenced and censored scientists at the cdc, promoted the views of political appointees, it was a real mustardization of the cdc's crucial role at a time we needed them most, and it was clear early on that whoever the new president was going to tap to run the agency was going to have to be in charge of not just turning it tide of the pandemic but also restoring cdc to what

it should be. a tough task. president joe biden has chosen dr. rochelle walensky to run the centers for disease control. joining us for the interview is dr. walensky where it's an honor and pleasure to have you here. >> i'm delighted to be here with you. >> i am intimidated by the scale of the task ahead of you. not only because -- >> me, too. >> because of the crisis we're in -- good, you're human. obviously, the scale of the public challenge, but also the organizational challenge that you have got given what the cdc has been through for the past week. how are you thinking about the task ahead? >> you know, as you say, i think it's a two-pronged task. i have to take care of the people who are doing the hard work. and they have been. i mean, they have been, many are career public health officials, stewards of the health of this nation, and really, of the world. i have to take care of them because they're doing hard work that is about to protect the rest of the country, and that has been working to protect the

rest of the country. in truth, there hasn't been massive turnover of the wonderful personnel who are working there. they have been muzzled. they have been beaten down. but they're still there. and they are working hard, long hours, over 8,000 of them have been working towards covid over the last year. 1500 of them have been deployed to 250 cities across the nation and the world, and they're still there doing the work of public health and reviewing the science and making sure that science gets heard. >> i feel like i don't have the same worries that the trump administration will do to you and do to cdc under you that the kinds of problems that we saw under the trump administration. and so i don't feel like we need to protect cdc and to protect your independence in the way that needed to happen during the trump administration, but i also

feel like the solution to what we saw happen to your crucial agency over the last year can't just be, you know, who, let's never do that again, let's hope we always have good presidents and we always respect the guidelines and the future. are there things that need to chang protections you and your colleagues need in case things take an ugly turn like that again? >> absolutely. i think we need to protect our science. we need to make sure that there's no finger hold over the mmwr, over the science that's produced that we have the final say in that science. i was very clear before i took the position that they would hear the science from me and it might not be good news all the time, and we had to maintain humility in terms of what we were learning because science teaches us all the time. we will review the guidance and make sure that the guidance is up to date, that the soft language that might have been there is now turned to the hard

language that the science needs to report. and you know, quite honestly, i do think i need to do, you know, not everything was done perfectly. we need to acknowledge the places where we might have misstepped, where we can learn from what was done, what might have been done improperly or might have -- could have been done better, and we need to review that so the next time we're in this position, we can do better the next time. >> let me ask you about the sort of layman's translation of one of the virlogical things starting to get more attention, which is the variations of the mutation of the virus, potentially its susceptibility to vaccines. for us, the public, who have been listening to guidance from people like you about wearing masks, about social distance, about the other things we can do to try to slow and stop transmission. is there anything that we need to do differently because of the existence of these variants that we haven't already been doing? is there any sign that any of

the public health guidance we have been given about how to protect ourselves and others might not be effective against those variants? >> yeah, it's a great question. i mean, you hear the word mutation, and everybody thinks of a science fiction movie, right? so we know that viruses mutate. we know that they change their genetic code, often every time they replicate. mrna viruses mutate frequently. we expected mutations and variants. usually when a variant becomes predominant, it's because it has some advantage to the virus. whether it's because it's more trance miscible, whether because it has increased mortality, or because it can escape our vaccines and our treatments. we know that some of the variants have increased transmissibility. there's increasing data that suggests some of the variants, the b-117 variant, may actually be increased -- lead to

increased mortality. and the jury is still out with regard to how these vaccines are going to work with regard -- against these variants. we have to be, you know, follow the science, and we're learning more and more about whether our public health measures, our mitigation measures, our mask wearing, our distancing will be fully effective against these variants, but we have every reason to believe that they will. the more case reporting that we're looking at with the variants that are emerging, the more we're actually finding they were happening when masks and distancing weren't happening. so it's in fact the same disease, and we believe right now that if you follow the mask guidance, you follow the distancing guidance, the lack of gathering, and you don't gather, that you should be protected against these variants. what we know is that they will probably be less forgiving when we don't follow that guidance. >> okay, and do you think that we should expect that there

needs to be another big scientific lift in this country in terms of sequencing the virus when people do get infected, tracking the variants, and indeed, potentially developing vaccination boosters or vaccination adaptations that account for it? is this going to be a whole -- i feel like scientists got us to the moon in a matter of a very short period of time in terms of getting us safe and effective vaccines. do we now need to go to mars? is it going to be a big, heavy lift to contend with the additional complications here? >> the answer is we don't know, but we can't be wrong. and so we're doing all of those things. we are doing increased sequencing. we have increased our sequencing ten-fold in the last two weeks. we'reo the moderna and pfizer to try to create boosters and vaccines in case we need to go there. because when we need to be at mars, we need to be almost there when we get going, when the time

comes. >> dr. walensky, you said something today at the white house covid briefing about reopening schools, specifically about teachers. you said teachers don't necessarily need to be vaccinated for covid before schools can safely reopen. those comments caused a lot of discussion, frankly a lot of consternation even among a bunch of people i know. if you don't mind, i would like to take a quick break. i'm warning you in advance i'm going to ask you about that when we come back if you can stick around. >> absolutely. >> we'll be right back with the thew director of the cdc, dr. rochelle walensky. stay with us.

so what do you love about your always pan? it's a kitchen magician. have you ever seen a pan cook three things at once?

about schools. which is yes, we have put teachers in the category of essential workers. but i also want to be clear that there is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen, and that that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated

in order to reopen safely. >> joining us once again is dr. rochelle walensky, the new director of the cdc. thank you again for being here. it is a real honor to have you. those comments today at the covid briefing from the white house caused a lot of consternation, got a lot of attention. i think broadly speaking, i'm not a teacher, but i know a lot of teachers and i feel like teachers are worried that even if kids aren't necessarily a high risk, if they get infected at school, many of the teachers feel like they are at high risk. why isn't it a prerequisite for safe reopening for teachers to get the vaccine? >> thank you for raising this, and thank you for discussing it. i want to be very clear about what the science shows and what i believe in how we should prioritize. there's accumulating data that suggests that there is not a lot of transmission that is happening in schools when the proper mitigation measures are

taken. when there is masking, when there is distancing, dedenseification of the class room, ventilation, contact tracing, hand washing, all of those things when they're done well, the data suggests the science suggests that there is not a lot of transmission happening in schools, and in fact, the case rates in schools are generally lower than they are in the population surrounding it. so that's what the data and the science suggests. and that we definitely want to have the community rates of disease go down. we want to make sure that that is happening as well. but the data suggests that it's safe to go back to school if you do all of those mitigation measures. now, that said, the advisory committee on immunization practices has prioritized teachers as essential personnel because they are essential to our society's function. and so they fall in the 1-b category, and they should be

prioritized as essential workers for vaccination. that can be true, and i can believe that to be true, and i can emphasize that i believe teachers should get vaccinated. but i also think that the science tells us that if we can do the proper mitigation measures, and i would emphasize, if we have the funding to do the proper mitigation measures as is put forth in the american rescue plan, that we can reopen schools safely even if all of the teachers are not vaccinated. >> is cdc going to do detailed guidance that will, if it's seen as authoritative guidance that will be seen as effectively rules for what it takes to safely reopen schools? >> they are working actively on that now, and it should be forthcoming, absolutely. because we know that guidance is essential. >> now, i have to ask you on that point, though. we have had a political promise, a campaign promise from president biden that one of his goals for his first 100 days is

that he wants schools to reopen. so i mean, maybe i'm one spit and twice shy given what's happened in the trump administration in the past year, but is it reasonable to be suspicious of cdc guidance on reopening schools given that the president has said that schools should reopen? if cdc scientists find that scientifically actually it's hard to safely reopen schools, maybe we shouldn't be doing so much in-person learning, will the biden administration, will the president let you say that publicly? >> i think all of what you're saying is actually consistent. the biden administration and i agree with it, believes that schools should be the last thing to close and the first thing to open. that administration and i agree with it, believes there should be adequate funding to make sure that all of the mitigation measures are in place in schools, should be prioritized in schools, so we can get those schools open. and then, there should be

funding for testing in schools, there should be funding and resources for vaccination of teachers. all of though things are consistent. and i think what that first 100-day plan tells us is this is a priority. we have to get our children back to school. >> in terms of some of the most vulnerable people and the people who have experienced the highest rates of infection, particularly on the job, we reported here last year that your predecessor, dr. robert redfield, sorry to say it this way, but he tampered with the report on covid transmission at a meat packing plant. he ordered cdc investigators to water down their findings and recommendations. thereafter, after we reported that, we learned that the meat industry, meat packing industry had effectively drafted the president's executive order, mandating that meat packing plants must stay open even if local or state authorities wanted to shut them down for public health reasons. that to me is a disaster especially given how many

thousands of people who work in the meat packing industry ended up getting infected and died. are you going to unwind all of that? should we expect a revision of that? it seems like that process was so corrupted. >> we intend to do a full review of all of the guidance to insure that it fully follows the science. it has been reviewed by subject matter experts. what i can tell you is we are stewards of public health. we want to make sure that those workers in the meat packing plants are safe. we want to make sure that the food is safe for the american people. the department of labor has put forward guidance to make sure that those workers are safe. there is guidance that should look at infection control policies within those meat packing plants to make sure that all of the documents and guidance for the workers are actually in multiple languages so they can fully understand them, and yes, we intend to fully make sure that the science

is leading us. >> dr. rochelle walensky, the new director of the centers for disease control. ma'am, i'll just say it right now, thank you for what you're doing. and i am -- i will reiterated how intimidated i am by the task ahead of you. but the task ahead of you. but i'll also tell you if you get stepped on and you and the scientists at the cdc for any reason feel you're not able to lead with public health or not able to say what needs to be done. which i don't expect but if it happens please know you have an open door here to tell the public what's going on, and you'll not believe how much support you'll get for scientific freedom if there's any political trammel on what you're doing. >> i certainly hope to be back and i don't hope or anticipate it'll be for that reason. >> i look forward to having you back. good luck to you. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. you

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as i mentioned at the top of the show, we are expecting a vote tomorrow on whether or not a new republican member of congress will be stripped from her committee assignments. that vote is going to take place tomorrow afternoon. this is house democrats forcing the republican counter parts to respond to a -- what seem tuesday be an escalating series of violent conspiracy laden and virulently anti-semitic social media posts that congresswoman marjorie taylor greene has made. we have a pretty good idea how democrats are going to vote on that measure as to whether or not she should be on house committees. but if you have any indication how republicans were thinking about the issue consider this. multiple news outlets reporting tonight that during the republican's closed door caucus meeting to discuss this issue marjorie taylor greene got a standing ovation in that room from as much as half of the republican caucus in that room. the house republican leader

kevin mccarthy had the opportunity today to remove the congresswoman from her committee assignments simply on the say so of her own conference, of the republicans saying so themselves. he chose not to do that even though he knows full well if he didn't take that action, democrats were definitely going to have the votes to go ahead and do it anyway. so at the end of the day she's not going to end up any committee assignments. she's going to end up a member of congress who has no work to do and isn't invited to any of the rooms in which actual work happens. the republicans chose not to do it themselves. the democrats will. and tomorrow we will get to see every republican member of the house go on record about where they stand on the anti-semitic conspiracy lady who dorsed the murder of nancy pelosi. you know it's going to be on the house floor tomorrow afternoon. watch this space. r tomorrow aftn watch this space

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still having to get used to the fact we're allowed to actually book government officials now. we were always calling them and asking them to be on the show. but now the white house doesn't intervene to stop government officials from coming on the show to explain what it is they're doing. i don't know how long it's going to take me to get used to this, but i hope it lasts. that does it for us tonight. thanks again to the cdc director for being here.