good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. two big stories are dominating the headlines today. dangerous winter weather and the persistent national demand for new covid vaccines. we'll talk to dr. anthony fauci about that in a moment. first, 650,000 texas residents woke up without power. close to 7 million texans are under boil water alerts as the danger shifts to potential continue tam major leagues. how do you boil water without power? president biden is postponing his visit to a pfizer plant in michigan to tout his covid relief package while state and local leaders are pushing for more supplies of the moderna and pfizer vaccines. and the discussion over whether to send children back to school is intensifying. parents and teachers across the country questioning the latest guidance from the cdc. we're in place across the

country. nbc's morgan chesky is in dallas. the temperatures there, your own family, your mom, grand mom, the temperatures will be back in the 70s next week, but that is cold comfort, literally, for texas right now. >> reporter: yeah. andrea, you're absolutely right. those days can't come fast enough. we may not rise above freezing in north texas until sometime late over the weekend. it's 25 degrees right now, but with the windchill it feels like 9. and that having been said, there are still people that are standing in line across the state hoping to get much-needed food, water, and propane gas, anything they can do to try to survive over the next several days. you mentioned those power outages, about 600,000 people are the only ones left without power. that's still a massive number. however, we started at 6 million at the peak of the outages. that having been said, it's coupled with this brand-new kra sis that's come in the form of 7 million now told to boil their

water before they can drink it, and so many people have been posting heartbreaking images, andrea. we have people digging up snow in their backyard because they don't trust the water coming out of their faucet. they're trying to melt it however they can. and this is playing out as we speak. as a result of that, we've seen kind of a cause and effect problem play out. a lot of people were afraid their pipes would freeze with this cold snap, so they left their faucets dripping overnight. in result, the water pressure has dropped so low that the houston fire chief just told me they're having trouble plugging into hydrants when they respond to house fires. that's the trickle-down impact here, and it's still frigid in texas. andrea? >> not good news at all. thanks so much, morgan, for everything you're doing there. let's turn to nbc's stephanie gosk in new york city. just the last few days parents and teachers with more questions than answers about school

reopening. what's the latest there? >> reporter: yeah, andrea, you know, there are a lot of school systems in the country that are open and others considering going back. it's a discussion about vaccines. there isn't enough even where teachers are priority groups in new york. the question becomes is it safe to open up schools for teachers and students if the teachers are not vaccinated? right now, the administration says, well, there are encouraging stage-two vaccinated teachers that with the right safety protocol in place in schools, things like facemasks and hand washing and good ventilation, then it should be safe enough. a lot of teachers are saying safe enough is not good enough for us. but who takes on the risk? is it the teachers or is it the students? you're talking about kids that are psychologically, emotionally impacted from being out of school. they are missing out on

learning. these are difficult public health questions, andrea, that are not easy to answer, and inevitably whatever is decided is going to upset somebody. andrea? >> thanks so much to you, stephanie. shaquille brewster is outside in clinton township near the pfizer plant. concerns about vaccine distribution and supply being down in southern states because of that, the weather really being felt across the country now. >> reporter: right. that's exactly right, andrea. really what people in michigan continue to tell me is you see an increased pool of people who are eligible for the vaccine, more people who are able to distribute the vaccine, but you're not seeing that same growth in the vaccine supply. so some places are having to cancel vaccination appointments because they're receiving fewer doses than they did just several weeks ago. listen to what the chief operating officer at one of the large medical systems in the state told me just yesterday.

>> i think the intent is good. it is to get to more rural areas, to get to underserved populations an all of that. the thought is that the health departments and other places might be able to get to populations that health systems can't. we would argue, quite frankly, that we have the infrastructure and that people look to hospitals and health systems for that safe vaccine clinic, and we'd like to, again, be part of the solution in a larger way. >> reporter: you heard her say she has the infrastructure. you can tell county health officials are also saying they have the infrastructure. this drive-up testing facility in mccomb county, they say it's ready to be converted into a mass vaccination center. they're just waiting for the amount of doses that will let them do that. >> shaq brewster, thanks so much to you. morgan chesky, stephanie gosk starting us off today. joining me now is dr. anthony fauci, director of the national institute for allergy and infectious diseases and chief

medical advicer to president biden. welcome. >> thank you. good morning. >> let's start with the immediate problem with most of the country experiencing such severe weather, including the mjor fedex facilities in memphis and u.p.s. in louisville. does the government know how badly this has delayed vaccine distribution as well as cancellation of appointments and closing sites? >> there's no doubt that it is a problem. quantitatively how much will be interfered with we don't know. but we do know it is significant when you have that swath of the country you just showed that is really in many respects immobilized. well, obviously, it's an issue. it's going to slow down in some places going to a grinding hal. we have to make up for the it as soon as the weather lifts a bit, the ice melts, we can get the trucks out and people out and getting the vaccine into people's arms, we have to make up for it, mainly do double time when this thing clears up.

>> any estimate how many doses could have been destroyed because of power outages or delivery slowdowns? >> no, andrea, i don't have that number for you. i'm sure someone is figuring that out. i would be just guessing and i don't want to do that. >> i want to ask you about schools because there's so much confusion about whether schools can reopen safely, whether teachers should go back without being vaccinated. i know the cdc and the white house say teachers should be prioritized. everyone agrees to that. but in schools that don't yet have the proper ventilation, the ability to meet the recommended guidelines, many underserved areas, is it really safe for teachers to go back to those schools if they've not been vaccinated? >> obviously, you want to optimize the situation in schools. i mean, there are five or six things that the cdc has in their guidelines that you would like to optimize to get the children back to school where the children can feel safe and the teachers can feel safe. you know, and you brought up

several of them. i mean, obviously masks, you want to make sure we supply masks, make sure that the ventilation is appropriate, that the spacing can be done. the issue with vaccinating teachers obviously we will make and want to make the prior toization of teachers vaccination very high. but i think to say that you're not going to open up schools until every single one of the teachers get vaccinated, making it a sign qua nonof opening, i don't think we can do there. otherwise it would be difficult to get the schools open and efficiently as we can, but we want very much to prioritize teachers for vaccination. no doubt about that. >> the government can say, you know, let's prioritize teacher, but, again, they are faced with local situations and individual states are not doing that or there are shortages. what do they do if they can't

get a vaccine and they're serving in an inner city school where the kids need them but the schools are not properly equipped? >> right. well, i mean, obviously you're creating the very worst-case scenario as a hypothetical situation which in some respects can be a realistic situation. in those areas it will be difficult, but we have to do the best we can to address those issues, which are essentially stumbling blocks in the way of getting these schools open. we've got to do -- i've said this so many times in the past that the default position should always is do as best as you possibly can to get the schools open. you may not be successful in every single situation, but you should be pushing as hard as you possibly can, particularly getting the resources to the states to do some of the things that you just mentioned, to address ventilation, to address spacing, to address the availability of masks.

we need resources to do that, and hopefully we'll get them. >> now, although we've been told that younger children in particular are not likely to get covid, some do, and now there are studies in the uk that indicate that could be changing with these more transmittable variants. how confident are you about younger children being relatively safe from covid? >> well, i have never been -- i have never stated that i was confident about that. i'm always concerned about everyone, including young children. it is still true that when you look at things like hospitalizations, severity of disease, there is no doubt that children clearly do much better when it comes to getting infected and having relatively few symptoms or only mild symptoms compared to people who are on the other end of the spectrum, namely the elderly and those with underlying conditions. but we've got to be careful because that doesn't mean that all children are essentially going to be safe from or immune

from serious consequences. we know that some children get that multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which is really something that can be very, very serious. so we cannot just ignore the fact that children, because they do much better, they're still not in some danger, meaning you've got to pay attention to the safety of the children at any age. >> with these new variants also a new study from pfizer says their vaccine does not create as robust a response against the south african vaccine. does that worry you? >> well, you know, in some respects it does. but let me give you the data, andrea, so people can understand. the two major variants that we are concerned about is the uk variant, referred to as 117. that is in the united states, and it clearly replicates better than the standard vax virus

that's out there, which means if you model it, by the time we get to the end of march, it is likely that this uk variant will actually be the dominant variant in the united states. the good news about that is that the vaccines that we are distributing now, the moderna and the pfizer and hopefully soon the j&j vaccine, work very well against the uk. but as you pointed out, the situation is a little bit different with regard to the south african isolate. by a little different, it means if you do in vitro data and make extrapolation from other vaccines, that the vaccine protection against the south african isolate is not merely as good as against the standard one. it's diminished by about five fold. however, there is enough cushion in the efficacy of the vaccine that there is still some protection, particularly against

serious disease. so although the vaccine might not protect against mild to moderate disease with the south african isolate, when you look at the data, it strongly suggests that it will do quite well against serious disease, namely keeping people out of the hospital and preventing them from dying. so although we take it very seriously, there is still some protection we get from them. and finally, what we are doing in anticipation of maybe needing to use this, we don't know yet, is to making now other versions of the vaccine which are directed specifically against the south african isolate. so a problem we take very seriously, but good news is that the one that's in the united states right now is pretty well handled by the vaccines that we're using. >> how close are you to finding a new vaccine to handle this south african variant? >> well, that likely will take

several months. we are already, for example, working with the moderna company, pfizer is doing it on their own, i'm sure, it's a good company, a big company, but what we're doing is we're working with them to get a sample of the vaccine that you can actually have a code for the protein that's the appropriate protein for the south african isolate. how long it would take to scale that up likely will take several months to do that. >> now, experts say that in finding out how much variant is out there, you've got to do more genome sequencing to track the variants and that even with the additional funding that was just announced by the administration, it's only about half as much as is needed to track it. don't we need a lot more genome sequencing to properly track these variants and find out how much is out there? >> yeah. the answer is yes. that's why we're headed very quickly in that direction right now. there had been a lot of

sequencing already going on, but it's been disparate. it hasn't been interconnected. there have been a number of academic centers that have been doing it. what we're doing now, particularly, a, with the new resources that the cdc has gotten, by the collaboration now between the nih and the cdc, and with a component that the cdc has called spheres, which is interconnecting all of those centers that are doing it. so i think reasonably soon we'll have a rapid acceleration to doing much more genome sequencing surveillance than has been done in the past. that will likely give us better eyes on what's going on in the community vis-a-vis the dynamics of the virus. >> can you quantify that? how much? >> when you say quantify, what do you mean? well, you know, yeah, i mean -- >> 25% of -- >> you want to get closer to 25% than down to 5%, obviously.

>> and still not enough according to many of the experts. let me ask you about the production delays in the johnson & johnson. do you know, first of all, what caused those delays? they're still going to deliver 100 million doses, but once they're approved, assuming they're approved, but it will come months later than expected. >> well, you know, in some respects yes, in some respects no. the original and still valid contractual arrangement would be to get 1100 million doses by th end of june, beginning of july. it looks very much like they will meet that contractual arrangement. the issue is we would have hoped that we would have gotten more vaccines at the time that they get their emergency use authorization. currently, the data are being examined by the fda, and on february the 26th the advisory committee to the fda, they'll

meet. you don't want to get ahead of the fda, but hopefully they will grant an eua. we would have hoped that we would have had a lot of vaccines available, but we don't. we're going to probably have single digits vaccine available right away, a bit more the next month, and then after that it will really scale up so that they will almost certainly meet their contractual arrangement. when you say, well, why don't you have more early on, andrea, it's a really complicated situation when you're dealing with the production of biologics. minor things, seemingly minor, can set you back by weeks or a month or so. so unfortunately, that's where we are, but we will catch up as we get into the months of april and may. >> a related question. covid response senior adviser andy slavitt today saying that johnson & johnson is evaluating whether there should be a second shot of their vaccine, not a single-dose vaccine. how does that change the outlook

for you reaching the goals of vaccinating the public? >> it doesn't at all. you have to take a look at the various contractual arrangements that were made, and there has been a considerable amount appropriately and fortunately a redundancy. for example, if you look now at the totality of vaccines that have been contracted for with moderna plus pfizer, that equals 600 million doses, which will be enough to vaccinate 300 million people. in addition to that, we have the contractual arrangement with johnson for 100 million doses. and then even more beyond that with novavax and with a.z. so as the president said yesterday, there will be available by july enough doses to vaccinate 300 million people. we will very likely go well beyond that by the redundancy that we're talking about.

>> was he saying or suggesting, just to clear this up, that johnson & johnson, to be fully effective, needs to have a second dose? >> no. wait a second. i want to make sure -- we're going back to j&j now. with them, no. >> it's defensively going to be a single-dose vaccine. >> yeah. the single dose is on target. that's what we're going to get 100 million doses for. in addition, and over and above that, j&j is doing a trial for two doses to see if they can get that efficacy higher. whether they do or not is not going to affect the 100 million doses that we're going to get. >> thank you. i didn't want any misunderstanding with that with our viewers. >> that's fine. >> i want to talk about getting back to normal. after months of suggesting life could begin to feel normal by the fall when the and the president said christmas in

another interview this week you said we could have a degree of normality by the time we enter 2022. are we now projecting a later date? is it the variants, the complexity of the vaccine rollout, other factors? >> you know, andrea, i think -- hopefully in our conversation now we could clarify that. when you ask anybody -- me or the president or the director of cdc -- this is not a mathematical formula where you can say oh, i get it, five plus ten. it's a question of purest mats. there are so many things in play that could influence. and then it also depends on what you mean by "normal." what does some form of normality mean? well, obviously, we have very stringent public health measures in tune now. if you're going to ask is what about getting back to a situation where you can have

theaters that might be able to have below capacity, that restaurants, indoor dining can be happening but with moderately diminished capacity? that's going to be somewhere between the fall and the end of the year. if you're saying no, no, wait a minute, i really want to know when it's going to get to as close to normal ha you almost don't know the difference between what it was before, maybe you'll still have to wear masks. that likely will be, as the president said, by the end of the year, by christmas. but andrea, these are all estimates. and so many things can happen to modify that. that's the reason why when you ask people like myself and others, we say "likely," because if it were a mathematical formula, i could give you a real number, but there are so many things that can happen, including one of the ones you mentioned, namely the varntds could come in and we may be able to see a situation unfortunately where you have an increase or a

little blip which would interfere with that time line. so i still hold that somewhere between the fall and the winter we're going to wind up seeing it. >> i want to ask you about life after vaccination. for a lot people, they're wondering -- you were suggesting there are some studies that show that you won't be able to asymptomatically transmit it to other people after vaccination, possibly. is that possible? is that a realistic expectation? what can people do in their lives once they're vaccinated safely regarding their children, their parents, and others? >> okay. so that's really a good question, andrea. i tend to look at it and explain it even to the people around me besides, you know, with the press, is that if you look at it, what can you do within your particular part, the group, you and your family, versus what can

society do. it's going to really depend. if you are vaccinated and you are with someone who's vaccinated, the things that you can do are much, much more liberal in the sense of being -- pulling back on stringent public health measures versus when you're out in society and say, well, what can i do out there if a very small proportion versus a moderate proportion versus an overwhelming proportion of the population is also vaccinated? so, for example, if you're vaccinated and you have a member of your family vaccinated, someone that's not lived with you and come to them, they will say, well, can i actually be with them without a mask? can i sit down and give them a hug and things like that? and the answer is very likely of course you can. but if only 10% of society is vaccine napted, you're not going to be able to go to a restaurant or to a theater because it's not going to be opening. so that's the reason why when

you asked a very good question, is that what can we do when we talk about getting vaccinated, you have to separate it from what you can do in a certain vacuum versus what you can do in society. >> finally, i want to ask you about the new information today that total life expectancy in the united states has dropped by a year and that the numbers are far worse for people of color with almost a three-year decline for black americans after 20 years of gains for them and two years for hispanics. is this attribuable entirely to covid? >> absolutely, andrea. right now covid-19 is the leading cause of death in the united states, which is just extraordinary. it's sad and it's tragic. and actually, when you look at the decrease in the life expect expectancy, it's absolutely real

and directly related to covid-19. differential among people of color versus white again underscores the health disparities. all of that is intertwined unfortunately with covid-19. >> dr. fauci, thank you for your patience. thank you for your service. >> thanks, andrea. >> thanks thanks for answering a lot of questions for us today. >> always good to be with you, andrea. thank you. >> if you need help figuring out where and when you can get the covid vaccine, our interactive and personalized state-by-state guide has everything you need to know. visit planyourvaccine.com or scan the qr code. democrats introducing their plan to reshape immigration laws, but can they get any republicans to back a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants? verizon 5g ultra wideband is here, with ultra... low... lag!

so start becoming the best gamers in the ga-- (avatars) oohh! (sam) 5g ultra wideband, now in parts of many cities. this is 5g built right. ♪ ♪ the chevy silverado trail boss. when you have a two-inch lift. when you have goodyear duratrac tires. when you have rancho shocks and an integrated dual exhaust. when you have all that, the last thing you'll need... is a road. the chevy silverado trail boss. ready to off-road, right from the factory. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching ...the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant™ with tremfya®, adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ...can uncover clearer skin and improve symptoms at 16 weeks.

tremfya® is also approved for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tremfya®. emerge tremfyant™ janssen can help you explore cost support options. do we really need a sign to live, laugh, and love? -yes. -the answer is no. i can help new homeowners not become their parents. -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 -- want to save hundreds on your wireless bill? when you bundle home and auto with us. with xfinity mobile you can. how about saving hundreds on the new

samsung galaxy s21 ultra 5g? you can do that too. all on the most reliable network. sure thing! and with fast nationwide 5g included at no extra cost. we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction. and get a new samsung galaxy starting at $17 a month. learn more at xfinitymobile.com or visit your local xfinity store today.

president biden promised immigration reform bill is being introduced in congress today. it's expected to have a rough going even in the democratic house and especially the senate. only a handful of democratic senators were willing to endorse the bill. it includes an eight-year path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants in the u.s. special relief for daca recipients and people with

temporary protected status because of dangers in their homeland. nbc news chief white house correspondent and "weekend today" co-anchor kristen welker joins us. justice and homeland security security correspondent julia ainsley and yamiche alcindor. kristen, we haven't had a comprehensive reform bill proposed since 2013. is joe biden checking the box here? there's very little bipartisan support for this even among democrats. >> you're absolutely right, andrea, and in some ways this is president biden checking the box on a key campaign promise with an immigration bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. that's part of it. in terms of the realistic piece of it, you're absolutely right. for republicans this will be a nonstarter. just think about what's happening with the covid relief plan, that $1.9 trillion plan,

which actually has bipartisan support, republicans think the overall price tag is just too big, and that is facing a steep hurdle. it's hard to see how a sweeping immigration reform bill would get passed. what is more realistic and what is the strategy here? administration officials not being very clear about how they would plan to actually get this passed, but what is a possibility, andrea, is that you would see a more targeted approach. president biden during that town hall in minnesota earlier this week saying that he was open to that, to a piecemeal approach potentially, which would deal with daca and maybe farm workers. would he have to use reconciliation? in other words, just democratic support to get those individual pieces passed? that's a possibility. as you know, he can only rely on reconciliation so many times, and it seems increasingly likely that he is going to have to use democratic support only to get this covid relief package passed. >> julia, you're reporting

immigrants in dire situations are being allowed into the country. what more can you tell us about this? special exceptions? >> that's right, andrea. these are people who have been waiting under the trump administration's policy of remain in mexico. they're in dire situations and have been applying for months if not in some cases more than a year now to be able to come into the united states while they wait for their asylum hearing. i spoke with one woman who had a dire medical condition. she'd applied time and time again and was recently allowed to be paroled in after she spoke with her doctor. and this is what he told her.

>> julia, these are heartbreaking stories, but they're trying to make some accommodations now. >> that's right. they're making accommodations. what i understand now is there's a steady stream of recommendations coming from the office of civil rights and civil liberties. they're going to border patrol and patrol are starting to approve some of these. i've heard of families where they've never met their children. they were unborn before they crossed the border. now they've been born. they're starting to approve these in humanitarian cases. that woman you just saw who asked for her identity cob concealed in case she is deported, came here with her 5-year-old daughter. she was worried if she succumbed to breast cancer in mexico, there would be no one there to care for her child. >> all of these stories are so heartbreaking. yamiche, past administrations have tried and failed with this.

what are the chances this time? >> it's a tough, tough battle for immigration. it's been an issue that has really been at the heart of both democratic and republican administrations. we saw that 2013 bill where it became really close but still did not get to the point where there could be a deal reached on immigration. part of the reason why president biden is feeling such pressure to get immigration done and what he talked about and introduced his plan on the first day of his administration is because of the stories that julia just told. i talked to a woman when i traveled to mexico who was part of the remain in mexico program president trump has forced, and she talked about being kidnapped along with her young daughter. that's what people are facing while they're forced to remain in mexico. now you have a white house that is dealing with a number of issues, including, of course, a pandemic, an economic cry sisz, so many things going on. and this immigration bill, the

president has already it seems signaled he was willing to sign a bill that didn't have a pathway to citizenship because he said it would be a whole range of things that need to happen. while the white house is not clear about when this bill will be broken up and whether or not it will go through reconciliation, that democratic process where only democrats would be able to vote for it or would only need democrats to vote for it, there is this feeling that immigration is something that president biden owes a lot of people. there are a lot of immigration activists who said they campaigned for biden thinking about this as their top topic. >> kristen, a lot of reports today about ted cruz. what do we know about this trip? we've seen some flight records as well that he traveled commercially from houston to cancun, mexico, yesterday. >> that's right. and of course is getting criticism because it comes against the backdrop of the power outages and the fact that so many in the state of texas

are suffering right now. so this image of him potentially getting on a plane to leave the state is getting a lot of backlash, andrea, and undoubtedly something that's going to make a lot of waves in the coming days. >> there are some flight records indicating he might be on the way back to texas. cold texas. kristen welker, julia ainsley, yamiche alcindor, thanks to all of you. under investigation, new york governor cuomo's handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic now under scrutiny. what we know and what we don't coming up next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." struggling to manage my type 2 diabetes was knocking me out of my zone, but lowering my a1c with once-weekly ozempic® helped me get back in it.

♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic® ♪ my zone? lowering my a1c and losing some weight. now, back to the show. ozempic® is proven to lower a1c. most people who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. and you may lose weight. adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. ozempic® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. don't take ozempic® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it. stop ozempic® and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or an allergic reaction. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. tell your provider about vision problems or changes. taking ozempic® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may increase low blood sugar risk. side effects like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. once-weekly ozempic® helped me get in my type 2 diabetes zone. ask your health care provider how it can help you get in yours.

♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic® ♪♪ you may pay as little as $25 for a 3-month prescription. to support a strong immune system, your body needs routine. centrum helps your immune defenses every day, with vitamin c, d and zinc. season, after season. ace your immune support, with centrum. research shows that people remember commercials with exciting stunts. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's something you shouldn't try at home. insurance is cool. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

to defend against dark forces attacking your organization, you need to see in the dark. to have the wisdom to understand multiple cyber threats. the precision focus to end attacks instantly. on computers, mobile devices, servers and the cloud. join the world's leading companies in our mission to defend. cybereason. end cyber attacks. from endpoints to everywhere. aaaand welcome back to guess what it is. now sally guess what this futuristic gadget is. they're sleek, rechargeable, incredibly comfortable and virtually invisible in your ear, and they sound amazing. (tick tock tick tock) ummm, hearing aids you are.... correct (bell dings) these top of the line hearing aids from eargo are straight out of the future. they're rechargeable and virtually invisible in your ears host: convenient. right?

if you're an active or retired federal employee you can get eargo at no cost to you. act now! u.s. attorney's office and the fbi in new york have opened an investigation into new york governor andrew cuomo's handling of data related to coronavirus deaths in the state's nursing homes. last month, the cuomo administration released an updated number of fatalities, the count growing from just over 9,000 deaths initially reported to now more than 15,000. governor cuomo has said his administration never hid any of the numbers deliberately. the latest scrutiny, a stark shift from early in the pandemic when governor cuomo was praised for his leadership later receiving an emmy for his regular daily covid briefings and writing a book about leadership lessons from the pandemic released in october of 2001. now already bipartisan calls from new york state lawmakers to

strip the governor of his emergency pandemic powers. joining us now, nbc news investigative correspondent tom winter. are these serious investigations? how much politics is involved? what is your take? >> i don't think a lot of politics are involved, andrea. good afternoon. i think this investigation is serious. anytime it involves the fbi and federal prosecutors in brooklyn from the eastern district of new york's u.s. attorney's office, the reporting and the understanding for myself, my colleagues, based on discussions with current and former law enforcement officials is this investigation could center around a couple of possible investigative avenues. it's very early in the investigation, so this is not something where there may necessarily be an outcome or charges filed. what could be looked at here, a couple different things. one, were any misrepresentations made to the justice department when they reached out last summer, the trump administration from the civil rights division to ask questions about these nursing home deaths? any misrepresentations made then? in addition to that, they could

also look and see was there any sort of scream to misuse federal funds or to misallocate or abuse federal funds that would have been given in order to fight this pandemic and given for the obvious budget needs to take care of people and to provide them with the proper care. i think a key thing that occurred, andrea, is on a recent call. the governor's secretary, melissa derosa, told state legislator who is had bipartisan concerns about these numbers, why were the numbers misatributed to hospitals versus nursing homes, and she said, and this is from the transcript of that, we basically froze this past summer when they did not give the numbers over to the state legislators because we were in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the department of justice or to you guys, that being the state legislators, what we started saying was we were going to -- is what was going to be used against us while we weren't sure if there

was going to be an investigation. and so that statement coupled with calls from democrats and republicans in new york state led the fbi and the u.s. attorney's office to just, you know, take an inquiry into this, look at it, see is there any wrongdoing here, anything that they should be looking at in regards to this incident. now, the governor has been very clear in saying that they acted on guidance from the cdc and from the trump administration and his own health experts and said while thaw guidance may be wrong in hindsight, they were doing the best they could at the time to free up beds and hospitals by sending some of these covid-19 patients back to nursing homes. i don't expect any significant developments in this in the coming weeks and months. this investigation is going to take time if it ends up even amounting to anything. >> tom winter, thanks for that update. the vaccination crisis in many states has prompted people to take extraordinary measures to get their shots. one couple from alabama, one of

the worst states in the country for vaccinations, drove 500 miles to mississippi twice for two shots. even if some states don't permit nonresidents to get vaccinated, mississippi does. msnbc senior national correspondent chris jansing has their story from newton, alabama. chris, tell us about this story. i heard about the delivery system. is there enough vaccine to get around? >> reporter: it's led people to be desperate, andrea. these vaccine vacationers as they've come to be known are often elderly who fall into one of two categories. either they don't fall into the eligible category in their state so they cross state lines, say they're 68 and their state eligibility is 70 but they have underlying conditions. the second group are people who qualify in their state but they can't get an appointment, which is what brings me to nate and sue mathis. thank you for having us.

sue, you called and called and called. did you ever get a human being on the line? >> i'm sorry. no, i didn't. >> how frustrating was that? >> pretty frustrating. >> reporter: so you find out from a friend in mississippi that you can get an appointment, you do get an appointment, but, nate, did you hesitate to do two roundtrips that totaled nearly 1,000 miles, two nights in a hotel, just to get vaccinated? >> i had a friend in ocean spring and gave me a phone number. turned out to be river hospital in mississippi. so i called them and they was real nice and gave us appointments for the 16th of january. >> reporter: why was it so important for you to get that appointment? >> well, i had some friends i lost due to covid-19. i had one landlord, been my landlord for years, and i wanted to get it as soon as we could, you know. >> reporter: you're getting emotional about this. >> well, he was a great guy. he got it and he did like i

d -- >> reporter: what people don't know is you got covid. >> well i tested out about going to the hospital and finally got to the emergency room and i discovered what was wrong. they gave me some steroids and in about three days i popped that fever and started getting better. >> if not for having the vaccine, the question is, could you have -- >> if i hadn't had that vaccine, i probably would have died. that's what i think. because that was a bad boy, the worst i have been sick. >> reporter: at the hospital where they went, andrea, the ceo told me that he continues to get pushback, and we're seeing this in states across the country. let me play you quickly what he said to people who complain about folks like the mathiss getting a shot. >> i hat a police officer call me say why can't first

responders get it now? we're at risk. i said, you are, but you come up and you get an 80-year-old with cancer you want to get in front of and we'll let you think about that. he said, well, you didn't have to put that it way. >> reporter: so that's the debate going on in states around the country from north carolina to florida, here, even in new hampshire. but if you're the mathises, this really was a matter of life and death, andrea. >> well, thanks to you and thanks to sue and nate for sharing their story. thank you very much. here again is that qr code that will take you right to our planyourvaccine.com. everything you need to help you figure out where and when you can get the vaccine. dangerous disinformation. why that was circulating online and becoming an increasing

national security threat. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." what are you doing? art class. it's abstract expressionism. when you start with a better hot dog from oscar mayer, you can do no wrong. it's all for the love of hot dogs. ♪ ♪ when you drive this smooth, you save with allstate the future of auto insurance is here you've never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today managing type 2 diabetes? you're on it. staying active and eating right? yup, on it there, too. you may think you're doing all you can to manage type 2 diabetes and heart disease... but could your medication do more to lower your heart risk?

jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. so, it could help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. and jardiance lowers a1c. jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal. a rare but life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this bacterial infection, ketoacidosis or an allergic reaction, and don't take it if you're on dialysis or have severe kidney problems. taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. lower a1c and lower risk of a fatal heart attack? on it with jardiance. ask your doctor about jardiance. alice loves the scent of gain so much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice. and long-lasting gain scent beads. part of the irresistible scent collection from gain!

university of phoenix is awarding up to one million dollars in new scholarships through this month, because hope fuels opportunity. see what scholarship you qualify for at phoenix.edu i'm a performer. always have been. and always will be. never letting anything get in my way. not the doubts, distractions, or voice in my head. and certainly not arthritis. voltaren provides powerful arthritis pain relief to help me keep moving. and it can help you too. feel the joy of movement with voltaren. ...and then what happened daddy? well, see this handsome man, his name was william. and william fell in love with rose and they had a kid. his name was charles and charles met martha... isn't she pretty? yeah.

. disinformation online is becoming an increasing threat to america, from misinformation on masks and vaccines fueling protests against key public health measures, to viral theories amplifying a stolen election, spurring a siege at the capitol. joining me is the former general counsel of the national security agency and now a senior adviser for the center for strategic and international studies. thanks for being with us. >> thank you, andrea, for having me on. >> good to have you. talking about twitter and facebook, they're banning vaccine misinformation and moving more aggressively to ban advocates of political violence. are those steps in the right direction? >> those certainly are steps in the right direction.

they're a little overdue for many, many years anti-vaccination websites have had a field day on facebook for quite some time, fueling their falsehoods about the efficacy of vaccines. so it's a belated step but a really important one. technology can do something to stop the spread of online disinformation, but there are multiple causes for it. >> and senator romney has just released a statement, referring to the impeachment trial. and he's writing in part "there is one untruth that divides the nation today like none other, that the election was stolen, a massive conspiracy more secret and widespread than any in history and no evidence can be found of it." how much are foreign actors playing a role in spreading these untruths? >> there's no question that online disinformation, both domestic and foreign, is a

national security problem. it's affecting our national well-being for the two reasons you just stated, our political dysfunction, the lie that the election was stolen, and our public health crisis because people don't believe that social distancing and masks work and that the vaccine is effective. there are steps the government can take both in terms of encouraging social media platforms to be more vigorous in taking down erroneous websites and falsehoods. we can tighten laws around election security, disinformation associated with election security. our leaders can take a step, instead of having the kanye west's of the world criticize vaccines as a sign of satan and a mark of the beast we could have responsible leadership, whether it's the former president of the united states or celebrities or business leaders who take a stand against misinformation. the laws can be changed. we have a lot of tools at our disposal. the last i'd say is civic

education, which could be a big factor here. >> of course, getting the former president to stop disinformation on the election issue is going to be very difficult because he was repeating it again last night. is it getting harder to monitor disinformation with states like parler popping up. >> it's a mistake we're going to be able to solve this with a single magic bullet or be able to take down enough accounts. facebook, for example, has over 3 billion users and there's no way to monitor all of the messages on facebook and the tweets on twitter, et cetera. technology has a role, but we need social responsibility, we need changes in laws, we need an integrated approach to recognizing that disinformation is actually a national security problem. >> well, of course we also have to balance free speech versus clearing the internet, if you

could even, of this kind of disinformation. it's a very hard balance, isn't it? >> it is true. and we worry about getting the right balance. but the mere fact that it's hard to draw the line, and we want to balance on one hand a free and open internet with the need to prevent falsehoods and hate speech, just because it's hard to draw the line doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and say let's forget about it. we have a clearer path in the case of foreign disinformation, where we can make efforts to stop that, and that can have a really pernicious effect on us. imagine quickly if a country like russia decided it wanted to weaponize disinformation in the current crisis, and texas, and where millions are without water and power and fuel, and instead put online information about which hospitals were closed or where portable water supplies were available, you could really see chaos resulting from a foreign coordinated disinformation campaign.

>> terrifying indeed. thank you very much, just beginning to touch the surface of this, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports," chuck todd is up next with "mtp daily" only on msnbc. buttercup! ♪ how am i doing? some say this is my greatest challenge ever. governments in record debt; inflation rising and currencies falling. but i've seen centuries of rises and falls. i had a love affair with tulips once. lived through the crash of '29 and early dot-com hype. watched mortgages play the villain beside a true greek tragedy. and now here i am, with one companion that's been with me for millennia; hedging the risks you choose

and those that choose you. the physical seam of a digital world, traded with a touch. my strongest ally and my closest asset. the gold standard, so to speak ;) people call my future uncertain. but there's one thing i am sure of... (sam) gamers! he who is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

take fuzzywuzzy28. blamin' losses on a laggy network. only one or two. verizon 5g ultra wideband is here, the fastest 5g in the world, with ultra... low... lag! stop blaming the network and start becoming the best gamers in the ga-- that escalated quickly. (sam) 5g ultra wideband, now in parts of many cities. this is 5g built right. only from verizon. are you ok? it's just a cold. if you have high blood pressure, a cold is not just a cold. most cold medicines may raise blood pressure. choose coricidin hbp. the brand with a heart. for powerful cold relief without raising your blood pressure. pick up like a pro. just order on the subway app and it's ready to go with contactless curbside. turkey sub in a hot tub! now get 15% off any footlong when you order in the app. ♪ ♪ mom! mom!

every day can be extraordinary with rich, creamy, delicious fage total yogurt. if it's thursday, the cascading crisis in texas, first no power, no heat. now no safe running water. state officials are unable to say when it will get better and we just learned the entire power grid in texas was on the brink of a catastrophic failure. plus with the biden agenda on overdrive can democrats stay united? democrats on the hill unveil a sweeping immigration bill that immediately is almost pronounced unlikely on arrival, not quite dead as they eye a multitrillion dollar infrastructure overhaul as well, all of this in the sprint to pass a nearly $2 tril