♪♪ hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. today in a congressional hearing, a brand-new warning from the acting capitol police chief about the same groups who stormed the capitol on january 6th, this one about targeting president biden's first official address to congress during which the vice president and every member of congress will be in attendance. the warning from acting police chief yogananda pittman raises questions about the ongoing

attempt. >> we know that members of the militia groups that were present on january 6th have stated their desires that they want to blow up the capitol and kill as many members as possible with a direction nexus to the state of the union, which we know that date has not been identified. >> a warning came during the house appropriations committee hearing about the security failures on january 6th. the police chief there explaining the threat from extremists is why the fencing remains outside the capitol and why national guard troops are still manning the building. also from that hearing, pittman emphasised that the insurrectionists who attacked the capitol, quote, weren't only interested in attacking members of congress and officers. they wanted to send a symbolic message to the nation as to who was in charge of that legislative process. pittman's testimony serves as a flashing red light about the

future threats still facing the u.s. capitol around future events, and the threat posed by the disgraced ex-president who still remains to this day, to this hour, in the grip of his own delusions about the election. today's testimony also provides a contrast to the gop lawmakers who are mocking the entire congressional investigative process, some by reading from right-wing press clippings, and for other for refusing their own culpability in fueling the lie that brought all of those nextists to -- insurrectionists to the capitol building. and also there's a proposal to investigate that insurrection. mitch mcconnell suggested that it should consider extremism

from the left. okay. the biden administration steering clear of the controversy, making clear it see the threats as urgent. the department of homeland security today announcing any grants to protect specifically against domestic terror threats. new dhs secretary alejandro mayorkas writes -- for several years the u.s. has suffering an up surge in domestic violence extremism. the horror of see the u.s. capitol attacked on january 6th was a brutal example of our suffering, and compels us automatic to action. americans have witnessed the cost of allowing politics to per raid intelligence. since inauguration day, dhs has increased the development, reduction and sharing of intel and other information central to counters domestic extremism. we have done so in partnership with officials, law enforcement,

the private sector and our international allies. the operational integration and sharing of timely objective intelligence can save lives. a new warning about extremist groups once again targeting the capitol is where we start did. ben rhodes is back, former deputy national security adviser to president obama, and joining us is carol linnik, also the co-author of the best-selling book "a very stable genius" now out in paperback and john brennan is back. all three, lucky for us, msnbc contributors. dr. brennan, let me start with you. you have sat in both these chairs, as a homeland security security adviser to a president, and as the head of our cia. i wonder what you make of this warning and testimony, almost buried, really, with all the flood of headlines today, that the joint address to congress, which is yet to be scheduled,

remains a target for the extremists. >> well, nicolle, i think it's just the most recent evidence that there are groups of deeply disturbed individuals who live in a world of conspiracy theories, who use violence in order to seek the aims that they're after. to include violence being perpetrated against the capitol of this country. what we saw on january 6th obviously was the manifestation of this built-up anger that these individuals have, fed by a number of politicians, including by donald trump, unfortunately, that just led to the ransacking of the capitol on the 6th of january. i think what we heard today was continued evidence that these individuals have plans to carry out these heinous acts of violence, to kill individuals, again to try to undermine the democratic institutions of our government and to murder as many of our government officials as they can. deeply disturbing, and this is something that needs to be a

wake-up call to those law enforcement and security organizations that have that responsibility to protect the capitol, but also to our government leaders, especially members of congress, who continue to give air to these conspiracy theories, unfortunately. >> i wonder if you could speak to what extremists hear when politicians, and positions of power and authority are he echoing those conspiracy theories in their capacity. >> frankly i'm disgusted by what i have heard coming out of the mouths of senators. ron johnson, jaish hawley, ted cruz and others who continue to give creeden to these conspiracy theories. this is just a dereliction of responsibility. i don't care which political party they're from. they have a responsibility to the people, not just of their state and their constituents, but also to this country, to try to do everything possible to

defuse these sentiments that are leading to this violent expression of anger and violence against our capitol. so, therefore, again, i just shake my head. i cannot believe when i hear these things, they continue to fuel the sentiments. they know better. they know they're being dishonest, and they're just antagonizing individuals who are looking for reasons to carry out their acts of violence. >> you know, it's where the parallels of 9/11 come up short. anytime we use those parallels, the policy choices were polarizing at the time, some of them. certainly polarizing and very much contested in hindsight, but the patriot act i believe passed 98 or 99 to 1 or 2. the idea we can't in the aftermath of a deadly attack on the capitol -- i've seen no reports of republicans roaming

the has elbow bumping insurrectionists. they too were hiding and taking shelter. i'm glad, because it kept them safe. what are we to make of the possibility of a ongoing and future attack on the building and not an equality commit present from both parties to protect it? >> i think it's so smart to bring up the parallel with 9/11. while there was some disagreement amid party, you know, a fracture about this or that detail of how to proceed, and also, let's be honest, who can get credit for taking 9/11 seriously, and who can claim their success in that regard to their constituents, it was -- there's a reason it's a patriot act. everyone did feel patriotic about defending the homeland. that did link arms. president bush and senator lieberman, pelosi and some of

her most strident republican critics. in this instance, however, i think it's laid bare by the comments that john just referred to by senators, republican senators. the tension is between people who feel as though their success in this job and the future is stoking that conspiracy. their ability to tap into what you would call the donald trump base, they believe it relying upon continues to feed this vitriol. it's in conflict with their own safety, as we saw so dramatically on january 6th. i still get chills up my spine, thinking about the interviews we did with staff, mcconnell's own staff as they were in hiding, putting up sofas against the door, inside the office, they are concealing themselves,

madly, panicly texting as many people as they could, because they believed they would be lynched or killed. vice president pence didn't have to look very far from his hiding place to see a noose with his name waiting on it outside before he was evacuated by a secret service detail. that tension, noil, this is a time when people believe their voters wants this. think keep stirring it. >> it's so disturbing. i mean, here's the other thing, all mcconnell has got is you should look at left extremism, too? all right. there's no intel, no charges that have been brought against any left-wing extremists. the charges documents are the most detailed descriptions of who these people were that carried out the insurrection. if that's all he has left, it would seem this 9/11-style commission is likely to go forward. ben? >> yeah, it's truly

extraordinary from mcconnell. nicolle, i worked for the democratic co-share of the 9/11 commission. i worked on that effort for two years. both parties took that seriously. both parties appointed very serious people to be on that commission. that allowed you to look back and understand what happened on 9/11, but also to make recommendations to deal with the new threat of terrorism, to overhaul the u.s. government, to invest any resources to defend the country. when you look at mitch mcconnell's statement, they talk about wanting to move on. they talk about conspiracy theories believed by people who stormed the capitol, yet united states senators are talking about antifa being among those who stormed the capitol. they're doing everything they can to treat it like it's some other washington political drama that they have to get through while continuing to appeal to their base, while we hear that warning from the capitol police

chief, this is an exist inchally threat. they tried to decapitate american democracy on january 6th. we have every reason to believe they want to do it again. until that attitude changes, we can't deal with this as a country effectively. it's going to take at some point parties coming together to take this seriously. in particular, the republican leaders in congress sending a message to people who will listen to them to cut this out. if that doesn't happen, there are going to be acts of violence. it may not be the capitol, but in other parts of the country, but this will be with us. and if january 6th wasn't a wake-up call, what will be? >> the study of counters extremism, it's not a complete science. there are differences in the

approach, but none of the examples include nodding and refusing to condemn the extreme ist violence. there's no example by coddling them and having it result in less violence. what road are republicans heading down by refusing to say out loud the political extremism -- i mean, you just watched the video. they're waving trump flags. that's who they identified as, trump supporters. they're not waving american flags. they're waving confederate flags and trump flags, and they're there to hang mike pence, in their own words. they don't identify with the left-wing extremist that is ron johnson sought to talk about. they identify with donald trump, and they all explain their

presence and their conduct as at the request of donald trump. >> as carol pointed out, they're all riding this wave that trump has initiated, and then has stimulated that basically calls upon these individuals to believe these conspiracy theories. it is just an unimaginable that we had something in the white house, who was fueling these sentiments, that was encouraging this type of activity. now we have individuals looking out for their own partisan, craven political interests to try to do what they can to tap into trump's space for financing, for support. they continue to be dishonest with their constituents by lending credence to a lot of these conspiracy theories. again, these are individuals who don't put the interests of the country first and foremost. they're putting their own interests, and again they're trying to capitalize on this wave that donald trump unfortunately had created, and continuing to ride it so that they can carry out their own personal agendas, irrespective of the impact on our national

security. thinking about what we heard today is an active plot to try to blow up the capitol of the united states government. that should send chills down the spine of every americans. unfortunately so many continue to ignore the threat we are facing from these extremists who have access to weaponry, to explosives, to other things, and they demonstrated once this year they're willing to take it as far as they can. who knows what they will do and not succeed next time unless we stop them in their tracks. >> in "usa today" there's a report that the acting police chief -- and that has tim ryan telling reporters that the issuance of -- to alleged rioters before the attack was now, quote, in the hands of the u.s. attorney here in d.c.

he said they were reviewing the footage. do you know anything about that sort of branch of the investigation? >> nicolle, i hesitate to draw lot of conclusions. what my sources told me after the rumors to began -- actually, democratic leadership being aware they were -- they called them sort of co-conspirator tours. when democratic leadership started to raise this with the capitol police, my sources said the capitol police were looking into that piece of information, but had found no evidence of it. certainly the u.s. attorney's office is looking at it as well. is it a tour that a congresswoman gave to family

members, as she was about to begin her time in office? was it just that? because that is not really reconnaissance for people who are engaged presumably in this kind of armed attack. remember that, as chief son said, the people who are leading this siege came with the -- forgive me -- the tools of war. they came with climbing gear. they came with gas masks. they came with pipes. they were ready for combat. i don't see evidence at this point and have not hear it from prosecutors that they have evidence from that kind of group being in these tours. i will say one thing that i think is important. there's a transfer of power going on in the u.s. attorney's office as well. there's a new sheriff in town, a new president, and there's soon to probably be a new u.s. attorney. there's a lot of anxiety about whether or not the previous team

of prosecutors or leadership was as eager and as aggressive in trying to figure out what republican members maeve doing or encouraging. i think you'll see a slight shift in the tone of the interest level in that. it's not political. it is strictly let's get all the facts, let's not go easy for a while. i say this, because you may remember, immediately after the siege there were members of the leadership of the u.s. attorney's office saying they were not looking at whether or not anyone had incited the riot. i think that is now something that prosecutors are considering. >> if i hear you, they had ruled out investigating trump for his role in incitement, and ben, carol's point is the department of justice is under new leadership, and merrick garland said he would follow the facts

without prejudice. if you're watching any of this testimony from home, you hear a lot of people invoke the term "intelligence failure." that haz a clear echo to 9/11. that's a complicated parallel as well. what is and isn't an intelligence failure. there seems to be intelligence that didn't necessarily make it to the officers protecting the capitol, but even if it had, they weren't prepared for, as carol said, war. >> the term during the 9/11 investigation, was failure of imagination. nobody had the imagination to see that that could be on a scale of flying planes into the world trade center, into pentagon, and flight 93, which was likely directed at the u.s. capitol. i think many of us anticipated

the risk of violence, extremism and ecosystem that had been created. i don't think there was a failure of intelligence in that it caught everybody off-guard. i think it was the failure of imagination to understand the extremism was so great and so widespread that a mob of that scale could essentially take over and occupy the united states capitol. now we know that. now we know the possibilities, the length to which people will go, the scale of the types of attacks that could happen. yesterday, as i talked to john in his office many times in the white house, yes, what can you do? what can alex mayorkas do? what can doj do to investigate this? but what is in the hearts and minds of those radicalized? it's the big lie about the election being stolen. donald trump continues to repeat that big lie in all of his

appearances. you have republican leadership in congress going on television, refusing to refute the big lie, refusing to acknowledge that joe biden legitimately won. you have charges of voter fraud that are being used to justify restrictive voter laws across the country. the big lie that motivated those people to do that continues to spread unchecked within the republican party and its base in this country. that, i think, is where we not have to have another failure of imagination. just because things weren't much worse on january 6th, that somehow something of that scale won't happen again. we have to assume the worst could happen. that's the lesson of event like january 6th and 9/11. >> that's the haunting warning of mitt romney after the next. we have so much more to get to. when we come back, we'll look at the u.s. relationship with saudi arabia, which has been shaped by

donald trump's allegiance to the crown prince. the release of a report details the brutal murder of jamal khashoggi. we'll talk about what to expect from the new administration. plus while the president doesn't have bipartisan support on the capitol hill for his covid relief bill, he does have a lot of bipartisan support among the american public. he's hoping to use his relationship with the nation's governors to get it passed. and news of a third vaccine here in the u.s. is definitely good news. experts want everyone to remember, don't rely on everyone around you to have taken a vaccine. get your own. any one of them. the public campaign continues on that front, all of those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. e" continues k break. don't go anywhere.

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the biden administration expected to release an intelligence report as early as this week, concluding that saudi crown prince mohammed bin sal approved the assassination of jamal khashoggi, a columnist who was lured -- a stonishing events. the record expected to be released was compiled back in 2018, essentially buried by the trump administration, which resisted criticized the saudis at all costs, donald trump even taking the word of mbs --

>> reporter: whether the crown prince was responsible? >> we're taking a look at it. we also have a great ally in saudi arabia. they give us a lot of jobs. they give us a lot of business, a lot of economic development. >> reporter: economic developme. >> reporter: >> they didn't make a determination. it's just like i said, i think -- maybe he did, maybe he didn't. they did not make that assessment. the cia has looked at it, studied it a lot. they have nothing definitive. the fact is, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. is, maybe he did, mae he didn't. >> they didn't concluding. no, no, josh, they didn't conclude. i'm sorry. , josh, they didn't conclude i'm sorry. >> reporter: you're saying they did not -- >> they did not come to a conclusion. they have feelings certain ways, but they didn't -- i have the report. >> reporter: what were they? >> i don't know if anyone will

be able to conclude that the crown prince did it, but i will say this -- i don't know. i don't know, but whether he did or whether they didn't, he denies it vehemently. quote -- i saved his ass. i was able to get them to stop. now, the report is sure to usher in a dramatic shift, and perhaps a step toward justice for the family of jamal khashoggi. dr. brennan, i am very restrained in reminding people about the former guy, but reminding people what he did with intel. in his mind he might have won, might have lost in november. in his mind khashoggi might have been killed by mbs.

that's not what the intelligence community concluded. explain how a president who respects the intelligence -- >> until like donald trump, who was a shameful disaster of a president, president biden values the intelligence professionals, the sacrifices they make as well as their contributions. i'm sure he was just repulsed by the horrific murder and dismemberment. i think that's why we're awaiting the declassified assessment that implicates the saudis, and the question is, what is the strength and fidelity of u.s. intelligence that implicates the crowns prince in the decision to kill jamal khashoggi. so, therefore, i believe this administration obviously will have a far, far different position when it comes to how we're going to deal with the reality that you have somebody that de facto day-to-day leader

of saudi arabia, now who was responsible for the murder of a u.s. person, who was also a columnist for "the washington post." >> carol, let me show you now president biden then -- in an interview with my colleague talking about the murder. >> mr. vice president, the cia has concluded that the leader of saudi arabia directed the murder of u.s.-based journalist jamal khashoggi. the state department also says the saudi government is responsible for executing nonviolent offenders and for torture. president trump has not punished senior saudi leaders. would you? >> ye i said it at the time. could showingist was in fact murdered and dismembered, and i believe tess order of the crown prince. i would make it clear we were not going to sell more weapons. we were going to in fact make

them the pie -- pariah that thy are. carol? >> i'm sorry. forgive me. i don't hear your question, but i will say what i'm thinking about this, as you relay all of this information. it's hard to talk about a "the washington post" columnist who we were realizing at the time had basically disappeared and then slowly realized that he was the victim of a bone saw and a 15-member hit squad. we knew at that moment that there was no way that this could happen in this country, in this embassy, without the saudi prince or the not just endorsement but direction.

indeed, that's exactly whatted cia assessment said. it concluded that this was at his direction. it concluded it, because you can't say for sure here's what he said. you can say as an intel officer or as an asset that you know, with everything you have, this couldn't have happened without his direction. let's be clear, one of the members of the hit squad was the deputy director of the saudi intelligence. that person is not doing that as a freelance assignment. i would also say that this parallels, nicolle, the way president trump handled a lot of unaccountable and repulsive behavior off part of autocrats. it reminds me so much of the way he refused to criticize putin or poisoning someone on british soil who was an ex-kgb agent. it reminds me of how he refused to hold erdogan responsible for

some of the more dramatic things he did. with mbs, both the president and jared kushner had a cozy relationship. they believed that relationship was behoofing them political. that was what was important. khashoggi was not important. >> it's so solemn to hear carol put it that way. i want to pick up on a point carol made, ben. the reporting from the post, elsewhere, "new york times" makes clear that the jared kushner/mbs relationship was akin to a preteen's text conduct. they burned up the air waving, in near constant contact. i've talked to officials, there's no indication that there was ever an effort to deal with saudi arabia in a strategic standpoint as an american government, that it was all

personal, and that it was largely run there jared kushner. this was one of, i think, relationships that pushed rex tillerson off the island, because it was one of the relationships that jared took hold of. i'm also reminded that kushner never vetted out. there was flags from the cia that were never cleared. the president just overruled kelly and mcgahn. what do you think they're going to find? >> well, i think they're going to find the depths of those connections. as carol said, some of this they thought benefited them politically, because they sold all these weapons to saudi arabia. that supported the u.s. defense and arms industry. i've always wondered how much of it might have been personal. one of the things to watch going forward is do people like

kushner go into business with the saudis. is there profit on the back end? i think the reason it's important to both look at that relationship in terms of the past, but also to have consequences for what took place, is i find it hard to believe this would have happened in mohammed bin salman didn't believe he could act with impunity, that he didn't believe that donald trump would ultimately have his back, as he did, even after the intelligence community made its determination. what joe biden needs to do is put guardrails around our values again, and have consequences when this report is released, to have joe biden not himself deal with bin salman, to speak up for human rights around the world. there's been a campaign of saudi intimidation and risks of violence against saudi dissidents outside of the country. yes, they need to look back and

understand why did he feel such impunity in all of his actions during the trump year? what was the nature of that relationship between jared kushner and the saudis, but more importantly as a matter of policy and take this relationship and say we're not going to sell these enormous amounts of weapons that dismembers a journalist. and so this is a defining moment for joe biden to show the world how far he will go to stand up for our values once again after four years when we didn't. >> ben rhodes, carol leonnig, dr. brennan, thank you for spending the first half of the hours with us. the president delivers remarks to the national governors association. it's an effort to reach across

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if you see wires down, treat them all as if they're hot and energized. stay away from any downed wire, call 911, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. right now president biden delivering remarks to the national governors association, a group he hopes will help push through significant legislation in his young presidency. he's spent significant time speaking to republican governorses, a strategy "the washington post" says laying the

groundwork to skirt the republicans in congress and aid him in passing his coronavirus relief package, which includes a significant allocation to cities and states. the white house hopes that president biden's lengthy career and relationships with many of the governors will create a bipartisan coalition to help push the package over the finish line. let's bring in eugene robinson and david plouffe it back. david, this is sort offageofage age-old tradition -- it's not up isn't up, down isn't down on the other side of the aisle. the wind at the president's back on this one seem to be the whopping 68% to 70% of public

support for the package. >> no doubt, nicolle. i think this is very smart. i'm sure we won't see the last time we see this. you have the business community almost unanimously supporting this package. a lot of local and state republican leaders. though you isolate the republicans in congress. what i think this suggests is, it does echo back to 2009 when the country was in economic pain, and republicans decided not to cooperate on the stimulus package then. i think mcconnell and mccarthy, maybe there will be deals on infrastructure, we'll see, maybe on immigration, and the biden white house will do all they can, but the more you isolate the naysayers in washington, the better off you are. whether it's immigration or infrastructure, republican voters, local republican elected officials, republican business

leaders are largely supportive of these things, so i think the more of this, the better. by the way, even if it doesn't change any republicans votes in congress, it probably won't, but it points out and underscores their opposition is not substantive. it's a political game they have already called. we're not going to cooperate except on very rare exceptions. >> you know, it's not a perfect analogy, but the same way impeachment was very partisan in the house and senate, this about bill has 67% support -- 76% support. 70% among democrats. 60% support among republican. listen to how the governor of west virginia described how we need to go big with my colleague craig melvin. >> at this point in time in this

nation, we need to go big. we need to quit counting the egg-sucking legs on the cows, and move and move forward. if we waste some money now, well, we waste some, but we have too many people hurting. the economy is going to sputter. we've got to get ourselves out of this mess. >> eugene, that was republican governor jim justice of the state of west virginia. >> that's right. he's been saying that for a long time. he's as republican as they come in a state that's as republican as they come. he's been saying over and over again, go big, go big, go big. look, that is the viewpoint of a lot of republicans as well as democratic governors. the president talked to today a

lot of governors today, as well as mayors. so i agree with david. i think it's a natural thing to do, a smart thing to do, to go out to -- closer to the grassroots, where you have that 70% support for this legislation. it does isolate republicans in congress who look as if they're just on the wrong page. they look as if they're claiming to represent the wrong country. the real country wants this big package and wants it now. i think we'll get it, but as david said, we'll probably get it with just democratic votes in contingent, because that's the way they want to play it. >> david, i don't have any sense that the biden white house is gaining it out on political

terms, but if you did, no problem. you don't want to vote for the relief package, rpg? you don't want to vote for economic stimulus for small businesses in your district? you don't want to vote for opening schools up? all right, i'll see you in two years in the mid terms. if the economy comes back, in the country reaches herd immunity, it will be a singularly democratic accomplishment with the help of a few republican governors. >> no question. first, why do so many republican governors support this? because they're close to the pain. they see it every day. workers, small businesses, families. they know we don't have any option but to act. the republican numbers are fascinating. that means millions and millions of republicans who actually don't think joe biden won the election support the relief package. pretty remarkable. unlike 2008 and '09 that we both

lived through, the economists were clear, it would take years to recover. most economists think we'll recover more quickly. six months from now, hopefully schools will be open, we'll be close to herd immunity, be done vaccinating people, and the economy should be strengthening. if the republicans had nothing to do with that, yeah, i think the political high ground is there for the biden administration for democrats so seize. you couple that with what will happen in republican primaries, where right now you say the wins candidates say covid was a hoax, trump won the election, climate changes isn't real, all the crazy stuff. i think we're a long way off from that, but i do think this is very different from 2009-2010. i think the pace of recovery will be much quicker. right now you showed the covid

relief numbers. biden's approval is anywhere from the high 50s to low 60s which i didn't think we would see this early in his tenure. >> people really are suffering, eugene. >> you just look at the state of small businesses that are desperate. remember the length of the lines at food banks, cars lined up for miles. there is a lot of pain out there, and, no, you don't see it in the bubble of capitol hill and the bubble so much in washington, but everybody else experiences it. politics aside, when you say government is really where the rubber hits the road, where you have to deliver service, you

have to balance the budgets. you have to get stuff done. that's what they local officials are trying to do. >> eugene, david, thank you both so much for spending time with us today. up next for us, the biden administration is pushed ahead with the vaccine campaign even as more become available, the need to stress the urgency of it continues. e need to stress the urgency of it continues. 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.

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president joe biden today commemorated the milestone of 50 million shots being administered across the country since he and the vice president took office halfway to their goal of 100 million shots during the administration's first 100 days. but public health experts advise that vaccinations are still not where they need to be to protect us, and with new evidence of emerging home grown variants adding to our threat here, a third vaccine could help. johnson & johnson's single dose could be approved before the end of this week. joining our conversation, dr. roy, medical director at the covid isolation and quarantine sites for housing works new york city. doctor, this really is sort of the tale of the two sides of the coin, the vaccine news is good, getting better. the variant news is scary, getting scarier. >> yeah, nicole, good to see you, and you're absolutely -- you captured that exactly right. i'm reassured by the fact that cases and hospitalizations are going down, certainly from the month of january. however, in this past week, we're seeing that the numbers

are -- that curve is flattening. in other words, the number of cases, it's still not continuing to go down like we would want it to and if it was flattening at a level of close to zero, that would be good news but it's still flattening at a rate, at a level that's still pretty high and we're seeing the same thing not only in the united states but in europe where the dominant strain circulating seems to be the uk variant b.1.1.7 and even in germany, there's concern that in some parts of the country, the numbers are going up, and this is, of course, this trend is concerning as they're trying to reopen elementary schools, nicole. >> the good news, i guess, is that all of the things that have been recommended for a year now are still the very same things to protect ourselves and our families from the variants. dr. fauci said you're not going to get a variant if the virus is not spreading around your community. we also have good news about the efficacy of the vaccines in stopping, slowing transmission that in nursing homes, the cases

and the spread is dropping even faster and more dramatically than in the vaccinated population. talk about what a vaccinated public, what we might look like by the end of the summer. >> yeah. you're right. i feel like sometimes i come on these shows and i sound like such a grim reaper but you're right, there's a lot of good news here. the fact that the cases are going down is a really good sign. i feel like it's only going to get better, and look, you're absolutely right. we now have a leadership at the federal level that has been absolutely transparent in communicating every single day where we are, where we're going, acknowledging that we're not where we're at, and yes, 50 million doses within the first 36 days is really impressive. that's kind of ahead of target, but -- and we're distributing 1.4 million doses per day, but we really need to be at about 3 million, nicole, because at this current rate, the country's not going to be fully vaccinated until february of next year.

so, we really do need to ramp up production, but you're right, the biden administration is reaching out to retail pharmacies. 7,000 of them are going to be getting about several million doses, which is amazing. they're really capturing and partnering with all of these other tools that we have at our disposal. it's about communication and coordination, nicole, so when more and more people get vaccinated, it's going to be the way to control the pandemic, but we need to really reach out, actively reach out to historically marginalized groups, black, hispanic, native american, in order to make sure that they are protected. we have to protect the most vulnerable in our community, nicole. >> dr. lipi roy, thank you so much for answering our questions, the good ones and the bad ones, and spending time with us today. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started. any. we're just getting started to e. including little rock and even worcester. and tonight... i'll be eating the

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we have a domestic terrorism challenge in this country. that's what the director of the fbi testified to the end of september. domestic violence taking more lives than international violence in this country. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in new york. speaker pelosi loud and clear on the biggest threat to the homeland, violent domestic extremists. it's a threat that was made even more serious over the last few months by a former president emboldening extremist outrage and inciting some of them to violence. members of the republican party,

most of whom were complicit with the president's lies and incitement, are now seeking to down play the events of january 6th and dismiss their own roles in perpetuating the falsehoods around election fraud that ultimately fueled the insurrection. even the arrangement of an independent 9/11-style commission designed to get to the bottom of what happened that day has become mired in partisan politics. nbc news reports, quote, pelosi has said she wants the commission to look not just at security but at all components of the riot, including, quote, the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response. senate minority leader mcconnell is among the republicans who have objected to that scope, saying on the senate floor that the appointed commissioners, not congress, should dictate the parameters of an investigation. he suggests that if the commission looks at violent extremism, it should consider extremism from the left. it's a puzzling claim since the idea that antifa or left-wing

extremists organized and participated in the january 6th riot has been debunked. we know from mounds of evidence gathered so far and the unanimous testimony of law enforcement officials that it was indeed right-wing extremists and white supremacists who played an outsize role in the riot. the gop seemingly unable or unwilling to hold those groups to account forcefully, even as more details emerge around the threat they still pose. here's the acting capitol police chief earlier today with a warning when asked about why there's still enhanced security around the capitol building. watch. >> we know that members of the militia groups that were present on january 6th have stated their desires, that they want to blow up the capitol and kill as many members as possible with a direct nexus to the state of the union, which we know that date has not been identified. >> the gop's reluctance to

forcefully condemn groups who we now know based on that testimony want to, quote, blow up the capitol and kill as many members as possible is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. a.b. is back, also joining us, eugene daniels, and matt miller is here, former chief spokesman for the justice department, now an msnbc justice and security analyst. i'm going to start with you, and this idea that the threat is not behind us, it is very much ahead of us seems to be the one that puts the posture and the language and the conduct of republican senators and house members under the harshest light. what do you make of how serious she testified to the threat being around a joint address to congress that hasn't been scheduled yet from the new president, and the reaction from republicans, which is really around small ball partisan political issues, not around

addressing the threat. >> you know, it's the most chilling part of this entire incident because as long as the big lie that is underneath the insurrection of january 6th is still out there and still exists and still continues to poison the dialogue, you are still going to have the threat of people who want to carry out violence on behalf of the president, and that big lie has still never really been retracted in any meaningful way, certainly not by donald trump, but not even by many of the members of congress who helped perpetuate it in advance of january 6th and on the day itself. it goes to the heart of what's almost an unsolvable problem. it would be ideal to have a 9/11 style commission, bipartisan, that could operate in the way -- if it could operate in the way the 9/11 commission did, but that is the key caveat. it has to be able to operate in that way to look at every problem, to look at both the security failures and what happened with the attacks, whether the president withheld

the national guard, whether there were members of congress who, you know, cooperated with the rioters, either in advance or on that day as some democratic members of congress have alleged and it's very hard to see how you can have a bipartisan inquiry into those very real questions when republicans don't want to get to the bottom of them. so, if you have to choose between bipartisanship and the truth, as i think seems to be the choice that's on the table here, you have to go with uncovering the truth because as long as you hide the truth and don't uncover it, the sort of rot that's at the heart of this matter from the beginning, you can't begin to fix. >> and let's put words to the rod. liz cheney has done it. mitt romney has done it. a.b., you and i can do it. it is republicans save for the two i just mentioned refusing to do what mitt romney called on them to do, look at your voters and tell them that it was all a lie. joe biden won in the most secure election in our country's history and he won by a lot and

we can go debate with him on tax cuts or whatever republicans still stand for, i'm not sure beyond that, what that is, but until -- and i think this is what they might be afraid of. i mean, an investigation by 9/11 style commission is of course going to tick through all of the operational failures. of course it will figure out that report from the norfolk fbi office that warned of war didn't make it to the police officers standing at the capitol with their officers behind them getting bludgeoned with poles by people carrying trump flags. but it would also get at the root cause of what brought them there, and other than the emails sent to them by the trump campaign, which were sort of smoking guns, it would get at this many months effort by donald trump to tell them that any result other than his win, which was unlikely in every poll that existed, would be fraudulent, and i guess the point about a future threat is that the underlying conduct is all still there and they are all still engaged in it.

>> that's what's so terrifying about their unwillingness to tell their voters that people were radicalized into a mass delusion that led to death, an attack on the government, and an attempt to overthrow the election. and so, i do think the commission should be made up entirely of people who are out of power and out of the congress and out of the government but have expertise and have served in the past and it actually should be an even number of democrats and republicans, and if you produce a fair process, i think we will get at the truth. and the fact that you pointed out in the last hour that republicans don't want to say what liz cheney said this week, they don't want to say that white supremacists have no place in our party, they don't want to say political violence is the last thing that we want as a party, it's the last thing that we want in government, and as a society, a free society in a

democracy. we understand their unwillingness. it's not that the lie hasn't been retracted. i wrote this week the big lie is a litmus test for 2022. listen to steve scalise on sunday on tv. you have to dance around, and you have to back the big lie and squirm whatever language you want to use, oh, affidavits this, or state laws weren't followed in some of the swing states by their own state legislatures or you just throw up a lot of stuff to make sure that you don't defy donald trump, and you don't disavow the big lie. otherwise, you're not going to win in 2022. he's going to come after you and primary you. so, they are actively, while we need to get to the bottom of january 6th, while we need to make sure it's investigated and we mitigate the ongoing threats that americans never forget and we take it as one of the most consequential days in history, we are dealing with a party that needs to embrace the big lie and hug donald trump's future lies

about 1/6 and everything else to win his endorsement and win their seats back next we're. >> eugene, i want to show you what nancy pelosi said about mitch mcconnell because i know these all feel like dog ears and feels like 11 months ago when donald trump was acquitted but the most remarkable thing that happened that day, the most surprising thing that happened that day, was that mitch mcconnell essentially referred him for criminal prosecution. let me show you what nancy pelosi says mitch mcconnell sounds like these days. >> i'm disappointed in what i heard the minority leader yesterday, mcconnell, say on the floor of the senate. it was really quite stunning, because in my brief conversation with him on this subject, i had the impression that he wanted to have a january 6th similar to

9/11 commission, but what he said on the floor was really a departure from that. it seemed when he spoke that he was taking a page out of the book of senator johnson. >> just a new smear, i guess, among self-respecting republicans who want to have a foot in a donor world where you can go to a company and ask them to give your campaigns is that you can't be anywhere near the ron johnson lie, his home state seems to be pretty wary of him now. but it does represent mitch mcconnell staking out different positions in this post-trump era. >> no, it does. i mean, on, you know, the day that he was acquitted in the senate, i had to check my notes as i was going through to make sure -- i was like, wait, did he vote to convict here? i'm not sure. >> me too. >> so it was very -- so, his statement was completely, you know, different than what his actual vote ended up doing, and so what we heard from him, what we've heard from him recently is this muddling of the issue,

talking about a commission that needs to look at leftist violence and leftist extremism when, like you said, we know that antifa did not have anything to do with this from the experts. we know that that's not what happened here. and it's something that you have heard from republicans for -- since last year, you know what i mean, talking about, like, we have to look at this leftist extremism, and it's something that just doesn't -- it's often a strawman argument when you don't have something to hit with. and back to this commission. there's obviously a conversation about who should be on the commission, but something -- a camp that i have -- some people i've talked to, they said that all of these people that were riled up, they were riled up by president trump lying about the election, riled up by people -- members of congress who parroted those lies and that day may not have happened if they hadn't done that. and so, that's where the commission -- the 9/11 commission, this possible commission, kind of separate, right? so if you have equal

representation for democrats and republicans, how do you have these republicans find fault with their own colleagues and really look at this issue, have some real soul searching about what the -- what the republican party has to -- what they have to speak for, what they have to say about what happened on january 6th because it is connected to this big lie and it wasn't just about, you know, what the president's speech on january 6th. it went for months, right? and it's -- we haven't had a healthy, honest conversation in this country, still, to this day, about january 6th. i'm not sure that we can, because you have one party who backed a big lie that experts say caused what happened on january 6th and did it for months. and how you have an honest conversation without them going right back into the -- their corner, and defending themselves, it's hard to say. >> you know, matt, eugene just gave me that pit in my stomach that i had on that day when i covered it because i think the bigger point here is, who do you

put on a commission that is bipartisan? what does that mean right now? because it is donald trump's republican party, and everyone who's anyone is carrying his water still, inexplicably, but still. so do you put the sliver of the party represented by mitt romney and liz cheney and adam kinzinger who can acknowledge facts? an investigation is a fact-finding endeavor. do you put fact immune members of the republican party who represent the majority of the republican party on it? i mean, who do you put on the party on the republican side, matt? >> that's kind of what i was getting at when i called this an unsolvable problem. you could pick out a few republican names to put on this commission who would be interested in getting to the truth. you could pick mitt romney or liz cheney or some people who are retired and not in government anymore. the problem is, you and i don't get to pick who's on the commission. joe biden and nancy pelosi don't get to pick. kevin mccarthy and mitch mcconnell would. that's always been the way these commissions are set up, which is

the senior republicans in congress or senior members of the minority in congress get to pick, and kevin mccarthy is not going to pick a member of that commission who is interested in getting to the truth. he's going to pick a member of the commission who's interested continuing to tell this lie so i don't see how you solve this problem and get a commission that is going to both look into what happened and uncover the truth and, b, have a bipartisan the way the 9/11 commission did. it doesn't seem possible to me when you have a republican party that is so rotten at its core and so committed to telling this lie, and i would say even, you know, with mitch mcconnell -- mitch mcconnell doesn't want to tell this lie anymore. but he doesn't want to spend any time getting to the bottom of it and splitting his caucus. he's for one thing. what is mitch mcconnell for? mitch mcconnell is for getting the republican majority back, and anything that splits his caucus and gets republicans fighting against each other, he is going to be opposed no matter the consequences. >> the gop contagion apparently

stops at the door of brad raffensperger, who in a statement about the weaponization, really, the next stage of this republican experiment, this trumpian experiment, is voter suppression laws and here's what he had to say about those in georgia. we're reviewing the bills. once we see something that prioritizes the security and accessibility of elections, we'll throw in support. at the end of the day, many of these bills are reactionary to a three-month disinformation campaign that could have been prevented. so, i like what he said, but here's the danger in what he's pointing out. republicans are about to make laws based on a big lie. this just started damaging the country. this just started damaging access to voting. this just started for republicans, and i think he is probably a rare -- an exception in his willingness to call it what it is and serve as a guardrail in georgia, a.b. >> right. i think that he's going to take

tremendous heat for even that initial comment as this is sort of mild and nonspecific as it was. he's still -- you know, i count fewer, nicole, in congress in the ranks of republican conferences in the senate and the house than 20 people that are saying out loud that the voters were lied to and that the election was free and fair and that this is a big lie, and so, you know, how many people -- how many brad raffenspergers are going to be there around the country as these state legislatures work feverishly on these kinds of bills, and you know, i don't want to doubt him and his sincerity. maybe he will really push hard later in the -- you know, later down the road, but i, just like you, was very impressed that he was open about his skepticism and again referred to the fact that an entirely preventable and frankly foreseeable disinformation campaign has gotten us to where we are today.

>> yesterday on this show, eugene, i played what is one of my favorite moments of capitol hill goings on where i don't know if you guys remember shrinky dinks but kevin mccarthy played the role of a human shrinky dink when liz cheney said, i've been clear on my views about trump to the extent which following january 6th, i don't think he should be playing a role in the party or the country. mcconnell doing his thing on "fox & friends" this morning. what is kevin mccarthy doing? >> it's hard -- that also made me think of "curb your enthusiasm," like the music under it. zooming into liz cheney. i think mccarthy is focused on being house speaker, right? he is thinking about how do i keep -- just like mitch mcconnell, how do i keep this caucus together, and his caucus is clearly in support of whatever president trump -- former president trump wants and

what he wants to do. he was talking about trump talking on friday or excuse me on sunday at cpac, and whether or not he should do it and his party. s him to do it. they want to hear from president trump. they want to see what he has to say. they're thinking about him as the continuing to be the future of the party because he's holding out that he may be running in 2024. so, mccarthy is kind of in a hard place where how do you move on from a president who won't allow you to? they may be walking away but he's grabbing their leg and they're not allowed to leave and that is something that you're seeing play out and you know, there are few republicans, liz cheney, mitt romney among them, kinzinger, who are ready to make sure that president trump and more importantly, i think, trumpism leaves the party, but it's difficult to see when you have people like marjorie taylor greene, when you have people like steve scalise who, you know, kind of hems and haws about whether or not president biden is a legitimate president on television.

when you have kevin mccarthy going to mar-a-lago, taking very awkward pictures with president trump, because that -- what that is telling people is despite in this, you know, keep using the word civil war, within the party isn't going anywhere. >> yeah. i don't know that it's much of a war. it's like a few lone, you know, people speaking out and the rest of them marching along like sheep. i think it's going to flop and if joe biden keeps a public approval rating above 60 and he can put, you know, tape after tape up of republican governors being all in ongoing big and covid relief and he vaccinates the whole country, i think people might be visiting donald trump in the dark of night and hoping that reporters like eugene don't catch them. a.b. stoddard, eugene daniels, thank you for starting us off. coming up, it's something donald trump fought to prevent for many, many years with all of his might. then, the district attorney in manhattan got him anyway. cy vance now has in his hands

donald trump's tax returns and millions of other financial documents. we'll discuss what vance might find and where his investigation could go from here when we return. plus, democratic congressman sean patrick maloney will be here on the capitol police chief's warning today that extremists want to, quote, blow up the capitol when president biden addresses congress. and on the eve of the expected approval of a third vaccine against covid, vaccine makers are stepping up their efforts to fight against those dangerous variants. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ontinues after a quick break. don't gony awhere. renae is not an influencer. she's more of a groundbreaker. just look at the way she's reshaping, and reimagining, her 4 acre slice of heaven. it's not hard to tell she's the real deal. renae runs with us on a john deere 1 series tractor, because out here, you can't fake a job well done. nothing runs like a deere. get a 1 series tractor starting at $99 per month.

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one thing i can turn around and tell you, he should start maybe speaking to somebody about getting a custom made jump suit because it does not look good for him. that's my prediction. >> not mincing words, that was donald trump's former lawyer and fixer, michael cohen, on this network just a few days ago. predicting that trump should be preparing for the worst after the united states supreme court declined to block a new york grand jury from getting the former president's tax returns. today, we know that those tax returns are in the hands of manhattan d.a. cy vance after the subpoena was enforced on monday. while the supreme court's ruling doesn't mean the documents will become public any time soon or ever, it does signify a broad investigation of hush money payments and other financial issues over the course of the last eight years that very well could spell trouble for donald trump. as our friend tim o'brien writes in bloomberg, a dam that trump has spent decades fortifying around his finances and tax returns has been broken. vance's investigation appears to be broad enough to pose a

serious criminal threat to the former president, his three eldest children, and the trump organization. joining our conversation is the author of that piece, senior columnist for bloomberg opinion, tim o'brien, and matt miller is here. tim, there's been so much speculation and then ultimately reporting around what robert mueller's investigation, which was looking at ties to russia, did and didn't get. it's now known that they did not have all of donald trump's financial documents. our friend andrew weissman wrote about that in his book, or his tax returns, but you know a little bit about his finances. i mean, what is the dam breaking? what does cy vance have in its entirety that no one has ever seen before? >> well, the first thing to remember is that it's not just the tax returns. it's the work product with his accountants, and this is a criminal case. one of the standards in a criminal case is cy vance needs to show intent. he's going to need to show that donald trump had awareness of what was going on or his

children or executives in the trump organization and that they were batting issues like this back and forth with their accountant, so presumably, they also have gotten communiques and notes on all the decisions they made about how to value their properties when they were taking them to banks and saying one thing and then how to value them when they were putting them in front of tax authorities and saying something completely different. all of these sort of decisions and communications help establish culpability and intent, so what's really important here is that he, of course, he has the tax returns but he has something much more than the tax returns. the period of time he has is important because it predates trump's ascent into the white house and i think helps build the narrative around the money trail and trump's motivations for his destructive and obscene dance with people like vladimir putin. it's a shame they couldn't go

back further. i think this is one of the tragic misses of robert mueller's investigation. he could have gone back further, i think, than cy vance is able to into trump's finances, but nonetheless, it's a substantial period of time. it's eight years. it also pulls his three eldest children into the radar on this investigation. eric trump has been deposed, ivanka trump's name has come up in disclosures already in the tax returns about receiving what appear to be very sketchy and lucrative consulting fees from her father's company, a company she already received a salary from. and then it also targets people inside the trump organization who might flip on trump if they're exposed to criminal liabilities. all of that's important, and then i think the, you know, the brass ring in all of this is that if trump has a criminal conviction, he can not run for president again, and that's looming over this entire thing as well. >> and around december, when there was some reporting that he

was, you know, toying with the idea of pardoning himself, it was sort of hypothesized that the investigation that represented the most danger to him, as tim just articulated, matt, was this one, was cy vance's operation, that after the supreme court cleared the way for what happened today to happen that there wasn't much donald trump would be able to do to protect himself from this. i wonder if you can just speak to i think what is a widespread feeling that he's never been held accountable and he's never let go of his taxes and he didn't let go this time. the supreme court cleared the way for him to be forced to turn these over and his accounts to be forced to, but what do you think will be scrutinized for the first time by these prosecutors and these investigators? >> i think it is exactly tim said they're going to be looking to see if he misstated the value of his assets. imagine if you went and bought a house last year and you told the bank your income was $100,000 and then you paid your taxes and said your income was $75,000, you've lied to one of them, and

if you can show criminal intent, you can show he was aware of i was and he knew what he was doing and he was trying to deceive them, then that, you know, that is a criminal violation of the law. and i think the thing that's so important and why this case does in some ways represent more legal jeopardy to him than even mueller's investigation, you know, with the mueller investigation, you could always defend him with claims of presidential power, you know, with theories that have never been fully litigated in the courts that would take time. there is a long history of criminal law around tax crimes, around bank fraud, and so donald trump, you know, the law will be applied to him here as donald trump the individual, not as donald trump the president, where he can avail himself of some of these theories that were able to protect him in the mueller investigation, particularly around obstruction of justice. so i think the only caution i would give, these are still very complex cases to bring. they have millions of documents that they've just gotten to go over. i know they've been conducting

this investigation for some time, but these still are very tough, very complex cases to bring, and i imagine he will have a number of defenses to make and you know, i wouldn't expect this to be a case that we see moving any time in the short-term. >> tim, there's no indication that these documents, these tax returns and all the documentation from his accountants and all their communications will become public ever, but if you, as a journalist, had them, what would you look for first? >> i would look at his sources of foreign income. i think that's really important. and i would look at falsification of business records and accounting fraud, you know, where he's misplacing valuations on assets that he owns in order to secure loans or mislead tax authorities. i think there's also the possibility of all sorts of writeoffs that he took against his income to lower his income. remember, donald trump paid $750 in taxes in 2016, the year he was elected, and $750 again in

2017 for 2017, his first year in office. and in ten of the previous 15 years before that, he paid no taxes. so he clearly was taking massive writeoffs as his father did that vance was going to look at. i think the wild card in this, and matt just got, you know, gestured toward that, is the time frame here. there's an election in the manhattan district attorney's office, the candidates have been -- who are running to succeed vance, who said he'll step down this fall, have not spoken about this case because they don't want to introduce prejudiceal information that would disqualify them, but there's going to be -- you know, vance gave the trump family a sort of slap on the wrist, a prior investigation he conducted looking at them, and there's been some questioning about how hard he would press this case. that same question will come up with whoever succeeds him so that's another factor that has to be considered in all of this

too. >> matt miller and tim o'brien, two people who know more about this than just about anyone else, we're grateful to get to talk to both of you about it today. democratic congressman who says breaking the law should have consequences, congressman sean patrick maloney of new york will tell us about that. plus his reaction today to the warning from the chief to the capitol police that extremists want to, quote, blow up the capitol when president biden addresses congress. p the capitol when president biden addresses congress to every plat. mhm, yeah, that too. i don't want any trade minimums. yeah, i totally agree, they don't have any of those. i want to know what i'm paying upfront. yes, absolutely. do you just say yes to everything? hm. well i say no to kale. mm. yeah, they say if you blanch it it's better, but that seems like a lot of work. now offering zero commissions on online trades. we charge you less so you have more to invest. ♪♪ good morning, mr. sun.

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as we have been reporting the acting capitol police chief is out today with a new warning about the extremist groups that stormed the capitol on january 6th. today, underscoring the ongoing threat to the u.s. government. chief pitman telling lawmakers at a hearing today that militias have said they want to, quote, blow up the capitol and kill as many members as possible during president biden's first official address to congress, which has not yet been scheduled. joining our conversation, congressman sean patrick malone of new york. congressman, we were watching and it caught us as newly public information about the ongoing threat there, and i wonder if behind the scenes there's something we're not seeing from the republicans. are they shaken from their partisan trance by testimony like that? >> well, no. in a word, they're not. because they are just wrapped around the axle of some very dangerous, dangerous conspiracy

theories and elements in their own party that continue to spread the big lie that the election was stolen and it had consequences. the violent attack on the capitol, the murder of a police officer, the deaths of other people. unfortunately, i can't report to you that they've rediscovered reality. no. >> i thought i'd try. it's so stunning, though, and i think we all -- and i'm guilty of this probably more than most, making parallels to an attack like 9/11, waking everyone up to a threat that exceeded, perhaps, our imagination and revealed mistakes and grave errors on the part of the government but also made us think differently about how we protect our country. that doesn't seem to have happened at all, yet the images of everyone hiding to protect themselves included all the democrats and republicans that i could see. why is the reaction so politicized? >> well, you know, i guess you'll have to ask them, but i would say something a little bipartisan, which is that when i go home to the hudson valley and i talk to, you know, the orange

county county executive who's a republican, he says, you know, wow, those people are crazy. he supports state and local aid. he's talking about the violent extremists who attacked the capitol, to be fair to him, but he understands right and wrong. the republican county executive in duchess county new york understands right and wrong. they understand these qanon conspiracy theories are crazy and 75% of americans, including a lot of republicans, support the pandemic relief bill. so, what you're really seeing is a republican caucus that is in the throes of some very dangerous elements and that's why 139 of them voted to set aside the election. 199 voted to keep marjorie taylor greene on her committees. and just today, just a couple of them voted for equality for lgbt americans so you've got a republican caucus that is badly out of touch with where the country is. >> you're right and i think that's why this story of throwing down with the most extreme elements in american political life is, frankly, out of step. you talked about the other breaking news today. the house voted 224-206, there

were three republicans who joined all democrats in supporting the equality act. this, too, though, represents the mainstream of american thought, and this seems just like another perfect example of republicans being out of step. >> you know, can i just tell you, so, i have been with my husband for 28 years, 22 of those before we were married. we've raised three children during that nearly three decades. i was thinking about my family when i spoke on the floor today, when i presided for the second time over the passage of the equality act. two years ago, when we did this, eight republicans supported it. today, it was three. they're going the wrong way. and that's just another indication that while america, by broad super majorities, thinks it's wrong to fire lgbt people just because of who we are or who we love, it's not even controversial among most people in america right now. here in washington, in that republican caucus, only three -- only three out of more than 200 would support equality for lgbt americans so i hope people

understand this is a caucus that is dangerously out of step with where the american people are on this, the pandemic, and other things. >> i'm going to need you to tell me more. let me just throw in one more question. i worked in republican politics at a time when -- and this is a shameful reality, but i'll just share it. many republicans didn't view equality as important until one of their children came out or in some cases with republican politicians struggled to come out because of what republicans stood for culturally. i take your point and i'm knocked over by it, that we're going in the wrong direction in the republican party. how is that happening? and how, when there is -- as you said, i mean, culturally, and public opinion, it's not just sort of swinging the other direction. it's already there. how -- where is sort of the delusional echo chamber coming from for the republicans on this topic? >> well, look, you know, i remember when michael steele was charg the republican party. i knew a bunch of gay guys who worked down there.

they actually could go to work, hold their heads up and say they worked for a chairman that supported them. a lot of them assumed that the republican party was going to come around to where broad numbers of americans are that discrimination is wrong against lgbt people. that's just not happening in the caucus. but you're talking about a group that denied the results of the election, a group that includes people like marjorie taylor greene that yell at parkland survivors so how are they going to keep our kids safe in school or solve the pandemic if they don't wear masks and deny it's real. how are they going to handle issues of importance to america if they are not grounded in reality and on the equality act, their arguments were em parszing and farcical. they were fear mongering and lies, things about abortion and people getting married in their churches and none of which is -- none of which is included in this bill. it's just inclusion in the civil rights act and has the same religious protections that we've always had in the civil rights statutes, no more, no less. no new thing here. just including lgbt people under the same discrimination

protections that apply to people of color or religious minorities or women, for that matter, and so so they have been reduced to not debate but to denial, to delusion. they don't even make real arguments anymore. they spout nonsense, and it's frustrating. but thank god democrats are in control and people like david cicilline stayed in that fight. >> this is one of the conversations that makes me sad that our children are watching. they're watching what happens. i want to show you something else that makes me sad that our children are watching. you spoke of qanon. marjorie taylor greene got into it with congresswoman marie newman, who put up a trans flag in honor of the legislation and in honor of her daughter. marjorie taylor greene put up a sign that said something very different. how do you coexist with someone like marjorie taylor greene?

>> well, it's just -- it's just going out of your way to be cruel and to be mean to a fellow member of congress who has a child who is, you know, has a gender identity that is different than some of us experience. you've got to go out of your way to be that cruel but of course this is the same person who yelled at a parkland survivor, told him she has a gun, told him he was being paid when he had been chased through the halls of his high school just a couple weeks earlier by a madman with a weapon. i mean, i don't know how you describe such cruelty. i wish i could tell you that it's just one member who's, you know, off her rocker, but 199 of her colleagues stood with her, literally stood with her, gave her a standing ovation in their caucus meeting and then went on the floor and voted 199 of them to keep her on the education committee, which has control over policies that affect all of our kids. so, it is not just marjorie taylor greene. it is the republican caucus which is dangerously, dangerously in the throes of

this nonsense. and some of them are trying to see the light, but they are in the minority. >> it's amazing. it's the radicalization of that caucus in public view, in plain sight. congressman sean patrick maloney, thank you for spending time with us today. when we return, vaccine makers step up their fight against those new coronavirus variants. just hours before an fda advisory board meets to approve the johnson & johnson vaccine. that story's ahead. e the johnson & johnson vaccine. that story's ahead fine, no one leaves the table until your finished. fine, we'll sleep here. ♪♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft. for the win win. ♪ ♪ at wayfair... you can spend less on sofas that bring the whole family together. no matter what you need for your home you can spend less and get way more. to support local restaurants, we've been to every city,

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city. in another we told you about yesterday in california, another dominant variant there, the state overnight becoming the first to surpass 50,000 covid deaths. joining our conversation, dr. peter hotez, codirector of the center for vaccine development at texas children's hospital and the founding dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. dr. hotez, i'm so glad to see you. i have this growing anxiety that someone like me, reading to all of our viewers about a new mutant strain may not be the most helpful piece of information. can you just speak to the broader answers on whether the vaccines that we have, as of today, protect against death and severe illness from everything that's out there, everything we've seen. >> so, a few things. one, the good news is the number of new cases is going down pretty -- fairly precipitously from 250,000 new cases a day, confirmed cases, to 50,000, so we are seeing dramatic declines, but we are concerned now with

these new variants. we have the one from the united kingdom, the b.1.1.7, the b.1.351 from south africa and now we're hearing about the one in new york and from california. and we don't know how that kind of acceleration -- what it will mean in terms of the number of new cases going back up or whether the seasonality of these viruses, now that it's gone into this -- potentially this new pattern, we may see annual bumps in january, whether that will be dominant. so we don't even know if the variants will take over. but we have to be prepared for it, and that means vaccinating as quickly as we can. now to get to your actual question. the good news is that all of the operation warp speed vaccines so far seem pretty strong. first of all, against the uk variant, also seem to be at least partially protective against the south african variant. it's too soon to say about the

california variant. there does seem to be some decline in virus neutralizing antibodies but given the level of virus neutralizing antibodies that these vaccines have, i think they will likely protect as well and i'm hopeful for the new york one, so the -- these vaccines seem i'm hopeful for t new york one. these vaccines seem pretty robust in their immune response, so i think we're going to be okay but we'll have to wait for additional data. >> is it the right expectation for the public to expect that the vaccines are going to mako individual disappear, or could we get to the point where what you're saying as a health care provider to patient, this vaccine will make sure no one dies from covid? where are we headed? >> i think there is two things. i do think these vaccines are really strong in protecting you from going into the hospital or the intensive care unit or worse. so yes, they will save your life. these viral neutralizing antibodies. that's how all the vaccines work. additionally, we have further good news. a new study just released in the

"new england journal of medicine" from israel is showing that two doses of the vaccine causes 92% reduction in asymptomatic transmission as well. and that's one where there has been a lot of the uk variant in israel. so that's really exciting. if the other vaccines perform at this level, i do think as we fully vaccinate the u.s. population, we could halt virus transmission or dramatically reduce it even to the point potentially later in the summer or fall where we won't need to even need to wear masks. that's not a promise there is a lot of water that has to go under the bridge. but i think in general, american people should feel really good about what's happening in the country in terms of vaccinations. the hard part is going to be, nicolle, from now until june or july until we get that mother load of vaccines coming through. and that's the unknown, how quickly we can accelerate during this crunch time.

>> i think most people feel the enormous weight of worrying about their parents lifted, but they still have all that anxiety about everybody else and our kids who won't be vaccinated for many, many months. dr. peter hotez, it's always great to get to talk to you. thank you for spending some time with us. when we return, as we do every day, we will remember lives well lived. lived. we made usaa insurance for members like kate. a former army medic, made of the flexibility to handle whatever monday has in store and tackle four things at once. so when her car got hit, she didn't worry. she simply filed a claim on her usaa app and said... i got this. usaa insurance is made the way kate needs it - easy. she can even pick her payment plan so it's easy on her budget and her life. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for.

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late last year, and she passed peacefully two weeks before christmas at the age of 48. in her memory, something beautiful has happened. all the people christine had known, all the people she loved rallied together and raised money to honor one of her final wishes, sending her back to kenya to be buried next to her father and her brother, a final act of service for a person who had given so much of herself to the rest of us. thank you for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber begins after a very quick break, so don't go anywhere. re made to e re-made. not all plastic is the same. we're carefully designing our bottles to be one hundred percent recyclable, including the caps. they're collected and separated from other plastics, so they can be turned back into material that we use to make new bottles. that completes the circle, and reduces plastic waste. please help us get every bottle back.

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at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings. welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber. the civil rights act of 1964 is a landmark piece of legislation, passed after i