he may have the toughest job in washington this week because of that primary challenge. thank you. don't go anywhere. "morning joe" starts right now. it is now time to open 100%. everybody who wants to work should have that opportunity. every business that wants to be open, should be open. texans have mastered the daily habits to avoid getting covid. all right. texas governor greg abbott rushing to reopen despite a deadly threat. >> i've heard this before somewhere. where have i heard this before? >> the plot line feels really familiar. >> i'm pleased and happy to repeat the news we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured. it's a beautiful day. the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time.

>> "jaws." yeah. willie, this is -- there's so many things that republicans do that make them the party of gestures. greg abbott understands, i hope, that we understand that he's doing this and putting people lives in danger because he's trying to move past a crisis of his making where people died. they froze to death. they didn't have drinkable water for weeks. so he's trying to change the subject. when he knows that if he just waits a month, the way vaccines are rolling out, he would be able to make that announcement safely. but, no, this is --

>> two months, yeah. >> we learned from cpac, that you know, the people that act the most recklessly are the ones that are the most rewarded. >> yeah. that's the frustration. you just put your finger on it. public health experts say, wait. we're this close to the finish line. the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer every day. why now? in fact, two days ago the cdc expressed public concern about states at this moment rolling back things like mask mandates and capacity and restaurant, minimum capacities in restaurants just because we are getting the vaccine out to people. now johnson & johnson just added as a third weapon in the fight against coronavirus. so you heard the exasperation from cdc officials and from public health experts yesterday saying why now, texas? give yourself even a month and it would be better than now to just throw the doors open and the statewide open and put it on the people individually which is the point to restore freedom. you want to wear a mask, you think that's best for you and

your family, wear one. but we're not going to mandate says the governor of texas. >> and again, you look at cpac and the people that got the biggest cheers there, not the people that are going to win elections, mind you, but the people who got the biggest cheers there were the people most reckless and irresponsible, ron desantis, he used his stupidity on addressing covid as actually his calling card for running for president in 2024. he's ahead in a lot of those straw polls in cpac. kristi noem, was stupid gnome, thought she was cool enough on the fourth of july saying we're having this big event, no, you don't have to wear masks and no, there's not going to be social distancing when we're obviously like now we're the middle of it.

but herman cain had just passed away or gotten it, but it was an especially reckless time for her to be that cavalier about it. and of course, rates in her state have been spiking. but she just doesn't care. she doesn't care at all because it's all at the end of the day about owning the libs. and to these i just -- i don't even know how to describe them. to these demagogues owning the libs means owning science, owning medicine, owning reason, owning rationality. it is a dead end street for donald trump's republican party.

it's something "the wall street journal" editorial page wrote about yesterday but certainly not the memo greg abbott got yesterday. >> here is why he could wait a month. president joe biden announced yesterday that the u.s. will have enough covid vaccines for every adult by the end of may, two months earlier than expected. >> we're now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in america by the end of may. the prior administration had contracted for not nearly enough vaccine to cover adults in america. we rectified that. about three weeks ago we were able to say that we'll have enough vaccine supply for adults by the end of july. this country will have enough vaccine supply, i'll say it again, for every adult in america by the end of may. >> wow. wow. the white house also officially announced the news that broke at the end of our show yesterday

that the administration is using its powers under the defense production act to help drug maker merck produce johnson & johnson newly approved one-shot vaccine. joe, it's night and day this administration compared to the last. >> it certainly is in terms of logistics. you look at the last administration and the trump administration did implement operation warp speed we moved towards a vaccine and moved towards a vaccine with extraordinarily speed. by the time the biden administration finally got in there, they understood they had the possibility of getting these vaccinations out to everybody. but obviously the president was -- president trump was horrific when it came to logistics. his team was just terrible when it came to logistics. they understood that and immediately started working

quickly. and claire mccaskill, because of operation warp speed and the last administration and because of joe biden's team being filled with professionals, people who understand logistics and more interested in performance than just gestures, they're going to get these vaccines out to every single american by the end of may. that's remarkable and means -- >> incredible. >> you know what, we may just have something approaching a normal summer. >> yeah. it's very exciting. they have done a great job of ramping up the amount of vaccine available. there are still problems, though, joe, in terms of getting these into the arms of people. my state is a good example. we have a governor who opened mass vaccination sites everywhere except the densely populated urban areas. we got situations where there's hundreds of shots going wasted

in rural communities where as if you're in kansas city or st. louis, you feel like you're in a game show trying to figure out how to get the shot. so, there are still wrinkles to work out. and we have to be mindful. i get really nervous when people forget we still have 50,000 people a day that are contracting this disease and over 1,000 deaths a day. so, i think there is a lot of reason to be optimistic, but there's still problems. this covid relief bill is not just window dressing. it contains the money to help open schools and also get these vaccines in people's arms by the end of may so we can have a fourth of july that's much different than last fourth of july. >> yeah. and the vaccines will be ready for all adults the biden administration announced by the end of may, but as claire points out, then you have to get them into the arms of all those people. again, moving the timeline up by two months is great news, that deal between merck and johnson & johnson is great news. we have to get people to get the

vaccine right now and the situation in texas certainly doesn't help. in a few minutes we'll bring in dr. zeek emmanuel for more. and dolly parton getting a dose of her own medicine. gave $1 million to university vanderbilt for the development of moderna. let's turn to yesterday's testimony from fbi director christopher wray speaking for the first time since the deadly riot on the u.s. capitol on january 6th. director wray appeared before the senate judiciary committee and defended the bureau's handling of intelligence prior to the attack that indicated there could be violence. he called the siege domestic terrorism and told lawmakers the bureau is deploying intense resources to pursue the perpetrators of the attack. >> that siege was criminal behavior plain and simple and behavior that we, the fbi, view as domestic terrorism.

it's got no place in our democracy. and tolerating it would make a mockery of our nation's rule of law. january 6th was not an isolated event. the problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now and it's not going away any time soon. at the fbi, we've been sounding the alarm on it for a number of years now. so when ever we had the chance we tried to emphasize this is a top concern and remains so for the fbi. information was raw. it was unverified. in a perfect world we would have taken longer to figure out whether it was reliable. i didn't see the report myself even until after the 6th. but the way in which it handled, at least as i understand it, strikes me as consistent with our normal process. that raw, unverified information was passed within i think 40 minutes to an hour to our

partners, including the capitol police and metro pd and not one, not two three different ways. one email, one verbal and one through the law enforcement portal. as to why the information didn't flow to all the people within the various departments that they would prefer. i don't have a good answer for that. >> do you have any evidence that the capitol attack was organized by, quote, fake trump protesters? >> we have not seen evidence of that at this stage certainly. we have not to date seen any evidence of anarchist violent extremist or people subscribing to antifa in connection with the 6th. >> has there so far been any evidence that the january 6th riot here, the insurrection, was organized by people simply posing as supporters of president trump's? >> we have not seen any evidence of that certainly at this time. >> is there any evidence at all it was organized or planned or carried out by groups like antifa for black lives matter?

>> we have not seen any evidence to that effect. >> so joe, despite some fishing by republican senators in that hearing, director wray laid waste to the conspiracy theories over several hours yesterday about it being antifa on january 6th and fake trump supporters on january 6th. these are ideas floated not just in dark corners of the internet but by sitting united states senators and he put them all to rest yesterday. >> well, yeah. claire mccaskill, you so politely said ron johnson, a man who i feel i probably should apologize to for calling the dumbest man in the united states senate, not because it's not true, but it's just not nice. >> yeah, but. >> maybe i shouldn't have said that. but you said in the case of ron johnson that ron may be the one case in the united states senate where he just doesn't know

better. he actually doesn't know better. so why don't we as a public service to wisconsin's struggling senator, why don't we just tick off the list really quickly, claire, of all the conspiracy theories and all of the bogus mitigating factors that ron and others keep trying to bring up to try to distract from the real culprit here which was donald trump, trump terrorists, seditionist josh hawley and seditionist ted cruz. we had wray saying, it wasn't antifa. we have no evidence it was antifa. it wasn't anarchists. no evidence there. no, it wasn't people dressing up to look like trump supporters. asked that twice. wasn't people wearing disguises. he left those senators based on all of the fbi's evidence with the inescapable conclusion that

those were trump supporters turned trump terrorists who committed an insurrection against the united states of america. >> you think this is going to stop ron johnson from repeating the lie? i mean, you're talking about a republican senate that has embraced the biggest lie of all, that the election was somehow stolen. so, you know, it doesn't -- follows on kind of comfortably for them to try to get around the notion that this somehow wasn't trump supporters, that were domestic terrorists inside our nation's capitol. ron johnson, you know, brian williams coined a name for him the other night which i think is great, ronanon johnson. he is going to continue to do that. i also thought it was interesting yesterday that ted cruz and josh hawley tried to

somehow imply that the fbi shouldn't be employing subpoenas and gathering of metta data in order to pin down these domestic terrorists. can you imagine them being upset if they were doing the same thing, if this had been a group of muslim terrorists in the capitol? >> exactly. >> or people that were al qaeda, you know. this is really unbelievable that hawley and cruz spent their questioning time, like they don't understand how prosecutions work. i mean, it's prosecution 101 that you start with trying to identify who the suspects are and then you subpoena information to find out their motive and their plans in order to support possible criminal charges. they were acting like this was some kind of violation of people's civil rights. i mean, they weren't focussed on the terrorists. they were trying to hunt down

and hang the vice president of the united states. they were somehow focussed that the fbi was doing a bad job. it was really just continues to be a head scratcher that everybody is not all in understanding that this is a moment we need to unite around the rule of law. >> and of course josh hawley was worried about the metadata and using it just like, well, if you were the head of a terrorist cell and you incited people to blow up the pentagon, run the plane into a pentagon or run a plane into the world trade centers and you were sitting on a committee, you wouldn't want the fbi to use all the tools in their tool box to figure out who was responsible. well, in this case we got it on camera. we got all of his speeches. we got his speeches before the inrecollection. we got the fist, that little fist of his going up in the air

with the bone structure of a little bird going up in the air. so we got that. and we got him actually voting to disallow millions of votes later. and then we have him on the floor continuing to give aid and comfort to traitors and seditionists with a speech even after the capitol was vandalized and attacked, even after the terrorist attack, even after the sedition. so of course, he's sitting there josh hawley doesn't want the fbi to use all the tools in the tool box to figure out who the trump terrorists were, to draw lines between the trump terrorists and what josh hawley, the seditionist said. to draw a line between the people beating cops with american flags and what josh

hawley said. the people racing through the capitol screaming hang mike pence and tracing those people down to figure out they too were inspired by josh hawley seditionist acts. you know, we can get -- we will get further and further away from this event. but it will never change the fact that josh hawley was responsible for these deaths that occurred on capitol hill, for this act of insurrection, the worst insurrection by domestic terrorists in u.s. history into our government. and he's thinking he can sit there with a straight face, ask these questions when you look at the people, mika, who supported him, senator john danforth, went around the state of missouri asking people to vote for josh

hawley, first as attorney general and then as the united states senator. and after this he said i have no doubt this was josh hawley's fault. but for josh hawley, this would have never happened. you have the kansas city star saying josh hawley must resign or be expelled because this was josh hawley's fault. he was responsible for this. you have the st. louis dispatch, the other large paper in the state, saying the same thing. people who know josh hawley the best know that he was responsible for these terrorist acts. he was the ring leader along with donald trump and ted cruz. so, yes. so, yes. he's not going to want the fbi to aggressively investigate his crime scene. that's what they're going to do. >> and they are doing it. let's bring in jay johnson and former fbi special agent and

msnbc contributor clint watts. mr. secretary, jay, what did you find yesterday as the most significant parts of chris wray's testimony? >> well, thanks, mika. i regard chris wray essentially as a straight shooter who is trying to do his best in a difficult job. president biden apparently decided to keep him on as fbi director. one of the interesting moments to me during yesterday's testimony he was asked in so many words what are the underlying causes of this rise of right wing extremism, violent extremism, and he politely ducked the question. i don't think we can duck the question. there exist in this country and there has existed in this country for my entire life time a strand of america that is racist, intolerant, prone to

conspiracy theories and prone to violence. you can see it on january 6th. we saw it when school children in little rock, arkansas, tried to integrate the school system there and they were spat on and shouted at by an angry mob. but what is different now over the last four years is this lethal virus, if you will, has been injected with a steroid and that steroid was our former president who said you're special people. there's good on both sides. and encouraged them to come out from their rocks. so they've received encouragement from the president of the united states at the time. we saw that in charlottesville and far too many politicians who refused to denounce this same behavior. and so, we are in a new mode here, a new and dangerous, heightened security environment without a doubt. >> yeah, clint to the secretary's point, director wray opened some eyes yesterday when he said the fbi currently has

about 2,000 cases open on domestic terrorism and said it's a problem that's metastasizing around the country. when ever we had the chance, we tried to emphasize this is a top concern, a top concern talking about domestic terrorism. what was your big take away as you watched with your eyes yesterday from your point of view? you worked on cases like this. what did you see and hear yesterday? >> i thought his command of the threat landscape really, willie, was excellent. he came in very prepared. hard to get your hands around all those different threads and different numbers. what he was talking about, though, was a very diverse domestic terrorism landscape. rewind ten, 20 years, we were talking about international terrorism, it was two things, al qaeda and islamic state. if we look at this domestic terrorist scene, white supremacists the most dangerous and most numerous. this number the triple of number of cases in the time he's been districter is staggering. we have probably never seen

growth like that at any one period. the second part is these militia groups. while these militia groups pose as free speech or protecting second amendment rights there's a lot of seditionists that showed up there on january 6th. this has been a trend we have seen going to that wolverine militia group in michigan kidnap whitmer. when president trump starts squawking, his members start walking to the targets he designates. that's where that social media phenomena comes together. the last part we can't stress enough is how conspiracisies and these online sort of extremists come together over time. we have seen a lot of white supremacist attacks. two years ago i would be on here talking to you about el paso, dillen rust, qanon space the fbi in other locations around the country say, look, we have a lot of conspiracies out here that

are promoting violence. that is almost impossible landscape to police. you're really talking about three or four large variances of domestic terrorism. a much tougher challenge when you don't have the same rules and don't have the same capabilities and you have a senator like josh hawley, having grown up in missouri, to hear a senator, a gop senator, from my home state try to undermine the lawful investigation into an insurrection that he helped incite, i think that was one of the more staggering things. i could see almost frustration it must have been in director wray's head trying to march on this investigation and getting these questions really undermining trust and confidence in his ability to do that. >> well, i'm sure the other senators even a lot of republican senators had to be disgusted by the fact that the guy who was responsible for the killings on that day for police officers being brutalized with

an american flag, for a police officer being held down and beaten almost to death and believing he was never going to get home and see his children again, for a police officer having his head bashed repeatedly in a door by hawley mobs, by trump mobs, by cruz mobs, these insurrectionists need to be thrown in jail and kept for maximum sentence. they need to spend 20 years in jail. i'm sure mitch mcconnell was embarrassed. i'm sure mitt romney was embarrassed. i'm sure the republicans were embarrassed that they actually had somebody in their own caucus that was trying to undermine the fbi investigation of an insurrection, josh hawley was responsible for. again, it's as close as political allies that are saying that, not me. though i am saying it, yes. but they were the ones who said

it first. mr. secretary, so how do we -- what can the biden administration do to make sure those committed insurrection against the united states, these seditionists are held to the fullest extent, punished to the fullest extent of the law? we saw early on that some of these terrorists, some of these seditionists were actually let out on bail and proved to be a big mistake and they got pulled back into jail. but what can an administration do to make sure that federal judges are given guidance to, again, punish these people to the fullest extent of the law because that would be deterrence that would spread around these communities and actually help prevent the next attack. >> joe, i don't view this as a

matter for the biden administration. i view this as a matter of basic federal criminal justice. title 18 of the united states code among the most serious offenses that one can commit are acts of terrorist, acts of violent insurrection that go to the very existence of our democracy. so, this will come down to a very basic choice by the fbi to use all the tools in the tool boxes, to go after these guys and the basic charging decisions that our department of justice will make. you charge somebody with violent acts of terrorism, the federal sentencing guidelines go through the roof. and judges will understand that. and if someone is charged properly for a violent insurrection on the capitol that led to the death of federal law enforcement officers, they're going to spend decades in

prison. and all the rest of them need to see that. you can run but you can't hide. >> let us hope. >> former secretary of homeland security jeh johnson and clint watts, thank you both for being on this morning. and we have breaking news this morning out of iraq. ten rockets were fired at an iraqi military base hosting u.s.-led coalition troops. the latest in a series of attacks in the country. and comes just days before the pope is scheduled to visit there. the attack on an air base northwest of baghdad occurred at 7:20 a.m. local time. iraqi security forces are leading the response and the investigation. let's bring in nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley. matt, what more do we know? >> reporter: well, mika, we really don't know much. this happened as you mentioned just a couple hours ago. we heard from the iraqi military

that these were ten grad style rockets launched at an air base which is huge that used to house a lot of u.s. troops back in the day, back when, of course, there was the u.s. occupying force there and then again when they stocked up again on u.s. troops the fight against the islamic state. now, ever since those numbers were drawn down, there are many, many fewer u.s. troops or coalition troops at that base. a lot have moved north to erbil. what are there are a lot of drones that can be used to monitor isis action as well as iran-backed militia groups operating very freely in iraq. that's where suspicion is going to be focussing on in the next couple of days. now, we don't know any casualties. we have no firm numbers on that, but afp news agency, they're reporting that at least one civilian contractor has been killed. now, it's not clear what nationality that contractor is, but you know, this attack was most likely in retaliation for a

previous u.s. attack on february 26th when the biden administration in their first real effort, first real military engagement overseas, biden administration decided to attack positions along that syria/iraq border and it killed a number of militia fighters who were there. so now we're hearing about this. the pope has come out this morning and said he will be proceeding with that trip starting on friday. the previous concern, of course, had been covid. now it's security issues. guys? >> so, let me ask matt, is this iran? you said there's some suspicion there, but it seem that iran has its fingerprints all over these attacks? >> it just looks that way because of -- there's really nobody else to focus blame on. this has been going on for a while. in really does look like tit for tat attacks.

remember, the february 26th attack along iraq and syria border, that itself was retaliation for a previous attack by rockets that went against a u.s.-backed base in iraqi kurdistan in erbil near the international airport there. so this really does just look like yet another tit for tat attack. and so, that's why this is going to be another -- we're talking about the pope. this is also really complicated for the biden administration's stated desire to reinstate that nuclear deal with the iran, the one the obama administration signed in 2015 and of course joe biden himself had a lot to do with that and that the trump administration walked away from in 2018. if these tit for tat attacks keep going on, biden administration retaliates, we could see any effort to try to return to that nuclear deal become really really complicated. >> nbc's matt bradley, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. you know, willie, as long as

the iranians are trying to kill americans and trying to kill american contractors and they're killing american contractors, we need to respond, my opinion, not yours. but also the last thing i would be worried about is going back sitting down with the iranians and doing anything. this country has been the epicenter of terror richl since 1979 and they keep trying to kill american troops and they keep trying to kill american contractors. >> yeah. >> i think it's okay for us to take that personally and say we're not going to sit down with terrorists while this continues. >> the question is how and where does it end? remember it was last january of 2020 that the united states killed general soleimani in iran after a tit for tat as matt bradley described like this and continued to lob missiles into our bases in iraq. it's impossible, as you say, to have a conversation with people about an iran nuclear deal while they continue to attack our troops in iraq and other places.

still ahead on "morning joe," we'll talk much more about the state of texas and some other states lifting coronavirus restrictions right on the heels of a warning from the cdc director about opening too soon. dr. zeke emmanuel, member of the biden transition covid advisory joins us when "morning joe" comes right back. it is now time to open texas 100%. >> i remain deeply concerned about potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic. >> everybody who wants to work, should have that opportunity. every business that wants to be open, should be open. >> please hear me clearly, at this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained. >> texans have mastered the daily habits to avoid getting covid. >> now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know can stop the spread of

covid-19 in our communities. not when we are so close. >> we now have vaccines, vaccines to protect texans from covid. mer. 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. as a retired weatherman, i like things i can predict. that's why i chose an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan from unitedhealthcare. it's the kind of plan with predictable out-of-pocket costs. plus the plan i chose has a low to zero percent chance of copays. it's a sunny day for me.

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well, hey. it's me. i'm finally going to get my vaccine. i'm so excited. i've been waiting a while. i'm hold enough to get it. and i'm smart enough to get it. so i'm very happy that i'm going to get my moderna shot today. and i wanted to tell everybody that you should get out there and do it, too. i changed one of my songs to fit the occasion. it goes ♪ vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, i'm begging of you please don't hesitate ♪ ♪ vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, cause once you're dead then that's a bit too late ♪ i know i'm trying to be funny now but i'm dead serious about the vaccine. i think we all want to get back

to normal, whatever that is. and that would be a great shot in the arm, wouldn't it, if we could get back to that. but anyhow, i wanted to encourage everybody because the sooner we get to feeling better, the sooner we are going to get back to being normal. so i just want to say to all of you cowards out there, don't be such a chicken squat. get out there and get your shot. >> yes, ma'am. that is the legend dolly parton getting the covid vaccine yesterday. dolly, you'll remember, donated $1 million to the vanderbilt university medical center which helped to fund the early critical stages of research that got us to the moderna vaccine. in february, long after the moderna vaccine was approved, parten said she would join others, millions of others in getting vaccinated but said she was going to wait her turn and did just that yesterday. she went back to vanderbilt and got her shot. so mika, the back story on this is the gentleman there, the doctor, a friend of dolly's got into a car accident in 2013, she

went to vanderbilt medical center to recover. struck up a friendship with the doctor and when she heard about the development of the vaccine, when this crisis hit us a year ago, she said how can i help? and she wrote a check for $1 million to vanderbilt university medical center to help fund the moderna vaccine, as she put it yesterday, she got a dose of her own medicine. >> i love it. if you watch the whole video, she's so funny. he's shuffling around, trying to unwrap the shot. hurry up. i've got to get this shot. you're taking so long. it's an adorable video with an incredibly important message. once again, dolly parton is amazing. >> the best. >> she really is. the back and forth sounds like half the women my mom knew at first baptist church. >> shuffling. >> don't be squat, get the shot. >> it's the best.

>> barbara mcvoi. >> that is barbara mcvoi. joining us now, dr. ezekiel emmanuel served on president biden's covid-19 advisory board during the transition and was obama's white house adviser for health policy. he's also vice provost at the university of university of pennsylvania and nbc news and msnbc senior medical contributor. >> thank you for being with us. a lot of good news to talk about. but let's talk about the concerning news coming out of texas. greg abbott obviously trying to distract from the fact that he and the texas legislature were responsible for the deaths of so many people in texas because they don't even know how to run an energy grid decides to change the subject and says he's going to reopen everything 100%. what are your concerns? >> oh, this is a terrible idea. first of all, we're not anywhere near there in terms of the numbers of cases.

we're at about 60,000 cases per day. we're still at about 1,100 deaths per day. we don't have enough vaccine out there to reduce the numbers enough. and we should not be rushing in to indoor dining, to indoor retail. all the things that governor abbott said should be 100%. it is very irresponsible. and i think the cdc director dr. walensky was exactly right. this is way premature. we did this in the spring when cases went up and they began coming down and just opened everything up instead of waiting. we need to wait two or three more months in this very, very cautious mode respecting all the public health measures in order to get the numbers really low and get vaccines out there. >> so, you know, the really great news announced by the president yesterday comes while america obviously is still

suffering from there in the throes of it, well over 500,000 people dead. at one point do you think we will see the vaccine start impacting the death rate and the hospitalization rate? >> we're going -- it's hard to know and modelling is very different. but probably when we have 25% of the population. and again, concentrating it in nursing homes where we have a lot of at-risk people and people over 65. we're about 80% of the deaths are. that is going to make a big difference and we have seen the deaths in nursing homes and assisted living facilities come way down. and that's very gratifying. i think for the whole population it's going to take a little longer because we have to get up there. >> zeke, can you speak to the significance of that deal yesterday announced by the biden administration between johnson & johnson and merck, two major rivalries in the pharmaceutical

industry getting together and merck said, we'll help make this product to get it out, yes, it's your product. we didn't get to the vaccine but we want to get this out to as many people as we can. how big a deal is that? >> so, first of all, it's very gratifying that merck is stepping up. when you have an emergency the size of the pandemic, all hands on deck. and merck is doing that. on the other hand, we should be a little cautious. it takes about two months to ferment to get the vaccine and then you have to fill and finish. that is put it in the glass viles, make sure the glass viles aren't contaminated with anything, stop them up and that takes another five weeks. and so, if merck started tomorrow, it would still be about three, three and a half months before we would see a merck-produced vaccine out there in distribution. i think everyone is a little disappointed by the johnson & johnson production timeline. they were supposed to have 37

million doses delivered to the government by the end of march, but they'll only have about half that, 20 million doses. and so, they're doing everything they can, but we shouldn't expect a merck product out there for vaccination before i'll call it mid june. >> zeke, we also got word yesterday that we're going to hear tomorrow from the cdc about new guidance about people who had vaccines and that will be if you're indoors, say at a home or restaurant with people that you know have been vaccinated, it's okay to sit there with your mask on. does that sound right to you? and what should people take from that guidance we expect to hear? >> it does sound right to me. but i think it's a little baby step. the most common question i get is when can i hug my grandchildren. i'm getting this all over the email, lots of people i know. this is what i'm doing and then they want to know, is that all right? i do think that getting vaccinated and, by the way, if you're getting the vaccine, you

have to wait two weeks afterwards for the immune system to respond, and then going with people who are also vaccinated, that is probably pretty safe. no risk -- you don't take all the risk off the table. but i think that is good. you can probably also fly with a mask on. don't eat the food. don't take the mask off. and keep your mask on and fly and be relatively safe. again, it's a relative safeness. but i think we have to remember, wear the mask. if you can do things outdoors comfortably, do them outdoors comfortably. make sure you're in a well ventilated room if you are going indoors. and i don't think we should again rush to indoor dining because you don't know about everyone else in a restaurant or a bar. or a hair salon. and so we need to be prudent about what we do and take it in small steps.

but i do think that seeing other people indoors, everyone vaccinated and waited two weeks after a vaccine is probably okay. >> all right, dr. zeke emmanuel, thank you for being on with us. he's the author of the book "which country has the world's best health care". the white house pulls neera tanden's nomination for omb director amid bipartisan opposition in the senate. plus, russia is vowing retaliation after being hit with new sanctions by the biden administration. we'll get to that latest reporting. "morning joe" will be right back. ning joe" will be right back nicorette® knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: try hypnosis... or... quit cold turkey are you kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette®. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette® ♪♪

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51 past the hour. the scope of the investigation into allegations levelled against new york governor andrew cuomo is expected to be wide ranging.

"the new york times" reports the independent team hired by the state's attorney general latitia james will have far-reaching subpoena powers to request documents and compel witnesses, including the governor to testify under oath. the probe may also scrutinize not just the two sexual harassment claims made by former female employees, but any other potential allegations as well. the governor has acknowledged that some of the things he said may have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation and apologized. but denies ever inappropriately touching anyone. and more democratic lawmakers are coming out in support of the independent investigation into these growing number of allegation made against governor cuomo. >> these allegations are very serious against governor cuomo, made by serious individuals and deserve a serious and

independent investigation. >> i associate myself to the gentleman to the right. >> i know the attorney general will conduct a thorough investigation that will be totally, totally independent without any interference, outside interference, political or otherwise. >> i can certainly speak on behalf of the president and the vice president. so let me reiterate that they both believe that every woman coming forward should be heard, should be treated with dignity and treated with respect. >> in a statement, new york senator kirsten gillibrand said in part, quote, the behavior described in the allegations against governor cuomo is completesly unacceptable and every allegation of sexual harassment must be taken seriously and be reviewed. meanwhile, six new york state legislatures said yesterday that cuomo should resign following a third woman's allegation of unwanted advances. cuomo's office has not commented

on the latest accusation. protesters also held a rally outside the governor's manhattan office as pressure mounts for him to resign. >> so claire mccaskill, very interesting op-ed by michelle goldberg "the new york times" this morning saying that she suspects that andrew cuomo will survive this in part because democrats are still angry that al franken got pushed out, and they've taken the attitude that we don't need to franken cuomo, saying why is it the democrats always react this way while you had donald trump in the white house with 21 claims of sexual harassment against him. >> including one of rape. >> yeah. and republicans never once demanded investigations into donald trump. it was an interesting take.

and talked about we had kristen jill brand's name there, michelle goldberg talks about anger towards kirsten gillibrand actually for taking the lead and pushing al franken out of the united states senate. >> well, first of all, i mean, the prosecutor in me wants to point out that the facts and circumstances around both cases are much different. let me just say some obvious truths here. this is the governor of new york who had a young -- a woman young enough to be his daughter in his office. the two of them alone. and he asked her if she had sex with older men. and then he had the nerve to say he was apologizing if his comments had been misinterpreted as flirtation. well, i got news for you, if you have a position of power over a young woman, a very young woman compared to your age, and you ask her if she has sex with

older men, you ought to be man enough to say, you did something terribly wrong. not i'm sorry if it was misinterpreted. he should have said, hey, my life -- i don't know if his personal life is a mess. but if he had been honest and just said, i did things i shouldn't have done and it is terrible i did them and i will do better. and i ask for forgiveness from the women that i have abused by sexually harassing them with the things i talked to them about and my actions. but instead, everything is interpreted as unwanted flirtation. i'm like, it's infuriating. that wasn't an apology. that was a rationalization. so, you know, just everybody out there if you're old enough to be a woman's daughter and you're her boss, don't ask her if she likes to have have sex with older women, older men i mean.

>> i think you nailed it what's sup setting here is not just the alleged story of what happened, but the apology. and the apology appears to actually caused a fire storm and then a second and a third allegation. so, the problems continue, i think, because of the rationalization or even shaping the behavior to be something that it isn't. sometimes you've just really messed up. sometimes your behavior is just inappropriate and you just need to say it. it's pretty easy. and it would be interesting to see how bad the reaction would be if he actually said this is what i did and it was really bad and i'm really sorry. we'll have to wait to see how the investigation bears out. these are allegations at this point, but there certainly are now starting with one, two, now three backed up by a picture.

so, it's a tough situation. coming up, president biden doesn't just have to tackle a pandemic, he also has to manage american's expectations for when the coronavirus crisis will end. the a.p.'s jonathan lemire joins us with the latest reporting. "morning joe" will be right back. ♪♪ re-entering data that employees could enter themselves? that's why i get up in the morning! i have a secret method for remembering all my hr passwords. my boss doesn't remember approving my time off. let's just... find that email. the old way of doing business slows everyone down. with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in one easy-to-use software. visit paycom.com for a free demo.

the boat parade was equally as fantastic to watch. you got a little -- >> i don't remember that quite as well. >> if you don't remember it, take a look. >> dad no. no! >> was there any bit of you thinking, what do i do if this goes in the water? >> okay. first of all, i was not thinking at that moment. there was not a thought. it was this seems like really fun to do. had that been an incomplete pass, that would have went down like 80 feet. >> never seeing it again. >> i'm so happy to cam. >> whose voice is it you hearsay no. can you -- there's somebody shouts no, don't do it. >> that's my little 8-year-old daughter.

daddy, no. >> willie, you know, he's led such a clean life dietarily. he probably drank his first diet coke since high school and the fizz got into his head and he couldn't control it. and threw the trophy. but that was a gutsy move, maverick. a gutsy move. >> it is that kid at college who has his first sip of beer and just kind of loses it. he measures everything he puts into his body for all 4 3 or 44 years of his life. you drop tequila in there, sometimes you find yourself chucking the lombardi trophy off the back of a boat in tampa. >> it's happened to us, willie. one time too many. >> that was your heisman, though. >> claire mccaskill. >> you remember my heisman, right? >> yeah. right after archie griffin won twice joe scarborough came in. it's amazing. >> so i can't believe seriously

we've been doing this show too long. i was going to say right after archie griffin and there you go. you remember it. so i don't know. what do you think? that was as good as '87. >> augusta after jack. you didn't put up big numbers that heisman year. three yards and a cloud of dust guy, but you won over the voters somehow. >> just both stop talking. still with us, we have claire mccaskill. shut your pie hole. joining us now jonathan lemire. msnbc contributor mike barnicle and white house editor for politico sam stein is with us as well. thank you very much all of you. >> jonathan lemire, why did the white house give up on neera tanden? >> well, joe, it has certainly become a messy fight. and her confirmation was far from assured. their hopes were resting on

senator lisa murkowski, signaling she wanted to do trading. that alarmed progressives who thought the biden white house might be giving away too much. they also hadn't quite secured bernie sanders support just yet although aides signaled yesterday after tanden withdrew her name he would have voted for her. this was just going to become a prolonged, protracted fight and sense of political capital was wasted they couldn't afford or want to. tanden will get a job elsewhere in the administration but this battle is over. they'll find on to moving a replacement. >> claire mccaskill, they didn't have the votes. at the end of the day, they just didn't have the votes and from what i had heard from people in the white house, around the white house, they were concerned about this from the very start. >> yeah. clearly once you had the moderate republicans and joe manchin say it was a no go, then

it became a very, very difficult thing. we can argue about whether or not this is the ultimate act of hypocrisy on the part of some of these folks considering the nominees that they were willing to look the other way on when the guy at the top of the food chain was doing mean tweets every five minutes. but at the end of the day, the biden administration wants to stay focussed on achievable goals and policy things that can make things happen. and this was a distraction. they're going to start the covid relief bill today. it's all hands on deck for that and only that for the foreseeable future. >> hey, jonathan also, big biden announcement out of the white house yesterday on vaccines. what caused the dam to break? >> well, joe, of course it was the use of the defense production act and the agreement between with merck to produce johnson & johnson vaccine a

competitor helping out a rival to produce their product to bolster the u.s. vaccine supply in the coming months and something the biden team had been working towards for some time now. and it was an announcement greeted with a wave of relief and joy. certainly the idea the goal posts have moved in the right direction from the white house in terms of when the vaccine supply will be sufficient to inoculate every american adult. and that would be earlier the end of the summer and then the end of july and now of course the end of may. but challenges certainly still persist. there's a difference. a key difference in terms of having enough vaccine to inoculate every american and actually being able to get that vaccine in every american's arm. that is the challenge that still awaits for this white house. >> and mike barnicle, you go back to the trump administration and obviously they were part of a program that rushed the

vaccines and set it into hyperdrive and that's something that's one positive part of his legacy that he's going to be remembered for. at the same time, i remember you back in early december talking to the incoming biden team and they were so concerned about the fact that donald trump and his team didn't know what they were doing in terms of logistics. that it was just an absolute failure. so this quick of a turn around where they've gotten from where they were on january 20th to what they announced yesterday actually does indicate that joe biden finally -- we finally have professionals back in the white house who actually know what they're doing. >> yeah. that's right, joe. i mean, prior to january 20th i think the biden team, the incoming team, were shocked at the lack of planning in terms of distribution of the existing vaccines on hand at that point in time. and so january 20th at noon when

joseph r. biden took the oath of office and became the president of the united states, the principle goal then, the principle objective then, the principle objective right now as of this moment is to show to the american public, the efficacy, the efficiency of government, when government is working well, it helps a lot of people. and that's what this administration is intent on proving. yet's announcement, as jonathan just mentioned, by the end of may, every american can get the vaccine if every american wants to get the vaccine. that's further proof that government does work when it's run by people who know what they're doing. >> this is aforementioned announcement from president biden yesterday that the united states will have enough covid vaccine for every adult by the end of may, that two months earlier than was initially expected. >> we're now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in america by the end of may. the prior administration had

contracted for not nearly enough vaccine to cover adults in america. we rectified that. about three weeks ago we were able to say we'll have enough vaccine supply for adults by the end of july. this country will have enough vaccine supply, i'll say it again, for every adult in america by the end of may. >> on the question of schools, president biden said yesterday he is directing every state to designate in person learning as essential service. that will help the administration meet the goal of vaccinating every schoolteacher and member of faculty across the country with at least one dose by the end of march. >> we want every educator, school staff member, child care worker to receive at least one shot by the end of the month of march, starting next week and for the month of march we'll be using our federal pharmacy program to prioritize the vaccination of pre-k through 12

educators and staff and child care workers. throughout march, they will be able to sign up for an appointment at a pharmacy near them. >> but texas governor greg abbott apparently can't wait for any of it. announcing yesterday that texas is open, 100%. after he lifted the statewide mask-wearing mandate and a number of other covid restrictions, an order that goes in full effect in one week. sam stein, what's going on in texas? why? first of all, they can -- they're still recovering from the most unbelievable disaster in that state where people left without water. people froze to death. as joe noted earlier, this could be an attempt to turn the page. but another incredibly unhealthy, dangerous move. >> yeah. i mean, this is what they call the hammer in the dance.

you hammer down the virus you get complacent, you feel like you're through the process and you go back out and you dance. and then of course the virus re-emerges again. what's particularly befuding for public health experts right now is that we're sort of at the place where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. we have vaccines. we have vaccine supplies. we're ramping up the administration of vaccines. the numbers of infections are going down from a terrible high over the winter. if public health experts say you can just hold on for a couple more weeks, keep mandates in place, try to keep social distancing in place, you could really get to a plateau that is advisable for reopening. but texas and mississippi as well are forging ahead and there's an expectation in the administration that other states will soon follow suit, this will become sort of a political litmus test for conservative-run states to reopen quickly. and that could really set us back nationwide in terms of this

vaccine fight. this is where the administration has not that many tools in its tool kit to compel these states to not do these types of things but i would be curious to see what biden has in store and tries to do publicly and private ly to convince officials not go down this route. >> houston mayor criticized the governor's announcement. san antonio spurs' head coach gregg popovich criticizing governor abbott's decision. popovich, been outspoken on social issues over the year called the decision pretty mystifying before last night's game before the knicks. he said usa today, getting rid of masks seems ignorant. we have to have instant gratification and act like the pandemic is over. we went through this once and now we're going to do it again. so mike barnicle, the frustration you're hearing from the cdc, the frustration you're hearing from public health experts is that we're getting there. we're close. you have those announcements yesterday of johnson & johnson

and merck working together, moving up the timeline for all adults to be vaccinated until the end of may, knocking on the door of pushing through this and getting past. and there's a fear inside of the texas with its 29 million residents that this could set not only texas back but areas around texas. >> you know, willie, this is a classic good news/bad news story. we have three vaccines available and becoming more available to everybody in the united states of america, that's the good news. the bad news is that one state's governor, in this case governor abbott of texas has taken it upon himself to think that he can combat this virus the way no one else can combat this virus. texas is averaging 200 deaths per day. now, that might not seem a whole lot to governor abbott, but it sure is a whole lot to the people who are suffering the losses, the families and the friends of the people who are dying. less than 7% of the people in the state of texas have been vaccinated. and the governor has managed to

overrule with this new edict that he proposed yesterday, overrule various cities and towns who have a mask mandate. this is not the way to go to combat the virus. it is the way to open the door to the virus and the various variants of the virus to come back into the house, something that nobody wants but they have done it in texas. >> all right. now to yesterday's testimony from fbi director christopher wray, speaking for the first time since the deadly january 6th riot on the u.s. capitol. >> that siege was criminal behavior, plain and simple. and it's behavior that we, the fbi, view as domestic terrorism. it's got no place in our democracy. and tolerating it would make a mockery of our nation's rule of law. january 6th was not an isolated event. the problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now and it's not going away

any time soon. at the fbi, we have been sounding the alarm on it for a number of years now. so when ever we had the chance, we tried to emphasize that this is a top concern and remains so for the fbi. information was raw. it was unverified. in a perfect world we would have taken longer to be able to figure out whether it was reliable. i didn't see the report myself until even after the 6th, but the way in which it was handled, at least as i understand it, strikes me as consistent with our normal process. that raw, unverified information was passed within i think 40 minutes to an hour to our partners, including the capitol police, including metro pd and not one, not two, but three different ways. one email, one verbal and one through the law enforcement portal. as to why the information didn't flow to all the people within the various departments that

they would prefer. i don't have a good answer for that. >> do you have any evidence that the capitol attack was organized by, quote, fake trump protesters? >> we have not seen evidence of that at this stage certainly. we have not to date seen any evidence of anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to antifa in connection with the 6th. >> has there so far been any evidence that the january 6th riot here, the insurrection, was organized by people simply posing as supporters of president trump's? >> we have not seen any evidence of that certainly at this stage. >> is there any evidence at all that it was organized or planned or carried out by groups like antifa or black lives matter? >> we have not seen any evidence to that effect. >> claire mccaskill, we talked about the lies that republicans have been spreading about how this was antifa or maybe it was a group of anarchists when they were -- they donned maga-wear

head to toe, waving trump flags, chanting trump chants and obviously, as chris wray said, these were all trumpers that became trump terrorists battering and abusing police officers, law enforcement officers with american flags and anything else they could find. i wanted to ask you, though, personally how it felt to have represented a state that is now represented by a man who led the insurrection, who inspired the insurrection and yesterday was trying to intimidate the director of the fbi and attack him for using regular policing techniques? because obviously, you know, he knows. he led the insurrection. he doesn't want the fbi to investigate this to the fullest extent of the law. how does it feel to know that that man represents your state and your former constituents?

traitor, a traitor to the united states of america if you actually believe that the sedition statute means what it says it means. >> look, josh hawley beat me. and it wasn't even a razor-close margin. and he and i have different views about many, many issues that impact missourians. i think the thing that sticks in my crow the most, the thing that bugs me the most about this whole thing, this disinformation about whether or not antifa was behind or black lives matter was behind the domestic terrorism that occurred in our capitol is the lie. it's the lie. you know, call me old fashioned, but lying to people that you work for didn't used to be okay in american politics. it used to be a sin that you

could get fired for. so, not only did he lie about whether or not the legal issues in pennsylvania deserved overturning millions of votes, not only did he lie about the fact that he needed to do that because people didn't trust the election. well, they didn't trust the election because he was telling them not to. he and donald trump. and this lie about black lives matter being part of the terrorist act, that was repeated on right wing media and even after a newspaper corrected what they printed about facial recognition, finding these people, the right wing media never even corrected on air what they had said. 58% of people who support donald trump believe it as we sit here right now. they believe it. even though everyone that is a republican in congress knows it's a lie. that's the stuff that really

kind of makes me sick to my stomach. >> yeah. mike barnicle. >> you know, just off of what claire was talking about, the idea that anyone would try to negate the impact of domestic terrorism, especially the united states senators and ignore the fact and just look at the home states of those who already been arrested, this is a national threat. and jonathan, the fbi director yesterday, chris wray, even mentioned that domestic terrorism in this country was on par with the threat posed to the united states of america by isis. and yet we had josh hawley talking about metadata seemingly afraid that national security apparatuses including the fbi may have picked up his phone calls. it was an interesting exchange. >> it did seem, mike, that

senator hawley had a personal interest in that particular question, one that he repeated several times. and we saw repeatedly yesterday that he and his colleagues tried to shift the conversation away from the events of january 6th and more just on fbi practices, hiring practice, surveillance practices in an effort to seemingly distract. and what you said there, the idea that the threat posed by domestic terrorists now on par by those -- that posed by some of the most sinister terror groups overseas is really sobering and one we shouldn't gloss over. domestic terrorism is going to be at the forefront of incoming attorney general merrick garland's portfolio, made up a big part of the focus of his hearings. he of course made a name for himself in many ways by his handling of the oklahoma city bombing investigation. and he has said he expects this will be what he focuses on. in large part going forward, the threat is really real. you know, the white house has been briefed on this. there have been, as you know,

mike, concerns biden aides were worried about the safety of the inauguration itself. they've been worried about the safety of his upcoming address to congress, which we expect will be in a few weeks before the month is out. and the capitol itself stands as a visible reminder. we're now nearly two months from the january 6thion b it's fortified like a war zone. the military apparatus is circling. the threat was real there and certainly not gone. >> sam stein, importantly yesterday, what we saw was a line by line sort of deconstruction of conspiracy theories by director christopher wray. he was asked about whether antifa was involved. he said no. he said what about one of the senators asked what about this idea they were fake trump supporters. he said no, we have not seen any evidence of this. this was domestic terrorism, he listed all the groups we have come to know, proud boys and

others. that's important to signal to people who believe conspiracy theory but senators sitting in that room and perpetuated many of these lies and sought to change the subject yesterday and people saying christopher wray is part of some deep state conspiracy, he was nominated by donald trump and sat in the oval office and met with donald trump, he was confirmed on a 92-5 vote which included obviously many, many republican senators. but he sat there for several hours and took apart the conspiracy theories that have arisen since january 6th. >> do you think this is going to matter to them? honestly. >> no, no. not to people on the internet. but it's an important flag to put down to those senators who seem to be nodding to those conspiracy theories. >> yeah. i don't disagree except for the fact that they've debunked this a couple times before and the senators keep pushing this stuff. and you know, to jonathan's point, one of the reasons that the capitol remains a fortress essentially right now is because

there's a conspiracy theory in part that march 4th is the real inauguration date and donald trump will be reinaugurated then. the u.s. capitol police had to put out an alert or statement yesterday saying they were aware of heightened threats around that day. that's just wild consperitorial garbage honestly and these things persist. the most disheartening part is when you see elected officials push these types of lies and conspiracies because either it's in their own self interest or even more alarming they believe them themselves. but we've had testimony like what christopher wray offered yesterday in which he said, no, antifa was not there. no, this was not some sort of false flag operation designed to make trump supporters look bad and yet we're still at this place where it needs to be saided in hearing again yesterday. and so, we have to find a way and i'm not sure anyone knows the answer to this about how to get beyond these conspiracies, about how to make truth matter

more so that we don't have to have these hearings in which top officials come and testify about things that we all know are true. we're not there yet. that's the problem. >> we'll keep following this. the biden administration announced the first sanctions on russia for the poisoning and jailing of opposition leader alexei navalny coming as a new report was declassified that a russian intelligence agency is responsible for navalny's attempted assassination. the sanctions follow actions taken by the european union, that officials say is intended to show unity against russia. let's bring in editor at large for the daily beast, michael weiss who has been following this story. tell us about exactly who these sanctions impact and what the reaction so far has been. >> well, i think the most significant person who has been sanctioned is the fsb director.

the fsb, one of the successor agencies to the old kgb is the russian intelligence service responsible for trying to kill navalny with novichok, a military grade nerve agent, not only once they tried as many as three times according to the investigation. now, look, the sanctions the prosecutor general, his deputy and a host of other kremlin officials have been named. these sanctions are largely symbolic, however, because most of these people do not summer in east hampton or to our knowledge any way they don't own penthouse apartments in manhattan, they don't invest in the united states. i will add, though, that he came to washington, d.c. as recently as 2018 during the trump administration for a rather strange con fab about counterterrorism and joined by the heads of the gru, russia's military service and sbr foreign intelligence service. there's a good chance he will not be coming to the shores in the near future. but consider this, if you're the director of the fsb, it is a

badge of honor to be sanctioned by the united states, right? as i said, this is a successor agency of the kgb and former actor was vladimir putin. so i don't think the kremlin is going to see this as some kind of really significant immaterial measure against them. they're already putting out noises this is yet again incarnation of cold war mentality and they're going to retaliate. but how they retaliate is they would sanction a cabinet official or a u.s. senator stumping for sanctions. john mccain used to joke when he wound up on the russia sanctions list, there goes my trip this spring. so it doesn't really do much. does, however, does send a message to the russians there is a consensus in the u.s. intelligence community we know you tried to kill the leader of the opposition, we know how you did it. again, using a weapon of mass destruction. and, you know, we're on to you. and also business as usual from the old administration is just that. there's a new sheriff in town.

>> yeah. jonathan lemire with the associated press is with us and has a question for you. jonathan? >> hey, michael. being deprived of a trip to sochi right now it's a crushing punishment for whatever cabinet member gets sanctioned. can you give us an update on the opposition movement there the protest leader alexei navalny is in prison. with him off the stage, at least physically, where do things stand? there was such momentum there. consecutive weekends with massive protests lining the streets of russian cities from across all 11 time zones that make up that country. you know, has momentum fizzled? is that still continuing? what's the latest with navalny's movement even as he's in jail. >> the momentum behind the demonstrations were extraordinary and as you mentioned, as far as siberia, people were turning out in sub zero temperature to show solidarity with navalny. they have fizzled but more menacing than that is there is now a massive nationwide sort of

dragnet to hover up all of navalny's colleagues, activists part of the anti-corruption foundation he founded and has catapulted him to this international prominence as anti-corruption crusader. so it's the middle cad rays, the lesser known people who don't make it on to the a1 page of the new york times who are going to suffer now. and navalny, he's been sentenced to 2.5 years in a russian labor camp. the idea, at least as far as i can tell is hope that the temperature lowers, you know, his star begins to dim because he's not making youtube videos exposing $1.5 billion dochs that putin built for himself on the black sea and the russian people kind of move on from this episode. and kind of settle back into a status quo. >> michael, we were talking about this yesterday but curious to hear your take as someone who knows russia so well about the posture now of the putin government toward a new president because frankly for the last four, five years it has had the run of the place, had a

president it knew was not going to punish it for anything and in fact, it could manipulate in many ways and we know now why vladimir putin wanted donald trump to win so badly. how does the dynamic change with a biden administration? what's different about the relationship on a practical level? >> well, first and foremost and i spoke to on mike carpenter, coauthored two op-eds with then candidate biden, there will not be a reset with russia. a lot of russia watchers are gratified to hear this. every administration says we can be more kittenish with the kremlin they'll be more kind. so that's first and foremost. second, i would say that, look, there's another suite of sanctions coming down the pike if you look at the reporting. the guardian newspaper in britain quoting u.s. official said there's sanctions coming because of the solarwinds hack we have all been talking about for the last three months. sanctions coming in the gru bounties. remember that story in the gru

russian sha's military intelligence paying bounty to u.s. taliban to murder u.s. and uk soldiers. the story was quite controversial when it came out but if there are going to be sanctions for that, that proves the intelligence community come to consensus that story had legs and russian intelligence services are looking to kill western soldiers in theater. that is going to be a major escalation because of the gravity of that accusation. so, this is by no means -- this is only an opening salvo. there's a lot more to come. and the question is to what extent does biden want to engage with putin and the russian government? the foreign policy doctrine of this administration is china is the rising superpower, get out of the middle east, pivot to asia a kind of holdover from the obama administration but russia is treated as a transactional power and nuisance by this president. >> all right. we'll watch that. michael weiss, thank you very

much. still ahead on "morning joe," the fight over raising the minimum wage. the senate parliamentarian says democrats can't include that measure in their covid relief bill, but should they simply ignore that ruling? and as we go to break, sad news from the music world. one of the pioneers of reggae music, bunny wailer has died. wailer helped revolutionize to spread the sound of jamaica worldwide. he was 73 years old. f jamaica worldwide. he was 73 years old. from stole all of my info. ooh, have you looked on the bright side? discover never holds you responsible for unauthorized purchases on your card. (giggling) that's my turtle. fraud protection. discover. something brighter. i'm a performer. (giggling) always have been. turtle. and always will be. never letting anything get in my way. not the doubts,

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the fight for 15 is one of us have been involved in for a few years and just because this may not survive the senate right now doesn't mean that that fight is anywhere near over. so we will continue to use whatever legislative options are available to us. it is wildly popular among the

american people in a bipartisan, non-partisan way. democrats, republicans, independents and the rest support raising the minimum wage? it's been a long time since it has been raised and we're determined to get the job done for the american people. >> that was house speaker nancy pelosi discussing the path ahead for democrats to raise the federal minimum wage. we're going to break down the challenges here, but first sam stein, you have some new polling on the issue. >> yeah. we did morning consult poll with politico and the numbers are pelosi described them, 60% of the public supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, that includes 34% of republicans, 82% of democrats. the numbers get better if you raise the wage a little lower. if you raise it to $11 an hour, the overall support is 71%.

so this is widely popular. now there's a history of congress not acting on things that have been wildly popular before. it happens. there's a template for this in florida they put this on the ballot. democrats feel like, look, the politics are pretty simple on this. they should push forward even if the parliamentarian said it can jive with reconciliation rules. they should push forward. getting it enacted into another. the question that confronts both democrats and the biden white house is what do you do? do you try to do this again to reconciliation in the next reconciliation bill? do you look to just put on the floor and see if you can inflict some pain? or do you work with the smattering of republicans who have come out and said they would support a variation of some minimum wage hike albeit not $15 an hour. we don't know which route senior democrats are willing to take at this juncture. those are the questions being

asked privately. >> well, there is a precedent for pushing forward, but there's also challenges for small businesses. former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner joins us now with some charts on this minimum wage debate. >> let's talk generally about this for a moment before we go to the charts. nancy pelosi's district, most businesses there can absorb a $15 an hour minimum wage. joe manchin has said clearly that businesses in west virginia can't. that it will cause more harm than good. he's good with an $11 an hour minimum wage but not a $15 an hour minimum wage. maybe it is the conservative in me saying this, but this is just one of those issues where a one size fits all approach doesn't really work as well and wondering why there can't be and what your thoughts are why can't

there be a minimum $11 an hour minimum wage nationwide and then for larger companies that have more employees move it up to $15 an hour. or for, you know, if nancy pelosi and others want to push their states that can afford a 15, 16, $17 an hour minimum wage, that's fine. but for small business owners in west virginia or northwest florida or up state new york, that's going to cause some real problems and going to cause some firings. people can afford it the least right now. >> yes, joe. that is certainly an issue. one of the things i'm going to show you in a minute is a chart that does make clear why the politics are so difficult because of these regional disparities. as you just said, in cities like san francisco or new york there's much higher costs.

we pay people more any way. therefore raising the minimum wage has less of an impact than it would in a place like west virginia or some of the other rural parts of the country. we never had a variable federal minimum wage before. people have thrown out ideas in the course of this conversation that we're having right now in the country about it. some ideas for how that could be done. but, it isn't really on the table at the moment. the progressives in particular are trying to pick for -- trying to push for a uniform national minimum wage. but let me show you for a second if we could why we need to raise the minimum wage and why these politics are so tough. so this chart shows you on inflation adjusted basis, real basis what the minimum wage has been. minimum wage goes back to 1938. if you simply go back to the early 60s you can see the minimum wage was substantially above the federal poverty line for family of two with one child

with 8.56. it was comfortably above that. the early '80s we started to let it drift down and raised a few times but consistently since then below the federal poverty line and now at 7.25 well below it. to your point about big companies, let me say this, some of the big companies are not the big problem. amazon starts people at $15, target at $15, costco at $16 it's more the smaller employers, housekeepers, home health aides, dishwashers, things like that. let me show you how badly we stand up compared to the rest of the world. and it's really quite embarrassing actually when you see france, germany, the united kingdom, canada, spain, essentially all the major countries of the world that report these figures have substantially higher minimum wages than we do. guess who we are right below actually, just below, slovenia of all places. so it's quite embarrassing.

>> so you look at those, steve. if we move the minimum wage up to keeping that chart up, if we move the minimum wage up to $11 an hour, if we move the minimum wage up to $12 an hour we'll go from worst to almost first, right? >> yes. it would put us at least in the hunt. and the idea even at $11 we would be behind france and germany. do we think we should be less protective of our lower income workers than france and germany? you could argue we should be above france and germany, we're america. we would at least be in the hunt. exactly. >> let me just ask, i'm sorry, there's a delay. i apologize. >> sure. >> we'll get to the last chart. please forgive me for that. but are you suggesting that you want $15 an hour, that you think we need to move to $15 an hour regardless of the problems that might cause states that aren't

wealthier, states that aren't on the coasts? >> i think that we should move -- i think we should move over some period of time to $15. i do think that we're america. and i think that people in america deserve to be paid $15. the cbo has done a study and yes it would cost some jobs the number was 1.4 million over ten year that's unfortunate but in the great scheme of our country that's not a lot of jobs. yes, it would put pressure on small business. again, i feel like we're america. over a period of time we should try to get there. maybe it's $13. maybe it's over 6 or 7 years instead of 4 year. but we should be aspirational about this. but let me just show you why the politics are so tough as you alluded to a minute earlier if we put up the last chart you can see what's going on around the country. you have states like california that are paying $13. you have massachusetts, which is paying 12.75 and just raised its. new york just raised their $11.80 from earlier last year

these numbers. but then you can also see across the middle of the country many states whose minimum wage is actually no higher than the federal minimum wage. so for those states, it would be a massive boost to the minimum wage relative to what's happening and frankly a lot of blue states where people are already being paid at least that much in new york city, the minimum wage today is $15. so your reporting is right, joe. there are these enormous disparities and would make significant -- put significant changes in place in these -- particularly in these red states. that's why there's a lot of opposition to it. in terms of compromises, some republicans including mitt romney and tom cotton have come up with a $10 minimum wage, although it would be phased in over a period of time and have some restrictions on hiring and undocumented immigrants. there's a lot of conversations going on. to what sam said, now would need 60 votes given the parliamentarian's ruling. you have to get republican support or wait for the fall and

put into the next reconciliation bill with some bells and whistles to get past the senate parliamentarian. but that's the fight. that's what the stakes are. and that's why democrats are fighting so hard for it. they want to see it happen around the rest of the country, not just in democratic states. >> well, and steve, you are right. we are america. we should be aspirational. there is more inequity between the wealthiest americans and the poorest americans than ever before. that's only been multiplied throughout this covid crisis. the problem has been exacerbated. so, yes. there is a good argument for pushing the envelope here and going as far as you can get. and you know, willie, this is again not just a blue state issue as i brought up many times. the state of florida, just this past fall, when they gave donald trump such a comfortable victory in the presidential race also

agreed to and supported a $15 an hour minimum wage over the next several years. >> yeah. we have seen large corporations take the lead, too. banks, bank of america, $20 an hour, costco just came out i think at $16 an hour. so they're pushing past where they have to go on the minimum wage. as we said many times on this show, 7.25 an hour, lucky enough to get 40 hours a week over a year is $15,000 a year. ask yourself if you could live on that anywhere in america. let's add to the conversation, columnist of the boston globe and msnbc contributor kimberly atkins and co-chair of the poor people's campaign and president of repairers of the breach, reverend william barber. you co-wrote a piece in the nation addressing directly vice president kamala harris saying, quote, maybe you were elected for such a time as this. good morning to you both. reverend barber, let's start right there. what are you asking vice president harris to do? >> what white and black and

brown people in west virginia are asking her to do and schumer to do and democrats to do, the people who have to choose between buying food and paying for their heat, they're saying don't take the relief out of the relief bill. remember that 62 million people in this country were poor and low wealth before we came into covid. so they're saying senator schumer, keep it in the bill. as it came over from the house. vice president harris, override, there's a history of doing this. hue bert humphry challenged the parliamentarian, because he wouldn't give him tax cuts for the wealthy. put it in the bill, override it and see if there's 60 votes in the senate to override the presider, the parliamentarian does not make the rules. the parliamentarian advises. there's a history of this. we are in a serious situation. 40% of african-american workers would be lifted out of poverty

and low wealth if this were to pass. we know we did a study last week, last year with economic policy institute said if it happened immediately 15-39 million workers would rise up to a living wage, which is by the way already a compromise because it should be 20 some dollars and the march on washington called for a minimum wage of $2 an hour which today would be 15 but also would pump $330 billion into the economy. and if you add to that expanding health care and infrastructure, it would create jobs over the long haul and it would help everybody. and lastly, we can't regionalize this because the poor is one third of all the poor live in the south. the poorest persons in appalachia first to go to first, first to get infected, the first to get sick and first to die. last let us not remember 7.25 for some people but restaurant

workers.2.13 an hour. this is a time we have to make a decision of whether we're going to play to the corporate interest or whether we're going to finally establish justice, establish justice for all people and particular for the low-wage workers who have kept this country alive in the midst of a pandemic. >> reverend barber is not alone of this request of the vice president to push past the senate parliamentarian and overrule that decision that the $15 minimum wage hike could not be included in this covid relief bill. bernie sanders called for that, elizabeth warren among others in the senate. is there a chance this could happen because we heard from leadership, senator dick durbin said this is not the way to go, we should create separate legislation, stay on this but do it in a separate piece of legislation to raise the minimum wage? is there a shot that vice president harris might heed the call of reverend barber and others? >> yes. you're absolutely right. and that there is not unanimity

among democrats in how to move forward and there are several ways you can move forward. it can be a vote within the senate to override the parliamentarian. as you pointed out earlier, they can try again for the next reconciliation measure and add some language that would measur some language that would make it within the rules of the parliamentarian. they can get rid of the filibuster and move forward. there are a lot of measures by which they can do it. but it is interesting to me watching this play without where the political applications we're talking about like the filibuster, like the parliamentarian are so removed like the reverend dr. barber was talking about about the rise in poverty. the cares act lifted ten million people out of poverty. they were already there.

it lifted them occupy. when that relief lapsed, millions of people fell back into poverty. we're talking about $15 since the last minimum wage hike went into effect the average price of a home increased by $150,000. that is 10,000 working hours at the highest proposed minimum age. that is the question i have for dr. barber is how can you re-join this political conversation to the reality that people are feeling on the ground. i live in washington, d.c., the cost of living here i'm not even sure how you can live at $15 an hour. how do you bring those together. >> that is the great problem. we're talking about this the wrong.

55% of poor wealth people voted for biden-harris because they said $15. they said it was a necessity. this coming monday we have women and children all over the country who are going to be saying we have to do this, sending in videos of people. i wish we would put the people who are hurting, the people who are suffering, those are the people we should be talking about and recognizing this should have been a long time ago. it should have been done by republicans. if you look at it from the march on washington agenda, we're 57 years behind on this and people are literally dying.

let us not forget that when we say people were raised out of poverty, i want to do a little correction because the poverty itself, the measurement is 55 years out dated. the poverty basically says if you make $12,761 a year you are not poor. that is absurd in this country. so the measurement itself is off. the measurement is not truthful. and if we don't deal with these matters, particularly now when we know that the people who faced covid first, who were already hurting were the poorest among us. now we have 25 million people facing hunger. 19 million people are unemployed. 30 to 40 million people are facing evictions. i would say this last week. it is a geographical equity

issue, a racial equity issue. do you know at the end of the march on montgomery, dr. king connected voted rights to wages and to dealing with poverty. we cannot not deal with that reality, the racial side of this. if you deny this but then you say you are concerned about systemic racism or racism or gee graphical inequityinequity, the you are saying is not in line with what you are doing. many, many, many millions of people in rural white america, we have to face this and we have to face it now. i don't believe they have 60 votes in the senate if the vice president overrules that

advisory. i don't think they have 60 votes in the senate that will vote and say we're going to stand against poor, low-wage america. america needs to see it clearly and decide what to do in the next election coming. >> thank you very much and, kimberly, thank you very much. lawmakers will grill about the january 6th riot. plus, president biden is moving up the time line for coronavirus vaccinations. he is now promising enough doses for every american adult by the end of may. but it comes as more and more states are already lifting restrictions and mask mandates. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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it is now time to open texas 100%. everyone who wanted to work should have that opportunity. texans have mastered the daily habits. >> all right. texas governor greg abbott rushing to reopen despite a deadly threat. >> i have heard this before. where have i heard this before. >> i'm pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator. as you see, it's a beautiful day. the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. >> there you go. >> "jaws," "jaws," "jaws."

yeah. willie, there is so many things that republicans do that are a gesture. but greg abbott understands. i hope that we understand that he is doing this and putting peoples' lives in danger because he's trying to move passed a crisis of his making where people died. they froze to death. he didn't have drichking water for weeks. he's trying to change the subject when he knows if he just waits a month, the way vaccines are rolling out, he would be able to make that announcement safely. but we learned from cpac that the people that acted most

recklessly are the ones that are the most awarded. >> yeah. that's the frustration. public health experts say, wait, we're this close to the finish line. why now? in fact, two days ago, the cdc expressed public concern about states at this moment rolling back minimum capacity in restaurants just because we are getting the vaccine out to people now. so you heard the exasperation from cdc officials. and to put it on the people individually, which i guess is the point of this, to restore freedom. if you want to wear masks, but we're not going to mandate it.

>> again, you look at cpac and the people that got the biggest cheers there, not people who will win elections, mind you. but the people that will get the most cheers there were the ones that were the most reckless and irresponsible, ron desantis, which he used his stupidity for his calling card to run for president in 2024. we're having this big effect and, no, you don't have to wear masks and, no, you don't have to social distance. obviously like now we're in the middle of it. and i think, you know, i think herman cain had just passed away

or had just gotten -- it was an especially reckless time for her to be that cavalier about it. of course rates in her state have been spiking. but she just doesn't care. she doesn't care at all because it is all at the end of the day about owning the libs and to these just -- i don't even know how to describe them. to these demagogues actually owning the libs now means owns science, owning medicine, owning reason, owning rationality. it is a dead end streak for donald trump's republican party. you know, that's something that "the wall street journal" editorial wrote about yet but it is certainly not a memo that greg abbott got.

>> here is why governor abbott could have waited a month or two. president joe biden announced yesterday that the u.s. will have enough covid vaccines for every adult by the end of may, two months earlier than expected. >> we're now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in america by the end of may. the prior administration had contracted for not nearly enough vaccine to cover adults in america. we rectified that. about three weeks ago, we were able to say we will have enough vaccine supply for adults by the end of industry. this country will have enough vaccine supply for every adult in america by the end of may. >> wow. wow. the white house also officially announced the news that broke at the end of our show yesterday that the administration is using its powers under the defense

production act to help drug maker merck produce rival johnson & johnson's one shot vaccine. joe, it is night and day, this administration compared to the last. >> it certainly is compared to logistics. you look at the last administration. and the trump administration did implement operation warp speed. we moved towards a vaccine and moved toward a vaccine with extraordinary speed. by the time the biden administration finally got in there, they understood they had the possibility of getting these vaccinations out to everybody, but obviously the president -- president trump was horrific when it came to logistics. his team was terrible when it came to logistics. they understood that and started working. because of operation warp speed

and because of joe biden's teams actually being filled with professionals, people who understand logistics and were more interested in performance than just gestures. they will get these vaccines out by every american by the end of may. >> incredible. >> we just may have something approaching a normal summer. >> yeah. it is very exciting. they have done a great job of ramping up the amount of vaccine available. there is still problems, joe, in terms of getting these into the arms of people. my state is a good example. we have a governor who opened mass vaccination sites every kr, except the densely populated urban areas. we got situations where there is hundreds of shots going wasted in rural communities. if you are in kansas city or st.

louis, you feel like you are in a game show trying to figure out how you get the shot. there are still wrinkles to work out. you have to be mindful. i get nervous when people forget we still have 50,000 people a day contracting this disease and a thousand deaths a day. i think there is a reason to be optimistic, but there is still problems. this covid relief bill is not just window dressing. it contains the money to help open schools and also get these vaccines in people's arms by the end of may so we could have a 4th of july much different than last july. >> the fbi director is pressed on the january 6th riot by none other than ted cruz and josh hawley. >> the insurrectionists, yes. >> shouldn't wray be the one questioning them? >> sounds about right.

>> we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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let's turn to yesterday's testimony from fbi corrector christopher wray speaking for the first time since the deadly riot on january 6th. director wray defended the bureau's handling of intelligence prior to the attack that indicated violence. he called the seize terrorism and said the bureau is employing intense resources. >> that siege was criminal behavior, plain and simple. it is behavior that we, the fbi, view as domestic terrorism. it has no place in our democracy and tolerating it would make a

mockery of our nation's rule of law. january 6th was not an isolated event. the problem has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now and it is not going away any time soon. at the fbi we have been sounding the alarm on it for a number of years now. we tried to emphasize this is a top concern and remains so for the fbi. the information was raw and unverified. in a perfect world we would have taken longer to see if it was reliable. i didn't see the report myself until after the 6th. but the way in which it handled strikes me as consistent with our normal process. that raw, unverified information was passed within, i think, 40 minutes to an hour to our partners, including the capitol police, including metro police in not one, not two, but three

different ways. as to why the information didn't flow at all to people within the various departments that may would prefer, i don't have a good answer for that. >> do you have any evidence that the capitol attack was organized by, quote, fake trump protesters? >> we have not seen evidence of that. we have not, to date, seen any evidence of anarchists or people subscribing to antifa in connection with the 6th. >> has there been any evidence that it was organized by people simply posing as supporters of president trump's? >> we have not seen any evidence of that. >> was there any evidence at all it was organized or planned or carried out by antifa or black lives matter? >> we have not seen any evidence to that effect.

>> despite fishing by republican senators in that hearing, director wray laid waste about it being antifa or fake trump supporters on january 6th. these ideas have been floating not just in dark corners of the internet but by senators and he put them all to rest yesterday. >> yeah. and claire mccaskill as you so politely said, ron johnson, a man i feel i probably should apologize to for calling the dumbest man in the united states senate, not because it's not true but because it is not nice. maybe i shouldn't have said that. but you said in the case of ron johnson that ron, he may be the one case in the united states senate where he doesn't know better. he actually doesn't know better. so why don't we use a public

service to wisconsin's struggling senator? why don't we tick off the list really quickly, claire, of all the conspiracy theories and all of the bogus mitigating factors that ron and the others try to bring up to try to distract from the real culprit here, which is donald trump, trump terrorists, seditionist josh hawley and seditionist ted cruz. it wasn't antifa. there was no evidence it was antifa. it wasn't anarchists. no, it wasn't people dressing up to look like trump supporters. asked that twice. was it people wearing disguises? he left those senators, based on all of the fbi's evidence, with the inescapable conclusion that those were trump supporters turned trump terrorists who

committed an insurrection against the united states of america. >> you think this is going to stop ron johnson from repeating the lie? i mean, you are talking about a republican senate that has embraced the biggest lie of all, that the election was somehow stolen. so it follows on kind of comfortably for them to try to get around the notion that this somehow wasn't trump supporters, that were domestic terrorists inside our nation's capitol. brian williams coined a name for him the other night, joe, which i think is great where is ronanon johnson. he is gonna -- he is gonna continue to do that. i also thought it was interesting yesterday that ted cruz and josh hawley tried to somehow imply that the fbi shouldn't be employing subpoenas

and gathering of metta data in order to pin down these domestic terrorists. can you imagine them being upset if they were doing the same thing if this had been a group of muslim terrorists in the capitol or people of al-qaeda. this is really unbelievable that josh hawley and cruz spent their questioning time like they don't understand how prosecutions work. it is prosecution 101 that you start with trying to identify who the suspects are and then you subpoena information to find out their motive and their plans in order to support possible criminal charges. and they were acting like this was a violation of people's civil rights. i mean, they weren't focussed on the terrorists that were trying to hunt down and hang the vice president of the united states. they were somehow focussed that the fbi was doing a bad job.

it just continues to be a head scratcher that everybody is not all in understanding that this is a moment we need to unite around the rule of law. >> and we'll talk more about this when former secretary of homeland security jeh johnson joins the conversation next on "morning joe." sigh

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. let's bring in jeh johnson and former fbi special agent clint lutz. jeh, what did you find yesterday as the most significant parts of christopher wrey's testimony. >> i regard chris wray essentially as a straight shooter who is trying to do his best in a difficult job. president biden decided to keep him on as fbi director. one of the interesting things to me during yesterday's testimony

is he was asked in so many words what are the underlying causes of this rise of right wing extremism, and he politely ducked the question. i don't think we can duck the question. there exists in this country and there has existed in this country for my entire lifetime a strand of america that is racist, intolerant, prone to violence. you can see it on january 6th. you saw it when school children in little rock arkansas tried to integrate the school system there and they were spat on by on angry mob. what is new is this virus has been injected with a steroid. that steroid was our former president who said you're special people, there is good on

both sides and encouraged them to come out from their rock. so they received encouragement from the president of the united states at the time. we have seen that from far too many officials who refused to denounce this behavior. we are in a new and dangerous heightened security position here without a doubt. >> he said the fbi currently has about 2,000 cases open on domestic terrorism. he said it's a problem that's metastasizing around the country. we tried to emphasize this is a top concern, talking about domestic terrorism. what was your big take-away. you worked on cases like this. what did you see yesterday? >> i thought this was excellent. he came in very prepared. it is hard to get your hands around the numbers.

what he was talking about was a diverse landscape. if you rewind 20 years, we were talking about international terrorism. it was al-qaeda. white supremacists being the most dangerous and the most numerous. we have probably never seen growth like that at any one period in american history. the second part is these militia groups. they oftentimes pose as free speech or protecting second amendment rights. there is a lot of seditionists that appeared on january 6th. in michigan they were essentially trying to kidnap governor whitmer. that's where that social media phenomenon comes together. i think that's the last part

that i think we can't stress enough which is how conspiracies and these online sort of extremists come together over time. we have seen a lot of white supremacist attacks. two years ago i would have on here talking about el paso, some of these shootings like this. combine that now with the qanon space where we see the fbi and others say, look, we have a lot of conspiracies out here with people promoting violence. that is an almost impossible landscape to police. you are talking about three or four variants of terrorism. you don't have the same rules or capabilities and you have a senator like josh hawley. having grown up in missouri to hear a gop senator from my state trying to undermine an insurrection he helped incite, that was one of the more staggering things.

i can see the frustration as he's trying to march on this investigation and getting these questions and undermining trust and confidence in his ability to do that. >> thank you both very being here this morning. >> thanks, guys. >> coming up, we'll hear from senator gary peters ahead of a second hearing on the january 6th capitol attack. plus, member of the house democratic leadership. congressman pete aguilar will join the conversation. "morning joe" is back in a moment. moment

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i do not consider what happened on january 6th to be an acceptable result. that's why we're trying to figure out how can the process be improved. >> today two more senate committees will hold a joint hearing on the january 6th attack of the u.s. capitol. today's testimony before the

homeland security and governmental affairs committee and the rules and administration committee will include witnesses from counter terrorism agencies on their roles in intelligence gathering, security preparations and response to the attack. our next guest will be leading today's hearing, chairman of the homeland security and governmental affairs committee, democratic senator gary peters of michigan. he joins us now. thank you for coming on. what are you most interested in in figuring out, in hearing testimony on today. >> well, this is building from the hearing that we held last week where we had the former sergeant at arms, former capitol police chief and the chief of the d.c. police testify about events leading up to january 6th and their response. and they certainly made a number of claims in those answers regarding fbi intelligence, support from or not support from

homeland security about delayed national guard response. we want to drill in to those answers. as you mentioned, we have someone from the department of homeland security, the fbi, the department of defense and in addition to the list you just showed, we have general talker that commands the d.c. national guard. i think we will find some very compelling testing from him today. >> what are we looking at in terms of -- especially from what we have learned from other hearings about the disconnect. this unbelievable slow response from what was an attack on the heart of our democracy. >> well, there is two issues in particular related to that very important question. one is why wasn't there better intelligence informing the folks on the ground. there were clear intelligence failures, important information that didn't get into the hands

of people who needed to see it. i think i also want to say when you are talking about intelligence to act on, there was plenty of information out. you didn't need to be a sophisticated analyst to know what was happening online, that violence was likely to result from the mob that was going to gather on the capitol grounds. it was very clear there should have been better preparation. but there was more specific intelligence that was available that didn't get disseminated properly. i will continue to work on through the department of homeland security and the work i do as chairman of the committee. when you think of that department, it rose out of the ashes of 9/11, where there were inadequate sharing of intelligence. and that's why the department was formed. yet today as we heard from fbi director wray, the domestic terrorism threat is the primary threat to the homeland now. yet, we continue to see the

problems associated with collection sharing and the collection of intelligence prior to 9/11. the other issue is the national guard response. we will hear from national walker he was unable to act quicker. i think he will talk about how he believed that add national guard soldiers arrived on the grounds as quick as he would have liked to have sent them, it certainly would have had an impact. >> senator peters, it is willie geist. we have learned through these committee hearings and through this reporting there was this lag of the call for national guard, something like four hours until the troops were actually deployed. you have studied a lot of this. you have looked at documentary evidence. how do you account for that lag? what took so long for the national guard to come? >> i will be asking questions related to that. i think we will hear from general walker who was on that call. if you remember last week, i

asked the chief of d.c. police and he talked about how he was stunned by the tempid response he got from the pentagon and the secretary of army's office. we heard from the former chief of the capitol police who said he was basically pleading for assistance. today we will hear from general walker who was on that call as well. he believed he should have had the authority to act much quicker. he had people in police, and he is sure that had he been able to deploy those folks earlier, it would have had an impact on the violent mob that was assaulting the capitol. >> there is no question about it. as you find out, it didn't take great intelligence to figure out what was coming on january 6th. our reporters on january 6th figured out for weeks ahead of time, this date is circled on the calendar. they're talking about guns. they're talking about storming the capitol. how do you explain the lack of

preparation? why did this come as a surprise and pop into an e-mail on january 5th? >> it is stunning that it is a surprise. there should have been certainly the force necessary to stop an attack of this magnitude. that's what we're going to be talking about a great deal in today's hearing. there is no question that those preparations were not made. and i think you will also hear that there was a difference in preparations for this event, despite all of what we saw online than what occurred during the protests in the summer here in washington, d.c. after the murder of george floyd. so the question is why were the preparations for this event on january 6th that clearly there was immense traffic about it turning violent, why was the preparation so different than what we saw during the summer. >> senator, we want to bring in the conversation christina greer. good morning. i will let you take the next question to senator peters.

>> good morning, willie. good morning, senator. i have so many colleagues and students concerned not just about january 6th but the threats still eminent. we know there is lots of internet traffic and organizations and gatherings in early march to justify the new white supremacist groups that are linked to president grant and all types of conspiracy theories. so many people are frus rated about committees and hearings and meetings. we have the evidence. we have the data. how do we move to action steps with a new homeland security director with the senate in con squlungs to make sure all americans are protected but especially the americans that are the target of these white national groups. >> well, you are absolutely right. we have a lot of information that really requires us to act quickly and to treat this with a seriousness that it deserves. there is to question that the rise of violent extremist groups have increased, particularly

over the last four years. and as you mentioned, the insidious ideology of white supremacy is a big factor in that. i have been trying to get more information from the department of homeland security as to how they prioritize this over the last few years. in fact, i wrote and helped pass legislation to get more data from the department of homeland security, fbi as to what they're seeing. that report is still not forthcoming. it's eight months late. i talked to our incoming secretary of homeland security. i will tell you he is definitely focussed on this in a way we did not see in the former administration. he is making this a priority. in fact, i had a very detailed conversation with them at the end of last week. i am confident we are going to see certainly a major difference in how this threat is being approached by the current administration, and we're going to keep pressing to make sure

that that actually occurs. >> senator gary peters, thank you very much for coming on the show this evening. joining us now vice chair of the democratic caucus, pete aguilar of california. you are looking at three pieces of legislation to produce, all pertaining to the january 6th attack. tell us about them. >> yeah. thank you so much, miikka. i'm introducing a trio of pieces of legislation building off of this domestic extremism that we heard director wray talk about. i had been touched by this. there was an act of domestic extremism in my hometown of san bernardino. these bills require more collaboration among homeland security, fbi, the attorney general and the center. by increasing that

collaboration, we can help protect our communities because many of these acts of extremism and white supremacy often happen in our communities back home. what we saw on january 6th was just a heart-breaking reminder of what can happen when this extremism and this white supremacy and these dangerous conspiracies go unchecked. we need to do more. so i applaud the efforts in the house as well as what we heard chairman peters talk about in the senate to make sure we're doing everything we can to protect our communities from this extremism. >> yeah. and the three pieces of legislation are the report act, the protect act and the prevent act. any republican cosponsors? >> well, we're working and it will go through committee in the homeland security committee. we have no -- we don't have any reason why republicans couldn't support this.

in is good pieces of legislation that will help provide training and resources to our local agencies. so we'll work to build cosponsors. we'll drop them and introduce them later today. but it is not a part son issue. so we will work with our friends down the aisle to make sure we have ample support. >> we heard director wray say yesterday in that hearing that the fbi is focussed on domestic terrorism. he said that before. in his testimony as well, he said there are some 2,000 cases open now of domestic terrorism. are you satisfied the fbi has turned its lens toward the problem in america right now? >> well, i welcome their focus on this and director wray's testimony last year talked a lot about this. unfortunately, our colleagues as

you saw earlier in the footage that you showed they continued to per pet chew wait the big lie. that's problematic. we need to acknowledge this is real. we need to acknowledge this is the biggest threat to the homeland right now. i thought director wray's testimony did that. we still and what january 6th thought us is that we still need to do better and increase the communication among these law enforcement agencies. we need to share these reports and make sure there is better collaboration among agencies. so we will continue to do that and push the fbi to do that. oftentimes these law enforcement agencies want to become very insular. we want to make sure not only are they sharing it among themselves but they're sharing it with local agencies that can thwart some of these attacks. >> the attack on the capitol on

january 6th was also a personal attack on you as a congressman and on your colleagues in the united states capitol. on a personal level, do you today feel safe in the united states capitol and will you feel safe somewhat down the road when the fences come down and the national guard goes home? >> i do feel safe. you know, but everyone -- everyone is allowed to have their own, you know, feelings and so many of us -- i was on the house floor. many of our colleagues were in the gallery. they had a much more difficult experience up in that gallery. many were locked in their offices. everyone has their own experiences and is allowed to have their own feelings about january 6th. and unfortunately we are just going to have to do better to protect not just the members of congress who serve here but the employees and the capitol police staff who guide us and help us

every day. so i do feel safe, and i will feel safe in the future if we take the proper analysis and we make sure that we're protecting the capitol and the visitors. it means we will have to learn and we will have to do a commission style to get to the bottom of but also to look forward to what we can do to protect the capitol complex. >> pete aguilar, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. the department of defense inspector general is preparing to release a withering report detailing congressman ronny jackson's time as the top white house -- i believe the white house doctor. and it's incredible. talks about his abuse of drugs and a couple of other things. we will go into that straight ahead after a quick break on "morning joe."

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drank alcohol while on presidential trips in violation of protocol, and took prescription strength sleeping medication that made co-workers worried about the care he could provide. the report also alleges that jackson had a fiery temper and could be heard at times, quote, yelling, screaming, cursing or belittling subordinates. the report is based on official documents and interviews with 78 witnesses. in a statement to nbc news jackson said in part, quote, democrats are using this report to repeat and rehash untrue attacks on my integrity. the pentagon's inspector general did not immediately respond to cnn's request for comment. the report is expected to be publicly released later today. willie? >> earlier in the show we were talking about the minimum wage, joining us former mayor of stockton, california, michael tubbs, he's drawing attention to

the struggles of americans who work hard but cannot make ends meet, that's where the idea of guaranteed income comes in, he tells us. michael, good morning. tell us about your report, mr. mayor. >> good morning. over the past 18 months in the city of stack ton we've been giving people $500 a month. what we found in the course of doing our research is that, a, actually the basic income helped people work more. those who received the universal base income were more likely to find full-time employment than those who didn't and they also had almost double the unemployment rate than those who didn't receive the benefit. we also saw health benefits. folks who received the guaranteed income were less stressed, less anxious, more likely to show up for little league games when we could do that, more likely to show up as partners and had significant gains in mental health and well being. finally, we saw that the $500 didn't change the character of people or change the character of our city, it actually made folks more productive, it

actually made them better able to withstand an emergency and i think it points to why the stimulus checks today are so popular and why ten senators are now calling for those to be reoccurring because we know that it works. >> so we want to just explain to our viewers, mr. mayor, you ran a 24-month long experiment, 125 people who make under $46,000 a year were given $500 a month with no strings attached. what were some of the implications you saw of that? >> some of the implications, whim i think you would appreciate, that folks were able to have more agency over their time. we heard countless stories from people particularly during this recent pandemic who said that the $500 allowed them to shelter in place and stay at home because they don't have paid time off. taking two weeks off work would mean losing two weeks of pay. they were able to do what public health dictates because they knew they had that $500 coming in. we heard people talk about how the $500 allowed them to go to

work, allowed them to pay for transportation so they could get to work regularly, allowed them to interview for better-paying jobs and to take a risk on themselves. we also heard about how the $500 a month allowed people to live with dignity, to buy things like dentures, to buy birthday cakes for their kids, to save for a rainy day. we also know that it helped prepare people economically for what was to come in 2020, despite the fact when we launched in 2018 no one had any idea that covid-19 would happen and wreck the savings accounts and the individual finances of so many people in our country. >> so is the program, is it finished? and what has happened to the people who were benefitting from it? >> the program was slated to finish in february and the folks were benefitting in their program knew that the program was a pilot with the idea of getting towards policy. so they are all, i'm sure, miss the $500 but they all knew that it was coming to an end so that's why they made decisions like ensuring that they had

their car ready, ensuring they were able to get better jobs, ensuring they were able to do what they can in the two years with the benefit. >> christina greer, jump in. >> good morning, mayor. i so appreciate your economic analysis, but i really appreciate the fact that you consistently ground it in martin luther king's principles of dignity and respect for the worker. how can someone like she in a big city like new york really upscale what you've started? we have almost 9 million people. how would you suggest other mayors around the country with slightly larger populations than stockton really implement this plan? >> good to see you, first of all, and i appreciate the request he. >> great to see you, too. >> we started a group called mayors for guaranteed income, we have over 40 mayors throughout this country from cities as big as los angeles and philadelphia and san diego to cities as small as columbia, south carolina, who are all going to do basic income pilots, but the idea is to really take this to scale as you

mentioned and that requires a federal policy. i think in the interim the biggest win right now is the wildly popular survival checks. you have the majority of democrats, the majority of republicans, the majority of independents who are all saying we need stimulus checks and we need them to be reoccurring at least until the pandemic lasts so that would be a great first step. as we get more evidence that will become readily apparent in stockton, in wisconsin, in philadelphia, pennsylvania, and across this nation. that folks deserve an economic floor and to your point to realize king's dream of a community and a society that understands that dignity is not attached to work first, but it's attached to humanity and everyone does better when everyone does better, so providing a floor is something in the best interests of our country and i would argue also represents a smart pandemic preparation response. >> all right. former mayor of stockton, california, michael tubbs. thank you so much for coming on.

what a great concept and thank you very much for sharing it with us. so, christina greer, i'm just kind of catching up here reading a piece that former vice president mike pence has written lining himself right up behind the big lie and president trump. i don't know if you've had a chance to see it. but it's incredible to me, especially after everything he went through at the capitol. >> yes, but if you're going to double down, you might as well. i mean, mike pence has essentially been in hiding since january 6th and he still supports a president who essentially called for his execution. we called the guillotine on the steps of the capitol, yet and still he's saying, but let's still think about election security. it's a fraud, sadly, far too many republicans keep walking down this plank and they're playing with a fire in ways.

they're fine when it harms democrats but it's going to eat their entire party and they really need to think about what their future should be. mike pence has no future, he's cast his lot with donald trump and shows that he cares more about donald trump than the american people. that's fine, he can write aupel op-eds he wants, he's currently unemployed, but what the larger question is about the republican party and the future of that party for american democracy and partisan politics. >> we are going to have much more on this tomorrow. willie, just looking at this and i'm hearing the words in my head of people screaming, hang mike pence. >> it's unbelievable. mika, it's unbelievable. i have just read it, too, he's writing about, quote, troubling irregularities in the electoral process. mike pence who had to be rushed off the floor of the senate so that he wasn't killed as they -- as they chanted "hang mike pence" is now playing along again. is playing footsie with conspiracy theorists, is giving voice to this idea that drove

all these people to the capitol and we know that they're planning next, they have another date circled on the calendar to come to the capitol or protest or do whatever they're going to do. mike pence. mike pence, still this morning in a new op-ed perpetuating the big lie. astounding. that does it for us this morning. we will be right back here tomorrow morning. for now stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> hey there, willie. hi, i am stephanie ruhle live in our nation's capitol, washington, d.c. it is wednesday, march 3rd. let's get smarter. we start with two huge developments in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, one is a major step forward while the other could set us back. first to the good news. president biden announcing yesterday that the u.s. will have enough doses of the vaccine for every adult two months earlier than expected. >> we're now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in america by the end of may. >> i told you it was