fever. olympic fever. the yum yucker scientists are at it again. the covid death rate is 3.4%. president trump says differently. >> i think 3.4% is much lower. this is just my hunch. a lot of funky hunch. meanwhile, trump works hard on a vaccine. . >> you take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think it would have much of an impact on corona? >> oh, well. . >> a lot of people are shopping and using our hotels in this country. from that standpoint, i think probably it is a positive impact >> hooray for trump hotels since tom steyer. a political figure america is sure to never forget. this has been this week in covid history. >> wow. good morning and welcome to

"morning joe". it's thursday, march 4th. along with joe, willie and me, we have president of the action network reverend al sharpton. and katty kay, co-author of "living the confidence code" which has debuted as number one on the new york times best seller list. . >> wow. >> katty, congratulations. >> thank you. and thank you for your support of it >> absolutely. >> nearly two months since the deadly riot at the capitol, u.s. capitol police forces are ramping up security because of a new possible threat. a senior law enforcement official tells nbc news the department of homeland security and the fbi sent a joint

intelligence bulletin to state and local law enforcement yesterday warning that some extremists groups have discussed plans to take control of the u.s. capitol and remove democratic lawmakers on or about march 4th. the bulletin also states that domestic violence extremists continued perception of election fraud associated with the presidential transition which may contribute to mobilizing to little or no warning. the department is aware of and prepared for any potential threats. house lawmakers scrapped plans to be in session today taou to the threat. the security detail assigned to the law make issues who served as impeachment managers has been extended through the week.

this comes as the acting chief that threats against members of congress have dramatically increased. >> in the first two months of 2021, there has been over a 93% increase in the threats to members kpaerd to the last year. from 2017 to 2020, 118% increase in the total threats and directions of interest with overwhelmingly the majority of those residing outside washington, d.c. >> and, willie, of course not a surprise that these terrorists that attacked on 1/6 inspired other future terrorists.

especially when you have them coming in and the chatter is about stolen elections, election fraud. you still have donald trump at cpac this week, still stirring up the big lie that led to the insurrection attempt on january the 6th. and the big lie that's actually leading to congress -- this never happened when i was there. congress having to shut down, the house having to shut down today because of fear that trump terrorists acting once again on his instruction, acting once again based on his big lie, may come and try to take out, try to kill democratic lawmakers. >> yeah. the house pushed a couple of votes to last night that were scheduled for today, including one on hr-1 because this date march 4th, has been circled by qanon supporters. donald trump four days ago was

saying i won the election. maybe i will run again and win for a third time and beat these guys. mike pence wrote an op-ed yesterday where he winked and nodded at the conspiracy theories as well. so now here we are it doesn't hope to be like january 6th. let's bring in brandy who covers all of this. brandy, good morning. you and your colleague ben collins, and i'm sort of haunted by the conversations you had that you revealed on january 5th, where you said this is going to be bad. we know this is going to be bad based on what we are hearing and reading online. so what was your conversation with last night. how are you feeling this morning about what may come on march 4th today. . >> it's very different, willie. you know, the conversation before the 6th was clear. because we saw it all online. people were planning. they had flyers. they specifically said what they're going to do, how they

were going to do it. it's just very, very clear. it's a little bit weird. it's based in this conspiracy theory from qanon, that this is very silly and stupid. but, you know, humor me. that donald trump today will be inaugurated as the 19th president. it borrows a lot from the sovereign citizen moment who these people believe no laws have been real since ulysses s. grant. that is where there is danger, actually. it's hard to say these people are militia groups, the bugaloo groups and qanon groups. there has a sort of melding of these groups. so is there some danger today? the capitol police and the fbi warnings weren't clear what those were. there could be militia groups planning today to do something.

there could be other radical extremists white power people planning something to do. but what makes us breathe a little easier, these groups like to hide what they are doing under larger political movements like the bugaloo boys at black lives matter over the summer or we saw at the capitol with militia groups weaving their way into more generic maga crowds. we're not going to have them today because we to the floor a president of the united states telling every supporter he has to come to the capitol and support this big lie. >> it's maddening that your congress is changing its business today because a group of people online think this is the 19th president and that no president has been legitimate since abraham lincoln or whatever they are saying about march 4th. the big difference here, obviously, brandy, the capitol is a fortress now because of what happened january 6th. it would be did i have for a group to penetrate that

perimeter. what are you hearing about how seriously they are taking this threat today? . >> law enforcement, as indicated by director wray's testimony, is taking everything very seriously. what we saw on the 6th is unbelievable. it's at this point better safe than sorry. people that are really concerned about, you know, the first amendment and civil liberties are worried now that we're going to take that too far. right now we are sort of in a balancing act watching what people are doing online, trying to acknowledge people have the right to speak. and i think that's what law enforcement is doing as well. >> brandy, thanks so much. joe. >> you know, we talked about donald trump this weekend pushing the big lie, continuing to spread the deadly conspiracy theory that democrats somehow

stole the 2020 election from him. mike pence with a nod and wink to it. and members of house of representatives still lying through their teeth, even after the violence, even after police officers were beaten and brutalized with american flags, had their heads shoved in the door by trump terrorists, beat cops where, again, police officers, were sure they were going to die and were thinking about their four children and how they were going to take care of them. but these trump terrorists kept beating, battering and abusing them. why? because that's what ted cruz and josh hawley and donald trump wanted them to do. they wanted them to come to the capitol. it's what rudy giuliani talking about combat justice wanted them to do. to come to the capitol and be rough. be tough, as donald trump said.

and stop the counting. that's exactly what this he did. and here we are in march and they still haven't called off the dogs. far from it. far from it. josh hawley is still defending his terrorist act. . >> still standing by. . >> josh hawley, still defending his calls for sedition. josh hawley and donald trump. and donald trump at cpac this past weekend. look at that. just look at that. a guy who wasted his education, a guy who wasted the opportunities that were given to him instead of pursuing an american dream actually trying to morph it into an american night mayor for all of us by actually leading a seditious charge against the united states of america and the capitol. and he still hasn't apologized. still hasn't tried to make good.

neither has ted cruz. instead, doubled down. in the wall street journal today the cpac speech, mr. trump claiming, quote, this election was rigged and the supreme court and other courts didn't want to do anything about it. instead, they used process and lack of standing to avoid the controversy. karl rove writes that is deeply misleading. judges in all six contested states found that trump lawyers did not produce sufficient evidence. and it was overwhelming. not only from the supreme court, it was overwhelming from the federal courts. trump judges saying actually on the merits of the cases, they failed time and time again, peter. and yet here we are on march the 4th having to shut down the house of representatives.

the people's house, because donald trump, ted cruz, and josh hawley and a lot of back benchers in the house of representatives still allow this lie to fester. >> well, you're right. in the post november period. remember the president told us way back last summer that is what he was planning to do. it was never actually a secret. he told us any result other than a win for him he would dismiss as illegitimate, rigged, corrupt. so we are still in the middle of that. and it will never be something that donald trump admits otherwise despite, as you pointed out all the evidence by trump judges as well as judges appointed by other presidents. three supreme court justices joined in the court's decisions who were appointed by donald trump. so you're right. there's never been any there

there. this has been, from the beginning, you know, a deeply, deeply misleading and dishonest. it is a way of both avoiding and admitting he lost, unwilling and capable of doing. that may not have been a big deal before january 6th. it is clearly a big deal now. anybody who thought that was just face saving and pride salving. now you can see real word consequences of peddling what happened in the election. i don't know if it's going to happen today. it feels like the post 9/11 period where we took all threats more seriously. that's very understandable and necessary i'm sure.

but it's a remarkable thing that the house of representatives had to leave town out of fear of security, whether it was a real genuine threat or not. it's a sign of how things have changed in the last two months >> he ya. let's get to yesterday's testimony from the commanding general of the d.c. national guard. major general william walker, before a senate joint committee yesterday, about the response to the attack of the capitol on january 6th. he described a frantic call for help from the chief of the u.s. capitol police as the capitol was under attack and the unusual restrictions put on sending that help. >> the secretary of the army january 5th letter to me withheld that authority for me to employ a quick reaction force. additionally, the secretary of the army's memorandum to me required a concept of operation be submitted to him before the employment of a quick reaction force.

i found that requirement to be unusual. chief sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency at the capitol. and he requested the immediate assistance of as many available national guardsmen that i could muster. immediately after that 1:49 call, i alerted u.s. army senior leadership of the request. the approval for chief sund's request would come from the acting secretary of defense and be relayed to me by army senior leaders at 5:08 p.m. about 3 hours, 19 minutes later. >> what? we all saw it, too, watching it on live television going, where is everybody? under questioning by the chair of o oem land security committee, senator gary peters, general walker revealed the thinking of military commanders that day. >> chief conte and chief sund

passionately pleaded for district of columbia national guard to get to the capitol with all deliberate speed. so the army senior leaders did not think that it looked good, it would be a good optic. they further stated that it could further incite the crowd. general flynn and general piatt. they said it wouldn't be in their best military advice to advise the secretary of the army to have uniformed guards members at the capitol during the election confirmation. >> the general flynn that walker is referred to is charles flynn, deputy chief of staff in the army and brother of former national security adviser michael flynn. according to the washington most, flynn previously rejected the notion that his relationship with his brother, retired

lieutenant general suggested that they should rerun the election and declare martial law was a factor in his spot. senator peters has not set a date for the next hearing but tells nbc news he wants to hear from the former acting secretary of defense and former secretary of the army, both repeatedly mentioned in testimony. >> if reverend al, the pentagon didn't move. when we were all watching in horror these events unfold, when we were watching trump terrorists bash the brains in of police officers with american flags, hold them down, beat up police officers, shove police officers' heads into doors and try to kill them, we were all saying the same thing. when colin powell was watching, he said he was standing up in

front of his television set saying where the hell are reinforcements? we saw this unfold. and you had general flynn and others in trump's pentagon saying they didn't want to send people to help these police officers being beaten because of optics. >> that hearing yesterday was meaningless. the trump people that donald trump shoved into the white house at the very end, they weren't there to testify on why they allowed an insurrection against the united states government to continue to play out in front of their eyes. and they didn't do a damn thing. they sat on their hands doing absolutely nothing. doing nothing. and i think we, rev, we, the

people, have a right to know who in trump's pentagon made the call to have the national guard sit on their hands and do nothing so donald trump could keep staring at these riot scenes gleefully as it's been reported. he was gleefully watching these riot scenes play out on television. this is a disgrace. and garry peters and the senate needs to drag every one of those trump d.o.d. people up to the hill and make them raise their right hand and swear under oath and tell us all who allowed this riot, who allowed this insurrection against the united states to continue. >> garry peters as chairman must do that. when we look at the fact that the word "optics," they were concerned about the optics, look at the optics that the american people were looking at at the

exact time they were talking about some optics removed. we were watching law enforcement people, capitol police being beaten, brutized. we were watching the people that -- or the insurrectionists going through the capitol building, rummaging through congressional leaders and senate leaders' offices. and why would you give the command to stand down to the national guard? and why would you wait over three hours when the whole world is watching what is going on? who gave the order? who did they talk to that may have been in the white house? we need to know. we are sitting here today on march 4th with the congress of the united states not being able to convene because we are still under threat, not by threats beyond the borders of the country, not by foreign powers

but by people here, domestic terrorists that still have us in a state of emergency. we can't let this go without swearing in all that were involved and having them tell the truth. this is beyond anything we have seen in the history of this country in terms of an internal threat by american citizens. . >> katty, you can feel your blood boiling as you listen to general walker give that testimony yesterday. he said i had my guys ready. the d.c. national guard. they were inside the armory, geared up, ready to go after i got the call at 1:49 from the head of the capitol police, whose voice was cracking with emotion because his officers were being overrun. one of them eventually was killed, as we know now. he was told they couldn't deploy because of optics and, quote, it might incite the crowd.

it might incite the crowd that was already incited to storm inside and to kill a police officer. there are a lot of questions to be answered right now from 1:49 p.m. to 5:08 p.m. when those troops were finally deployed. >> yeah. my reaction is exactly what reverend al was speaking about. the optics were terrible. they were playing out for everyone to see. those are the optics they should have been worried about. it's not like we didn't know. we could see it minute by minute. we watched the crowd advance. we watched them on cameras as police officers were getting beaten up, one had his head squeezed between doors. we saw the woman shot. we thought the cavalry will be around the corner. someone is going to step in. there were so many problems with the response that day. they come down to something simple. that is either the white house

or republican senators, as we have heard in subsequent hearings, or the people who were put in at the top of the military hand-picked by the white house didn't agree with the notion that the people that were storming the capitol constituted domestic terrorist threats. and they didn't believe it because they were trump supporters. and i think we are still hearing that. in hearing after hearing, you are hearing them talk erroneously about them trying to deflect without being prepared to grapple with the problem. once you grapple with the problem that you have a far right domestic terrorist threat, a load of things are going to have to change. we will have to ask why the counterterrorism chief yesterday testified they didn't think they could look at public social media posts because that was not in their agreement. we have to change when the

national guard can get called out. it has to start with the premise under donald trump and those following him have to acknowledge that right-wing extr extremists. >> they have to drag the people up to the hill to testify. you know, peter, while this -- while we were going -- mika was reading the news, i did a quick search. i mean, it was all in plain view for us. what was going to happen. david sanger wrote about it at the taoeupls. everybody wrote about donald trump. here's a headline from november 13th. trump administration removed senior defense officials and installs loyalists triggering alarm at the pent gone. they carried out sweeping changes, removing several of its senior officials and replacing them with perceived loyalists to the president. the flurry of changes announced

by the d.o.d. has put officials inside the pentagon on edge and fueled a growing sense of alarm among military and civilian officials who are concerned about what could come next. and of course we had dick cheney and other members, other living former department of defense secretaries writing that joint letter before january 6th. and so we were warned these trump loyalists would be stooges for donald trump. and there would be far-reaching consequences. so i think it is incumbent upon the united states senate. they dragged them up to the hill and get them to testify. . >> yeah. there are so many important questions to answer here. and we have only begun to scratch the surface with these hearings. what you are talking about,

additional layer to the context, right? part of what was going on at the pentagon, i don't know of a specific generals that the national guard commander was talking about. at the pentagon, there was a concern up to january 5th that the president was the one that was going to use the military in some way to stay in office. so the context going into january 6th at the pentagon is we don't want to be part of that. we don't want to be part of anything going on domestically. for a lot of people in the uniformed military, the fear was the opposite what ended up happening. they were worried that an out of control street protest or what have you would trigger an event that the president could use in illegitimately employ the military to declare martial law, to send them into the streets, what have you. and that's what they were on guard about. so the context of this event on january 6th, you know, happened in the middle of that mentality. the mentality was we want to

stay out of this domestic politics because we are going to be used by the commander in chief in an illegitimate way. rather than rushing to the scene, as obviously they should have, we don't want to be part of anything here because we may be used in the wrong way. obviously they took i the wrong lesson in effect from what happened in lafayette square and were so eager to stay out of donald trump's plans they didn't recognize as quickly as they should have the threat to the capitol that donald trump supporters were posing. . >> rt there. still ahead on "morning joe", senate republicans launch an effort to delay the vote on president biden's covid relief package. senator ron johnson, for one, will read aloud the entire bill >> you know why he is making them read the bill, right? . >> well, maybe he needs it read to them. i get this.

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32 past the hour. a live look at capitol hill. late last night the house passed the for the people act, a sweeping bill aimed at changing campaign finance voting and ethics law. it would restore voting rights to felons that finished their sentences, reverse state voter i.d. laws and create nationwide automatic voter registration. the house measure passed 220-210

with one democrat voting against it. the house passed the george floyd justice and policing act largely along party lines. two democrats joined all republicans in voting against the bill that aims to ban choke holds and racial and religious profiling, and restrict certain no-knock warrants. it bill is named after george floyd, the black man who died after a minneapolis police officers placed his knee on floyd's neck for nearly 10 minutes >> how important is this george floyd bill to get us moving in the right direction as a country? . >> it is extremely important. i think people need to romanticize the 60s what made the six become a move toward the

country moving forward was the civil rights act of '64 and voting rights act of '65 which legislated what the american people were awakening to at that period. well, the george floyd bill, in my judgment, capsulized the issue of policing, racial bias. i have been on the forefront of that, including the big march in washington last year saying this bill could mean in this time with those bills having been in the six. to see it pass the house last night. and i have been in touch with the family, has been very heartening. it faces a real challenge in the senate. we clearly are going to have to see what remains in the bill and whether or not we can get it passed in the senate. we are glad to see it happen now in the house and move forward. >> katty kay, hr-1 passed.

it is a move towards a more open voting system, trying to nationalize some policies that would actually make it easier for americans not only to ridge straight to vote but to vote. it would take care of -- try to take care of jerry mannederinging, being a functioning body. it seems to me that the united states senate, that the democrats there are going to have a real choice to make. joe manchin specifically, kyrsten sinema, if they will sit back and republican state legislators to pull back on voting rights to continue to pass legislation that

predominantly hurts blacks and latinos and keeps them from voting or whether they're going to allow something to pass with 51 votes and actually stop all of these to stand in the door of voting precinct. . >> yeah. these are both two key parts of biden's legislative promise before he came into the white house and the priorities for the progressive wing of the democratic party. there is this sense of urgency pause we keep hearing around the country what they are doing in realtime. what they are doing right now and have been done since the election in order to strip voting rights in their states. the senate will have to move

fast on. again, we run into this problem of the 50/50 controlled senate. what are democrats going to have to give to joe manchin, change that comes out of the bills but you could see the bills being watered down potentially in order to get those -- that full democratic support in the senate. and this is the story of joe biden's legislative problem. he is going to run into this time and time again on pieces of progressive legislation. he's going to run into it on gun control. that will be coming up next. he has a very tight senate majority in&getting these through will be extremely difficult for him. at the same time, he has the progressive wing of the democratic party saying you are there. we have to do this. this is urgent. and it is absolutely our priority. by the way, we delivered you those votes in many cases.

so we want the payback. and that voting legislation is being changed as we speak around the country. >> senator klobuchar came out this week and saying she would be open to the filibuster. kyrsten sinema and joe manchin say no way. if we are talking about hr-1 on voting rights, almost 800 pages has no chance of getting through the senate if there is a filibuster in placing. do you think there is an appetite, or enough of an appetite from democrats, to say what amy klobuchar said, this is too important. it reshapes our elections, makes them fair and just in the minds of progress if's and democrats, that they might eliminate the filibuster just to get this through? . >> well, there's talk of that. i don't see that happening. i'm not a senate expert. this is such a divided senate,

any single democratic senator can hold things up. chuck schumer has done a good job keeping his caucus together on most issues. there's an argument that there is a constitutional provision that specifies election rules. it's possible they try it. it would blow up things in a way senators are often reluctant to do. they have been chipping away the last couple of years, republicans and democrats. each one comes to power approximate has gone rid of different levels of judges over the years. that is something i think there's been an arms race in effect of doing that. we are not at the point where they are going to do it across the board for legislation. and i don't know if they will make an compensation for this one. it seems like, a pent-up desire to get something through they

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i don't want to sound like a leftist but i'm going to resist. i'm going to go down and object to the waiving of the reading of the bill. i will make them read their 600 or 700-page bill. >> boy, that will show them. . >> he's a real tough guy. >> that will make you popular.

i actually know, ron, it really won't. . >> we can read the bill. >> you be you for a while and i'll be me. . >> okay. republican senator ron johnson with those plans to force senate staff to read the entire covid relief bill on the floor adding at least 10 hours to the process. >> good job, ron. . >> also, mika, just to remind people, this bill has popular support between 70% and 75% of the country, including about 58% of republican. they want relief. they want money. the country is in the middle of a crisis. i don't see quite what the senator is going for approximate here. . >> we will add 10 hours onto this process for what? . >> no reason. . >> as for the bill itself, president joe biden has agreed to narrow ill skwreublt for a new round of stimulus payments,

facing them out faster for those at higher income levels. washington bureau chief susan page and business and economics columnist at the "washington post", steven pearlstein. your latest and, as you note, your final post, in democrats' progressive paradise, borrowing is free, spending pays for itself, and interest rates never rise. i think it might be for some republicans too, but we'll talk about that. you write in part, to hear it from liberal economists, democratic politicians, there is no longer any limit to how much money government can borrow and spend and print. we have entered a magical world where borrowing is costless, spending pays for itself, and stocks only rise and the dollar never falls. okay, i exaggerate, but only slightly. i'll be the first to admit because of new technology and

structural changes to the global economy, aspects of our economic understanding need to be updated. but those overdue correctives have been hijacked by partisans and ideal logs who would have us believe that the laws of economics have been repealed. . >> steve, the laws of economics have not been repealed, you say. right now it doesn't seem that way in washington and hasn't for some time. why does this bill finally take us through to a triggering point where we may see the sort of inflation we once saw back in the 70s and early 80s? >> i can't say to you this is the bill that will or the next one, which is probably two or three times as big will. wii don't have any conversation about this really going on. it's not logical that it can go on forever. remember, joe, we're not only

borrowing and spending this money, we're also printing this money. we are turbo charging the fiscal and monetary effect of this. we already see evidence that long-term interest rates are beginning to rise. there is some concern about it. i can't tell you that that won't go back down. but there is going to be a tipping point. everybody threus this is free. there is no cost to raise the minimum wage, spending and borrowing and printing the money. there is no recognition that there is a tipping point. you you asked about a tipping point. i don't hear politicians saying, well, we know there is a tipping point and we think it is over here. they don't even talk about it. . >> yeah. susan page, i have heard quite a

few democratic business people who voted for democrats their entire life. i have heard democratic leading economists say since this bill was projected, what steve is actually said as well in other columns, this bill has more to do, let's use that word again, with political optics, with preliminary realities, than it does with economic realities. the answer to everything is go big or go home. and in this case they're pumping more money back into the economy than has been taken out by covid. and summers, who has not been concerned about inflationary pressures in the past, is warning there may be a real inflationary impact coming from this bill, pumping this much money back into the economy. >> well, first, congratulations

to steven for 33 years. that's a remarkable time as a columnist for the "post". kudos. >> kudos to you. i would say i do think that some of the economics have changed. you can go back to the 2008 fiscal crisis where democrats concluded afterwards, and actually even independent economists concluded afterwards, that they were too concerned about things like the inflationary pressures. they should have gone bigger in the relief package and it would have brought the economy back to a solid state faster. you heard chuck schumer ta you can about that yesterday. that is a mistake they don't intend to repeat this time. i don't think this is a preliminary bill. it is a political bill because everything in washington is political. i think they are seeing an economic christ that will follow this coronavirus crisis, which

is now perhaps coming to an end and a need to really get ahead of things, economic consequences from that to try to help people get back on their feet in the next year or so. . >> steve, debt and deficit have been pet issues for a lot of people. for the general public they say, well, it's a big country. we have a lot of money. we can pay it off later. i don't think the afternoon wrens understands what it means to be deep in debt. what are the dangers and the long-term implications of this? . >> well, the dangers are that interest rates will spike. i think perhaps the greater danger is the dollar will fall. and we borrow a lot of money every year, willie. several trillion every year from foreigners because we consume more than we produce.

the difference has to be borrowed from other countries. right now they are throwing the money at us at a pretty low rate. we're very happy to accept it. if the dollar goes down, that means they're going to get paid back in deflated -- inplated dollars, dollars worth less to them. they will demand a higher interest rate. if you are a hugely in debted country, not just a hugely indebted government but a hugely in debted country and interest rates go up one percentage point, which is not be unusual, it would still be below historic levels, you're going to be paying a lot of money in interest that otherwise you would use to spend and maintain the lifestyle that you have. just the government itself now has a $20 trillion debt. so one percentage point increase, there's $200 billion right there in extra interest

payments. that crowds other kinds of spending. even worse, you will borrow money to pay interest. that is a downward spiral we know all about, after argentina. >> katty kay, jump in here. >> yeah. i mean, the feeling clearly in the white house is the onus is on those who worry about inflation to prove their case. because every time the last few decades they have raised the prospect it hasn't panned out. they believe there is this magical money tree that will keep getting us out of inflation. can i ask you about the conversation we were having just a little bit earlier. that's the bill that passed the house last night on police reform and the one that's coming up on voting reform. do you see any way that the white house will get through any of the parts it wants to. whether it's done rights of its

progressive legislative agenda. how is it going to deal with this divided 50/50 senate when it has the progress if's saying we need action on some of these things. this is what you were promised. this is how we got people to the polls to vote for you. . >> very broad support in the democratic party for some of these police reforms and to protect voting rights. but you can't do it -- you can hold your 50 democrats together and you're still not going to get it through the senate. it's hard to imagine in the current debate that you will pick up 10 republican senators of the sort that the house has just passed. that is what i think will fuel this debate over the filibuster. do you let your big agenda items get blocked because of this procedural rule. it will put the pressure on the fuel senators who have spoken

out and also president biden who has been reluctant as a senate institutionalist. we think we will get this covid relief bill probably later this week. at that point, everything gets harder. because they are getting that through by using budget rec sill kwraeugdz. and you cannot use that over and over again. . >> so, steve, let's take a trip down memory lane for you over 33 years. you'll remember as far as debts and deficits go, these debates in 1993. bill clinton getting red faced when he talked to allen greenspan and said, you mean my economic program depends on a bunch of bond traders, realizing he was going to have to raise taxes to actually pay for his programs. and of course the economy exploded throughout the 1990s everyone after he did that. when i left congress in 2001, we

had $155 billion surplus. the national debt was 4 trillion. when bush left eight years later, it was up to 11 trillion. when obama left eight years later it was 20 trillion. now we are up to 27, 27.5 trillion dollars. it's been exploding exponential ly. at some point this madness has to stop, doesn't it? . >> yes, it does. by the way, if you ask liberal democrats, well, okay, if 1.9 won't do it. if 4 trillion won't do it, tell us what you think. they say, oh, yeah, i understand we can't just keep printing money and borrowing money forever. we understand there is a limit. you tell me where the limit is then. and they can't answer that

question either. it's a question of when you will hit a tipping point. they're not linear. it's not like you can see it coming. when foreign lenders lose confidence, they lose it quickly. then it becomes unwound. and the more vulnerable you are to the unwinding. they say we are a rich country. yeah, we are a rich country, which means we don't need to do this. if there are things that he'd to be done, we can afford to pay for them. i would take a little issue with my friend susan to say every one of the 1.9 trillion in this bill is necessary to get through the current crisis. that's just not true. there are probably 600, 700, 800, $900 billion that is in there that we should do.

there is no reason to stimulate the economy beyond that. everyone thinks we will have a robust rebound in the second half of the year. it will get us closer to five or six. we don't need to permanently raise the wages of all working class people. that's something we can talk about later in the year with republicans who are interested in talking about it. and we can come up with a good plan for that. there's a lot of things that are thrown in here. this is a little bit of a christmas tree bill. if you think this is, trust me, wait until you see the next one. >> so, steve, thank you so much for being with us. tkpwraeugszs on an extraordinary run. i was thinking about you and

thinking about some of the bigger mistakes i have made on air. i think that at the end of every show. usually there are about 10 or 11 mistakes i make. i remember you and me having a debate after the bank bailout. you said it would pay for itself. it in fact, did end up paying for itself, did it not? . >> look, i'm not philosophically against borrowing, spending and printing. i'm just not. but i also understand trees don't go to the sky. >> exactly. i was just saying you were right and i was wrong. congratulations, steve. we hope to see you again. . >> we will miss your columns but we will welcome you back on "morning joe". susan page, thanks to you as well. it is just about the top of the hour. joining us now the director of the national institute of aller ji and infectious diseases, dr. anthony fauci, chief medical

adviser to president biden. welcome back to the show. good to have you. let's start where we stand with the vaccines. the president saying that every american adult will be able to get a vaccine by may. do you feel confident in this, and what will be the stumbling blocks to getting the country back on track through the vaccine? >> well, what the president has said is we will have enough vaccines by may to be able to vaccinate everybody. the stumbling blocks are, you know, whenever you're deal with as massive a program as trying to vaccinate the overwhelming majority of the country there are a number of real and potential stumbling blocks. one is just the logistic challenge of getting the vaccine into everybody's arms. but the president is very clear he is doing everything that we can to be able to do that expeditiously, community vaccine centers, mobile units to go out

into poorly serviced area, pharmacies. they will have a lot of vaccines that people can get to. getting people to be able to put the vaccines in people's arms, not only national guard but retired physicians and nurses to be called in to do that. those are all challenges. i believe they are going to work very well because the president is serious about making this a high priority. hopefully when we get the vaccines, as we will by june, that the process of getting it into people's arms will be smooth. hopefully by the time get to summer, fall, if we don't have too much vaccine hesitancy, another stumbling block, people being hesitant about getting vaccinated, one of the reasons we're reaching out proactively particularly with minority groups who have skepticism about vaccines. so we have a task ahead, but i

think we will be able to do it. . >> dr. fauci, i remember reading a story how florida residents, despite bad advice, they were getting from state wide office, were using masks more than their leaders had suggested they should. this article is explaining why some communities actually were doing well. i'm curious what advice you have for the good people of texas and mississippi who may be given bad information right now by the leaders of their state. >> my strong advice to them, joe, would be to actually continue to implement public health measures. now is not the time to pull

back. the good news we have vaccines coming online. you see the curve of infections coming down. but we have reached a bit of plateau where the deflection isn't going straight down the way it was. that's a bad sign. we have seen that before. we saw it last summer where we were trying to open the economy and open up the country when we said there were certain guidelines that you should adhere to. there was variable adherence to the guidelines. then we had that really big surge that we don't want to repeat now. now is the time to keep the foot on the accelerator and not pull off. i would advise the people to abide by the public health measures that we talk about all the time. uniform, wearing of masks, physical distancing, a i.d.

sroing congregate settings particularly indoors, washing your hands frequently. we have to keep doing that because we know it works. good morning. it's willie tkpaoeuft. good to see you again. i want to ask you about schools. as you know, the crisis of this last year extends far beyond public health. in it's your schools now. you have a full year. there's reports that 3 million kids have not been contacted the last year, have not reported in to school. kids who don't have lap tors, wi-fi. they haven't gone to school for a full year. pediatricians are talking about the psychological impact of being out of school for a year. you have said schools ought to reopen if they can do so safely. head of cdc dr. walensky said the same. so why are schools not open in your judgment? >> there are several reasons. it's complicated. it's just not easy, open or shot. there are several issues. first of all, you want to make

sure that the first and most important thing is to guarantee the safety and the health of the children, teachers, and other people in the educational program. we have to make sure that schools have the resources to do the kinds of things they need to do, making sure they have masks and ppe, making sure that vent hraegz system can be improved to diminish the likelihood that there will be spread of infection. the cdc guidelines are explicit. there are details tkphraoeupbd what you can do, the kinds of things you can do, the steps, the masking, the distancing, the kinds of things that we know can help protect the children and the teachers. we want to make teachers a high priority among essential workers. you know in the one component are essential workers who want

to make sure teachers for vaccination are a high priority within that group. all of those things plus the resources that the schools need to do the things that would make it safe for the teachers and the educational program to be there. a lot of things to do that. but to repeat what we have all said, the default position is to do whatever we can to get the children back to school. . >> no question about it. there are private and parochial schools and day cares open across the country. and especially here in new york city and big cities, we have been surprised how low the transmission rates have been. schools have been among our safest places. you have the head of pediatric medicine at ucla writing an op-ed saying it is time to open the schools now.

if we are saying follow the science, we are following the science. it leaves a lot of school parents mystified why their school is not open if transmission rates are so low. >> that is a good point. but there are still things we can do to make it even safer. and i believe adhering to the cdc guidelines will be very helpful to getting it open. >> you talked about ventilation and things like that. those are long-term investments that have to be made, some in the covid relief package. but that's down the road. some is allocated for next year. what do you see if this covid relief package passes? what is your immediate impact from your public health point of view? >> i think several things. it's not going to take a year to rearrange some of the spacing to get children safer at a

distance. there is a big concern of six feet versus three feet, but those are things that can be worked out at a different level. >> there are questions about vaccines and masking. right now we are still at about 1,000 a day, are we not? . >> well, yeah, we are. the death rate, yes, obviously. you're going to see that go down. let me explain something that i think is not generally understood, is the lag between infection, hospitalization, and death. there is always a two-week lag. when infections go up, you have a two-week lag to see hospitalizations go up. then another two week lag.

as they start to come down, you will still see the lag of hospitalizations and deaths that seem to stay up. but as long as the infections continue to come down, even though it will lag by a few weeks, you will ultimately see the deaths come down. >> you know, dr. fauci, for the first time in a long time, there was a lot of encouragement. people heard president biden saying we will move to late may by two months when we think the vaccine will be available to adults. we have a deal between johnson & johnson and merck to work together. it got people optimistic and hopeful. what do you want to say to the american people about what still needs to be done to get back to some version of normal? i know it's a question you're sick of being asked, when do we get back to normal? does it look like fall or schools and going back to work that we might get some version of normal? >> yes.

i think you're on target there. people get confused because there is always a caveat there. however, if all things go smoothly and we roll out the vaccination program and there's not a lot of hesitancy about getting vaccination and we get the overwhelming majority of people to get vaccinated, i will the date or time frame you mentioned is quite reasonable. i would think we are going to be gradually -- it's not going to be a light switch on and off. here we are now, click, we're back to normal. it will be gradual, pulling back on some of the streupb general say of the health care prevention modalities. children will be getting back to school. you will see restaurants having indoor dining. by the time we get to fall with the implementation of the

vaccine program, you're going to see something noticeably in the direction of going back to normality and very likely will get there by the end of the year. the only caveat, which you have to say, is that we have these variants, mutational variants that are circle lathe. and if we don't handle them well, then they might have a slowing down of that trajectory that you said, and i agree with you completely. if things go smoothly, we should be seeing it by fall, mid-fall, early winter. >> that leads me to the big however, the big wild card, what about the variants. are you confident these three vaccines can handle, even with a booster down the road, can handle these variants? >> i would say i feel pretty comfortable about that for the following reason. even one of the variants that is the most problematic, the one

that originated in south africa, the 351 variant, when you look at the level of antibodies that's induced, for example, by the mrna vaccines that we studied most intenseively, you have a real degree of cushion there. you get very, very high levels of antibody. when the mousse ants of the antibodies induced by the vaccine, it brings it down several fold, four or five fold. it is still in the framework of protecting you at least against serious disease, hospitalizations and death. we saw that recently with the clinical trial of the j&j in south africa where you have a very, very strong prevalence of this particular variant. even though the numbers are a protection against any disease came down, the thing that stood

firm was protection against hospitalization and death. we've got to keep an eye on it. we've got to be flexible. but i believe if we do it correctly, we will be able to handle it >> dr. fauci, before we go, i'm curious just in terms of if you feel the pwaoegsz, i think i know the answer here, is throwing everything they can at this. given that as a yes, what do you still worry about the most as you look down into the future, the next year or two, as it pertains to the coronavirus? >> yeah. from a vie row logical standpoint, you are always concerned about the fact that this is a global pandemic which requires a global response. we might do very well and do everything correctly. we certainly have president

biden doing everything we possibly can, leaving everything out on the field to do it. but if you have a certain virus in other parts of the world not very well controlled, you will wind up getting variants. if the variants are different enough from the virus we have now, we may be in a situation where we will have to continue to be on the alert and maybe give boosters and vaccinate every year or so. that's something i hope we don't have to do. i hope we can nail this globally and put it behind us. i'm afraid if we don't do it as a global community, it will be something that is going to be around for a while. >> dr. anthony fauci, thank you very much for coming on the show. we hope to have you back soon. we appreciate your service to this country. >> thank you, dr. fauci. all right. here is president biden's response when asked about the decisions by the leaders of texas and mississippi to roll back mask mandates and other covid-19 guidelines.

>> texas and mississippi. >> reporter: i can it's a big mistake. look, i hope everybody is realized by now the masks make a difference. we are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we were able to get vaccines in people's arms. >> and the last thing, the last think we need is neanderthal thinking, take your your mask and forget it. it still matters. >> neanderthal thinking. the mississippi governor tate reeves tweeted in response. mississippi yanns don't need handlers. we should trust americans, not insult them. in the office of texas, governor abbott released a statement writing in party, texas now has the tools and the knowledge to

combat covid while also allowing texans and small businesses to make their own decisions. we must now do more to restore live live hoods and normalcy for texans. >> reverend al, what am i missing here, greg abbott and mississippi. are they starter than most americans and they will do everything they need to do on their own? why isn't it necessary that guidelines from the government and the state can be in concert with one another? >> we are just about a little over a year from having a president try and act like what was absolutely imminent was not a threat at all. we are now over 500,000 deaths later. and i think what governor abbott in texas and mississippi is

saying is so reminiscent misled us nationwide. and texans and mississippi yanns ought to remember that we had this kind of false warning. the governors of both of these states need to really put in their minds that you cannot overemphasize how dangerous and deadly this is and not play politics with people's lives. half a million plus of americans are dead because we played politics rather than listen to the health experts deal with what the expertise told them. we are not out of the woods. and the woods include mississippi and it is. >> you can hear the frustration from dr. fauci a moment ago and public health officials saying my goss we worked a year to get to this place we we feel the light at the end of the tunnel because of the vaccines that have come online.

it could up end a lot of that progress. >> a guy on my show completely opened up. he had 17 tables. people were sitting hip by hip, elbow by elbow. he was threuld that he could open his restaurant back up. i asked if he was at all concerned there could be a resurgence. and he said, well, if there is, there is. they will gather in tight places as they did at abe's grill yesterday. and there is a risk that you get some kind of resurgence. doctors i've spoken to in texas are terrified of this.

texas has a 30% icu occupancy rate at the moment. national average of 20%. they have a worse position in their icu than much of the rest of the country. they say if these masks are taken off, if the social distancing is gone, if people start crowding into restaurants which they are clearly already doing, the icu rate will go up again. we have seen this before. we know what happens. and the vaccines are not rolling out fast enough to stop that from happening yet. >> now to what's going on in florida. a new report from the miami herald found those living in a wealthy enclave in the florida keys were able to get a vaccine earlier this year, while the rest of the state struggled to get a first dose. i know that for a fact for my mom. a newsletter obtained by "the

herald" found all residents age 65 and over oe ocean reef club had been vaccinated by mid-january. how did they get that? the ocean reef club is an ultra exclusive neighborhood that is arguably one of the highest security private communities in the nation. it is also home to many wealthy donors to the florida republican party and gop candidates, including governor ron desan tight. the herald notes the only people from key largo who donated to his political campaign live in ocean reef. the florida division of elections shows all 17 people had donated $5,000 each through december of last year. one resident, former illinois governor, increased his contribution and wrote a $250,000 check on february 25th.

since desantis started using the state's vaccine initiative to steer special pop-up vaccinations to select communities, his political committee raised $2.7 million in the month of february alone. that is more than any other month since he first ran for governor in 2018, according to records. after the story published, a spokesperson for desantis told "the herald," the governor office not involved for selecting the ocean club, but did not explain how many the club obtained so many doses ahead of other people. we have reached out for comment. we will update if we get a response. still ahead on "morning joe", a new warning about possible violence at the u.s.

capitol. it has been less than two months since the deadly riots. new intelligence points to an effort by domestic extreists to breach the capitol. senator richard blumenthal is standing by and will be next on "morning joe". we'll be right back. we'll be right back. trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin' high you know how i feel ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel ♪ [man: coughing] ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day... ♪ no matter how you got copd it's time to make a stand. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good ♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler

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what message do you believe this is sending to other domestic violence extremists let alone foreign adversaries. >> we do assess that the breach on the capitol could inspire others to act if that's what you're asking, sir. >> i agree. any time an adversary is successful, others pay attention. we're worried this would be an inspiration.

>> i agree with that. >> i agree as well, sir. . >> that was the exchange freshman senator alex padilla had with law enforcement officials yesterday about domestic extremism displayed during the attack on the u.s. capitol. democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. thank you so much for coming back on the show, senator. tell us about the no hate act and how it could help in preventing future attacks like the one we endured january 6th. >> thanks for having me, mika. the no hate act essentially would enable better reporting of hate crimes. we have seen a surge in violent extremist and domestic terrorism in recent years. we need to know more about it to counter it. law enforcement has very

effective tools in prohibitions against illegal firearms, rioting and conspiracy. the fbi has to make it a priority to fight domestic terrorism that we have seen in a kind of through line from charlottesville to tree of life, to the january 6th insurrection. and the no hate act is a tool that would require more information to be provided. and additional penalty against the surge in hate crimes, against more recently asian americans, which is so alarming. >> senator blumenthal, al sharpton. the hate act coming at a time when we see a spike against asian americans. we have seen it with blacks and with jews historically. do you think your colleagues are prepared to really take on this act because we are seeing not a decrease but an increase.

and it was heightened by white supremist insurrectionists that stormed the capitol january 6th. in nothing, brought that message home to your colleagues that should have? >> great question, reverend. i think my colleagues can unite around a common sense measure like the no hate act. you know, the most recent statistics not only saw an alarming rise but vast underreporting of them. which is equally alarming. republicans and democrats ought to come together. but i think we need to denounce colleagues who endorse conspiracy theories that inspire and fuel those hate crimes. conspiracy theories of the qanon, for example, which the president of the united states, former president and members of

congress have endorsed. and i called on the director of the fbi christopher wray to denounce that by public officials. and i was very disappointed that he seemed to confer legitimacy on those conspiracy theories by treating them as just another political party. and i think the no hate act gives my republican colleagues a real opportunity to come together and say we will not tolerate hate crimes or vicious virus of domestic terrorism in this country. >> it's good to see you. when asked, shot down many of the conspiracy theories saying antifa was not there. they were not trump supporters. they were inflamed by many republican colleagues trying to get him to endorse them in some way. i'm curious what you thought you

heard yesterday about the events of january 6th, you had the commander of the d.c. national guard saying he got a call from the capitol police at 1:49 and was not authorized to deploy until three hours after the first call came in from national police. what should be the next steps in investigating that gap. >> that's a key question, willie. next steps should be to call to the congress, mccarthy, secretary of the army and acting defense secretary christopher noah but to look at what the white house's influence was in those 3 hours and 19 minutes that the national guard waited and they waited and waited while the capitol was being stormed. we were in a secure location. almost all 100 of us. and i remember asking a few of my colleagues, where is the

national guard? the question wasn't obscure or difficult? and that kind of wait caused injuries, possibly lives. and i think there were multiple failures. that one is certainly egregious and deserves further investigation aimed not only at the pentagon but also at the then officials in the white house. >> he said he had his troops ready to go. he had them in the armory, on buses ready to go help and he was told to wait and wait and wait until 5:00 in the afternoon. you have a lot of business in front of you. we want to move to covid relief and ask you about the status of the package that so many americans are waiting to be passed through the senate so they can get those checks that small businesses can get relief they need, that the vaccination process can be expedited, schools can reopen again. how soon will you pass it if you

believe you will. >> i believe we will pass it. it is a big and decisive measure which fits this moment. it is necessary to act urgently. there is a threat. there are some intelligence reports about the potential danger. my colleagues and i are ready, willing and able to do my job. we will have an opportunity to vote later today and tomorrow and pass it by the end of the weekend. i think the kind of delay that we're seeing from some of my republicans, ron johnson wanting to read the entire bill outluod is unconscionable. . >> senator richard blumenthal, thank you very much. we appreciate your coming on. we'll be watching. coming up, faced with allegations of sexual harassment, new york governor andrew cuomo yesterday offered a

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welcome back to "morning joe". it is 38 past the hour. we turn now to new york governor andrew cuomo, who spoke publicly for the first time yesterday since three women accused him of inappropriate touching and offensive remarks. cuomo apologized but rejected calls for his resignation. here's a part of what he said. >> i never touched anyone inappropriately. i never touched anyone inappropriately.

i now understand that i acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable. it was unintentional, and i truly and deeply apologize for it. i certainly never, ever meant to offend anyone or hurt anyone or cause anyone any pain. i was elected by the people of the state of new york. i'm not going to resign. >> in reference to a third woman's claim of an unwanted advance, cuomo explained that what he considers his, quote, customary greeting and old road approach that involves kisses and hugs is not acceptable. the two female employees who accused him of sexual harassment

say his apology is inadequate. multiple candidates running for mayor of new york city are now distancing themselves from governor cuomo's controversies. many have been campaigning on how they would have a better relationship than bill de blasio. maya wiley, form council to de blasio urged cuomo to resign immediately for his, quote, disgusting and despicable behavior. andrew yang, 2020 presidential hopeful and eric adams, brooklyn borough president, have called for an independent investigation. coming up, last exit from afghanistan. a claimed war correspondent dexter filkins joins us with a new look at an old problem. how can america end its longest running war? that's next on "morning joe". wa?

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the base was apparently hit in retaliation for a strike ordered by president biden, destroying a logistics base by militias. after the strike, president biden had a terse warning for iran. . >> you can't act with impugnity. be careful. >> u.s. security officials tell nbc news, president biden ordered the strike as a deterrent. the military said the intent was to deescalate with iran by showing force >> that is nbc's richard engel last night on "nightly news" reporting on escalations in iraq between the united states and militant forces aligned with iran. also facing new struggles in america's longest war. joining us now staff writer from new yorker dexter filkin. his last week titled "last exit

from afghanistan." afghanistan presents joe biden with one of the most immediate and vexing problems of his presidency. if he completes the military withdrawal, he will end a seemingly in terminable intervention and bring home thousands of troops. but if he wants the war to be considered anything short of an abject failure, the afghan state will have to be able to stand on its own. dexter, always good to see you. for people who lost crack of this 20-year war, it's incredible, "forever war" was written in 2008. boy, were you ever right. where are we now? 2,500 troops still there. will they still be there after may 1st? >> that's on biden's table. what do you do?

the deadline is rapidly coming, negotiated by the trump administration. the united states currently has 2,500 troops there. and they are really busy. and the rest of nato has about 5,000. they will follow our lead basically. so they are in notions right now between the taliban and the afghan government. they're not going that well. the idea was to kind of get a deal and we can finally get out. that was put in place by the diplomats in the trump administration does not appear to be working. do we leave is the question. i think the afghan state falls apart pretty quickly. and that's really the complicated -- you know, everybody wants to get out. everybody wants to leave. but it's not that simple. that's what biden is facing right now.

>> the idea 20 years ago almost come october was to stop afghanistan for being a base of operations for terrorists groups that could attack the united states. if the united states leaves may 1st or sometime shortly after completely, what happens to afghanistan in terms of being a security threat to the united states again? >> as part of the agreement that they signed with the united states, that was the major promise for them was we will not allow terrorists to operate on our soil. like -- period, paragraph. it's not entirely clear that they have lived up to everything in that promise just yet. but they appear to be heading in that direction. that was the major thing that the united states wanted to secure its interests. and we got that.

the tricky part is what happens to the country when we leave? i should point out that we did a lot of things wrong there. we spent a lot of money and a lot of people died. but the one thing we have really achieved there is women. that is half the population. we have remade the society. now they go to school. they have ph.d.s. they're in the deposit. they're in the parliament. it has remade the whole society. and that's under threat right now. and if you go around kabul, as i did, it's the women who are most worried about what might happen. they are the ones who are troubled. >> three female journalists were assassinated in afghanistan just a couple of days ago fpl the taliban or groups affiliated with the taliban appear to be targeting elites in the state of afghanistan, women, activists, journalists, other leaders.

>> yeah. i completely agree with text ter. the voices we are hearing most from who are concerned about this, those of women's rights. in my new book, we have a story of the girls afghan robotics team, a team. a group of girls who defied every tradition to launch their own competitive robotics team. that robotics team won't be allowed if the taliban were to retake afghanistan, which it looks like they could be in position to do because they wouldn't let them. they probably wouldn't let them go to school let alone have a robotics team that competes internationally. dexter, what are the voices, the competing arguments that president biden is hearing? i know he's hearing from some advisers, look, there's not really been any u.s. troop casualties for a year now. we have kept some rights in place for women and children. this is a relatively small price for the u.s. to be paying in order to secure those rights.

who are the different players around him making the different counter arguments? >> well, i think they're having a hard time for all the reasons you just laid out. i should just point out that the three women journalists who were killed earlier this week, that is pretty clearly part of a very concentrated campaign by the taliban to assassinate the elites and particularly go after the women. so kind of as these negotiations are going on, the state is crumbling. so it's really disturbing. but they're going after the right people. you know? i think biden and the people around him are having a hard time for all the reasons that we're talking about right now. i should just point out when president obama decided to escalate in afghanistan in 2009, when we went up to like 100,000

troops there, biden as vice president was extremely skeptical. he felt like -- i think it's fair to say like he felt president obama got pushed pretty hard and allowed himself to get pushed pretty hard by the military. i think he didn't like it. i think he's skeptical of some of the arguments he's hearing. but the math is all there. we're down to 2,500 troops. so, you know, it's like show time. if the troops -- i should point out the obvious. if the american troops are still there on may 1st, then it's game on. then the taliban start coming after the americans again and vice versa. so the clock is ticking. >> the "new yorker's" dexter filkins, always great to talk to you. we'll be reading your piece and everybody should read "forever

war" an account of a war coming up on its 20th anniversary in october. mika? >> reverend al, this weekend will mark the anniversary of bloody sunday. with everything that's going on politically now and what's being debated on capitol hill, i wanted to hear your thoughts bringing all that together. >> bloody sunday is when the civil rights activists at that time, amelia boiken and reverend jose williams were beaten on the edmund pettus bridge in selma. and it led to the voting rights act. when we looked at hr1 passing the house and heading to the senate, and we look at those trying to weaken voting rights with the whole fight in the supreme court, i would hope that we dedicate ourselves again in memory this week of what happened to get voting rights in the first place. it would be the height of

hypocrisy for many senators who last year mourned the passing of john lewis and then in effect do the opposite of what john lewis and others shared blood for. i hope we remember that as we go across that bridge again one more time in commemorating and continuing voting rights in this country. >> all right. we'll have more on that straight ahead. plus d.c. police and the fbi on alert ahead of what qanon supporters have called true inauguration day. we'll get to that reporting and the possible threat to the capitol today. "morning joe" will be right back.

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i would say it's under 1%. this is just my hunch. a lot of funky hunch. meanwhile, trump works hard on a vaccine. >> you take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think it would have much of an impact on corona? >> no. >> oh, well. let's look at this -- >> a lot of people are shopping and using our hotels in this country. from that standpoint, i think probably think it is a positive impact. >> hooray for trump hotels since tom steyer. a political figure america is sure to never forget. this has been this week in covid history. >> wow. >> whoa. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." >> that takes you back. >> it's thursday, march 4th. along with joe, willie and me, we have host of politics nation and president of the national action network, reverend al sharpton. chief white house correspondent for the "new york times," peter baker. and washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay

joins us. she's the co-author of the new book, "living the confidence code" which debuted at number one on the "new york times" best seller list. hello. >> wow. >> amazing. on the "new york times" best seller list. congratulations. fantastic. >> thank you. and thank you for your support of it. >> absolutely. let's get right into it. nearly two months since the deadly riot at the capitol, u.s. capitol police forces are ramping up security because of a new possible threat. a senior law enforcement official tells nbc news the department of homeland security and the fbi sent a joint intelligence bulletin to state and local law enforcement yesterday warning that some extremists groups have discussed plans to take control of the u.s. capitol and remove democratic lawmakers on or about march 4th. the bulletin also states that

domestic violence extremists continued perception of election fraud and other conspiracy theories associated with the presidential transition which may contribute to extremists mobilizing to violence with little or no warning. capitol police put out a statement yesterday saying the department is aware of and prepared for any potential threats. house lawmakers scrapped plans to be in session today due to the threat. the security detail assigned to the lawmakers who served as impeachment managers has been extended through the week. the senate still plans to be in session today. this new warning comes as the acting chief of the u.s. capitol police told lawmakers yesterday that threats against members of congress have dramatically increased. >> in the first two months of 2021, there has been over a 93% increase in the threats to

members compared to the same period last year. from 2017 to 2020, there has been over a 118% increase in the total threats and directions of interest with overwhelmingly majority of those suspects residing outside of washington, d.c. >> and, willie, of course not a surprise that these terrorists that attacked on 1/6 inspired other future terrorists. especially when you have them possibly coming in and the chatter is about stolen elections, election fraud. you still have donald trump at cpac just this past week still stirring up that big lie, the big lie that led to the insurrection attempt on january 6th. and the big lie that's actually leading to congress -- this

never happened when i was there. congress having to shut down, the house having to shut down today because of fear that trump terrorists acting once again on his instruction, acting once again based on his big lie, may come and try to take out, try to kill democratic lawmakers. >> yeah. the house pushed a couple of votes to last night that were scheduled for today, including one on hr-1 so they wouldn't be there today because this date, march 4th, has been circled by qanon supporters. donald trump four days ago was saying i won the election. maybe i will run again and win for a third time and beat these guys. mike pence wrote an op-ed yesterday where he talked about election irregularities and winked and nodded at the conspiracy theories as well. so now here we are it doesn't hope to be like january 6th.

let's bring in nbc news reporter brandy zadrozny. she covers all of this. brandy, good morning. you and your colleague ben collins, and i'm sort of haunted by the conversations you had that you revealed on january 5th, where you said this is going to be bad. we know this is going to be bad based on what we are hearing and based on what we're reading online. so what was your conversation with been like last night? how are you feeling this morning about what may come on march 4, today? >> it's very different, willie. you know, the conversation before the 6th was clear. because we saw it all online. people were planning. they had flyers. they specifically said what they're going to do, how they were going to do it. it's just very, very clear. this date is a little bit weird. it's based on this conspiracy theory from qanon that this is very silly and stupid, but, you know, humor me, that donald trump today will be inaugurated as the 19th president.

it borrows a lot from the sovereign citizen moment who these people believe that no laws have been real since ulysses s. grant was president and they're ungovernable. that is where there is danger, actually. it's hard to say these people are militia groups, the bugaloo groups and these people are the qanon groups. this has been a cross-fertilization and a melding on these groups. so is there some danger today? the capitol police and the fbi warnings weren't clear what those were. there could be militia groups planning today to do something. there could be other radical extremists, white power people planning something today. but what makes us breathe a little easier, these groups like to hide what they are doing under cover of larger political movements like the bugaloo boys

at black lives matter incidents over the summer, or we saw at the capitol with militia groups weaving their way into more generic maga crowds. we're not going to have them today because we don't have a president of the united states telling every supporter he has to come to the capitol and support this big lie. >> it's maddening that our congress is changing its business today because a group of people online think this is the 19th president and that no president has been legitimate since abraham lincoln or whatever they are saying about march 4th. the big difference here, obviously, brandy, the capitol is a fortress now because of what happened january 6th. it would be very difficult for a group to penetrate that perimeter. what are you hearing from law enforcement about how seriously they're taking this threat today? >> law enforcement, as indicated by director wray's testimony, is taking everything very seriously.

what we saw on the 6th was unbelievable. it's at this point better safe than sorry. people that are really concerned about, you know, the first amendment and civil liberties are worried now that we're going to take that too far. right now we are sort of in a balancing act watching what people are doing online, trying to acknowledge people have the right to speak. and i think that's what law enforcement are doing as well. >> brandy zadrozny doing great reporting on this piece, continues this morning. >> still ahead, you've seen this picture of senator josh hawley pumping up trump supporters ahead of the riot on capitol hill. look in the background, a pair of officers on duty standing guard just before the police force was overwhelmed. what does the senator have to say to them? that conversation is next on "morning joe." it all starts with an invitation... ...to experience lexus.

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you know, we talked about donald trump this weekend pushing the big lie, continuing to spread the deadly conspiracy theory that democrats somehow stole the 2020 election from him. you have mike pence doing a nod and a wink to it in an op-ed, and you have a lot of republicans in the house of representatives still lying through their teeth, even after the violence, even after the police officers were beaten and brutalized with american flags, had their heads shoved in the door by trump terrorists, beat cops where -- where again, police officers were sure they were going to die and were thinking about their four children and how they would take care of them, but these trump terrorists keep beating, battering and abusing them.

why? because that's what ted cruz and josh hawley and donald trump wanted them to do. they wanted them to come to the capitol. it's what don jr. wanted them to do. it's what rudy giuliani talking about combat justice wanted them to do. wanted them to come to the capitol and be rough, be tough as donald trump said, to stop the counting. that's exactly what they did. and here we are in march and they still haven't called off the dogs. far from it. far from it. josh hawley is still defending his terrorist act. >> still standing by. >> josh hawley, still defending his calls for sedition. josh hawley and donald trump. and donald trump at cpac this past weekend. look at that. just look at that. a guy who wasted his education, a guy who wasted the opportunities that were given to him instead of pursuing an american dream actually trying to morph it into an american

nightmare for all of us by actually leading a sedicious charge against the united states of america and the capitol. and he still hasn't apologized. still hasn't tried to make good. neither has ted cruz. instead they just doubled down. as has donald trump. this is what karl rove wrote this morning in the "wall street journal" opinion page about the cpac speech. mr. trump followed up with an extended rant claiming this election was rigged and the supreme court and other courts didn't want to do anything about it. instead, they used process and lack of standing to avoid the controversy. karl rove writes that is deeply misleading. judges in all six contested states found that trump lawyers did not produce sufficient evidence. and it was overwhelming.

not only from the supreme court, it was overwhelming from the federal courts. trump judges saying actually on the merits of the cases, they failed time and time again, peter. and yet here we are on march the 4th having to shut down the house of representatives. the people's house, because donald trump, ted cruz, and josh hawley and a lot of back benchers in the house of representatives still allow this lie to fester. >> well, you're right. there has not been a repudiation of that series of false claims made again and again and again from the post-november period. in fact, let's remember the president told us way back last summer that that is what he was planning to do. it was never actually a secret. he told us any result other than a win for him he would dismiss as illegitimate, rigged, corrupt. so we are still in the middle of that. and it will never be something that donald trump admits

otherwise despite, as you point out all the evidence considered by trump judges as well as judges appointed by other presidents. three supreme court justices joined in the court's decisions who were appointed by donald trump. so you're right. there's never been any there there. this has been, from the beginning, you know, a deeply, deeply misleading and dishonest line of attack on his successor, as a way of avoiding -- admitting he lost, which is something he's unwilling and incapable of doing, and in order to keep his fan base generated. that may not have been a big deal before january 6th, it's clearly a big deal now. anybody who thought that was just face saving and pride sal having salving can now see

the consequences of that peddle ing what happened in the election. i don't know if it's going to happen today. it feels like the post 9/11 period where we took all threats more seriously. that's very understandable and necessary i'm sure. but it's a remarkable thing that the house of representatives had to leave town out of fear of security, whether it was a real genuine threat or not. it's a sign of how things have changed in the last two months >> yeah. coming up, the house has passed sweeping new legislation to expand voting rights. it comes amid republican-leddests in dozens of states to roll back voting access. but what will the senate do with the new legislation? "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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a sweeping bill aimed at changing campaign finance voting and ethics laws. the bill would restore voting rights to felons that have finished their sentences, reverse state voter i.d. laws and create nationwide automatic voter registration. the house measure passed 220-210 with one democrat joining all republican house members in voting against it. the house also passed the george floyd justice and policing act. largely along party lines. two democrats joined all republicans in voting against the bill that aims to ban chokeholds, end racial and religious profiing and restrict certain no-knock warrants. it would also make it easier to sue an officer if someone felt their rights were violated. the bill is named after george floyd who died last year after a minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on floyd's neck for nearly ten minutes.

>> reverend al, how important is this george floyd bill to get past, to get us moving into the right direction as a country. in >> it's extremely important. i think people need to realize when we romanticize the '60s, what made the '60s back a move towards the country moving forward was the civil rights act of '64 and the voting rights act of '65, which legislated what the american people were awakening to at that period. the george floyd bill in my judgment capsulized what we're facing now, the issue of policing, the issue of racial bias. i have been on the forefront of that for a while with many others including the big march in washington last year saying this bill could mean in this time what those bills meant in the '60s to see it pass in the house last night -- and i've been in touch with the family --

was heartening but it faces a challenge in the senate. we clearly are going to have to see what remains in the bill and whether or not we can get it passed the senate. we're glad to see it happen now and in the house and move forward. >> the other bill passed, hr-1 is a move towards a more open voting system, trying to nationalize some policies that would actually make it easier for americans not only to register to vote but to vote. it would try to take care of gerrymandering. it seems to me that the united states senate, the democrats there will have a real choice to make.

joe manchin specifically, kyrsten sinema, if they will sit back and allow a republican state legislators and governors across the nation to pull back on voting rights, to continue to pass legislation that predominantly hurts black and latino americans and keeps them from voting or whether they're going to allow something to pass with 51 votes and actually stop all of these efforts across the nation to basically stand in the door of a voting precinct. >> yeah. these are both two key parts of biden's legislative promise before he came into the white house and legislative priorities for the progressive wing of the democratic party. particularly, as you say, joe, on the voting rights act, there

is this sense of urgency because we keep hearing from republican-controlled legislators around the country what they're doing in realtime, what they're doing right now and have been doing since the election in order to strip away and restrict voting rights in their states. the senate will have to move fast on this one. it's something the white house wants to move fast on, but again we run into this problem of the 50/50 controlled senate. what are democrats going to have to give to joe manchin, change that comes out of these bills if it is manchin who holds it up,

against it, you could see the bills being watered down potentially in order to get those -- that full democratic support in the senate. and this is the story of joe biden's legislative problem. he is going to run into this time and time again on pieces of progressive legislation. he's going to run into it on gun control. that will be coming up next. he has a very tight senate majority and getting these through will be extremely difficult for him. at the same time, he has the progressive wing of the democratic party saying you are there. we have to do this. this is urgent. and it is absolutely our priority. by the way, we delivered you those votes in many cases. so we want the payback. and that voting legislation is being changed as we speak around the country. we'll talk more about this just ahead when congressman mondaire jones joins the conversation. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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♪♪ what's the interest of the arizona rnc here in keeping the, say, other precincts voter -- ballot disqualification roles on the books? >> it puts us at a competitive

disadvantage to democrats. politics is a zero sum game. every extra vote they get through unlawful interpretation hurts us. it's the difference of winning an election -- >> thank you, my time is up. >> that was a lawyer for the arizona republican party on tuesday arguing before the supreme court essentially admitting to the reason behind republican legislators various efforts to make it more difficult to vote. the court is hearing arguments over arizona voting restrictions which make it a crime for anyone other than a family member or caregiver to turn in another person's early ballot. another that requires any ballot cast in the wrong precinct to be discarded, even if the person was eligible to vote. over in georgia, republican lawmakers are pushing a new law that would require a photo i.d. for absentee voting, limit the

amount of time voters have to request an absentee ballot, restrict where ballot dropboxes could be located and when they could be accessed and limit voting hours on weekends. and so as we've mentioned late last night the house passed a measure that aims to combat such restrictions before the people act aimed at changing finance voting and ethics laws. joining us now is a member of the house judiciary committee, democratic congressman mondaire jones of new york. also with us, the president and ceo of the national urban league, the former mayor of new orleans, marc morial. >> good morning. >> congressman, how important is this legislation that essentially should be headed to the senate at that point? >> thisis of foundational importance. we are, as you just described, we are experiencing in many parts of this country a new jim crow where the modern day

republican party has as its project, not competing on the merits of its policy ideas but the disenfranchisement of large swabs of the american electorate like black and latino voters in georgia and election. so the we the peoples act is aimed at preventing the right to vote from being suppressed. it contains automatic voter registration, restrictions on voter purges, public campaign financing so we get better people elected to congress who don't debate the need for $2,000 survival checks in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression and redistricting laws. >> mayor morial, we heard the objection explicitly in that clip with supreme court justice barrett when the attorney said

we don't want hr-1 to go through because it means we will lose more elections. it's a political question and questions of political speech embedded in the criticism. from your position, why is hr-1 beneficial to the country? >> thank you for having me. we're seeing a movement, i call it the movement of jimmy and jane crow. the grandson and granddaughter of jim crow. that's a massive movement, if you will, to place voter suppression on steroids at the state level. let's look at it politically. the republican party has not won the popular vote since 1988. this is nakedly political. it's designed to suppress the votes of voters who are young, voters who are black, voters who are brown, and even older voters. it is a palatable, well thought out and orchestrated movement.

the admission by the lawyer before the supreme court, if that doesn't tell the supreme court that arizona's position is based on politics, politics, politics, not only the law, not on the constitution, not on common sense, not on fairness, not on protecting the right to vote, i don't know what it takes. so hr-1 is a powerful step in the right direction. we also need hr-4, which is an advanced version of the voting rights act of 1965 because what's on the line is fundamental democracy. this is all about the right to vote. ensuring that we're not creating an apartheid-like system in the united states where only some people can vote and it's so difficult for others to vote. this is anti-democratic. it is a move that has to be swiftly rejected and it has to be aggressively combated. >> congressman, the other piece

of legislation passed, the george floyd justice and policing act. tell us about it. >> this, too, is an important piece of legislation that the senate must pass as well. we saw the greatest civil rights movement since the other civil rights movement that preceded it happen last summer in the wake of the murders of george floyd and breonna taylor and so many names. so we want the rooting out of systemic racism in policing through a ban on chokeholds and no-knock warrants. a repeal of qualified immunity in the context of law and enforcement. the training by these officers who should not be responding to mental health crises. it's no wonder so many of those situations have escalated where officers have not been trained to respond to the situation because they lack the expertise.

no one is saying all law enforcement officers are bad. no one is saying most law enforcement officers are bad, but i think the american people at large understand that there's a real serious issue of racism in policing in this country. it is unfortunate that we did not get republicans to vote for this. it's not for lack of trying or for lack of engaging in good faith. it's because we had the republican party that is not interested in justice for any group of people in this country. >> mayor morial, you were the two-term mayor of new orleans and the president of the national conference of mayors. you dealt with these issues of policing directly over the years. what does this new bill do and what more needs to be done? >> it's a federal toolbag, if you will, a toolkit that would allow bad officers to be held accountable. in new orleans, there are two new orleans police officers from the '90s on death row because

they were prosecuted in the federal system. it's so important that the department of justice have the power, have the ability to successfully hold police officers accountable and that individual citizens have access to the federal courts without unnecessary barriers, which is what qualified immunity is all about. make no mistake about it. the george floyd justice and policing act, thanks to the house and karen bass and the others who led this effort is not a panacea, it's a tool and so much work has to be done by mayors and police chiefs and city councils at the local level to reimagine, reenvision, reform and i think change american policing. >> congressman mondaire jones, i know you have to go, give us a sense of where you want congress to head next. >> i want congress to deliver real relief for the american

people. house democrats passed the american rescue plan last week and that is the bare minimum that government must be doing in the midst of the worst public health crisis in a century. it is bipartisan in the support it has received. just yesterday there was a poll that showed 77% of the american people support this commonsense response to an economic crisis. families are hurting. i got to tell you, if the senate does not move on this, not only will many of the people who are blocking progress in the senate who ran on things like a $15 minimum wage and delivering $2,000 survival checks to the american people not get re-elected, but it will have a ripple effect throughout this economy and we will spiral further into devastation and of course we have to pass the equality act in the senate and we have to pass the george floyd justice and policing act and a transportation and infrastructure bill which we

hope to pass in just a few weeks. so we have to make sure that we are doing the things that we ran on, not adhering to old norms that have no place in the 21st century, like the filibuster, the jim crow relic that prevented so much civil rights legislation a generation ago is being used to block progress for the american people. >> congressman mondaire jones, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. and mayor morial, i wanted your take on this piece of analysis. independent progressive data analysts recently spoke with new york magazine and give his analysis of the 2020 election. one take away is over the last four years white liberals have become a larger and larger share of the democratic party. and that white liberals are to

the left of hispanic democrats but also of black democrats on defunding the police and those ideological questions about the source of racial inequity. he continues, even if a majority of non-white people agreed with liberals on all of these issues, the fundamental problem is that democrats have been relying on the support of roughly 90% of black voters and 70% of hispanic voters. if democrats elevate issues or theories that a large minority of non-white voters reject, it's going to be hard to keep those margins because these issues are strongly correlated with the ideology and black conservatives and hispanic conservatives don't actually buy into a lot of these intellectual theories of racism. what do you think? >> i don't know where he's going with this. i would say this -- the

democratic coalition has always been broad in line. i've been involved for many years, all the way back to the 1980s. the democratic coalition is multi racial, multicultural and multi ideological. for joe biden, his magic in being able to win was to stitch and hold that coalition together. now, anyone who leads the democratic coalition, anyone who leads in the 21st century will need to put together a coalition which is not necessarily based on part ideology but on values and philosophy about the direction of the country. the republican party is a bit of a coalition. it's just a narrower coalition than the democratic party has historically been. i think there's always been -- i've never seen there to be a lack of tension between progressives and moderates and others on this.

but let's be straight, african-american voters and latino voters and their elevated participation in 2020 delivered the white house and delivered control of the senate to the democrats. so that's got to be well understood that like trump talks about his base, the democratic coalition has to pay attention to its base. i think its base fundamentally is african-american, hispanic voters, yellow dog democrats. >> katty kay, your thoughts? >> mayor -- yeah. it is exactly what i was thinking about earlier in the context of how the progressive base needs to see something from the white house. we're looking at two major pieces of legislation now on voting rights and on police reform that may well not get through the senate. what does the progressive wing of the party want joe biden to

do to make sure the priorities of the people who gave joe biden the white house and who gave democrats the senate, what must they do now to make sure if they can't get it through the senate what will they do to satisfy those progressive demands? >> katty, one role that the white house must play and one role others must play is to build broad public will. the senate is an odd -- i shouldn't say odd, a unique institution. its seats are not apportioned according to population. whether it's the george floyd justice and policing act and its provisions, whether it's hr-1 and its positions, whether it's the covid relief bill, it's important to recognize that while this obsession of what's happening in the senate, these pieces of legislation enjoy broad support amongst the american people. support amongst republicans,

independents and democrats. i think building public will is a very important role of the presidency. it to help american understand why these pieces of legislation are essential to the future of our country to get beyond this. i don't know what this will come down to. i've never been a fan of the filibuster. i think it's abused. i think it has its relic as congressman jones said in the jim crow era. and i think to see it once again used to block expansion of voting rights or accountability for police officers raises questions about the viability and the necessity of the filibuster going forward. it's a relic. it's not in the constitution. it's not something the founding fathers created. it's kind of made up in the senate to accommodate their history and tradition. i think the president, i think

members have to continue to get out here and educate. i've been struck by how popular the specific provisions of the george floyd bill are while some in the senate continue to express reservations about it as well as the provisions of hr-1, same day registration, early voting. those are broadly popular among the american people. these are far more popular than the votes in the house or senate would suggest. so we have to keep the focus on where are the american people? and i think the president has to build the will, build the understanding, build the education, use the bully pull pulpit in an assertive way and we'll see where we are down the line whether that will move people or whether you have to revisit some of the senate rules to make things happen. >> marc morial, thank you very much for being on this morning. we want to tell you about what's happening right now in

jackson, mississippi, which continues to struggle with water problems more than two weeks after winter storms and freezing weather ravaged the city's system. residents are still without drinking water and many are not able to flush their toilets, they're not able to -- tree limbs have gotten caught in the waterways causing pressure to drop for the entire system. the state's largest city continues to warn residents to boil any water that does come out of faucets. city officials on wednesday continued to distribute water for toilets but have given no specific timeline for resolving the crisis. we'll be following this story. this is a pretty serious situation. pretty bad there in jackson, mississippi. still ahead, former vice president mike pence lends his voice to the effort against democrats sweeping package of election reforms with an op-ed

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. welcome back to "morning joe," 8:52 in the morning at the white house. joining us now the man who oversaw the security of the 2020 elections, former director of security agency chris krebs, it's great to have you back on the show, i'm sorry we have to have you back on the show to answer these questions again but they seem to be cropping up from high places, including yesterday from the former vice president of the united states mike pence who wrote an op-ed in which he said after an election marked by significant voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside of state election law i share the concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election. voting irregularities has become a catch-all phrase of people who

want to cast doubt on the 2020 election. what do you say to the vice president this morning? >> well, first off, willie, thanks for having me on and happy inauguration day, march 4th, this is the big day for the "q" types at least. look, i think you can have legitimate criticisms of hr-1, independent of the dog whistle for the big lie. and that's election irregularities. repeating this mantra, these supposed examples of voting integrity issues from the 2020 election does nothing to restore confidence in the election. and, you know, again, to your point, the catch-all, where's the specificity, the state officials setting aside state laws, it's simply not true, it's repeating some of the claims that have been litigated. not just on a standing or latch basis but many courts in

pennsylvania, wisconsin and georgia decided cases on the merits and the trump campaign was found wanting. >> apparently it has to be said again, did you see in your vast study of the 2020 election any instances where votes were changed, or there were irregularities, whatever that means, something that might tip the balance of the election? >> no, absolutely not. >> and when you hear people like vice president pence -- >> i'm just going to be pretty straight forward on that. >> you've said it from the beginning, you said it was the most secure election in the history of the country but when you hear people like the vice president, heavy heard it from senators like ted cruz and ron johnson and josh hawley pushing it off to the voters, giving voice to the millions of americans that were concerned about what happened, how do you respond to that?

>> you know, they are responding in many cases to their constituents that have voiced their concerns and they think they're doing their constitutional duty as elected officials. but in many cases, even at the state level, this is turning into just a continuation of performative politics. in fact, in the state of georgia the legislature's leadership down there told the rank and file members that if they needed to introduce a bill on election integrity, no matter how extreme it is, go ahead, feel free, if that's what it takes to calm the base. what we don't -- i think what's underappreciated, though, is that this is just an escalating spiral of erosion of confidence in elections, and we've got to get back to some, you know, rational conversation about how elections work in this country, educate the people on the processes. look at what's happening in arizona with the legislature's

subpoena of 2.1 million ballots to conduct some undetermined audit of the process when the process has already been audited several times. and, again, found to be accurate and a conclusive election outcome. >> as you say the votes have been counted and recounted and in some cases recounted again in the state of georgia all with the same outcome. chris, katty kay is here with a question. >> do you think there's an effective way to counter the message that people choose to hear and follow when they go down these rabbit holes of conspiracy theory and don't seem to be able to get out of them. have you heard of a good way of getting people out of that position where they are determined to believe there was fraud in the election? >> i think this is really the key question.

just yesterday the election integrity partnership, which was a group of academic organizations and private sector and researchers that looked at the 2020 election and released a report. and it did show that many of the things that even we did with our rumor control effort could not pierce the overwhelming tidal wave of this info. there has to be a number of steps taken going forward and that's for the biden administration appointing a disinformation senior official, a czar. you know, we have plenty of czars, this is another one. we need a more strategic approach to countering disinformation. and some of these things i'll also be looking at at the aspen institute with our commission on information disorder which should be kicking off here in a another week or two. >> chris krebs, always great to have you on the show and we'll keep having you on as long as people need to be educated about what actually happens in our elections, thanks so much,

chris, we appreciate it. mika, today as chris referenced at the top of our interview today is a date that conspiracy theorists have circled on the calendar, march 4th. the house of representatives moved up a couple of votes last night so they wouldn't be there today. security is in place this time to hopefully prevent what happened on january 6th. >> yeah. and we can end this day, end this morning on "morning joe" with final thoughts pertaining to that. katty kay. >> look, i mean, the security is there, the fences have to stay up at least through today. everyone here in washington is desperate for them to come down. but as chris said, it's really hard to puncture that bubble of misinformation. we all have a role to play in trying to get the correct information out there while there are still people going down the hole of conspiracy theories, the fences have to stay up, at least for today. >> a lot of people ask questions about some of trump's biggest

supporters that still stand by him to this day. the question is what does trump have on them, is it russia ties, what is it? i would say as we close this morning to follow the story as it pertains to elaine chao and her time working for president trump and the questions that raises. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now, including her exclusive interview with newly confirmed commerce secretary gina raymondo. >> hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city. it is thursday, march 4th, let's get smarter. in just a few minutes from now my exclusive interview with newly sworn in commerce secretary gina raymondo, creating jobs and promoting growth in this country, how she sees the future of work in the face of the covid pandemic. we must start this morning with the new threat facing our