good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington with the senate gaveling into session but the house has canceled proceedings today because of online threats from qanon and other militants to again attack the u.s. capitol. with the conspiracy theory that donald trump will be officially inaugurated today. at this moment, hundreds of national guard troops and capitol police are on alert following intelligence warnings of potential threats to democratic lawmakers from white supremacist groups. speaker pelosi spoke with reporters in the last hour about the decision, trying to down play the decision saying they were keeping members away from the capitol grounds today. >> frankly, there are senators in, and they should be. we're at least four times more people and therefore all that that implies in terms of numbers

of people in the capitol. if, in fact there's any troublemakers around. it made sense. i don't think anybody should take any encouragement that because some troublemakers might show up that we changed our whole schedule. we just moved it a few hours. >> this as the president has made a major concession to moderate democrats by reducing the number of merging getting relief checks in the new package, capping the ability to remove 7 million americans from the benefits as it heads to the senate. in new york, a remorseful andrew cuomo making a public apology for questionable behavior with younger women who allege he sexually harassed them. he said he will not resign. starting first, joining us now, nbc's garrett haake on capitol hill, chief white house correspondent kristen welker, co-host of "weekend today" and nbc justice correspondent pete

williams. pete, take us through latest on the security posture on the hill. why today is such an important day for these extremists and conspiracy theorists? >> some of these conspiracy groups, this is largely a qanon theory, say that march 4 sth the real inaugural, the true inaugural is the phrase they use. they're apparently basing this on the fact that until the 1930s march 4th was inauguration day, but the 20th amendment changed that and the 1933 was the last year for an inauguration on march 4th. but some of these groups have used it as a rallying cry saying donald trump was going the to come back and resume power. obviously that's not going to happen. but there had been some discussion among members of an unidentified extremist group talking about whether something should be done on this day, talk about the idea of it, and that was passed along to the capitol police. so they decided to impose the extra security. but the people i talked to about this all say it was strictly

aspirational. it was these groups sort of wouldn't it be nice if, but given the current posture, you know, abundance of caution is the watch phrase and for that reason they decided to make the threat public and obviously ratchet up the security. but nobody's going to get into the capitol. it's so heavily fortified. and think about the difference between now and january 6th, where you had a reason for lots of people to be in washington at the rally. so the fact they were there wasn't in any way alarming. if a bunch of people showed up now and sort of congregated somewhere, obviously that would be a whole different thing, and they would have no such cover. >> indeed. garrett, what else did we hear from the speaker today about shutting down the house? it was controversial. some people say they should not have given into them and what's to stop them from floating another date in the future and another alarm goes up?

>> reporter: she was pressed on this a little. part of the calculation was the table was set to allow for this other vote on the justice and policing bill that they hoped to get done and there just wasn't enough -- it was easy enough to make this change essentially without doing a major disruption to the house calendar that they were able to do so. members were flying out this morning in in cases heading back home. we'll have to circle back on this with the speaker if and when. we can probably assume it's a "when" there are additional threats against the capitol. what will the posture be every time this happens? the capitol feels empty today without house staffers here, house members here, a lot of senate staff were told to stay home. just walking around, you can absolutely notice the increased national guard presence here. i'm with pete. i don't think anybody's getting in here today that's not supposed to. the military presence is very noticeable today.

>> that's also controversial because it's no longer what we like to think of as the people's house with those gates up and all that barbed wire. garrett, i spoke with eric swalwell from california, talking about the persistent threats democratic lawmakers have been living with since january 6th. >> we have a job on covid relief, on voting rights, reducing the cost of health care, and if you're constantly worried about your security, it affects your ability to help the people who sent you here. i signed up for this. i know what ge we got into it, but it affects all our ability to help constituent whence we work in this fortress of a complex now and we're not as able to engage with people directly at home or here because these threats are just flooding our inboxes, and, again, just the loser in all of are our constituents. >> kristen, with all of this happening on the hill, as garrett's been reporting, the president has been forced by the

reality of a 50/50 senate to make some big compromises on the covid bill, taking down the eligibility or raising the eligibility -- i guess it's lowering the ceiling, really, for when people will get the checks. 7 million fewer people bottom line are going to get the checks. >> that's exactly right, andrea. that is the bottom line. 7 million fewer people than would have gotten these relief checks in the house bill. so president biden making this compromise with moderate democrats because as you point out, andrea, he cannot afford to lose a single democratic vote in order to get this passed because republicans say they're not on board with this, they're not going to support it. they tay is price tag is just too high. what does that mean? that means those who make more than $80,000 or couple who is make more than $160,000 not el

eligible to get the chex. you have criticism from ocasio-cortez saying, why. the president defended the decision and said compromise is a show of strength. and frankly it's necessary to get this legislation passed. so that is what you are going to hear from this white house as we expect that we could see preliminary votes get under way today in the senate. and with senator ron johnson suggesting that he might try to read the entire bill, something that could take up to ten hours, essentially that would be aimed at not just slowing down the process but giving republicans a platform to air where they perceive their differences to be in this legislation. we also learned today that based on conversations with officials at the white house, president biden expected to hold his first formal press conference in the next few weeks once that

legislation passes. >> indeed. ron johnson endearing himself to all his completion. he plans to read every word of that bill, he says. thanks garrett haake, kristen welker, and pete williams. joining us now senator mark warner, virginia democratic senator, who chairs the intelligence committee and serves on the senate rules committee and participated in the joint hearing on the january 6th -- >> andrea, i just want to say i'm not sure, and i say this in a bipartisan fashion, that ron johnson is endearing himself to all his fellow colleagues with his reading of the bill. maybe he -- only the word you could use on tv but that would not be the first word to my mind. >> i was being slightly -- >> i know. i know that. i got it. i got it. >> i know he's endeared himself to you as well for many of the conspiracy theories he's floated about antifa having been

involved in the january 6th. let's talk about the security threats on a serious note because for the house to back down, some would say, and not be in session, admittedly they are waiting on the senate, waiting on the cbo scoring and all of that before the senate can take up even the procedural votes today, but that said, should they be shutting down the business of the house just because of these online threats when they're surrounded by the national guard and by the fence and barbed wire and all the rest? >> andrea, as you know, unfortunately our capitol is an armed camp at this point. and i hope and pray we get to the point where some of these fences, some of the barbed wire can come down. as we put in place appropriate protocols. i mean, i'm not going to weigh in on what the house should do or not do. i think it's important that the

senate continue to act. we're safe. most of my folks in the office i've said please don't come in today because of the potential threat. and we have to realize that what happened on january 6th, the threat of domestic violent extremists didn't start with january 6th. we had it in my state in virginia back in 2017 with the unite the white rally in charlottesville. this ongoing threat of these militia groups is going to be with us long after today, and it's really important that our law enforcement, our intelligence community treat this with the seriousness it deserves. i mean, the director of the fbi and the intelligence worldwide threat, the last time he did it a couple years ago, the trump administration stopped him from doing it the last couple years, acknowledged the extremists are a real threat. the trump white house didn't

want that in the bloodstream. but we have to be straight with the american people. this threat exists. we need to counter it and realize many of these groups are sometimes affiliated in europe,

today there is new progress

in the race to vaccinate the country against the coronavirus with 27 million americans fully vaccinated. that's one out of every ten american adults. as vacciness are rolling out, mask mandates are rolling back with governors of montana, mississippi and iowa lifting statewide restrictions. alabama announcing it's going to lift the mask restriction a month from now. experts caution now is not the time to let up. with president biden giving a strong condemnation of the governor's decisions. the last thing, the last thing we need is neanderthal thinking in the meantime everything is fine, take off your mask, forget it. it still matters. morgan radford joining us from jackson, mississippi. great to see you. tell us what's happening there. there couldn't be a worst time. first, a very poor record on

vaccinations. >> reporter: which is the issue, andrea. right now the message from the governor's office is that mississippi is open and ready for business. ready to move forward and ready to move on. this reversal of the mask mandate essentially means three things. one, businesses can airport at 100% capacity. number two, indoor arenas will be able to double their capacity to 50% and number three, k through 12 schools and grades will still require masks. but as you can imagine, andrea, here on the ground in jackson as we've been speaking to residents, the mayor as well as some business owners, they have some concerns. take a listen to what they told me. >> i think it's too early. i think with so much of our population still not having been vaccinated, i think this is too early to remove the mask mandate. >> i lost a long-time neighbor just a week ago who died from covid. and so people are still dying. we're celebrating in the third quarter, and that makes no sense. >> are you going to allow

customers inside if they don't have a mask? >> well, we can't -- we're not going to force anybody out of the restaurant. we're going to ask them would they mind wearing a mask? we even have masks to give customers. >> reporter: well, the question, andrea, that many are asking is you're opening businesses, but at what expense? because this is all happening while there's this other major crisis that's looming in the background. you can see these national guard tanker trucks here with water because mississippi is now facing a water crisis with jackson residents here more than 200,000 nearly that many still don't have drinkable water. so they're coming here and their big question is how can we stay safe if one, you're lifting a mask mandate and two, we don't even have clean water to wash our hands? andrea? >> which is just an even deeper problem. morgan radford, thank you. joining us now, dr. zika, a

member of the president's covid advisory board during the transition. doctor, thank you for being with us. we're seeing these states at this hour alabama's governor announcing they're keeping it on another four weeks. what can we do to let these people know what a big mistake this is? >> it is a huge mistake for two reasons. i think as one of the people interviewed said, we're celebrating in the third quarter. we're nowhere near done. the country has 66,000 new cases a day. between 1100 and 2000 deaths a day. and their 14-day trend in texas is down, not up. they're going in the wrong direction. they're not even in the third quarter, and mississippi had a decrease and now it's also going back up. these are no times to reverse.

that's the trend. but even worse is we're expecting this big dissemination of the b.1.1 .7 from england. we know it's more deadly and more transmisable. a colleague said that variant got into a nursing home there and literally overnight, every patient in that nursing home got it. got covid. it is terrible time to do this. and there's just no excuse other than politics and governor abbott is doing the wrong thing at the wrong time and i hope voters hold him accountable. same thing with the governor of mississippi. >> it's awful. and i don't know what you can do to make sense to them. let's talk about the positive side, zeke. a lot more older people in particular being vaccinated. let's talk about what people can

do. give us your pointers. >> i get the question -- the hugging -- when can i hug my grandchild question more than anything else. for my mother, it's can i fly to boston and hug the great grandchildren? so she's been vaccinated. two weeks after your second dose if you've gotten one of the two dose vaccines, that's when you can begin to return to some degree of normalcy. you should still wear a mask and get a good mask. i'd recommend dc the n-95s are available online. i think it's worth getting them. make sure they fit well. fit is really important. it's not just having the mask. if you're going to see your grandchildren, try to do it outside. do more activities outside, and don't make it prolonged. one of the things that happens when you take hours with someone is you relax. take the mask off, have a meal,

have a snack. and that's really -- you sit close to each other at the table. that's where transmission is going to happen if it happens. but i think going to hug your grandchildren, hugging them outside, going to the park with them, being with them, absolutely can be done once you're vaccinated. >> that's great news, dr. zeke emanuel, for a lot of people. and achievement to your mom for hugging the great grandchildren. >> thank you. >> make sure to check out our personalized state by state guide with everything you need to help you figure out when and where to get the covid-19 vaccine. log onto planyourvaccine.com. >> andrew cuomo says he's sorry and learned his lesson, but he won't resign. what does it say about what we've learned or not in the #metoo era. stay with us. us

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leave the structure, call 911, keep people away, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe.

if you see wires down, treat them all as if they're hot and energized. stay away from any downed wire, call 911, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. andrew cuomo responded to the allegations brought against him by three women and now the governor said he has no plans to step down from his job. >> 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 feel awful about it. and frankly, i am embarrassed by it. and that's not easy to say. i never touched anyone inappropriately. i never touched anyone inappropriately. i certainly never, ever meant to offend anyone or hurt anyone. or cause anyone any pain. i was elected by the state of new york. i'm not going to resign. >> joining me now, anne thompson who has been following this story from the beginning and ruth marcus, and susan page

washington bureau chief for usa today. welcome all. first of all, do we have anne? we just did a moment ago. well, if -- i think anne can't hear us. we're going to fix that. but let me talk to ruth for a moment. because ruth, you've had a lot to write about this, about what cuomo had to say. and let me play one other clip from the governor about his form of greeting people. >> you can go find hundreds of pictures of me kissing people, men, women, it is my usual and customary way of greeting. >> and ruth, this was in reaction to that future that was notably provided to the new york times by andrew about meeting him for the first time at a wedding and him taking her face in his hands, first putting his

hand on her back. she's wearing a backless dress, and then when she took his hand and removed it, then he took her face in his hands, i think we also have that picture with the expression on her face. it was quite clear how uncomfortable she certainly appeared to be. so ruth, your reaction to that explanation from the governor? >> well, if that's your usual and customary way of greeting people, hello, it's 2021. need to change it. i wrote this the other day. before his explanation, politics is a handsy business. politicians like to touch other politicians. male politicians put their hands on their colleague's shoulders. but in a world in which touching people of the opposite sex is viewed understandably and correctly so as an intrusion on your bodily integrity, you just need to change your behavior. you need to change your behavior

with people of the opposite sex. you need to change your behavior with people of the same sex. and the fundamental question i would is ask the governor is okay, you say you're embarrassed. good. you say you apologized. good. you say you didn't understand. tell me if somebody -- if your daughters came to you and told you hey, my boss had this weird conversation with me. he was talking about how young he would date people and this doesn't seem to be disputed. he talked about whether i had ever been with an older guy. how should i deal with that? i suspect the governor would understand precisely what was going on here and precisely what was wrong with this kind of behavior in the workplace. and it's not acceptable. period. he should have known that. >> susan page, what -- how do you reconcile this with the governor, frankly, you know, he says that he's always been kind of touchy feely with men and women. that's not been his reputation,

however, from those who see him scooting out of events, going from parade to this to a news conference and going out often without taking questions. i don't know what your experience has been politically covering him. >> you know, one of the dilemmas i think that governor cuomo has now is his lack of defenders. even among officials in his own party. i think that has raised some questions about whether he can survive this or as ruth i think would say, when mario cuomo was governor, this kind of controversy would not have threatened to end his career. that's changed these days. this is a threat i think to con drew cuomo, both whether he completes his term. that may depend on whether there are more accusations of sexual harassment and the conclusions of the independent investigations going on, and whether he can run for a fourth term as we all assumed he would want to do. this is a very serious situation for the governor, and all he's done with his apology is buy him

a little more time. >> and anne thompson, i think you can hear us and we apologize for that snafu. >> i can. >> we want to talk about how the accusers responded to his apology which you've been covering. >> well, andrea, in a word they weren't very impressed. charlotte bennett who was the 25-year-old who governor cuomo supposedly asked her about her sex life and would she have sex with an older man. her attorney put out a statement yesterday, deborah cats, saying the governor's press conference was full of falsehoods and inaccurate information. and new yorkers deserve better. and she went onto say how could he not know? charlotte bennett went to his chief of staff and his chief counsel with her complaints soon after the incident happened. now, another woman who is has accused cuomo of sexual

harassment, tweeted how can new yorkers trust you to lead our state if you don't know when you've been inappropriate with your own staff? the third woman, anna ruch, the woman in the picture at the wedding, she did not respond to any of our requests for comments on the governor's remarks. andrea? >> and what about the reaction in albany? i know you interviewed i believe it was the majority leader in the state senate. are they going to stick with him? >> i would say they're being very cautious. andrea stewart cousins said that his apology was a good start. she didn't think it laid the controversy to rest in any way, shape, or form. and i spoke to jay jacobs this morning. he's head of the state democratic party, and he said basically what the governor did is he bought some time yesterday, took some steam out of the issue or so he thought, and maybe convinced people to

wait for the independent investigator. >> well, it's so good to see you, anne, and ruth and susan. let's say as soon as covid restrictions are lifted, i would love to just have the three of us sitting around and talking about all of this. >> i'm in. >> good deal. thanks so much. thanks for being here today. coming up, a scathing report now finding congressman ronny jackson engaged in inappropriate conduct when he was dr. jackson, former president trump's white house doctor. the details ahead. still a doctor, but now he's in congress. you're watching andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. . . oh, um, this is eric. ooh. the big "e." [ chuckles ] great to meet ya. people love my nicknames.

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ideas start the future, just like that. a pentagon inspector general's report has devastating findings for former white house physician dr. ronny jackson. who is now a freshman republican congressman from texas. the pentagon report alleges that

jackson belittled and bullied and humiliating his support nants and focussed on currying favor with president trump which was on display in the white house briefing room in january of 2018. >> the president is mentally very, very sharp and intact. i think he will remain fit for duty for the remainder of this term and even the remainder of another term. he has incredibly genes. >> incredibly good genes. the ig reports the use of alcohol and am bean while on the job. and alleges jackson once knocked on a female subordinate's door and said quote, i need you. >> i have stood firm in my support for president trump and his america first agenda. i am proud of the work environment i fostered under three different presidents of both political parties. i take my professional responsibility with respect to prescription drug practices very

seriously. and i flat out reject any allegation that i consumed alcohol while on duty. >> joining me now, former republican national committee chair michael steele and new york correspondent peter baker. peter, first to you. i don't know if you ever had any contact with dr. jackson in the white house. but he certainly was overboard in terms of his descriptions of the president's physical and medical condition. we don't know that this inspector general report interviewed very many people who worked with him. >> they did. in fact, they interviewed 60 people apparently that work with him all of them basically across the board describe similar behavior, screaming, bullying, out of control rage, that kind of thing. of those 60, i think fewer than a quarter reported any positive dealings with him. there seems to be a consensus. he calls ate partisan hit job because of his support for president trump, but the people who are reporting this behavior

are people who worked for him, including fellow medical professionals who thought he was out of control at times. now, i didn't have any personal dealings with him as a white house reporter, but i've seen a lot of white house doctors over the years. it was striking. you played that clip, just how unclinical his assessment of president trump's health was. i mean, it didn't come across as the detached professional assessment we normally get from a white house physician after he's looked at a president. or she looked at a president, it sounded like somebody who was making a political statement, incredible genes. this is the way god made him. he'll live until he's 200. it was so over the top that it struck people even at the time as being out of the norm. nothing necessarily unprofessional, but if that was his only issues, that might be one thing, but it's not. this report makes clear that he was well-known in the white house and among his subordinates for behavior that went beyond the norms.

>> michael steele, he's now a member of congress. generally with the ethics committee, doesn't take that serious behavior, alleged behavior that preseeds joining congress, but i'm not sure whether they would have remit to take it up there. >> yeah. it just raises a lot of alarm bells and concerns, and i guess people are watching. we don't know what the ethics committee will do, how they'll come down on this. i mean, you've got potential investigations into marjorie taylor green and things like that, of that nature. you know, touching on what they did as private citizens before becoming a member of congress, but you know, this particular episode is something we all kind of watched realtime. so we heard as peter said, we heard the analysis, the very

aclinical analysis, and so now we're uncovering the back story. i think you're going to find there's a lot more here not just in terms of the bad personal behavior, but the ongoing political agenda. it always struck me as kind of weird that they just moved out of being the president's doctor to suddenly becoming a member of congress. how did that conversation come about? was there a form of quid pro quo where i'll play ball with you and you help me in my aspirations to become a member of congress? there's all of those pieces that now are real touch tones in this conversation, and we'll see whether or not any of it is true, and it has any merit, but it does create a stain that the congressman is going to have to deal with. >> there was also the aborted nomination to be the va secretary, to be in the cabinet as well. >> yes. >> i also want to touch with you

guys on this bloomberg story from jennifer jacobs that president trump has been talking to advisers. it's been deny bid jason miller that if he does run in 2024, he. somewhat not terribly surprising. only about a minute but they're already doing a fundraiser at mar-a-lago this weekend for the south dakota governor. >> yeah. i don't see a lot of future for the trump/pence relationship. the former vice president hasn't said anything against the former president in the time since they left office. i think their relationship was pretty broken before they headed off into the private sector that january 6th event, when the president left the vice president to the mercies of the mob without seeming to be concerned about it. didn't call him. eve ton check to see if he was okay for five days. used nasty language about him because he wouldn't try to

overturn the democratic election. i think that relationship is hard to see being reconstituted. >> yeah. i'm not sure mike pence would want to be on any ticket with donald trump either. michael steele, peter baker, thank you for being with us today. and as new jobless claim numbers climb, msnbc stephanie ruhle is here. she's spoken to the newly sworn in commerce secretary in her first interview. who has been hardest hit by the nearly year-long lockdown. that's what's up next on msnbc. c from america's most reliable network. verizon 5g is next level. then give families plans to mix and match. so you only pay for what you need, with 5g included at no extra cost. you get so much more than just a great network. and offer the best in entertainment on select unlimited plans like disney+, hulu and espn+. with a galaxy s21+ 5g when you buy one. there's no reason to settle for less than the best.

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. oopt another sign of slowing recovery. new unemployment claims last week, up from the week before, more than anytime before the pandemic. democrats taking up the covid relief bill and hoping to get it done and back to the house next week before expanded unemployment benefits expire for millions of americans on march 14th. joining me now is msnbc anchor and senior business correspondent stephanie ruhle. stephanie, great to see you. first of all, this is the first big plank in the biden economic agenda. you talked to the new commerce secretary gina raimondo about

what's still to come in the administration. give us a peek. >> andrea, she's got her work cut out for her. as you know we are in a health crisis but also an economic crisis and we talk all the time about all the small businesses that have shut down, the amount of women and minorities who have disproportionately been hurt economically but gina raimondo is going to have to do is figure out how to get people back to work in higher paying, higher skilled jobs so we won't be in this situation much longer. >> we talk about bringing women back to work. we look at how covid has disproportionately hurt women, specifically women of color. is there an actual policy, though, that can help solve that? >> two-thirds of minimum wage earners are women, many are women of color. we talked about job training. you know, women, many of the women who've been put out of work need skills and training in order to get a decent job. women want to work, women are talented and we have to be there to help them get the skills they

need to get jobs that pay. >> andrea, she does know quite a bit as the former governor of rhode island about jobs programs and skills retraining. she had a very successful program in that state. remember, even before the pandemic, we were at full employment but we still had millions of americans that couldn't make a living wage. this could be an opportunity to create a real skills program to prepare people for better higher paying jobs. >> now, as democrats get set to enact this bill, i wanted to highlight the long time and now retiring economic columnist after 33 years, extraordinary run, he has this morning, today said in democrats progressive paradise borrowing is free, spending pays for itself and interest rates never rise. he's been on a democratic liberal side of the agenda. thoughts about this morning from

him. >> i don't know, andrea. couldn't you use that same sentence but take progressive out and put trump in? even before the pandemic former president trump had put an enormous amount of pressure on jay powell to keep interest rates low. why? because that sends people to the stock market and former president trump used to call himself mr. market and he liked rising stock prices. president trump said he wanted $2,000 to go to people who are in need. so yes, we are facing a very expensive stimulus package but to say this is all about the democrats, it's not. and remember, we're in an emergency. that's when you need to spend. they still don't have any republican votes, but you're absolutely right. stephanie ruhle, thank you very much. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports," chuck todd is up next with "mtp daily" right here on msnbc. on. what's your buick's wi-fi password? buickenvision2021.

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