happy. one election expert says we are experiencing the greatest roll back of voting rights since jim crow era of legalized segregation. go ahead and guess who is behind it. check your answers at the bottom of the show. one of the drugs to get us out of the nightmare getting a bad wrap. velshi starts now. good morning. it is saturday, march 6th. i am ali velshi. this is the united states senate which remains in session after debating, making changes to biden's $1.9 trillion relief package through the night. lawmakers are still going at this moment. final vote is expected and could happen as soon as this morning. overnight deal was struck among senate democrats. really, senate democrats and joe manchin of west virginia pushing

for less aid. the deal on unemployment insu a week, compared to house bills. $400 a week, extends what people are getting now, $300 a week. the historic moment when it happens. the senate stripped out phased increase in minimum wage to $15 an hour, earning fair wage is something that's important to me. i wrote about the need for us all to earn a fair wage in the new piece on msnbc.com. there's another urgent need for biden's package. around 2,000 people continue to die from covid-19. more than 525,000 americans have now died from covid-19, and the country surpassed 29 million total cases with tens of thousands of new cases showing up every day. despite those truths and that we

live in a deadly pandemic caused by a disease that spreads by airborne transmission, texas, mississippi, south carolina and soon alabama are ending mask mandates, joining states iowa, montana, north dakota. at the end of the spring, a slew of republican led states prematurely lifted pandemic restrictions which directly led to early summer surge across much of the country. these decisions are stupid. >> it is neanderthal thinking to say take it off. it still matters. >> i will be honest. i was wondering if there would be a response to biden using neanderthals since there are none left. but they have their defenders. >> we were called neanderthals

when i led the fight against imposition of state income tax in tennessee. you know what i did, i started the neanderthal caucus, they're hunter gatherers, protecters of their family. they are resilient. they're resourceful. they tend to their own. i think joe biden needs to rethink what he is saying about the states that are choosing to move away from mask mandates. >> senator marsha blackburn of tennessee sticking it to joe biden, using the present tense describing neanderthals. i did not see that coming. but here we are. it was a very busy week for house of representatives passing several major pieces of legislation. that all came to a halt when they had to cancel sessions after capitol police announced it was aware of a threat by militia group to once again try

to attack and breach walls of congress. as we continue to learn more about those involved in the january 6th insurrection, the investigation appears to be circling closer and closer to republicans. former white house and donald trump himself. charges against federico klein, top political appointee at the state department who is charged after seen on video assaulting police officers with a riot shield and asked a judge to be kept in a cell without cockroaches. the insurrectionist photographed with his feet on speaker pelosi's desk, and he through a tantrum whining it is not fair he remains in jail while other rioters are let out on bond. and this week, the commanding general of the national guard, major general william walker testified before the senate making multiple revelations that senior defense department officials took more than three

hours to approve deployment of national guard to defend the capitol, despite a frantic request, end quote, from capitol police. and that he would have immediately activated forces but was prevented by doing so by a series of unusual restrictions that were placed upon him the day before the attack. the day before the attack by trump's acting army secretary, effectively revoking his authority to activate his own forces. joining me, pulitzer prize winning journalist that covers the justice department for "new york times," she has brand new reporting that a member of the violent and racist domestic extremist group the proud boys was in direct communication with unidentified member of the trump white house in days leading to the january 6th attack on the capitol. also with me, alexis collins, former assistant to the attorney general for national security and senior fellow for new american security. good morning to you.

thank you for being with us. katie, start with you. seems every time i get on tv, you have new reporting about people involved in the insurrection and the lines are being drawn between the proud boys, one of the main groups that was there, and possibly members of the trump administration. tell us what you learned. >> what i know is the fbi managed to get communications, warrants to cell phone companies to figure out who was inside the capitol building, making phone calls. one things they found was the day of the riot there was a member of proud boys in communication with somebody at the white house. shouldn't be a huge surprise. proud boys grew closer to the president throughout the summer, and one of the things is whether or not this is just

conversation, not necessarily a crime, but shows us there are ties between trump and associates and extremists. >> alexis, talk about things we learned after january 6th, then things that we saw for the first time during the impeachment trial, remarkable video evidence we saw. then we heard from the director of the fbi, chris wray and others, including head of the d.c. national guard that said strangely january 5th, the day before the insurrection he had certain authority taken away from him to activate national guard in support of the capitol if he needed to do so. what is this adding up to tell you? >> i think that there are still a lot of unanswered questions that hopefully congress will be asking as it continues to look at what happened january 6th. i do think it is encouraging

from director wray's testimony that over the past several years, the fbi was devoting more resources to domestic terrorist investigations, but there are an update -- unanswered questions about investigations he said were open. there wasn't more intelligence what was being planned for january 6th. and we are starting to see through charges coming out that there was planning for violence, coordination, and preorganization. so the question is why wasn't that detected before the event rather than just having one intelligence discussed in testimony out of the norfolk office the night before the event. >> let's talk about federico klein. he was an appointee from the trump administration to the

state department. he was at the event but didn't just attend the event, he is photographed using some sort of shield to attack police. he has now been arrested. >> he was charged with several crimes, including assaulting a police officer. we saw justice department documents, rushed in the tunnel to break up a line of police officers guarding the building so people a riot shield he had taken from a police officer, using it to hold doors open. he was yelling we need more people, fresh people. one of the things sticks out was he was working for the government, still had government clearance, was a proud member of the administration. also one of the things the fbi said in the affidavit, he is identified by several people, many of whom when we did our

reporting on him said he was not notable, he came in under the radar. goes to show the president talked about having a deep state of people inside the government to work against him. also people that truly supported him, all ranks, all levels, willing to go to extraordinary lengths, extremes to break the law and keep him in office. >> alexus, i want to ask you. what we learned since january 6th is there were several agencies, police agencies, investigative agencies that had some information some warnings. they didn't come together to figure it out, whether it was coordination or sharing, reminds me of 9/11. there was a lot of information not shared. homeland security was set up to have federal agencies share information with each other, coordinate with state and local agencies. i thought we fixed the problem about different groups of people having intelligence and not sharing it.

i guess we haven't. >> it does look like there's more work needs to be done. one thing the fbi has done is they set up fusion cell targeted at domestic terrorism and hate crime information to facilitate better information sharing between state and local and federal law enforcement to make sure that information, threat information is filtered up and put into the overall threat picture as well as people investigating specific attacks. normally with respect to events, you know there's a major protest, there are command briefings and things the fbi and different law enforcement within d.c. do in order to prepare. so i do think there are remaining questions about the coordination and about why information, more information wasn't gathered ahead of time and why it wasn't disseminated

and acted upon. heard some of that today, but there are still more questions. >> yeah, the problem is like the threats in 9/11, this one seems to be the growing one, the one not going away immediately. hopefully we can sort it out. thanks to you both. katie bennett and alexus collins. back to breaking news we are following, the senate is in the midst of a marathon session debating president biden's $1.9 trillion relief package. debbie stabenow managed to step away a few minutes to talk to us. good to see you. you people pulled an all nighter after a remarkably long day yesterday. what's happening now? seems like there are amendments being proposed and voted, generally speaking voted down, that's the math in the senate now. where do we stand?

>> ali, i am just off the senate floor in my office. the first feat is i am still awake after a lot of coffee. we are determined to get the american rescue plan across the finish line. don't care how many minutes, hour hours, how many days, we're going to get this done. this is about getting vaccinations in people's arms and financial help to people and kids back in school safely. so what is happening now is we are in the part of the process under the budget rules called vote-a-rama. this is a process where anyone can offer an amendment, if they want a vote, you have to vote on it. we have republicans with hundreds of votes trying to cut all different parts of the bill, make changes in the bill. all kinds of amendments put in about cutting food assistance,

education and help for essential community workers, you name it. health care. cutting health care. we are slogging through, amendment after amendment. i am proud of the democrats holding together on all this to keep this going, and what keeps us going in addition to a lot of coffee is the fact that we know and the bill is going to help millions and millions of americans and so we're going to do our job and get it done today. >> senator, this is a wildly popular bill. even favored by majority of republicans. the part most people think about, the $1400 payment combined with the last $600 payment making it the $2,000 everyone talked about in the election, but it is more. extension of employment benefits, $300 that people get extended through september 6th.

hopefully at that point we start to get back to something that feels like normal. but you have a bit of a deadline. employment benefits end march 14th. this has to pass the senate, go back to the house because there are changes to it to be passed and implemented so nobody gets $300 a week interrupted. is there any danger as you and i talk march 6th of that not happening, can vote-a-rama go on for days, republicans keep standing up, putting in amendments? >> ali, technically they could. that would involve all of us going on and being there for days and days and days without a break. so i don't see that happening really just as a matter of physical stamina, but they can keep us here for hours and hours. we are in close communication with colleagues in the house with the speaker in the house and everything moving forward, i have confidence that when we are done, this is something that we

will have support for in the house because we are working together. you're right, we have a deadline helping those that lost their jobs. over 750,000 new applications yesterday for unemployment compensation. food assistance which i have been leading on is very important to continue and expand on as well as rental assistance as well as child care as well as pensions, i have to tell you, one of the things we have been able to successfully get into our bill in the senate is allowing folks who work their lives and give up pay raises to have a pension and retirement to make sure it will be there. we have well over a million, 2 million people that will be able

to sleep better knowing the pension they worked for all their life will be protected now. we have a range of things. most importantly this is about getting shots in people's arms, making sure our hospitals and doctors and communities and behavioral health, very pleased as leader of the effort of bipartisan effort in the senate on behavioral health. we have a huge problem around mental health and addiction services and suicide rates going up, so there's substantial help in this bill for behavioral health as well. so it's about people, saving lives. helping them get through this to get their lives back. and they don't get their lives back if children can't get to school safely. that's the plan. we will stay here. just put on another pot of coffee. we will stay here until we get

it done. >> you're welcome back with us if you need a break from the floor, want to tell us waes going on, senator. thanks for telling us what's going on. senator debbie stabenow from michigan. joining me, congresswoman madeleine dean of pennsylvania, member of the financial services committee. served as impeachment manager at the second impeachment trial, author of a book "under our roof." a son's battle for recovery, a mother's battle for her son, the emotional story of her son's opioid addiction, how he and the family overcame it together. representative, good to see you. thank you for being with us. i have to bounce back. we have two stories going on. one we talked to senator stab now about and the policing act that passed. carry on for a moment what's happening in the senate now. at some juncture, might be a

couple hours from now, might be days, who knows, they will pass some bill. they will likely pass it because the democrats have the ability to pass it, despite the obstruction we're seeing. then it goes back to the house. it will not be the same bill you all passed in the house. what happens then, is there any danger it is stuck in the house? >> well, i admire the senator and her stamina and her determination to get it across the finish line in a way acceptable to the house. we worked very hard, all of the committees put together the budget reconciliation and rescue plan worked hard to make sure we focused on the american people and what rescue looks like. i find it jarring, the vote-a-rama and amendments that republican senators are putting forward to take rescue away. i don't understand how that is possible. i was thinking it was literally one year ago today, march 6th, we passed the first corona

relief package. we thought it was a lot of money. $.3 billion in a bipartisan way. after that, passed the cares act, much bigger, more robust bill. the american people are waiting. they want shots in arms, checks in their pockets, want their children back in school. i hope the senate works and gets it done, gets it back to us in form and fashion that's relief to the american people. >> in fact, the danger of which republicans warn, the increase to the debt, that's difficult to swallow given their absolute support of tax cuts which were bigger and did not pay for themselves. whereas you give people making ends meet, not making ends meet, the entire dollar gets spent. more importantly, this is just, there's no danger of overdoing it, you're not in danger in a struggling economy of

overstimulating it. >> this is exactly what government is here for. this is a battle between the truth and tackling the virus. so you have to look at those that are speaking about the truth. raising the level of our debt is not the worry here. the worry as most economists tell us is in doing too little too late. i am already worried we waited too long. we are waiting for the next $1400 check for individuals who have been unemployed, women disproportionately out of work as often home as care givers, we have to tackle the virus. the issue is not raising the debt. we need to put money in the hands of people so the money as you point out goes into the economy. the interest rates could not be lower. the fed has cooperated with us. that is a false argument. it is about telling the american people the truth and it is about tackling the virus. >> congresswoman, good to see

you. thank you for joining us. madeleine dean of pennsylvania. she was a house impeachment manager in this year's senate trial against the former president. thanks for joining us as always. the united states is finally in a decent place when it comes to coronavirus vaccines. three different vaccines, all highly effective, but all three need to work in concert with one another to best the pandemic. hesitancy against one of them could potentially set us back. up next, why you should get and take whichever vaccine is offered to you. and as you know, monitoring the senate floor, lawmakers are debating the covid relief bill. the vote-a-rama going strong now more than 19 hours. senators are reportedly taking nap shifts. we'll bring you the latest as it happens. test as it happens. isn't that the dog's towel? hey, me towel su towel. more gain scent plus oxi boost and febreze in every gain fling. you may have many reasons for waiting to go to your doctor right now.

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well, it is march again, or still. i don't know really. who can tell. to ensure next march doesn't

feel like this march or last march, we need to reach herd immunity. that's the goal. medical experts say we can achieve by vaccinating 80 to 90% of the population. the united states is nowhere near that level of vaccination. if only we had a vaccination administered with gist a single dose to maximize supply, inoculate millions more people. we do. that vaccine exists right now. but the johnson & johnson single shot vaccine is getting a bad wrap because its efficacy rate is lower than the others. that, however, doesn't tell the whole story. here is why. according to the cdc, efficacy rates are measured in trials by, quote, proportion at reduction in cases among vaccinated persons. comparing vaccine efficacy rates is tricky, doesn't do much good. each covid vaccine trial is different, uses a different group, they test for different outcomes. here's how it breaks down. pfizer and moderna requires two doses, three and four weeks

apart respectively. they're both 95% effective protecting from coronavirus. johnson & johnson single dose vaccine showed 72% efficacy. but don't let that number discourage you. you have to go deeper. the number you want to focus on is 86. it is 86% effective preventing severe illness from covid. you think about what's important in a vaccine, what comes to mind, staying out of the hospital and avoiding death. johnson & johnson covers those bases, not to mention single dose aspect means the drug could vaccinate 20 million people by the end of the month. all three vaccines share two critical statistics. this is important. zero hospitalizations. and zero deaths in fully vaccinated trial volunteers. with j&j, fully vaccinated means one shot. when it is your turn to get that shot, you're likely not going to have a choice which vaccine you receive, but that's okay.

listen to the experts, take what's being offered to you. >> thousands of them have gotten the vaccine. it is safe. nobody has died from it. what you could die from is covid. that we know. please, if it is offered for you, don't ask what kind. just get the vaccine. >> that was the icu director in new jersey. spoke to her and a group of colleagues, nurses, nurse aides, doctors, security guard, minister that played a vital part fighting the pandemic and continue to do so. hear the full conversation tomorrow in a special episode one year later, starts at 8:00 a.m. eastern, here on msnbc. coming up later on the cross connection today, the man himself, dr. anthony fauci, joins tiffany cross to discuss the newly approved johnson & johnson vaccine, how the biden administration plans to close racial disparity in vaccinations. 10:00 a.m. eastern on msnbc. velshi continues after a quick break. es after a quick break.

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welcome back to velshi. right now, a quick live look at the senate floor where senators are continuing to debate president biden's $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. senator debbie stabenow that was on the show. we'll follow this. stifling the vote of americans in the name of election security because there was so much fraud in the 2020 election. we can see through that. laws being proposed, some which passed, seek to limit and restrict voting drastically. a report found state lawmakers carried over prefiled or introduced 253 bills with provisions that restrict voting access in 43 states. michael mcdonald, creator of nonpartisan u.s. elections projects wrote i don't say this

likely, we are witnessing the greatest roll back of voting rights in the country since jim crow era. democrats passed hr 1, known as for the people act. brendan center billed it as the next great civil rights bill. it would expand voting rights since the act passed in 1965. it would expand early voting, create automatic voter registration, restore voting rights of former felons, require presidents to release tax returns, require states to establish bipartisan and independent commissions to redraw congressional districts every ten years. the bill is headed to the senate where it will face trouble passing but a step in the right direction. bring in the director of the voting rights election program at the brennan center for justice. thank you for being with us. >> this is a transformative

bill. it is taking a look at things that failed our election system the last decade or so, proposed a common sense solution based on what is working in states. it is going to make our voting more secure, going to make voting more accessible, make voting more fair. >> let me ask you about voter turnout. i have a graph that shows voter turnout since 1980. it fluctuated. last election was higher in terms of turnout. that did not correlate in any way to fraud. you didn't see up tick in fraud or people voting incorrectly because of it. yet all of the bills across 43 states from state legislatures seem to be determined to effect turnout. though they say it is fraud. >> it is worse than that. not only did we see historic turnout, we saw a strong push by

communities that are usually disenfranchised. much of the restrictions in states have the hardest impact on traditionally disenfranchised communities. we are seeing push backs on policies that were acceptable and fine when they were being used almost exclusively by white people. now that people of color are engaged on the issues, using alternate forms of access, places like georgia and texas are trying to cut them back. >> showed you a graph, showed we were up 6.5 points from the last general election. look at voter turnout across a number of democratic nations as outlined by pew. you can see the united states, that one. you can see the u.s., even though it is up is up to 66%, there are a lot of countries do substantially better than we do. we should probably be going entirely the other direction

than we're going at at the state level now. >> absolutely. historic turnout is the functional equivalent of a d if we were getting grades in school. there's so much more we can and should be doing. we have not been doing right by the american public because we deserve a top flight election system. it is very, very clear that some politicians are choosing to restrict who can participate rather than competing for votes. let's not kid ourselves. this is anxiety over the browning of america, over changing demographics, over the fact that some politicians are using the electoral process as a job security plan. and that's not the way it should be. voters should be able to choose their politicians, should not be able to manipulate the election process to decide who is participating and who is not. >> thank you for work you do at the brennan center. director of voting rights and elections at the brennan center

for justice. major test case in the era of voting rights being litigated in the supreme court. the high court picked up a challenge, questioning whether a new state law in arizona runs afoul of the voting rights act, among other items, it requires election officials to discard ballots cast at the wrong precinct, makes it a crime for campaign workers, community activists to collect ballots for delivery to polling places. in oral arguments, a lawyer for republican national committee said the quiet part out loud, telling the supreme court provisions put in place to ease voting puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to democrats. politics is a zero sum gain, end quote. just one of 19 other bills proposed in arizona that would shrink voting rights. one would give state legislatures power to overturn voting rights. want to bring in secretary of

state katie hobbs, former legislator, serving as minority leader in the arizona senate for four years. secretary hobbs, got to see you. thank you for being with us. want to start with the top line. i sort of buried the headline. that is arizona is one of the states considering legislation that would allow the state to overturn the will of the people as determined by votes. i am not a secretary of state, but as a person that votes, strikes me as remarkably undemocratic. >> yes. absolutely. it is one of the very concerning bills around voting rights that we are seeing in this legislature. one of the more extreme measures. the original bill didn't get assigned to a committee, it was that extreme. the bill moving now would put it on the ballot for voters to decide. like literally asking voters to overturn their will in the

presidential election. every never seen anything like this. >> it is amazing. you tweeted on march 2nd, first sentence reads equal access to the ballot should not be a parking lot san issue. -- partisan issue. michael calvin said it puts us at competitive disadvantage relative to democrats, politics is a zero sum gain. what do you do when it is approached that way. if i let your people vote more, i suffer. >> yeah, that was absolutely, you hit it on the said, he said the quiet part out loud. that was my thought when that was uttered in the supreme court. i approached my role as secretary of state to ensure we are doing everything we can to expand franchise of voting to every eligible voter. we did a great job of that in the last election. we should be celebrating as a

country record turnout we saw not just in our state but around the country. in the face of the pandemic and in the face of widespread misinformation that voters have to navigate. and instead, we are seeing this complete and utter roll back of access to voting. >> interesting what she was saying, win on the basis of ideas as opposed to technique. if you want to stay on technique, i am not sure why republicans don't think the democrats are doing this well, ways in which they're getting people to vote, voting up to 66.7% in the last election, why not do more of that. what's the argument against saying that worked for you, can work for us. >> well, that's a good question. i don't pretend to understand the logic behind the bills. these kind of bills are not something that's new in arizona.

what we are seeing that's new this year is justification for them. they are using complete and utter lies spread about the election that serve to undermine some voters' faith in the system as reason to pass measures. but in fact, these measures have nothing to do with voter confidence or improving the system, it is making it harder to vote. i don't understand why. >> what happens though, in a lot of legislatures, republicans have a majority. can they pass laws that disenfranchise people or will those ultimately go to courts like this one and end up at the supreme court? >> well, you did mention the supreme court case. what my concern is is that the arguments that were made by our states attorney general were trying to convince the court to weaken voting rights act, which would make it harder for anyone to bring a suit in court against any of the bills that might be

discriminatory or curtail voting rights. so that case is going to have major impact not just on two laws you mentioned in arizona but people's ability to fight voter suppressive laws in the future, so that's very concerning and the context, you know, you should look at the fact we are seeing all bills introduced across the country, and people may not have courses of remedy in the future. >> secretary of state katie hobbs, appreciate the time. arizona secretary of state on changes under way in that state with respect to voting. thanks for your time. a live look at the senate floor. it has been 20 hours since debate on the covid relief bill began. there are 14 amendments left to vote on, according to leader schumer. final vote may not happen a few more hours. it is a fluid situation. we will keep an eye on it, bring updates as they come. new york governor cuomo facing dualing scandals, he was

stripped of emergency coronavirus powers and hearing from one of the women accusing the governor of sexual harassment. i will bring you the latest after this. bring you the lates after this indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home.

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thank you! water tastes like, water. so we fixed it. mio you don't have to be a new yorker to know how messy things have gotten for andrew cuomo. he was already in deepwater as the attorney general revealed weeks ago his administration undercounted thousands of nursing home deaths from covid, and things have gotten worse for

cuomo. almost two weeks ago, a former top staffer came forward with a string of sexual harassment allegations against him that dated as far back as 2016. then a second aide came forward and said as recently as june cuomo asked her questions about her personal life and suggested that he was open to being in a relationship with a woman in her 20s. the exact age group of the aide herself. cuomo apologized, acknowledging some of the things i said have been misinterpreted as unwanted flirtation, to the extent anyone felt that way, i am truly sorry about that, end quote. by this point, lawmakers up to the federal level condemned him and requested he resign from his position, and it didn't stop. monday, a third accuser came forward in a "new york times" piece saying the governor asked if he could kiss her at a wedding. he made his first public appearance and apologized but refused to resign. the new york attorney general office is hiring an independent investigator to look into the

sexual harassment claims, requested that they preserve any records or files that may be relevant to the investigation. as for the first scandal about nursing homes, details keep coming. "new york times" and "the wall street journal" reporting his top aides altered the report that aides altered the report that initially went out when officials provided the true number of deaths from covid. either way, quote, this did not change the conclusion of the report which was that a directive give own march 25, 2020, barring nursing homes from rejecting covid patients who were discharged from hospitals increased infections. despite all of this, a quinnipiac poll showed 40% of registered new york voters surveyed believed that cuomo should resign. in his public briefings on the coronavirus last year cuomo emphasized government transparency and accountability to the public. the question now is whether he is holding himself and his administration up to the same standards. as new covid cases plateau

to 65,000 per day, other governors are forfeiting their state's mask mandates essentially declaring mission accomplished on defeating the pandemic. mandates have been dropped in texas, mississippi, iowa, montana, north dakota and last night, south carolina this comes as a new cdc study found mask wearing was linked to fewer infections and death across the country. dr. fauci had choice words about these rollbacks. >> pulling back on all of the public health guidelines that we know work and if you take a look at the curve we know it works. it just is inexplicable why you would want to pull back now. i understand the need to want to get back to normality, but you're only going to set yourself back if you just completely push aside the public health guidelines. >> joining me now is dr. donna murphy. she's a physician scientist in houston, texas. dr. murphy, thank you for

joining us. you are very worried about this in texas. the idea that the government has just pulled back on a mask mandate. what do you think is going on? >> i mean, honestly, i think that it's a political maneuver by the governor. i think that he is trying to obscure the controversy around the ercot issues and failures to modernize and to connect in terms of our electric grid. the suffering, deaths and economic impact of all of that a couple of weeks ago and also trying to pander to people who somehow think that this is an expression of personal freedom, and unfortunately, i think the implications are that people are going to die. i was just flabbergasted reviewing his executive order on tuesday where he suggests that we have enough people vaccinated. i mean, we have fewer than --

like 20%, i think, and that's being generous, of texans vaccinated at this point, and he mentioned that, you know, the state -- everybody in the state has learned all of the habits that we need to avoid getting infected and at the same time he pulls back the mask mandate just gratuitously and it's contrary to really everything that we understand about this virus and transmission of this virus. yeah, and as i said, it's going to have pretty profound implications. we were at 11% -- sorry, positivity rate in november. we were also there, you know, over the summer and then we had a spike up to 20% in january. also a spike over the summer, as well in july and the same thing is going to happen here. we're coming up on spring break

and this is just very irresponsible. >> you've had 10,054 new cases in the last 24 hours. 15.1% of the state's population has received one dose of the vaccine. some of that could be the johnson & johnson vaccine where all you need is one dose, but the state ranks 49 nothing vaccine distribution. this causes problems for front line workers and medical workers because it causes more cases and for people who work in shops it falls on them to have to enforce masked mandates or if they don't want unmasked people in their restaurants which causes conflict. we used to see that last march and last april. the mask mandate solved that problem. >> absolutely. he's simultaneously opening every entity up in the state to 100% capacity past some measure as part of that executive order that indicates that counties don't even have the jurisdiction

over the capacity of different entities within their counties even if the infections escalate again to limit capacity to 50% or less, which is ridiculous. i mean, for a governor from a political party who is ostensibly about local control, that is completely withdrawing the ability with local entities to decide what they want to do if the infection rates should go up. >> you make a very interesting point there. texas is all about local control except the local people want to do things differently than what the state government wants. >> dr. murphy, thank you very much. dr. donna murphy is a physician scientist in houston, texas. join me tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. for a special one year of the covid crisis. i have an emotional discussion with a group of front line medical workers over their experience for the next year. i'll speak with andy slabot about the biden yr later starts

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covid relief could be in reach for millions of americans. the senate debating joe biden's $1.9 covid relief package. senators are making amendments as we speak to the bill. who knows what the final version of the bill will look like, but we're staying on top of that. a final vote is expected today, but ones what happens? republicans have done everything in their power to delay derm democratic efforts to pass biden's american rescue plan. all 50 gop senators are expected to vote against this bill that will bring it to struggling americans amid the pandemic which is inexplicable on the subject. 62% of those surveyed approve the package and 32% are opposed. unemployment benefits with west virginia's joe manchin, the deal ended a nearly 12-hour standoff. the deal as it stands will extend