one day after the president signed the massive covid relief bill into law. stimulus checks could start hitting bank accounts as early as this weekend. the administration is hitting the road next week to promote the benefits of the stimulus across the country. in his first primetime address to the nation last night, the president striking a sober but compassionate tone, urging all americans to gets vaccinated and listing three key dates. may 1st, when the presidents is asking states to make all u.s. adults eligible to sign up for a vaccine. may 31st when this the white house wants enough doses to be available for all americans to get their shots. and independence day, how fitting, when americans can hopefully have small gatherings. >> i will not relent until we beat this virus, but i need you, the american people, i need you. i need every american to do

their part. there's a good chance you, your families and friendses, will be able to get together in your backyard or your neighborhood and have a cookout or barbecue and celebrate independence day when we mark our independence as a nation and our independence from this virus. >> joining me now, nbc news chief white house correspondent and "weekend today" co-anchor, kelly o'donnell, yamiche alcindor, former deputy white house chief of staff to president obama, jim messina and former rnc chair, michael steele. welcome, all. kristen, let me start with you. if big primetime address last night after a major legislative win. now of course the challenge to make sure that americans understand why it is that they are receiving the help that they have. what's the plan going forward? >> reporter: that's right. now the president and vice president are going to be focused on selling this massive piece of legislation that just

passed, $1.9 trillion covid relief and of course one of the centerpieces, those $1,400 direct payments that are going to go out as soon as this weekend. also billions of dollars in aid to state and local governments and for the vaccine distribution. now, of course, this is a piece of legislation that didn't win any republican support. and so today in the rose garden, when the president officially signs this bill into law or i should say it's sort of the ceremonial signing, kasie, he'll be joined by top democrats, house speaker nancy pelosi, chuck schumer and others, but no republicans. that's where the hard will be when they hit the road, to explain to americans in red and blue states as well as state and local leaders there, who may have supported this legislation or at least parts of it, why they felt as though it needed to pass. so the first stops will be in delaware county, with president

biden stopping there, pennsylvania, and las vegas, nevada, and a joint trip to atlanta, georgia. that's interesting because that's the state that delivered democrats' control of the senate. now, the fact this legislation passed without bipartisan support could spell trouble as they move forward. republicans have thought the legislation was too big, adding to the deficit, it wasn't targeted enough. it funded things like the arts as well as climate change, and so that's where the stick point is going to be when the president tries to move forward potentially on other big pieces of legislation that could also potentially add to the deficit, kasie. >> a lot of questions about how he's going to be able to pull that all together. yamiche, the speech last night, it was such a contrast. we showed everyone that moment where he looked at the camera and talked directly to americans saying i need you. i mean, president trump, when he

was president, was throughout saying i alone can fix it. i think all of us, we're pretty struck by just how different things are, how they feel different under president biden. >> that's right. things are completely different. and let's remember that president trump, he was someone who not only didn't want to really embrace the idea of being consoler in chief, but he downplayed the virus, said it would disappear. this time last year, president trump was essentially saying people are making too much out of the virus and people were trying to politically harm him with the virus, trying to center himself in the conversation about the covid-19 pandemic. president biden last night was being an empathizer in chief, a consoler in chief, and a commander in chief, and he gave people dates to mark on th calendar saying this is when you'll be eligible, maybe have a

backyard barbecue. he wanted to tell people we need to stop targeting and scapegoating asian-americans and saying it must stop, these hate crimes we're seeing spike among asian-americans. what you saw was a message that said i understand your pain, but we can't let up. by the way, i have to tell you this cultural division that we're seeing, that has to stop. he was doing all of those things in one speech. in some ways, it landed -- we see republicans pushing back but we'll see a political rift because of what kristen said, you passed this big bill without any republican support. >> i'm glad that you raise that point about asian-americans as well. such a critical piece of what we're facing here. jim, let me go to you. we talked through -- kristen talked through the tour, the sales pitch here. some of this is lessons learned from what you all went through in the obama white house in the wake of the 2009 stimulus bill in the middle of the recession. i want to show you a little bit

of what biden said earlier this month. he was talking with house speaker nancy pelosi about what he took away from that experience. let's watch and then talk about it. >> in 2009, we expended a lot of political capital, nancy and i and others, in the recovery act. but we didn't adequately explain what we had done. barack was so modest he didn't want to take as he said a victory lap. and we paid a price for it ironically, for that humility. >> jim, do you agree with the way that the president assesses what happened back in 2009? and what do you think is different about this time around? >> i absolutely agree, kasie. i think if you look at part of the history of what joe biden learned in 2009, we had a great bill and we didn't go out and sell this bill to the country. the bill they passed yesterday already had 75% of americans

supporting it. they have a firm vision for how they want to do this. they're going to the right places. most importantly, last night you saw a commander in chief who used the bully pulpit of the presidency to unite his country, to say this is what we're in together, this is what we have to do together to bring us all together. joe biden understands how to use the presidency to both get things done and to sell the things he got done. he waited eight years to become president of the united states. he is not going to waste any moment, and that includes making sure the white house and the house and senate democrats go out and sell this plan against a backdrop of republicans who are divided on how to talk about this, who are more interested in talking about dr. seuss than they are economic recovery. and it's a perfect scenario for the president and vice president to hit the road and talk about bringing the country together after four years of division. >> perhaps pulpit without the bully in this particular case

considering the contrast from the last administration. michael steele, not a single republican voted for the bill although the polling show it's very popular across the board. here is how mitch mcconnell, the minority leader, described it yesterday. >> president biden and his democratic government inherited a tide that had already begun to turn toward decisive victory. this wasn't a bill to finish offer the pandemic. it was a trojan horse filled with bad old liberal ideas. >> a trojan horse. posturing for 2022, the midterms, the policies in the bill got the election time line in mind. at the end of the day, how does this play out politically when they're battling for the house in 2022? >> it's a small quagmire for the republicans at this point. keep in mind, you know, no

republican has told you what they would take out. mitch mcconnell didn't tell you which soldiers he would take out of that trojan horse, which program he would eliminate. of course they didn't do that. and so if you can't tell me -- you know, tell me you're against the bill. okay. what specifically out of $1.9 trillion would you eliminate? which program? you know, is it -- the arts? tell us why you want to do that. the reality of it is that's the their they've they're going to find themselves up against when joe biden and kamala harris get the vote. to jim's point, i was surprised at the underselling of the biggest, you know, impact on our economy in a generation. anl you see now that the republicans are in the same position the democrats were. the democrats were talk about anything but obamacare in 2010, right? republicans are talking about anything but this particular

stimulus bill for covid because the narrative is working against them. the other thing to keep in mind that joe biden has as a wind in his sail, in 2010, the public was upside-down on obamacare. they weren't sold because it hadn't been sold to them, so the numbers weren't working in the democrats' favor. here 70% of the american people want this. they like this. and that's a hard number to come up against because as mitch mcconnell knows, that 70% is also made up of republicans. that's not just democrats. that's independent, certainly center right independent voter who is lean republican and republican voters which makes that sell going into 2022 that much harder. >> i also keep thinking about the fact that the 2009 stimulus came in the wake of the bank bailouts that people perceived as helping people that weren't them, helping if big guys, not the little guys. it's clear when you're getting a check in the mailbox that this

is help from the government, yes, but it's actually going into people's pockets. it seems like a much different political calculus to me. jim, i'm wondering what you think about that and also what's next legislatively for the biden team considering what we've seen? it seems like republicans will uniformly oppose a lot of this stuff. what should the strategy be going forward for the biden team? >> on the checks you're right. it will be almost "mission: impossible" for the republicans to come out against $1,400 checks landing in people's mailboxes and accounts this weekend. it's just a really difficult, you know, story to tell. as michael said, we're already at 70% support of this bill and the president hasn't even begun to campaign for it yet. so i think the republicans are going to want to change the subject as quickly as they can. the biden administration is going to move on to other focuses, probably infrastructure reform, probably immigration are two things they want to do but they're not going to take the

foot off the vaccine rollout and making sure that all of this money gets out. it's a herculean task to get $2 trillion out the door as michael and i know very well. at the same time, they're going to reach out to republicans and say, okay, you've been stalk r talking about infrastructure reform for ten years, been talking about bipartisanship. how do we work together to pass a bill both parties can get behind? they'll call the bluff of the republicans and say do you actually want to get something done. >> infrastructure week for longer than we've been enduring the pandemic. kristen welker, yamiche alcindor, jim messina, michael steele, thanks for getting us off to a strong start today. next, new sexual harassment accusations against new york governor andrew cuomo prompts new calls for his resignation. can he withstand the growing pressure? most reliable network.

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welcome back. pressure is building on new york governor andrew cuomo today after a sixth woman came forward accuing him of inappropriate behavior. and now more calls from inside his own party for him to step down. now 14 democratic members of the new york congressional delegation are calling for governor cuomo's resignation including jerry nadler and alexandria ocasio-cortez. they say the governor's team tried to discredit lindsey boylan. his office called at least six former employees to see if they'd heard from her or to get information about her, which some saw as attempts to intimidate them. senior adviser to governor cuomo pushed back on that telling the "wall street journal," after ms. boylan's tweets in december, she and her lawyers and members of the press began reach out to former members of the chamber many who didn't work with her. we reached, out to former

colleagues to check in and make sure they had a heads up. we've roched out to his office for comment. joining me is anne thompson, who's been following this story all the way along. lovely to see you today. thanks for being here. this is an earthquake in terms of new york politics to have more than half of the delegation come out to call for the governor's resignation. our team has been doing a lot of reporting to figure out how this came together. what is your reporting on how we got here, what was the final straw that prompted this? >> you know, clearly, it is the accusation of the sixth woman. i can tell you that at the beginning of the week talking to people they thought andrew cuomo could survive this. yesterday when allegations were released that he groped her under her blouse in the prooifd residence of the executive

mansion calling her under the pretext to fix a cell phone issue, that really changed people's attitudes and you could hear it in the conversations i had yesterday. today you have seen 13, that's the latest count, 13 democratic congress people join kathleen rice, who was out there early, calling for andrew cuomo's resignation. the other thing that happened in the last 24 hours, you had the national organization of women coming out and saying cuomo has to go. i think the combination of those two things are why you're seeing this cascade of defections from team cuomo today. >> yeah. no, it's an important point. i believe, anne, as you and i were talking, there was a 14th member of the delegation to km out. we have a little breaking news too. we've just learned that andrew cuomo, governor cuomo, is planning to hold a teleconference with reporters at 1:00 p.m. today. now, they say it's about the

covid-19 response and to make an important announcement, but obviously the context comes amid all of these allegations and accusations. anne, the reality is, too, all of this started to come out after it became clear that cuomo was also grappling with some incredibly serious and difficult questions about how he handled nursing home deaths -- nursing home patients that may have led to additional deaths at the start of the pandemic. >> yeah. and that's what will separate the attorney general's independent investigation from the impeachment investigation that is now going on in the assembly. the attorney general's independent investigation will solely focus on the allegations of inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment, where as the assembly investigation, the one that could lead to impeachment, will focus on the sexual harassment allegations and the nursing home deaths. what's at issue here is that on march 25th, governor cuomo issued a directive saying that

nursing home patients who had been hospitalized with covid could be sent back to nursing homes, and they had to be accepted by those nursing homes. the families of nursing home patients who died from covid say that directive led to lots of deaths, and they're angry. then on top of it, the allegation is that the cuomo administration tried to hide the actual number of covid nursing home deaths early on. and so those are the two things that the assembly will be looking at nape both pose grave danger to his political future. >> taken together, it's potent. lindsey boylan, the first of the six women to accuse governor cuomo, is speaking out today. what are we learning from her? >> she is. she said in a tweet early this morning after "the wall street journal" reporting that there

were members of the governor's staff who tried to intimidate in some people's opinions members of that staff. and boylan tweeted, "my abuser used the full force of state government, all of his power, to destroy me when i spoke out. he did not destroy me. he will not destroy me. i will help dismantle his abuse of power." boylan is one of six women accusing him. kasie, we can tell you charlotte bennett, the woman who spoke on television last week, she is going to be meeting with investigators next week to tell her side of the story, investigators from that independent probe ordered by the attorney general. >> we're going to be again learning more from governor cuomo today when he talks to reporters at 1:00 p.m. anne thompson, thank you very much as always for your reporting. up next here, texas tussle. as president biden warns not to let up on social distancing and mask wearing, texas is taking a

dramatically different approach. more on the legal battle there next. but first, governor mcconaughey? amid rumors he might enter the race for governor in texas, actor and activist matthew mcconaughey told nbc's al roker today he is getting it serious thought. >> it's a very honorable consideration. so am i considering that, sure, it's a great and honorable thing to be able to consider. what i've got to choose for myself is i want to get into a leadership role in the next chaptser of my life. now, what role am i going to be most useful in? i don't know that that's in a political position or if that's me as a free agent. so that's something i'm personally working on, is what is my position of most use in a leadership role?

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welcome back. oklahoma is the latest to join a growing number of states moving to end mask mandates and social distancing requirements despite pleas from public health officials to stay the course. a legal showdown is heating up in texas after the governor lifted his state's mask mandates. the texas attorney general has filed a lawsuit against travis county and austin officials

after they refused to rescind their local mask requirements. austin mayor steve adler told democratic party yesterday he doesn't plan to back down anytime soon. >> we think that masking is so important. the doctors and the data all indicate that. wear going to stay that course as long as we can. now is not the time to take a risk. we are not far enough along yet. we are still battling this virus. >> nbc's morgan chesky is on the ground in arlington, texas, for us. morgan, good to see you. what are you hearing from residents about how they feel about the changes and the conflict between state and some local governments? >> reporter: it depends on who you ask. there are a number of people who are excited about the chance to have businesses open back up to 100% capacity. those businesses have the right to require employees and customers to enter a mask when they enter the establishment, but there are a large amount of people who are highly concerned. you see that play out in austin

right now, the back and forth between the state and the local officials there. it's left a lot of people there trying to figure out essentially their own next course of action, and it's led to reactions like these folks had to say. take a listen. >> i think he lifted it too early. i mean, you can open up 75% or even 100%, but you have to wear your mask. i think it's too early. that's why i'm wearing mine. >> it's great. he should have done it a long time ago. it's a serious illness and some people are going to get sick and die, but loif goes on the economy goes on. you can't shut everything off. >> reporter: and you can be sure that other mayors of major metropolitan areas in texas will be watching this situation play out between the state and travis county where austin the located. mayors have been outspoken

critics saying it's too much too soon. in arlington, we're in front of the stadium for the texas rangers. opening day a few weeks from now. they'll be the first pro team in the country to go to 100% mass capacity. masks will be required. they can be pulled down to eater drink but a tough rule to enforce when you have that many people in that big a place. kasie? >> it sure is. i want nothing more than to take my son to his first baseball game, but he can't wear a mask and i can't imagine taking him safely into a crowd that big. morgan chesky, thank you very much for being with us today. last night, president biden was hopeful that americans are rounding the coroner the fight against covid, but he also warned that now is not the time to let our guard down. >> we've made so much progress. this is not the time to let up. just as we were emerging from the dark winter and a hopeful

spring and summer is not the time to not stick with the rules. >> joining me now, dr. peter hotez, founding dean of the national school of tropical medicine at the baylor college of medicine. always great to see you. thank you for being back here again with us. what do you think state leaders in texas took away from that message from president biden last night? anything? >> well, you know, kasie, there's a lot of good news ahead. we are going to vaccinate our way out of this epidemic and the reason we know that is we know these vaccines are not only preventing symptomatic illness, but the evidence coming out of israel is showing from their studies they've achieved a high level of vaccination coverage and it's halting transmission, including asymptomatic transmission. enough people get vaccinated i feel confident we'll be able to dramatically reduce or halt

virus transmission, but it won't happen for summer. it's a matter of hanging on for a couple more months, particularly because now in texas and georgia and florida, about half the virus variants are this uk virnt, the b 117, which is much more transmissible than anything we've seen and a higher mortality rate. i'm worry had a lot of people will lose their lives because they're going to be in defiance of masks when in a few months from now all this becomes moot because we'll vaccinate our way out of it. >> to that point, do you think that the president's time lines were realistic? we put the dates up for everyone at the top of the show including may 1st, everyone will be eligible, by independence day, perhaps we're all getting together with fellow vaccinated family and friends. do you think those are realistic goals? >> well, it is, because he

responded to the scientists. the original plan, if you remember, was 100 million immunizations in 100 days. the plans was we're going the vaccinate the american people by the fall. and everything made sense until the uk variant started gaining ascendancy and it was necessary to call an audible. a number of us, including myself, spoke to members of the biden administration saying, you know, i understand it was a good plan, but now that's the reality. things have shifted. you've got to figure out a way to accelerate it. the biden administration listened to the scientists. they responded. and i think we can potentially vaccinate our way ahead of the variant. but we need help and we need to have everybody wearing masks. that will -- on top of the variant, on top of not having the american people vaccinated yet and then you add not wearing masks, it will be a disaster, at least in the states where the

b-117 variant is. >> can i ask you about people who say they won't get the vaccine? a poll from npr and pbs and marist college found that a third of americans said they wouldn't get vaccinated. that's a downward trend, but if you look at the numbers among republicans, 41% of republicans, 49% of republican men, is it going to be safe for all of us if this many people don't get vaccinated? >> yeah. we need very high percentage of the adult population to get vaccinated in order to halt virus transmission. and we know the more transmissible the virus is, the higher percentage of the american people will need to be vaccinated. this is a problem. it's not unexpected. we did a study also showing that conservative groups, republicans, very high rates of hesitancy, the kaiser family foundation did three studies pointing to the same thing. we know why this is happening. it happened because of this fake health freedom movement that

began in 2015 amplified by the trump white house and the variant declaration. those things have caused a lot of damage. >> all right. dr. peter hotez, let's hang on until summer. thanks for being here. up next, banished. leading kremlin critic alexei navalny has been moved from his jail in moscow. but where? is now a good time for a flare-up? enough, crohn's! for adults with moderate to severe crohn's or ulcerative colitis... stelara® can provide relief and is the only approved medication to reduce inflammation on and below the surface of the intestine in uc. you, getting on that flight? back off, uc! stelara® may increase your risk of infections, some serious, and cancer. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection... flu-like symptoms, sores, new skin growths, have had cancer, or if you need a vaccine. pres, a rare, potentially fatal brain condition, may be possible. some serious allergic reactions

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manslaughter and second and third-degree murder. shaquille brewster is outside the courthouse in minneapolis. shaq, good to see you. we've learned that the minneapolis city council meeting right now has added an item to its agenda. what else do we know and how does that connect to this? >> reporter: right. well, case yeah, we just learned in the past couple minutes from a source with the city familiar with the plan, that that agenda ateem added to the city council meeting is related to a settlement that will be announced later today with the george floyd family. we learned from the family tourn that family members will be having a press conference in downtown minneapolis. this is coming as that jury selection process is under way in the trial against the officer responsible for killing or accused of killing george floyd. so we don't have an idea of the dollar amount, but if you take a step back, this is happening. when this is announced, it is happening on the day that marks

one year since the night that breonna taylor was killed in louisville. that incident resulted in a $12 million settlement. we know when you look at the history of settlements involving police killings, the high mark is around $38 million. so we don't know the dollar amount, but we do know according to a source with the city, familiar with these plans, that a settlement will be announced later today with the george floyd family. >> we'll of course be watching for that. shaq, update us on what's going on inside the courthouse, jury selection, the reinstatement of the third-degree murder charge fm. >> reporter: that's right, kasie. the judge yesterday reinstated the third-degree murder charge, a big win for the prosecution, the first charge against former police officer derek chauvin was dismissed in october. jury selection is continuing to go on. we know that we're about halfway there. about six members have been

impaneled on this jury. most of them are men. one of them is a woman. half of them are white. the other half are people of color. and the age ranges from 20s to 30s. half are this their 20s, half in their 30s. we're learning a lot from these potential jurors as we're listening to the questioning. all have said they're familiar with the case and have seen a the video or a clip of the video of george floyd under the knee of derek chauvin. the key thing emphasized by the judge and defense, all jurors say they've able to separate any preconceived notions or ideas from their opinions and be impartial members on that jury. kasie? >> all right. shaq brewster, who of course will be following this day in and day out for quite some time. thank you very much for being here. let's go overseas now. today we're learning that alexei navalny, the jailed critic of russian president vladimir putin, has been moved from the detention facility where he was initially held after being

sentenced for violating parole when he received treatment in germany after being poisoned. that initial detention facility already known for harsh disciplinary practices, even by russian standards. so where was he moved? we don't know. and navalny's lawyers say officials are refusing to tell them. joining me now is nbc's matt bradley in london and peter baker from "the new york times" as well as their former mos cue bureau chief. matt, let me start with you. what are we hearing at this point from those close to navalny? >> reporter: we're hearing that essentially no one seems to know exactly where he is, but there are a couple of very well-educated guesses. one is he's headed to penal colony number two. this was the destination that he was always going to be headed towards. that's where he was set to spend the majority of his 2 1/2-year punishment. when he returned from germany, he was sentenced and convicted

for basically breaking parole noup he'll serve his time in this -- what is considered to be a really horrible jail. kasie, we use these expressions like the inmates running the asylum or the prisoners running the prison. that's exactly how a lot of russian prisons, particularly penal colony two, is run. the prison warden kind of enlists the help of fellow prisoners to try to subjugate and terrorize their fellow prisoners. it will be a tough 2 1/2 years for alexei navalny if that's where he's headed. as far as lot of people who are concerned, people who watch russia, they say it's not that unusual for prisoners to be held incommunicado. lawyers were saying that weren't able to access alexei navalny. kasie? >> peter, you know moscow well, having lived there and covered it extensively. matt points out that it's not

necessarily unusual that something like this might happen. but what is unique about the navalny case? the fact he went back after convalescing from that poisoning was a decision that likely would result in something like this, but will that galvanize support for him that they've done this to him? or how do you see this playing out? >> yeah. it's great question. you know, look, in russia there's a tradition of people like navalny who end up putting themselves in jeopardy of being imprisoned even though they know better and that's the outcome. there is a russian sense of nobility being in prison that goes back historically. alexei navalny knew exactly what would happen when he went back to moscow. he chose to do it because he wants to stand up to the putin regime as he sees it. he believes the injustice to him would be a way of demonstrating

to the world what really happens inside of russia. today we saw 45 nations go to the united nations human rights council to protest navalny's continued detention and those of others who were improperly imprisoned in russia. that's something you haven't seen on the international stage quite like this. but here in washington, you've got a biden administration that's still struggling to figure out how to handle russia. on the one hand, president biden has extended the new s.t.a.r.t. arms control treaty. on the other hand, he's imposed modest sanctions so far in response to the navalny imprisonment and we're still waiting really for what kind of response we'll see to russia's, you know, cyberattack on american institutions and facilities. so navalny's case basically puts the rest of the world, you know, in a place where it has to respond. >> so, peter, it sounds like we actually just heard on this very topic from the national security adviser, jake sullivan, in the

white house briefing room a few moments ago. let me show you what he had to say. watch. >> if you look at russia and china, he has both taken a firm line with respect to russia including working with if europeans to impose costs already for the poisoning of alexei navalny and preparing additional responses to other malign actions that russia has conducted. >> so, peter, what do you make of that, preparing additional actions? what could he be talking about? >> well, a lot of people are wondering about, will the biden administration do something we might not see, something in the cybersphere that would demonstrate to moscow that there's a real cost to what they have done lately. now, we don't know if we would see that if they would proceed with something like that. but in fact so far -- what they've done so far in moscow has not impressed dissidents there. they worry that the biden administration, while certainly

not friendly, the way president trump was with president putin, hasn't taken a firm enough stand, and they're hoping that washington stands up even further. >> all right. peter baker, matt bradley, thank you both very much for your reporting and expertise. really appreciate it. and next, fighting words. the pentagon condemns a fox news host over his sexist comments about women in the military. this is "andrea mitchell reports." your mission: stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on...

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welcome back. the pentagon and veterans news are denouncing tucker carlson's comments openly mocking changes made by the military to be more accommodating to women. >> we've got new hair styles and maternity flight suits. pregnant women will fight our wars. it's a mockery of the u.s. military. >> carlson saying the department of defense has never been quote more aggressively openly political. his words were met with outrage across the military. pentagon spokesperson slammed the fox news host. >> what we won't do is take personnel advice from talk show host or the chinese military. >> joining me is gina ortiz jones. she ran for congress in texas. thank you so much for being here. first, let me just ask you what your response was to seeing

these comments as someone who served in uniform. >> absolutely. thank you for having me on. i think it's so unfortunate that anyone would attack a commander in chief for doing exactly what a commander in chief should do which is take steps to ensure that everybody courageous enough to serve their country has the opportunity to do so to their full potential. i think what's absent from tucker carlson's remarks, not surprising, is the fact there were numerous studies and analysis led by seniors into why this was an issue. why this would not impede readiness but contribute to it. i think it's unfortunate that his comments don't reflect facts nor logic. i think it's also important that segment, that's getting a lot of attention is about women but just a little bit after that he talks also about racism and the steps to address extremism

within force. i think it's important. we have a lot of women serving in the military but also a lot of women of color. these comments doubly affect, maybe triply affect those courageous enough to serve. >> many women who are in the military have responded by tweeting the photos of themselves pregnant, wearing their uniforms. can you talk a bit about your personal experience. i'm sure you knew people as you were going through this or speak to the experience for a women to be serving and going through this at the same time. >> i was proud to serve in the air force. i served under don't ask, don't tell. i was not pregnant when i was serving in the military. i know what every officer learns early on that a leader's job is to develop more leaders. that requires taking steps to remove obstacles that prevent people from doing that. i think it's important that we

have this important conversation to ensure our service members and front line civilians, we are able to tap into the diversity and the talent within our work force. we need that to address whatever challenges and opportunities we face as a country. i will say -- i'm sorry. having served in military but as a civil servant, i remember as i'm sure some of my fellow veterans remember going into the pentagon for meetings and getting there, getting a sandwich and fox news is blaring and some of the comments and commentary is mysoginistic in its tone and intent. it's so important that we really look at the ways in which some of these things that are piped into our facilities that we really take a look at those and make sure we are ensuring that

we have this inclusive work environment as possible. >> this all comes just days after president biden promoted two female generals to four star commands. thanks very much for taking some time. >> thank you. that's going to do it for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. follow the show online on facebook and twitter. don't go anywhere. chuck todd is up next with mtp daily right here on msnbc. daily. . and forgot where she was. you can always spot a first time gain flings user. ♪ among my patients i often see them have teeth sensitivity as well as gum issues. does it worry me? absolutely. sensodyne sensitivity and gum gives us a dual action effect that really takes care of both our teeth sensitivity as well as our gum issues. there's no question it's something

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just fill and chill. if it's friday, president biden will deliver rose garden remarks this afternoon as he looks to keep his covid agenda moving forward while the white house and democrats debate their next move. is the dam breaking for andrew coumo. he's about to hold a tele briefing as 14 democrats on new york congressional delegation are all calling for his resignation. the family of george floyd is holding a news conference this afternoon as nbc news has just learned city officials are meeting to discuss possible settlement in major civil lawsuit brought against the city by the floyd family.