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evidence supports sedition charges for at least some of the suspects involved. >> seems like a very low bar and i wonder why you're not charging that now. >> i don't think it's a low bar but i personally believe the evidence is trending toward that and probably meets those elements. >> do you anticipate sedition charges against some of these suspects? >> i believe the facts do support those charges. and i think that as we go forward more facts will support that. >> erin blake today adds this context to the significance of potential sedition in "the washington post." it's been more than a decade since the federal government brought sedition charges, the last time in 2010 against members of a christian militia in michigan accused of plotting to rise up against the government. the judgedy missed the charges in 2012 finding that the government failed to prove the

group had firm plans to launch attacks. the last successful federal sedition prosecution came 26 years ago when the so-called blind shaikh and nine others accused of plotting to blow up bridges, tunnels and buildings part of an effort to change u.s. policy toward the middle east. of course, looming over the potentially serious charges are questions about the one man who is already impeached for provoking the insurrectionists and though donald trump was aquitted the party's own senate leader last month did not mince words about trump's responsibility and his criminal liability. >> there's no question, none, that president trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. no question about it.

president trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office. as an ordinary citizen unless the statute of limitations is run. still liable for everything he did while he was in office. didn't get away with anything yet. yet. we have a criminal justice system in this country. we have civil litigation. and former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one. >> now federal prosecutor michael sherwin is saying trump may very well find himself mired in a criminal probe for his role in inciting the mob. >> has the rule of former president trump part of the investigation? >> soccer moms say i did this because my president said i have to take back our house. that moves the needle towards that direction. maybe the president is culpable for those actions, but also, you

see in the public record militia members saying trump talks a big game, he is all talk. we did what he wouldn't do. >> you have investigators looking into the president's role? >> people looking at everything. >> a stark backdrop to the developments in the case, the details that continue to be exposed about the severity of the threat posed by the rioters that day. "the new york times" is out with a reconstruction of the events cut together with the realtime audio of the response from the capitol police led by inspector robert glover. the video you're about to see is narrated and edited by "the new york times" and some of these images may be disturbing. >> get behind. >> you need to pull back the resource. go inside or pull back. you don't have enough resources.

>> if i give this up, they will have direct access. we have to hold what we have. >> let's go! >> within minutes, the throngs snake up through the scaffolding. push past more police. >> let's go! >> up the stairs. and some reach the upper level, break through windows and a door to get inside the capitol. >> yeah! >> but for glover and his team, this fight is not over. they're still on the lower terrace battling to block off the sea of people to block access to other doors and windows. word comes of the radio that more forces are being sent to the scene. >> pull more resources and send them up to the capitol. >> all right, copy. >> glover even calls for mounted park police. >> jock radio, can the park services help us? >> copy. >> restricted access to the area. pursuant to -- >> but the forces don't arrive

in time. at 2:28 p.m., sections of the police line are beginning to buckle. >> take it! >> then, other parts of the line give way. >> push! push! push! >> take it! >> we lost the line! we have lost the line! >> and on the law enforcement response you just saw with your own eyes and heard with your own ears it is worth pointing out a dozen republicans last week opposed the congressional gold medals for the police who protected them on january 6th. that is where we start today with msnbc political contributor clair mccaskill and donald struck and katie benter. senator, i want to start with you and better understand how a

former lawmaker like yourself processes that video, both emotionally and politically against the backdrop of 12 republicans refusing to award the congressional gold medal to the law enforcement that saved their lives. >> the 12 republicans should be shamed every day of their careers for refusing to recognize what those officers wept through that day. that video turns my stomach again every time i see it. it turns my stomach when i realize the kind of violence that these people were willing to impose on law enforcement in order to stop the functioning of the united states government. but i also look at that video as a former prosecutor and i look at the evidence. the fact that over 400 people have been charged and they're saying that maybe as many as 10% of those could face sedition

charges because of planning and operations that went on where they clearly plotted to disrupt the function of government that day by an act of force and that is the essence of sedition. there is an awful lot of evidence in that video and clearly that's what these investigators are doing. they're taking their time to slowly go through and building the case against all of these people, some for trespassing, others for criminal conspiracy to commit sedition against the united states government. i know that this country won't rest until some justice is found on this. >> katie, on that front, this is the first time we have really seen the video that is i think familiar to some people watching the news over eight weeks but the first time juxtaposed with the radio traffic from law enforcement. in this broader investigation i wonder what degree the justice department is looking at these examples for potential sedition

charges. >> the justice department is looking at all of the video including video like the one you just aired to see not only what happened and who was there but the severity of the actions. the investigators are looking to see exactly how violent things were, who had intent, who was just swept up in the crowd and swept into the building and who was forceful in pushing through police officers, attacking them and doing violence and harm to them in an attempt to get into the building. that is what as senator mccaskill said will lay ground for intent to violently stop the government. >> peter, when you hear experts talk about what happened that day, there seems to be two groups of insurrectionists. waun group that was perhaps more of a casual insurrectionist, the people engaged in a carnival-like atmosphere and then the second people intact call gear, kevlar, marching in

formation. they look like they have been trained. how meaningful is that distinction coming to the legal case here? >> i think it's a very meaningful -- points to a level of preplanning that goes to state of mind. it is one thing to be engaged and caught up in the spirit and the emotion of the crowd but an entirely more severe matter and whether you look at complex crimes like conspiracy when you have people who are getting together ahead of time, planning, buying equipment, coordinating the activities for the purpose of interrupting the tallying of the vote or certification of the vote and that takes time and we have holding charges where it's easier to prove. conspiracy and those elements takes time and talks time to get warrants and communication

records. that's what you are seeing going on right now within the justice department, an advancement to the more complex conspiracies. >> let me ask katie more about that. sherwin seemed to suggest that sedition is on the table. is that the concerns you get on you reporting from the justice department? >> absolutely. keep in mind that this is something that michael sherwin and other officials have been saying since january 12th in a press conference, the head of the washington field office here in d.c. fbi. they said on that day we have created a strike force that's doing nothing but looking at the more complicated cases. they felt there's sedition cases to be brought and that i think also speaks to how violent the incident was and just a matter of whether or not they can prove coordination specifically to stop the proceeding. >> senator, do you see any different political calculus on

the part of republican lawmakers this time around? we know where they were when it come to president trump's role in the insurrection. do you think that calculus changes at the second pass here as the justice department perhaps issues sedition charges? is it different for the common man than for the president of their party? >> listen. i think the republicans in congress are going to keep trying to look the other way. those images from that day will never go off the hard drives and i think they will have difficulty trying to just wave this into the past. let's turn the page. let's just focus on security at the capitol. i think a couple things would be important. if they can tie in the pipe bombs left as decoy. that is clear evidence of planning and who was involved in that and who knew about it? the planning itself, how wide was the circle of planning?

who all were involved? were there any lawmakers in communication with any of these people carrying around zip ties and figuring out how to breach the line and left the speech early to accomplish that goal? that's what's going to make this come roaring back to the front pages again, assuming that these cases can be made. a question i have for katie, if we have time, where is the medical examiner's report on the officer who died? it is a long time for there not to be a finished medical examiner's cause of death and it is so important in bringing a murder charge. i'm beginning to get the feeling they're not able to make the causation between the bear spray and the activities of the protesters and the death of the officer. >> katie, to that point, officer

sicknick's cause of death is not announced. do we have any sense of what's going on there? is there an expected timeline for when we may have more information on that? >> sure. soon after officer sicknick died the xolt police released a statement saying he had engaged with protesters and returned to the desk and then rushed to the hospital and died the next day. i think the medical examiner is while the justice department in the indictment says they see two men spraying the officer and two people with chemicals, the because of the lag it is very difficult to say that he died specifically from that spray and that there were no other causes, nothing else that happened to him in those several hours between leaving the capitol and returning to the office and then rushed to the hospital and why the justice department charged

the two men in assaulting an officer rather than murder. >> that brings to the fore this question which is the evidence gathering has been complicated. some of it was pretty obvious posted on social media but for another layer of this and maybe to pursue more serious challenges it feels like a very complicated challenge, does it not? >> it's absolutely complicated. you have a massive number of people and looking at the video coverage out there that alone is an extraordinary amount of material that investigators have to go through. adding in the factor of taking place on the capitol hill which is an entirely separate branch of government which has been ret cent to let investigators come in and the communications around that and certainly when you had in the layer of the whether or not people in and around the

white house were involved it's complex. i have no doubt the men and women in the fbi will get to the bottom of it. >> to what degree do we expect prosecutors to follow the bread crumbs to the president of the united states, criminal charges? >> we know about the prosecution team inside of the justice department, inside of the washington field office of the fbi and the u.s. attorney's office in washington is they want to be extremely aggressive so they're going to be as aggressive as possible. they will look everywhere they can and be aggressive as possible but we know that because of the things like the first amendment bringing charges against speakers at the rally will be very, very difficult. >> peter, i was surprised that mookal sherwin sat down for this interview and gave a sitdown to

"60 minutes" to talk about an ongoing investigation seemed unusual. >> i was too. there's a local rule that prosecutors don't give interviews leek this. there's a difference when up a complaint or a grand jury indictment and make an announcement for a wide ranging interview and prospective thoughts about somebody leading the prosecution is troubling to me and i hope the court doesn't look negatively on it and impacted the cases brought or coming in the future. >> senator, you are a former prosecutor. if you were president trump watching this unfold what would run through your mind? >> i would be much more worried about the financial transactions and the tricks i played in terms of lying about the net worth to the banks and to the irs and

what's going on in the state of new york than i would be the district of columbia and what happened on january 6. i think this will be a very touch case to make against the president unless there's some smocking gun that has not even appeared on the horizon yet. this is a president who's bombastic and lied like other people put on the shirt in the morning and very hard to criminally hold him responsible for he's got a lot of other sens that he's worried about right now and i bet that keeps him sleepless at night. >> peter and katie, thank you for starting us off today. senator mccaskill is sticking around. it was the hope of a new administration that sent thousands of migrants fleeing the danger to come to america. understanding what's happening at the border this hour, a live report on that and how the biden administration is handling it all. and good news today on the continued push to vaccinate as many people as quickly as

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>> the biden administration says our border is closed as the united states experiences the biggest surge of migrants in decades. there are more than 15,000 uncompany o accompanied migrant children in some form of custody. of those about 800 in detention more than 10 days. far exceeding the 72-hour legal limit but numbers don't do enough to illustrate what is happening. this is what it is actually like. rare photos from inside a temporary overflow facility in texas released a democratic congressman. the office says the pictures taken this weekend and we don't know by whom. the photos were sent with faces obscured and neither dhs or customs and border patrol commented when asked by nbc news and seem to match the description of senator murphy who visited a separate facility last week and saying he had to hold back tears, a 13-year-old

girl sobbed uncontrollably huh terrified she was. senator murphy elaborated on that this morning. >> the conditions, you know, i wouldn't want my children to be in those facilities but this isn't 2019. these aren't cages. there are doctors and child care workers there and the biden administration is trying to deal with a mess they were left from the trump administration. >> let's bring in nbc's dasha burns in texas and ashley parker and senator clair mccaskill is back. dasha, what is it like down there? what is the emotional tenor? what is the latest? >> reporter: we keep hearing that the border is closed, that only unaccompanied minors are

allowed in but according to data and reporting here on the ground right now the families traveling to the u.s. and crossing the border, they are being allowed to stay and in part because of the capacity issues with the facilities already overcrowded with unaccompanied minors, many families are released and itch new reporting today with my colleagues that as of saturday border patrol agents have been authorized the release migrant families without a court date. that is a departure from typical customs and border protection practice and as we talk to some families this morning i asked about a dozen or so people whether they have a court date and all said no and we looked at the documents from those that rehmaned to be anonymous and in the place where there should be a court date it says date to be

met and some families said nobody asked them for contact information so they're not sure how the government would reach out to them. most families started the journey to the u.s. three weeks ago, most coming from central american countries, surrender to customs and border protection and then released into towns where i am now and many taking shelter with churches and we heard stories of family members back home getting killed, people having properties destroyed by hurricanes. and the most i heard was really parents concerned about their children. take a listen. >> why take this journey? why did you decide to come to

the united states? [ speaking foreign language ] >> all because of -- for her son. she wanted to come over here, she saw an opportunity not for her but for her son, an opportunity to come and giver her son a better life. >> reporter: when i asked the question, why come now, the majority of people we spoke with did say that this new administration, president biden gave them hope and felt like this was a good moment to try to take the shot at a life here in america. >> let me ask you about that point in particular. are they citing specific thing other than the fact that biden is a democrat and not donald trump? >> reporter: yeah. i asked them where they were hearing about this, how they were learning about what was going on here in the u.s. and largely getting the information through social media and from

relatives that live here right now and say this is a president with a good heart. you should come now. also an important note, smugglers who capitalize on this moment also putting out the messages, many reaching out via social media advertising that this is the time to come here, alex. >> ashley, this is a very complicated problem for the biden administration. it is not aided by i think what could be called a muddled strategy. what does your reporting tell you about the white house grappling with this and who their intended audience is when they do make statements? >> they have a couple audiences but right now their audience are the migrants who are making the dangerous journey north. you are seeing in the statements they're trying to talk to them and send a clear, stark message which is, help is on the way but

do not come now. the message is muddled in part because they were also at least initially talking to the activist community and trying to send a general message which that they are not the trump administration and came in deliberately to roll back the policies, overhaul the nation's broken immigration system. presidents since regan have been grappling with this and they made the decision that they're not going to be the people who are going to turn back unaccompanied minors but it's created a surge at the border and changing the policy they didn't have the full capacity or resources in place to deal with the surge we are now seeing.

>> you talk about the timetable that the biden administration worked on which is abbreviated. the administration probably had more time to try to work this out but they didn't use that time it sounds like. >> that's exactly right in certain ways. they came in, received warnings from customs and border patrol but they knew, the transition team knew that this was going to be a big challenge. and a lot of even allies sort of expected them to use the cover of coronavirus which is already a huge crisis they're grappling with to buy themselves a bit of time to again get the infrastructure and resources in place to be ready for when they started to change the policies that the president campaigned on and what surprised some people is not just some of the factors out of the president's control.

he is not donald trump. that's appealing to migrants but that on the first day, inauguration day, issued five executive order on immigrations. he unveiled an immigration overhaul and messages that make people who are considering this journey but have a lot of push factors in the home country more likely to try to try their luck in this moment to come to the united states. >> senator, republicans are sensing what is probably an opportunity for them here, right? the biden administration is firing on all cylinders. they think the economy is going to be in turn around by the end of the year. the border crisis is a crisis. i wonder as a former lawmaker, a democrat, politically how treacherous is this for the white house right now?

>> pretty darn treacherous. they have to focus on a disciplined message around whether or not covid an ongoing threat in the country that requires the border to be closed. if you look at the video we can talk about overcrowded facilities where people ignore the risk of covid but here the government is creating a risk of covid by overcrowded facilities so i think they have to have a very strong and disciplined message about families showing up. but the children unaccompanied have got to take them in and the problem there, alex, is really complicated because the law requires they hand them on to the department of health and human services within a short period of time but they have got to be sure if they release the children to sponsors that they're safe and that's harder

than it looks. imagine the scandal if they release them to someone that's abusive, going to use them in child labor. doing the legwork to get sponsors to take care of the children in the way that the law envisions is a very tall order for this administration and i'm sure they have all hands on deck. >> an enormously complicated problem and it is heartbreaking to boot. dasha, ashley, senator, thank you all. still to come, confidence boosting. confidence boosting news from a drugmaker giving a push to vaccinate much of the world with a shot in the arm sort to speak. details next. same with my boat. the insurance bills are through the roof. -[ sighs ] -be cool.

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history says: fine jewelry for occasions. we say: forget occasions. (snap) fine jewelry for every day, minus the traditional markups. ♪♪ promising news today from drugmaker astrazeneca. the company says a trial proves the covid vaccine is 79% effect i overall in the u.s. and 100% against severe disease and hospitalization. astrazeneca also says an independent board found no increased risk of blood clots from the vaccine. amid shaken confidence in europe after a dozen countries halted use due to a small percentage of recipients reporting blood clots but no link is proven. the news of a potential fourth vaccine also comes a rise in covid cases here in the u.s. experts are warning of the

continued need for as many vaccinations as possible with a caution with the political drive behind much of the vaccine hesitancy. >> i'm very concerned that for political motivation people decide to actually place themselves and the people around them in harm's way by refusing to be vaccinated. i think we need to do every effort to explain to people that vaccines have nothing to do with politics. >> joining us now, msnbc medical contributor dr. gupta. doctor, what numbers can we feel good about? 25% of the population being vaccinated or at least having a first dose seems like a very good development. 54,000 new cases a day seems like a very bad development. what point does the seesaw balance out? where do you want to see the new case numbers for all of us to feel good about where we are as a country?

>> alex, good afternoon. i would say there's a few numbers that are promising. let's start with astrazeneca and say that the number that i wish media outlets like "the new york times" and others that get well read is reference is not 79% effectiveness for the astrazeneca vaccine but 100% effectiveness in reducing hospitalizations and completely preventing hospitalizations and death of individuals with that vaccine and same as johnson & johnson and pfizer and moderna. the reason why is we are seeing surveys stateside and across the world suggesting a lack of trust and motives regarding the vaccine. a lack of trust in the institutions. we need to be clear to people about what these vaccines do and do really well and that's keeping out of the hospital so that you have 100% so what we can hang out hat there. the issues of cases and what

level of cases to be reassured by, right now 54,000 cases a day is not good because we have only 20% of the population vaccinated protected from the hospital and that number matters les and less and start defoining herd immunity not by number of cases in the community but by deaths and hospitalizations. that's what's going to matter because the vaccines will keep you out of the hospital and come july 1 it's about what hospitalizations and deaths look like nationwide and every zip code and not necessarily number of cases. >> the astrazeneca i will call it a controversy in europe, though the eu medical board seems to want to put that controversy aside, when you talk about the concerns in the united states outside of politics do you think the narrative built up

in astrazeneca in europe has a potential to turn people off of what is potentially a life saving choice? >> absolutely it does. if i didn't live and breathe this every day it would probably cause me to think twice about it, too. this narrative is incredibly damaging that the vaccine causes blood clots but in reality it's a fairly common adverse medical complications that occurs in the general population. we were drawing the correlations, countries in my view acted too quickly and there was a regulatory pause that reported no direct correlation of the vaccine and the blood clot and shaken confidence and need to be doubly clear about the vaccines. astrazeneca is vital to end this pandemic because it's one of the

most accessible vaccines through the w.h.o. covax facility and will get the world vaccinated and we need to do that to end the pandemic and if there's shaken confidence and surveys suggest there is we need to double down on better communication here and for all the viewers out there, once astrazeneca is approved in the united states to the tune of 100% will reduce -- keep you out of the hospital and keep you away from the intensive care unit and that's all that matters. >> you will avoid death is a strong argument. president trump got the vaccine. he didn't get it publicly like the vice president or like president biden and vice president harris. vladimir putin is scheduled to get the vaccine tomorrow. how meaningful are these public vaccination moments from high level public officials to build

confidence? >> it's incredibly meaningful, especially with somebody as popular as president trump amongst the followers on the political right here in the states. i wish he had taken the opportunity to lead by example. i'll also say this in the context of the disciples like govern desantis, senator rand paul. they're invoking ridiculous claims undermining science, suggesting that double masking decreases the oxygen level. desantis with an op-ed in "the wall street journal" saying that he's actually led by -- public health experts and florida did really well and florida is one of the worst outbreaks in the world. we need more people on the political right to lead by science. >> we will have more on that extraordinary situation in

florida coming up. thank you for your time. up next, senator warnock slamming republicans in his state of georgia saying that what they're doing to voting rights is the new jim crow. tonight...i'll be eating loaded tots for march madness. ( doorbell ) thanks boo. ( piano glissando ) i think you better double them tots. no, this me was last year. i didn't get my madness last year, so we're doing double the madness this year.

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we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you, instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing. keeping your oysters business growing so when it comes thas you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo what is our legislature doing? they're busy here in georgia trying to prevent people from being able to vote the same day they register. i think that suggests a distortion of values when you

can buy a gun and create this much carnage and violence on the same day but if you want to exercise your rite to vote as an american citizen, the same legislature that should be focused on this is busy erecting barriers to that constitutional right. >> senator warnock with the impact on the wave of republican-backed voter restrictions imposed in states across the country as ted cruz huddled last week with republican state lawmakers to strategize on the issue of voting rights. in the call cruz claimed that democrats are trying to expand voting rights to illegal aliens and child molesters adding that if democrats push through the legislation the gop won't win elections again for generations. and there you have it. joining us is eddie gloud and jonathan lamiere.

professor, i think what's so shocking in this moment is the unabashed resistance to disenfranchising americans and the right to vote. >> indeed. reminds me of a rotation, america sometimes resembles a mo minstrel show. what we're seeing very clearly is a min party, a faction of the republican party that believes that it cannot win the elections fairly, any election fairly, trying to disenfranchise americans and they're not only delegitimizing the presidency of joe biden but delegitimizing the democratic process as such so this is dangerous activity. >> jonathan, it is -- we look at this, short term strategy versus

long term strategy and the republican party feels united on the topic of the election being rigged but the point to disenfranchise people of color in this country, it seems misguided as a sort misguided as a sort of long-term election strategy if you're the grand old party. >> yeah, i don't have a baldwin quote at my fingertips like my friend, eddie, but that is correct and it may be short-term gain here for the republican party but there's dangers down the road. i mean, there's -- this is a party that has lost, i believe, five of the last six popular votes in terms of the race for the presidency. only george w. bush in 2004 won it. and is win that has had real struggles in terms of growing the party and trying to attract new groups. they had some success among some latinos this past cycle. you know, some african-american men. but still, small gains, and they recognize the long-term

demographic shift here in the country works against them. but this is the moment now. they are rallied around this idea of voter fraud, these baseless claims of voter fraud, perpetuated by former president trump, and that's why the onus now, the democrats feel like one of their priorities has to be protecting the right to vote in these states, and i was with president biden on friday when he was in atlanta. that trip was mostly to pay tribute to those killed in those terrible shootings but he made clear that he also would be behind this. the white house would be stepping into the void to protect the franchise. >> professor glaude, you know, raphael warnock is the second black man to represent the south since reconstruction. and here he is invoking the specter of jim crow. the racial contours of this are unmistakable. do you think -- i mean, certainly, people of color understand what's happening here. but i wonder, do you think this is resonating with middle of the road white voters, people who may have been republicans but voted democrat in the 2020 election? i mean, how much do you think this resonates across racial

lines? >> i'm not sure. i do know that there are some who hold a view that what the republican party are doing, what they are doing is wrong. even some who are those never trumpers and others like roy blunt who might think that hr1 is an overreach, a federal takeover of state elections who believe that what happened january 6th was actually wrong. so there are some debate. but let's be very, very clear. it's only viewed as cynical and shortsighted if you don't understand it for what it is, alex, and for what it actually is an attempt to disenfranchise people of color. we need to understand it in relation to reconstruction. how jim crow came into existence. we need to understand it as a part of a constellation of strategy, whether it's the immigration issue, whether it's the violence against asian-americans, and this attack on voting. all of this is rooted in my view around this panic, around the

browning of america. we're experiencing it day in and day out and we need to understand it as such. >> it's such an important point. it feels like a changing america and the bulwark, the fierce opposition to that changing america is very much animating the republican party. jonathan, you know, chuck schumer has said everything is on the table when it comes to hr1, and yet the reality of a 60-vote threshold hangs out there as, you know, a looming -- a looming prospect. do you get the sense from your reporting that there are any republicans who see where senator warnock is coming from in his argument? >> it doesn't seem that way. no. there has not been any sort of suggestion of republican support for these measures. they're pretty much uniformly opposed and even if -- and the white house has not given up on the hopes of bipartisanship, but west wing aides privately concede that maybe, maybe they could convince a couple of republican senators to join their efforts, but it wouldn't be ten. so, therefore, in that case,

we're having to talk about filibuster reform and that is what's looming on the horizon for the white house, for the democratic party. we heard from president biden last week for the first time a willingness to be -- to modify it somewhat, suggesting the talking filibuster, just make it harder for republicans to use but not eliminate. you know, and he's institutionalist. we know he would like to keep things as-is in the senate. a body where he served for more than three decades. but west wing aides are confident that when push comes to shove, at the decision moment for this presidency and the months ahead, that he is not going to protect a senate institution at the expense of his agenda. they feel like this is the moment to go big, the american people put the democrats in charge, put biden in the white house to do so. this time of -- this historic confluence of crises, and they feel like they will forge forward. now, doesn't mean it's going to be easy. joe manchin in particular looms as an obstacle, even on the democratic side, but they're willing to go big. they're going to give it a try. >> this isn't an infrastructure

topic we're talking about, it's a moral argument and democrats feel they have enough of a mofrl argument that they could convince a joe manchin that it's about preserving democracy or dealing with a filibuster. >> there's no in-between on this issue. 2022 is on the horizon and raphael warnock will be on the ballot in 2022 and the state of georgia, republicans in georgia know exactly what they're doing and let's be clear. joe biden wouldn't be president of the united states if it wasn't for people of color. they need to step up and defend the voting rights of folk, of americans, and particularly black and brown americans in this country and if the democrats don't do it, if they don't risk everything in this moment to defend the rights of black folk and brown folk in this country, they will have hell to pay come midterms. we need to -- they need to understand that. we need to understand it. this is not an either/ -- this is an either/or issue. >> a debt is owed and the bill is coming due. professor eddie glaude and jonathan lemire, thank you both for spending time with us. the next hour of "deadline

white house" starts right after this very quick break. break.

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and keep the public safe. ♪♪ get me dso up here now. dso. >> injuries are mounting. >> multiple law enforcement injuries. dso, get up here. >> 30 seconds. >> we lost a life. we've lost the line. >> the crowd swarms the lower terrace. some surround the police. officers are attacked. >> i never felt threatened. it's a true statement. the reason i didn't is because i've attempted -- i've attended

trump rallies, and they give you the speech but then you get to mix with patriots, with people who love this country. so, i know the people. >> hello again, everyone, it is 5:00 in new york. i'm alex wagner in for nicole wallace. wisconsin senator ron johnson not backing down from his whitewashing of the events of january 6th, namely that he didn't feel threatened because the people in d.c. that day were trump supporters who love this country. those comments this weekend on the heels of a radio interview johnson did where he said he would have been concerned if those people were black lives matter protesters, and they come following the senator's suggestion that the violence on january 6th might have been the work of agents provocateurs and fake trump protesters. johnson's efforts to down play the horrors of that day fly in the face of what we saw. he also said this weekend, quote, there was much more violence on the house side. there was no violence on the senate side in terms of the chamber. quick little fact check. on january 6th, we saw a man in

combat gear holding zip ties in the senate chamber soon after the vice president was quickly ushered out and brought to a secure location as protesters were closing in. johnson's comments about what happened that day are even drawing condemnation from members of his own party. >> ron johnson called the insurrectionists people that loved this country. former president bush called them hostile forces. what -- what's your view of this? >> well, i'm much more in agreement with the george w. bush view of this. i think it was a terrible day for america. i think it was absolutely unacceptable and we can't let that kind of thing be repeated. that's an underlying principle of what happened on january 6th, that we don't need to try to explain away or come up with alternative versions of we all saw what happened, we know what happened. we know we can't let that happen again.

>> but new reporting in "the new york times" lays out in great detail how johnson's slippery relationship with facts isn't simply limited tothe january 6th attack and how the tolerance for these distortions and these lies among a majority of those in hits party could have dangerous consequences. in recent months, mr. johnson has sown doubts about president biden's victory, argued that the january 6th attack on the capitol was not an armed insurrection, promoted discredited covid-19 treatments, said he saw no need to get the coronavirus vaccine himself, and claimed that the united states could have ended the pandemic a year ago with the development of a generic drug if the government had wanted that to happen. his continuing assault on the truth often under the guise of simply asking questions about established facts is helping to diminish confidence in american institutions at a perilous moment when the health and economic well being of the nation relies heavily on mass vaccinations and when faith in democracy is shaken by right-wing falsehoods about voting.

the disinformation that infected the gop under donald trump finding new life with another prominent gop senator is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. jonathan swan, axios national political reporter is here. also with us, charlie sykes, it tore at large for the bulwark and an msnbc contributor. charlie, let me start with you because you go way back with ron johnson and when you've lost roy blunt, it seems like the other shoe has fallen but perhaps not for ron johnson. what has happened to him in terms of his politics and world view since he first came across your radar? >> well, i wrestle with this all the time because we do go back a long way and he went from being a chamber of commerce republican to more like joe mccarthy, like a guy that reads conspiracy theory blogs, and it is good hearing roy blunt push back, but the reality is that it's only roy blunt pushing back, and as much as ron johnson may seem to

be an outlier, he's really a reflection of a lot of what's happening on the right and conservative circles and a media ecosystem that traffics in this kind of disinformation, that always has an excuse, nothing is ever racist. if you've been caught peddling some falsehood, it is just asking questions. there are no consequences. and if you spend a lot of time, you know, in that conservative ecosystem, you kind of hear echos of what ron johnson is saying, so you played a clip of him speaking back here in wisconsin over the weekend, and he returned to his echo chamber where people are saying the same kinds of things, but it is -- it is troubling to see this, and from my point of view, to watch how he has been transformed over the last couple of years, to me, it's one of the real symbols of, you know, how the republican party has lost its mind and even after trump, it still has this problem with disinformation and racism and an inability to hold

people accountable or to ever apologize when they cross the lines. >> i mean, exhibit a in how the republican party lost its mind is probably senator lindsey graham, right, jonathan? i mean, i interviewed him for msnbc many years ago when his feet were still planted in terra firma. you recently interviewed him. let's play a little bit of sound from that interview. >> there's something about trump. there's a dark side and there's some magic there. what i'm trying to do is just harness the magic. to me, donald trump is sort of a cross between jesse helms, ronald reagan, and p.t. barnum. it's just this bigger-than-life deal. he could make the republican party something that nobody else i know can make it. he could make it bigger, he could make it stronger. he could make it more diverse. and he also could destroy it. >> there's just some magic there, jonathan.

and yet, p.t. barnum is no longer in the center ring and the magic dust continues to float around in the air. what did you learn about the psyche of the republican party through that interview? >> well, lindsey -- senator graham's quite different from ron johnson. and look, i spent pretty much all my, you know, certainly for the last five years, you know, before biden won, talking to republicans in the house and the senate, and there are different -- if you're going to group members into categories, there are some who, you know, are quite cynical, who will say something privately about trump and then behave completely different in public. there are some, like ron johnson, who i actually don't believe is particularly cynical. i believe he believes all of these lies and conspiracy theories, and the reason i think that is because he's just so prolific. you don't from -- 2014, he was warning about isis members deliberately infecting

themselves with ebola and coming across the border, and then, you know, he's an anti-vakser, the list is -- he's basically latched on to a conspiracy theory in almost every field of human endeavor. and then lindsey graham is different because there still is some cognitive dissonance there. he clearly is -- and that interview i did with him sort of revealed that. he sort of -- he basically wants to be the guy who can deliver trump, which many people think is a fool's errand. he wants to be the guy on the hill who can be the guy who takes trump and delivers him for good, you know, so if he wants to try and get an immigration bill, i can be the guy who can get trump not to kill it or to give it his blessing or whatever. and so he's sort of doing this shuttle diplomacy back and forth between mar-a-lago and washington. it hasn't yielded any fruit yet, and people are pretty skeptical who have, you know, because donald trump for a long time that it will yield any fruit,

but this is what lindsey graham has sort of -- this is the role he's assigned for himself in the post-trump world. i don't think he can call it the post-trump era because trump still effectively controls the party but that's the way i see it. >> yeah, he's sort of like a concierge or a fixer, but i think you make a very important distinction, charlie. there's -- there's, as jonathan points out, this is kind of the corner where political -- craven political calculation and power mongering intersects with misinformation and propaganda, and i think this is such an interesting analysis when we look at russian disinformation of which, you know, ron johnson seems to be an eager student. russian disinformation campaigns have found a foothold in this country and specifically in the american audience. ann applebalm says the russian security services have now studied us and worked out that large numbers of americans, not

only fox news pundits and oan broadcasters but also members of congress, are very happy to accept sensational information, however tainted, from any source that happens to provide it as long as it suits their partisan frames and as long as it can be used against their opponents, they don't care who invented it or for what purpose. russian disinformation does not succeed thanks to the genius of russians. it succeeds thanks to the sharp partisanship of americans. russian disinformation works because the americans allow it to work. and because those same americans don't care anymore about the harm they do to their country. she's writing about the republican party right there, isn't she? >> yeah, those last two sentences are really chilling to realize that, you know, how many americans have been willing to pass on this information and ron johnson has been at the center of that. apparently willing to take information from russian agents and to pass it on and then of course to deny that he is doing it, which kind of makes him, when you think about it, kind of

a bizarro joe mccarthy. joe mccarthy built his career warning against communists and russians and you have ron johnson, who's become a conduit for russian disinformation. but i agree with jonathan's point that i do think that by and large, ron johnson believes what he is saying, and he has that -- he has that support network that is going to defend him and is going to reinforce what he said. now, there was one, like, little blip when -- and we wrote about this at the bulwark when he called the former chairman of the republican party from brown county in wisconsin and said, of course i know that joe biden won the election, but if i say that, i'd be committing political suicide. so, that was a little bit of a glimmer that he was being deeply cynical, but a lot of the rest of this, i think, he does believe. i think that he has gone so deep down these rabbit holes, i think he's created his own rabbit holes but again, he's not alone in doing that. i think maybe he's an extreme example, but if you go down into those caves of right-wing

disinformation, you're going to hear a lot of these themes and then, you know, ron johnson comes out of that cave into the light of day and people go, what is he talking about? why is he saying these things? where did he get these ideas from? and unfortunately, there's a lot out there, so this is -- this is a, you know, good indication of what we have to live with, with the republican party and a right wing that is still dominated not just by donald trump but by donald trump's approach to the truth. >> well, and you know, the point that we have effectively created this field in which misinformation can be sowed by virtue of having a deeply tribal partisan body politic, i mean, that is intensely troubling when you look at the next crop of republican lawmakers, jonathan, lauren boebert, i mean, the leading lights of the party are not the people who are trying to retether us to the truth and find some way to be a more peaceable united states of america. the brawling is the point, is it not?

>> it is. and one of the other sort of challenges here is, you know, we are now in a situation where lives will be at stake, because we're talking about vaccine uptake and we're seeing really substantial differences between democrats and republicans in their willingness to take these vaccines, and so the question then becomes, who are the messengers who can actually get through to people who are vaccine hesitant, who are republicans? and it's not dr. fauci, because he's become a -- on the right, anyway, a villain, and you know, so, there's so much distrust that has been sown with all institutions, the scientific establishment, you know, the bureaucratic establishment, the mainstream media, so if you're in a large cohort of republican-based voters, you don't trust all the normal sources of information, and it just creates this really

hermetically sealed world that's very difficult to get through. and i don't know what the answer to that is, frankly, because you know, the types of law -- if they're going to listen to a lawmaker, it is, you know, for some people, the marjorie taylor greenes of the world, the ron johnsons of the world, and if they're not telling them that these vaccines are safe, if ron johnson's not coming out and, you know, putting a photo of him getting a shot in the arm, i don't know who these messengers are going to be to penetrate that pretty large group of people. >> well, it begs the question, what is the point of being a lawmaker? why are you there in office? if you are willing to throw public health to the wind, right, in service of staying in power, what is the point of being in service to the american people? or at least those are the sort of ideas behind being a lawmaker, right, charlie? i would -- marjorie taylor greene, because jonathan mentioned her, there's an article in "the new york times" that talks about sort of the

naked aspirations of a lot of new republicans in congress. mrs. greene may be something of an outlier, the "times" writes, but her reaction to her exile illustrates a new reality that has taken hold in congress, most vividly in the new pranks of republicans. a growing number of lawmakers have demonstrated less interest in the nitty-gritty passage of laws and more interest in stoking outrage among their opponents. the trend has contributed to the deep dysfunction on capitol hill where viral moments of republicans trying to troll their colleagues across the aisle generate far more attention than legislative debate. i mean, tiktok over public health. >> no, and you know, this is one of the extraordinary changes where you have an entire class of republicans that are no longer interested -- not just not interested in legislationlating but aren't interested in the act of governing at all. they see their role is simply glorified trolls who own the libs. and that's what is amazing, and

to jonathan's point about how do you break through these hermetically sealed silos? it is incredibly difficult to do that, and you're seeing that with ron johnson and with marjorie taylor greene that when you call them out for the racism or for the disinformation or the conspiracy theories, they immediately then turn it around and weaponize it by saying, look, they're trying to silence me. they're trying to cancel me. and this becomes a way that they build their brand. they fund raise off of any criticism, so that's how the hermetically sealed silo resists any sort of critique, any sort of accountability, and you're seeing that with both of them. and you wonder, you know, how many others are watching this and thinking, okay, i can actually not only will i not be canceled but i will, in fact, be more -- i can promote my career, be more famous, more influential, the more outrageous i behave. and that's a dangerous incentive structure for the republican party right now. >> it sure is.

what have we done? jonathan swan, and charlie sykes, thank you for starting us off this hour. when we return, a frightening new front is emerging in the republican war on voting rights. that is next. plus, protesters all around the country rallying against eight anti-asian hate in the wake of the deadly attacks in and around atlanta. we will talk to a georgia state lawmaker who wants the killings last week to be investigated as a hate crime. and police in miami beach are cracking down on thousands of spring breakers who have overwhelmed the city without masks or social distancing. "deadline white house" returns after a quick break. ng "deadline white house" returns after a quick break. and now that sprint is a part of t-mobile, we're turning up the speed. upgrading over a thousand towers a month with ultra capacity 5g to bring speeds as fast as wi-fi to cities and towns across america.

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as the former guy continues to fade from view, it is becoming increasingly clear that his big lie, that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election, that lie will loom large for the republican party in the years ahead. major gop based groups such as the susan b. anthony list and the american principles project, groups that normally focus on banning abortion and opposing civil liberties for lgbtq americans, respectively, they are now focusing their efforts on that big lie as a way to engage supporters and most critically engage donors. from the "new york times," quote, with polls showing that at least two-thirds of republicans harbor doubts about president biden's legitimacy or believe that mr. trump somehow won more votes despite receiving 7 million fewer than his opponent, republican consultants said they were following their party. let's bring in the reporter who wrote that "new york times" piece, jeremy peters, who is

also an msnbc contributor. also with us, michael waltman, the president of the brennan center for justice. jeremy, let me first start with you in terms of the new front that's emerging here. susan b. anthony's list, the american principles project, the family research council, these are not groups that you tra disciplinely think of as groups engaged on voter registration. this is a whole new arena. >> that's exactly right and i think that it shows that really without president trump in the picture, there is still no figure or issue that animates the republican base like he does, so what do they do in order to engage donors and voters? they take his last big issue, this myth of a stolen election, and they fund raise off of it, and alex, i was really struck to hear the number of big donors who have bought into this. you know, we knew that

two-thirds of the republican voters were saying that they didn't trust the results of the election and they thought that biden was illegitimate but as one republican explained to me, among big donors, that figure is more like 90%. now, that's really striking, and it just shows you the extent to which this issue has permeated the republican party, and it's not going away any time soon, and -- or that's despite the fact that an awful lot of republicans think that this is foolish. they won't say so, at least not many of them will publicly, but they think it's incredibly shortsighted, because as a way to grow your party, to rebound from an election that you just lost, what ordinarily would you do? well, like the republicans did in 2013, they conducted an autopsy and said, okay, here are the issues and the types of voters we want to focus on. what are they doing now? they're saying, no, none of that matters. the only reason we lost is because the other side cheated. >> michael, your organization is

the gold standard for examining fraudulent elections or a lack thereof and looking at voting rights and the creeping disenfranchisement of a large portion of the american public, especially voters of color. when you hear about these organizations getting involved in the fight to continue disenfranchising, what are the implications of turbo charging this effort with money and resources? >> well, it's both a threat to democracy and to the republic and a fund-raising grift at the same time. because so many of these groups have not been present, filing lawsuits and lobbying and that sort of thing, but as jeremy says, it's the republican lawmakers in the states who see this as a unifying issue for their party, who are rushing forward with laws to cut back the vote. last month, the brennan center calculated 253 separate proposals in 43 states, 7 times more than 2 years ago.

it's the biggest potential rollback since the jim crow era and make no mistake, as you say, these laws target voters of color with rather audacious precision. and so, this could significantly affect the electorate, the shape of our democracy, but also specifically the 2022 and 2024 elections. >> jeremy, i mean, in politics, money really matters. that's, you know, a truism, right, unfortunate but real. the fact that these deep-pocketed conservative organizations are getting in the fight would seem to increase pressure on republican lawmakers to fall in line on this issue. do you have any reporting on that? >> oh, yeah, that's absolutely right, and all the groups, alex, that you talked about at the top here, the groups that ordinarily would be staying in their lane and focusing on social issues are now pushing lawmakers to vote yes on these proposals like

we've seen in georgia, for example. that would restrict a lot of the early voting and much more. so, there's going to be, i think we're just seeing the beginning of this, frankly, because there are an awful lot of states that are still quite early in their legislative sessions. there are more bills that we know are working their way through committees and we're going to see, once these groups start raising more money off of this, because remember, they just started -- this is, like, relatively new within the last few weeks. once they start actually raising money off of this, that is going to create, i think, an awful lot of tension and a lot of pressure for lawmakers to vote the way that they think president trump would want them to vote on this. and that's kind of really what this all boils down to. >> your expectation is, you know, we've singled out some states that have particularly egregious efforts under way to disenfranchise voters, texas, georgia, your expectation is that we're going to see similar efforts across the country.

>> oh, without a doubt. yeah, i think we already are. just look no further than georgia, and you're already seeing that. i think what they're going to do first is target those proposals that were enacted on an emergency basis to make it easier and safer to vote during a pandemic. they're going after that first, and they'll see how that goes, how effective they are, and we'll start pushing, as michael knows, for more things like voter i.d. this is a big thing i heard from the people i was talking to. they want more voter i.d. requirements, more requirements on absentee balloting to make sure that you can verify identities, some more onerous than others but definitely making it harder. >> michael, we talked about this earlier in the show, this intersection between sort of cravenness and deep conspiracy, and it seems like a lot of these forces that animate the republican party start out as peer political calculation, but then they work their way into

the ground water and convince the republican body politic that they're actually true, that there was voter fraud. and i call your attention to a "new york times" piece. what's the point in voting? i'm not someone who thinks that china hacked the voting machines, said terry shilling, the president of the american principles project. but at the same time, he said, if you're a conservative organization and you have small dollar donors you're hearing this from everywhere. well, what's the point in voting? there are politicians and organizations that understand this is unifying, that's a good fund-raising tool, that it can maybe keep republican lawmakers in power, but then there are voters who legitimately think the system is fraudulent and the question is, how do you ever get them back? >> look, i think a lot of these voters are sincere in believing this mass delusion. and it has backfired to some extent already in the georgia runoff where the constant claims that the system was rigged hurt the republican candidates and helped produce a democratic

senate. but where i also think you're going to see this play out in a fascinating political way is the huge clash that's going on. you've got, in the states, the republicans rushing forward with these voter suppression bills, but at the national level, congress beginning to consider for the first time in years serious democracy reform legislation, hr1, the for the people act, which already passed the house and is having its first hearing in the senate on wednesday would stop these voter suppression laws. it would override them as a constitutional and legal matter, congress has the power to do that. and so, for a lot of democrats, looking at this, they're seeing what's going on in the states and thinking they need to act at the national level, and i think it's going to be one of the great political clashes of 2021. >> oh, boy. great political clashes of 2021. feels like we've already had some of those, but we certainly seem to be on track.

jeremy peters and michael waldman, thank you both. coming up, protests around the country calling for an end to violence against asian-americans. we will talk with a georgia state lawmaker who is pushing for the atlanta spa shootings to be classified as a hate crime. "deadline white house" continues after a short break. crime. "deadline white house" continues after a short break. they can buy more plants from metrolina greenhouses so abe and art can grow more plants. so they can hire vilma... and wendy... and me. so, more people can go to work. so, more days can start with kisses. when you buy this plant at walmart. ♪♪ hi, i'm debra. i'm from colorado. when you buy this plant at walmart. i've been married to my high school sweetheart for 35 years. i'm a mother of four-- always busy. i was starting to feel a little foggy. just didn't feel like things were as sharp as i knew they once were. i heard about prevagen

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asian-americans, we need to reach out our hand to our sisters and brothers and say, help me. and i'm here. and just for one thing. i am proud to be asian. >> that was actress sandra oh this weekend at one of the weekend's many demonstrations around the nation to remember the lives last in last week's tragic shooting in atlanta and the surge of violence directed at asian-americans. from atlanta so san francisco, hundreds gathered to raise awareness and attempt to turn their collective grief into action. president biden and vice president harris made a trip to atlanta last week to listen to concerns from community leaders and state lawmakers in the wake of the shootings. joining us now is georgia state representative bee nguyen who met with president biden on friday. great to have you on the program, bee. could you tell us what that meeting was like and did the president give you any sense of concrete steps he might be willing to take or intending to take in the coming weeks? >> well, he certainly recognized

the significance of the president and the vice president sitting down to meet us behind closed doors for more than an hour as they listened to our concerns, and as they listened to our stories and experiences as asian-americans living in this country. we did ask the president and the vice president to treat this as a hate crime, and you know, we're still in the middle of an investigation, and so on the face, the merits, it's being treated as a hate crime, the president and the vice president did say that they have to let law enforcement do their job. >> i think a lot of people don't know that up until incredibly recently, georgia was one of four states in the union, in the country, that had no hate crime legislation on the books. that changed with the death of ahmaud arbery. what would the significance be of a hate crime charge in this case? >> well, i'm glad that you brought up the case of ahmaud arbery because when i think about us centering the narrative

of the perpetrator and the fact that the perpetrator said that it wasn't racially motivated, it reminds me of what happened when ahmaud arbery was killed. he was killed by three white men who hunted them down and they did not believe their crime was racially motivated and the district attorney was not even going to prosecute the case and their defense was using citizen's arrest to stand their ground. all of us in georgia recognized it to be exactly what it was, and it was passed with bipartisan support in a georgia legislature, and that legislation includes protections not just for race but for gender and sex. and so, under this specific case here in georgia, we know that a suspect in custody did target women that he blamed for one of his problems. and so, we do want it to be treated as a hate crime and we also want to recognize that law enforcement has issues of their own. when we heard about some of the things that happened, we heard the story of one of the victims'

husbands, who is latino, handcuffed by cherokee county while his wife lay dying inside one of the spas. we also learned that one of the victims, whose wife was shot at the bold spot in atlanta, the victim's husband was crying out for help in korean, apd couldn't understand him and as he stood laying next to his wife's body, he attempted cpr. so there are language and cultural barriers that exist in this specific case. >> you know, we talk about intersectionality is often derided on the right as kind of a liberal fantasy, but you know, you talk about the way in which ahmaud arbery, the lessons learned there, the progress that was made there, and how that's informing the way the asian-american community and others are looking at this case. it really feels like there is unity among a number of different movements to create significant change here. >> yeah, one thing that has been

really meaningful to me as an elected official here in georgia is that my colleagues from the black legislative caucus and leaders from the black community have been affirmative and have stood in solidarity with us from the beginning, and we do know that we have to address the tension between the black and asian community but this moment in time, when we are able to stand together, i think that it is a moment that the asian community needs to remember and we need to show up for our black community in the same way that they are showing up for us. >> you know, it's not just about the hate crime. it's also about gun safety legislation. raphael warnock, the senator from georgia, was talking about that earlier this weekend. i know one of your colleagues, michelle al from the state has been talking about gun safety reform measures. do you think that will be an aftereffect of this tragic shooting? >> well, we did introduce, my senator michelle, my colleague, and other aapi elected officials

did introduce three bills today. one was related to a five-day waiting period when it pertains to purchasing a firearm. the other is a call for language translations when victims are calling 911 for help. aapi language translateder. and then the third piece around culture sensitivity as it pertains to training with law enforcement. so, we are pushing forward those issues. >> georgia state representative bee nguyen, thank you for spending some time with us. when we return, police in miami beach cracking down on large groups of spring breakers who have flocked to the city without masks or social distancing. that is next. cing that is next

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so you can book a great deal now, and always change later. kayak. search one and done. miami beach officials have extended the state of emergency and 8:00 p.m. curfew there for up to three more weeks after the recent influx of out-of-state revellers ignoring mask and social distancing restrictions culminated on saturday when hundreds took to the streets. miami beach police, who have made over 1,000 spring break-related arrests in february shot pepper balls into the crowd to enforce covid restrictions. the city's strict response is happening in a state where the governor has lifted lockdowns, berated mask wearing, and opened for business despite warnings from health experts. and now, the increasing threat of coronavirus variants, florida

just became the first state to surpass 1,000 known cases of emerging strains. joining us now is matt dixon, politico's florida bureau chief, and uche, ceo of advancing health equity and medical contributor to yahoo news. dr. blackstock, let me start with you first because even from the layman's perspective, a bunch of drunk people partying at close range seems like the worst possible scenario for coronavirus transmission. >> absolutely. i think you're seeing a lot of young people standing very close together, yelling, and these are the prime factors that would create a situation where coronavirus transmission can spread, but as you mentioned in the opening, florida has, you know, advertised itself as open, and there have been discounted air fare, hotel rates, and so it's become a very attractive place for these young people to

travel to. the problem is when they travel home, they potentially expose friends and loved ones who are older, who have risk factors to the virus. >> matt, florida is always an interesting state, right? you know that probably better than the rest of us. the dissonance between what the governor has said and done and what the mayor and public health officials in miami are doing is staggering in this instance. is it not? i mean, have we heard from governor desantis? has he weighed in on the fact that there are, you know, extreme police measures being taken to curb the spring break partying in miami? >> well, you opened by saying it's a bunch of trunk people partying within close proximity of each other which could be like tuesday in florida but obviously it has a different -- it obviously has a different meaning in the middle of a pandemic and you're right to sort of hit on the larger point, miami beach mayor dan gelber, a former democratic lawmaker, and governor ron desantis who's becoming a nationally known republican have not necessarily communicated the way i think the

mayor would like and just as a general sort of policy the governor has had sort of a micromanaging approach to this in the sense that he has, you know, stopped the ability of local governments like miami beach and others from being able to sort of enforce things like mask policies and things like that, so as far as mask requirements, so tallahassee, where the state capital is, has sort of dictated covid policy and covid response for cities and counties across the state, and i think this is probably another example of that. >> matt, you know, i think it's -- i probably was too categorical when i said it's just a bunch of drunk young people because it's not just college kids that are down here. it's a wider age range than i think we usually expect from spring break so what lessons does one draw from that reality? >> if you were to look at what miami twitter is right now, they are screaming from the roof tops

that people from miami don't go to south beach. it's an out-of-towner sort of thing so this is out-of-state folks, folks from other parts of the country who are largely, you know, causing this, but there is, you know, the idea that if stricter restrictions were in place, if local communities could sort of put their own identity and characteristics behind their covid response that maybe this wouldn't be happening and also there certainly isn't any messaging from governor desantis, who has the biggest microphone in the state that don't come, you know, it's been quite the contrary, so there's all those elements sort of mixing in here to cause what we're seeing play out across tv screens across the country right now. >> to that point, that headline there tells you everything. desantis, when cpac was in town, called florida an oasis of freedom. dr. blackstock, when we talk about public health concerns, again, when you have a governor of a state saying, here, we are an oasis of freedom and you

know, the mayor of a large city being tasked with controlling the outbreak of a deadly virus, i mean, that seems not only less than ideal but dire. it reminds me of earlier in the pandemic when governor brian kemp of georgia was saying one thing and then mayor keisha lance bottoms of atlanta was saying another. one was trying to enforce mask mandates, listen to the science, and the other was saying we're not going to shut down economic activity, subtext, i'm going to get re-elected and the deep sort of problematic implications of all that from a public health perspective. >> exactly. as you point out, these conflicting public health messages are creating situations that we're seeing over the weekend in miami. people don't know what to do. and the problem is that we have these young people there who think that it's just innocent partying, but as i mentioned, they could take this virus home and spread it to their family members, and so we really need consistent messaging, especially these next few weeks. florida has some of the most -- the highest cases of the b.1.1.7

variant and we could actually see a significant spike in cases after the spring break, and we still don't have a significant number of people vaccinated in this state. and so, we have a lot to worry about, and i agree, the situation is quite dire there. >> you know, matt, this intersection -- this intersects with other issues we talk about, including policing and tactics used. some of this stuff seems particularly violent. i don't know if you, in your reporting and just managing and looking out at the florida political landscape, whether we think there's going to be any blowback from the potentially pretty extreme versions of keeping the public safe by the use of rubber bullets and so forth. >> sure, i mean, we have seen, as you just alluded to there, there have been rubber bullets and a few other disbursement methods, however you want to describe them, used thus far. i don't believe and i'm actually based in our state capital, i

don't believe there have been sort of the tactics that have gotten national headlines over the summer and some of those elements to what is going on in miami beach right now. but without question, any time you see something like this in the current national environment and where we're at, those questions are going to be raised. thus far, i don't think they have roots in miami beach, but certainly something to watch. >> governor -- dr. blackstock, one of the statistics that stands out as particularly distressing, not just for floridians but for everybody in this country who is worried about the spread of new variants is the new variants are very much in and around the florida population, in and around the miami population. how distressing do you find that, and you know, what are the implications for the rest of the country when you have hot zones, if you will, where the variants are spreading like wild fire? >> right, and while we do have a significant number of seniors vaccinated in florida, there are still people who are younger with underlying medical problems

that could be infected and we could see a spike again in hospitalizations and deaths, and as we've seen across the country, actually, the seven-day average has actually increased in terms of number of cases. hospitalizations are hospitalizations are stable and deaths are a lagging indicator. these variants are highly transmissible and some may be more deadly. we really need the biden administration to work with the governors in terms of keeping these restrictions in place and not relaxing them further. >> matt, do you have any optimism that ron desantis and joe biden work hand in glove to solve this? >> i don't think there's much -- they'll work together to -- so nothing implodes but i don't believe there's any sort of kumbaya picnic in the park

moment. >> you never know. it is florida. thank you both for your time. when we return, as we do every day, we'll remember lives well lived. so they can hire vilma... and wendy... and me. so, more people can go to work. so, more days can start with kisses. when you buy this plant at walmart. ♪♪

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not later, like right now. before we go we wanted to share this with you. if you lost someone you love to covid-19 and you would like us to remember them reach out to us. liveswelllived@msnbc.com. we'll do our best to get their story on the air.

thank you so much for joining us today. "the beat" starts right now. hello, my old friend. >> hey, alex. nice to see you. it all feels natural. does it feel the same to you? >> feels like the first time but that seems inappropriate and then i just said it. it feels great to see your face at the 6:00 hour. >> well, welcome back. you have been a guest and so any which way it works. thank you. i want to welcome everyone to "the beat." we have a lot going on tonight. first we are tracking a new push, it is getting real, to maybe end mcconnell filibuster tactics and by one of the most powerful democrats in washington. also barack obama speaking out, we'll get into why later. we begin with this.